Awesome / The Great Ace Attorney

This page covers The Great Ace Attorney spinoff duology. Take moments specific to the first three games, Apollo Justice, the Investigations series, Dual Destinies, Spirit of Justice, or the 2016 anime to those pages, please. This page contains UNMARKED SPOILERS!!! Read at your own risk!

---

The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures

The Adventure of the Great Departure:

• Ryunosuke Naruhodo's first "Objection!". During the entire trial, Ryunosuke, who has zero knowledge of law practises, is forced to take up his own defense, putting him in a very unfamiliar environment. But eventually he deduces the solution to a particular contradiction, and he begins to transform into a true attorney.
  Ryunosuke: (What is this, welling up inside me...? I've never felt like this before. It's a sort of conviction to to break down all the discrepancies... It's so intense. Almost rage-like... And more than anything else, it's an animalistic desire...to take down my prey!)
  (Ryunosuke pulls the iconic pointing pose for the first time)
  Ryunosuke: OBJECTION!
  • This shocks the entire court: The judge, the prosecutor, the witnesses, even his best friend. In fact, one of the witnesses becomes terrified.
  Ryunosuke: I don't think so, Miss Jezaille Brett!
  Jezaille: How...how dare you take that tone with me?!
  • Keep in mind, during the entire trial, Ryunosuke has answered to everything with "Yes!" and raising his hand like a timid schoolboy. He fearfully looked around him before he said something, and Kazuma had to stand up for him against Auchi. For him to take the reins by himself so suddenly is a dramatic evolution.
  • Before this this moment whenever he slam the table to draw attention to himself it was weak, barely making a sound that had him look flustered. Only after this moment he started doing the standard table slam along with the other lawyers.
  • To top it off, the true Objection theme plays for the first time at this moment..
  • Even better, Ryunosuke's first proper objection is him completely exposing the true murder method from an information he just gained from Susato, an information that is very not known in Japan in fact. The beginning of Ryunosuke's journey into new attorney, the kickass Objection theme, and the way he demonstrates how natural he is in picking apart the truth, it's a fantastic scene.

The Adventure of the Unbreakable Speckled Band:

• Susato gets one when, after everyone is prepared to conclude that Kazuma fell by accident as a result of Nikolina's kitten Darka coming into his cabin, she speaks up and points out that Nikolina is lying, and that Nikolina must have come into Kazuma's cabin.

The Adventure of the Runaway Room:

• Barok Van Zieks proves how seriously he takes his job by having the crime scene (a carriage) brought into the courtroom as evidence. In general, van Zieks proves that even with the Reaper legend that makes him intimidating gone, he's a true juggernaut in court: his observation skills are sharp, his logic solid, and unlike Ryuunosuke at first, he has a way with words and a presence in court that makes him very convincing.
• When the first cross-examination results in all six jurors declaring McGilded guilty, Susato comes up with the idea of using a Summation Examination to convince the jurors to change their minds, an idea that proves key to Ryunosuke's victory in each jury trial he defends in from this point onward.
  • Moreover, think for a moment about what Ryunosuke achieved when he first performed the Examination. The Summation Examination is such a historically unsuccessful defense strategy that it's been unofficially retired, mentioned only as a footnote in Susato's textbook. It's little more than a desperate last resort that never works. And yet Ryunosuke, a novice defense attorney and a visitor from a foreign country, the last person you'd expect to have a mastery of English law, invokes it in his hour of need— and succeeds. Legal history was made that day, for sure.
• Gina Lestrade is not only a good enough pickpocket she refuses knives on principle, but the Smoke Grenade launcher she fires accurately in court? She only found it yesterday.
• As it seems like the trial is going to end in McGilded's favor, Barok van Zieks asks you if you think the evidence could have been tampered with. If you say yes, this demonstration in dedication to finding the truth surprises everyone in court, and for the first time, the cracks in McGilded's Faux Affably Evil demeanour give way to his true nature, where he essentially threatens Ryuunosuke into going along with his plan, and, when you still pursue that line of inquiry, almost goes into a Villainous Breakdown.
• It's a villainous one, but credit must be given to Magnus McGilded. While this isn't the first time a defendant is genuinely a villain in the series, McGilded is much-more subtle than the likes of Matt Engarde, which is also helped with the series' tendency to prove a seemingly clear-cut case wrong. This time though, the truth is as obvious as it first appears - he is indeed the only person who could have murdered the victim in a moving carriage - and Van Ziek's hostility towards him is completely justified. All those contradictions and evidence that at first seems to suggest that there might be more to the case? Planted. The witnesses? Bribed or threatened. And in the end, as the players sees the ruling of Not Guilty, there isn't an ounce of happiness or relief as McGilded laughed and clapped his way to freedom; he would have gotten away with it too if he weren't killed afterwards.
  • While getting an Acquittal was Magnus McGilded’s goal, him causing Ryunosuke Naruhodo being able to stay in London and as a lawyer and derailing Stronghart’s plan to get another assassin to kill Greyson for almost an entire year was not, nor was it something that he would ever forsee happening. But it did, and when Gregon is killed almost a year later, it linked back to Jigoku and Stronghart, thus ending the Reaper Conspiracy. So in a way Magnus McGilded manipulating the verdict in his favor marked the beginning of the end for Stronghart.

The Adventure of the Clouded Kokoro:

• For the first time ever in the series: Everybody Lives! The victim was stabbed but isn't killed, and in fact makes a recovery, and no other murder cases are brought up. And to top it all off, there wasn't any malicious party involved. It was all just an accident.

The Adventure of the Unspeakable Story:

• It's revealed that the victim Pop Windibank despite being suicidal, managed to fend off three armed men invading his shop and managed to shoot one of them with the single bullet he was planning to kill himself with. It's possible he would've survived if the latter wasn't pursuing him.
• Ryunosuke playing the music box discs containing British government secrets to force Inspector Gregson to admit to leaking investigation details to the culprit. When Gregson threatens Ryu with the wrath of the British government, Ryu is unfazed:
  Ryunosuke : I will stop at nothing to protect my client! I don't care who I make an enemy of!
  • On that note, Van Zieks siding with Ryu and shutting down Gregson's pleas to stop him:
  Van Zieks: *leg slam* Inspector, you should know my methods by now. I'm a prosecutor. ...I'm no Scotland Yard puppet. In this courtroom, my duty is to the law. So let me propose a toast. To uncovering the truth... by fair means or foul.
• Graydon, while guilty as sin, deserves praise. McGilded was an excellent planner and got away with his crime in his trial. However, Graydon used what Magnus taught him and made an elaborate plan to avenge the death of his father, giving McGilded what he deserved.
  • His utter tenacity should also be commended; no matter how many times Ryunosuke dismantles his testimonies, he refuses to budge an inch, always finding ways to worm his way out of the situation time and time again. It's only until Gregson confesses to having colluded in giving false testimony that he finally folds.

The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve

• To summarize Ryunosuke's accomplishments across both games: He solved eight murders (John Wilson, Mason Milverton, Duncan Ross, Pop Windibank, Magnus McGilded, Odie Asman, Tobias Gregson, Genshin Asogi), an accidental manslaughter (Kazuma Asogi), three attempted murders (Olive Green, William Shamspeare, Herlock Sholmes), stopped the leak of top-secret British governmental information, discovered the truth about the conspiracy behind the "curse of the Reaper", discovered the true identity of the infamous Serial Killer "The Professor" and brought down the Chief Justice of London and the Japanese judge who oversaw his first case (who's also Japan's Minister of Foreign Affairs). Not bad for an English major with 2 months worth of law education!

The Adventure of the Blossoming Attorney:

• Rei Membami, the defendant, gets a crowning moment of awesome when she physically stops the culprit's breakdown and then gives him a judo toss with Susato's help.
  • Then the Judge gives him a second judo toss by himself.
• The culprit gets one as well, as he killed a professional assassin who was untouchable by the law and hindered a massive conspiracy. Sure, he loses points for framing an innocent girl, but putting down Brett is badass.

The Memoirs of the Clouded Kokoro:

• Olive Green's final insult towards the true villain of the case. Harsh, yet incredibly awesome.
  Olive: ...William Shamspeare...How does it go? "To be, or not to be. That is the question."
  Barok: From Shakespeare’s "Hamlet", Act 3, Scene 1.
  Olive: Well let me tell you, in your case...it's not to be. That is the answer. You deserve to die for what you have done.
  • Really, everything Olive did to out-gambit the true culprit. After finding out that Shamspeare killed her fiancé and that he was about to inflict the same fate on Soseki, she stops at nothing to ruin him. First, she bought strychnine from the black market, then lured him out of his home, breaking and entering it to set her poisonous trap and discovers Selden's key (although she didn't know about its significance), and during the trial when she finally learns about Selden's stolen treasure she gives the key to Sholmes to put the final nail in Shamspeare's coffin. She ends up in prison for attempted murder but is able to utterly stop Shamspeare and knows for sure he's much worse off. (Arrested for multiple accounts of gas theft, one account of actual murder on Duncan Ross, and multiple accounts of attempted murder on Soseki. Also, he's screwed out of the treasure he wanted so bad.)

The Return of the Great Departed Soul:

• A newspaper article in the beginning reveals that Barok van Zieks and his mysterious new apprentice were ambushed the previous night by a vengeful gang whose leader fell victim to the Reaper curse, so they brought pistols. What did van Zieks and his apprentice do? Drew their swords and just beat the crap out of the gang with neither of the two prosecutors suffering any injuries.
• Susato, having just returned to London, shows up near end of the trial's first day to snap Ryunosuke out of his Heroic BSoD with a "Susato Takedown."
• Speaking of Susato, examining the rightmost tableau in Madame Tusspells after she returns will have her comment on the killer's weak posture, before explaining how she'd kick his ass if he tried to stab her. One has to pity any would-be Rippers lurking about in London while Susato Mikotoba is in town.
• While thinking of a reason why Dr. Sithe would collaborate in a murder scheme and why specifically the waxwork of an infamous Serial Killer known as "The Professor" was used in the central plot, Ryunosuke provides a suggestion that Sithe was complicit in faking his death. However, the Lord Chief Justice issued a missive that prevents her from being called to testify, but Barok has his own ties to "The Professor" since his brother was one of his victims and wants to learn the truth as well.
  Barok: The prosecution calls...for the instructions in that missive to be scrapped!
  The Judge: But, but Lord van Zieks! The missive was issued from the Lord Chief Justice's office!
  Barok: OBJECTION! The assigned prosecutor has the final say on policy in any particular trial. In other words...me.
• The end of the case's final trial. The culprit has been found, their accomplice has confessed, and the judge is about to hand down a Not Guilty verdict. Except something doesn't feel right to Ryunosuke. He objects and asks for one final testimony, as the whole truth of the case hasn't been revealed yet. Barok agrees! What does Ryunosuke find out? That there's a good reason Dr. Sithe, said accomplice, wants the trial to end as soon as possible: she's the real killer. If Ryunosuke hadn't pursued this, she would've gotten away via Confess to a Lesser Crime. This moment is made even better by Pursuit - Prelude playing for the first time.

Twisted Karma and His Last Bow:

• Ryunosuke Naruhodo taking Barok van Ziek’s case is this in quite a couple ways. While Barok being framed for Tobias Gregson’s Murder was not originally part of Mael Stronghart’s plan, he did think he could use it to his advantage since Barok was getting close to exposing the Reaper Conspiracy. Stronghart was hoping that Barok would be found guilty of Gregson’s murder and that he would be executed by being hanged. However the moment Ryunosuke took Barok’s case is when Stronghart’s fate was slowly but surely sealed.
• An antagonistic example, but Kazuma's attorney skills are truly something to behold. He proves to be a formidable opponent, on par with Barok van Zieks, and uses the techniques he's learned from his time as a defense attorney to crush Ryuunosuke's arguments. There's a reason he's the Final Boss of the game.
• Maria Gorey defying Lord Stronghart's orders to leave out Inspector Gregson's indeterminable time of death. When Ryunosuke and co. go to Dr. Gorey and question her why it was not in the autopsy report, she says it was Stronghart who told her to do it. Ryunosuke then tells her if she concealed information, she could end up going down the same dark path her mother Dr. Sithe went. Hearing this, Dr. Gorey updates the report and validates the possibility that Gregson's body was tampered with throw off the time of death.

The Resolve of Ryunosuke Naruhodo:

• Mikotoba and Sholmes' Joint Reasoning section on the SS Grouse. The player finally gets to see the legendary pair work their magic on a crime scene, and it is glorious to see how flawlessly they work off on one another and solve Jigoku's disappearance in but a couple of minutes. In addition, Professor Mikotoba is shown to be a skilled tap dancer.
  • With the ship leaving in a matter of minutes, Sholmes exclaims that there is no time for games and proceeds to prove without doubt why he is called the Great Detective; unlike all the previous deductions, there is no need to correct his observations and deductions because all of them are completely true and on-point. In fact, he is the one who pointed things out for Mikotoba! For those who thought Sholmes has been dumbed down in the games thus far, this moment alone shows just how amazing he is when he's not playing around.
  Sholmes: We have but minutes until the vessel puts to sea. No games now.
  • The fact that Sholmes pretty much foresees how the entire trial would play out, and thus has arranged things so that Stronghart couldn't delay or postpone the trial by preemptively bringing witnesses to the court, and then forcing Stronghart to continue the trial by appealing to the gallery when Stronghart wanted to close the trial early. And then he reveals that he's been showing the entire trial to the Queen herself in Buckingham Palace, because he knew Stronghart couldn't be taken down through normal means!
    Gallery members: Testify! Testify!
• Ryunosuke exposing Judge Seishiro Jigoku as the murderer of Tobias Gregson. Once Ryunosuke proves the possibility of Jigoku murdering Gregson and transporting the body to London, Jigoku begins to insult Ryu, saying he lacks logic and reasoning and he should have declared him guilty to spare the world of his baseless accusations. Ryunosuke however proves him wrong by disproving all possible holes Jigoku and Asogi point out. Once Jigoku gets desperate, he tries to invoke his title of Japan's Minister of Foreign Affairs, but Ryunosuke shoots that excuse down.
  Ryunosuke: Objection! At this moment, you're not a government minister. You are a witness in a trial in Britain's highest court!
  Jigoku: ...!
  Ryunosuke: I don't care who you are or what your status outside of the courtroom might be, you will NOT withhold information! Nothing is more important than the truth!
• Mael Stronghart's Villainous Breakdown. When first cornered, he stands up from the judge's bench, opening his arms outwards and screaming. After a pause, he claps, beginning slowly but gradually increasing the pace, à la Damon Gant. Then, when Sholmes reveals that he's been transmitting the entire trial to Queen Victoria herself in Buckingham Palace, Stronghart continually hits the judge's bench with his cane until it snaps in half, at which point he topples over his bench, onto the empty juror's benches, and then to the courtroom's floor - this triggers six guilty "votes", which collect into the black scale. The sudden weight of the flares on the already-full Guilty side causes the scales to tip, then detach, and fall towards Stronghart with a small explosion from the Not Guilty brazier. As Stronghart begins to pick himself up, the scales make another move towards him, setting the courtroom ablaze behind him in an enormous fire from the Guilty brazier. He screams as the courtroom burns.
  • Stronghart himself deserves a mention. Numerous times in the trial he seems to be losing, but he always found a way to get back on top, from confessing to what seems to be the whole truth (while omitting details that would implicate him), to the fact that he had never truly dirtied his hands, and even getting the gallery to support him after it's been proven that he's the Reaper of the Bailey by saying that it's all done to keep the law and order in London functional. He's so manipulative and charismatic that it took the Queen herself to finally bring him down.
• Nothing says "this is the final battle" quite like finding out that Stronghart is the new judge. Emphasized by the metallic clang when he strikes the bench with his staff, in contrast to the wooden thump of the regular judge's gavel.