Out of the overall eccentric cast of characters that Ace Attorney provides, a select few stand out among fans for being completely intolerable despite their efforts to entertain or be interesting storywise.
Mainline entries
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney:
- You'd be hard-pressed to find any fans of Redd White. Despite having an incredibly important role in the trilogy due to killing Mia, he is largely disliked by fans due to having a very generic Corrupt Corporate Executive personality and, despite being built up as incredibly powerful and dangerous, coming off as a complete idiot with no common sense who is taken out with an anticlimactic Ass Pull confession. While he's clearly meant to be hated, many fans have noted how much they dislike that such a generic villain would have the all-important role of being Mia's killer. Also, the fact that he doesn't even make half of the lasting impact that the equally heinous and powerful, yet far more intelligent and cunning Von Karma does only two cases later, doesn't earn White any more fans.
- Mike Meekins is also hated due to being unnecessary, cartoonish looking, and obnoxious, especially in the utter stupidity he frequently displays. It also doesn't help that his megaphone is one of the most irritating noises in the entire series.
- Justice for All:
- Richard Wellington is seen as one of the worst culprits in the series, due to being an unremarkable and charmless Hate Sink who isn't challenging or evil enough to gain any satisfaction from defeating. He's essentially a rehash of Frank Sahwit from the first game, but whereas Sahwit was intentionally portrayed as being completely out of his depth and played his Starter Villain role well, Wellington is actually supposed to come off as an organised career criminal with connections. The only thing not universally disliked about him is his breakdown, but even that does little to save him.
- "Director Hotti", the "doctor" at Hotti Clinic. He's creepily obsessed with his female patients, even going so far as to steal Ini's photo and hit on a wounded Franziska. He doesn't even serve much of a purpose beyond giving you the photo in 2-2, which could have been fulfilled by a random nurse. When he returns in the final case, he's just there to piss off Franziska. No one seemed to mind when he was Adapted Out of the anime.
- While the characters introduced in "Turnabout Big Top" are all divisive to varying extents, Ben Woodman (and by extension, his puppet Trilo) is almost universally disliked. This is due to his one-note and irritating gimmick, his attraction to Regina that's even creepier than Max's (due to Ben being nearly twice her age), and him being almost completely superfluous to both the murder and the cases' overall story.
- Trials and Tribulations: Jean Armstrong is considered one of the worst characters in the game due to his hideous design and obnoxious and cartoonish personality. He also tends to make things far more difficult for little reason, and is far less amusing than Viola and Tigre. It also doesn't help that he seems like an outdated stereotype of both French and queer people, making him leave an even worse taste in fan's mouths than his food did to Phoenix and co.
- Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney:
- Zak Gramarye. Most agree that he is both a despicable human being and nonsensically and inconsistently written, with his sympathetic qualities being impossible to reconcile with his questionable, violent actions. At times, he almost appears to be written as if he and Shadi Smith, the victim of the first case who later turns out to be him, aren't even the same person. Most positive conversation surrounding him focuses on the sheer comedic value there is in shining a light on how openly heartless his actions were.
- Wesley Stickler, due to being an incredibly unlikeable, unfunny and all-around creepy Panty Thief with zero sympathetic traits, yet whose antics are played for comedy and whom the player spends an entire trial phase being forced to cross-examine. It doesn't help that his quirk of going on lengthy tangents is essentially copied from Wendy Oldbag, who is already a divisive character in the West. Many dislike 4-2 purely thanks to him.
- Alita Tiala is widely detested due to being an incredibly boring culprit while failing to act as an effective Femme Fatale-esque character, earning her the pejorative Fan Nickname of "Bootleg Dahlia". Even fans of "Turnabout Corner" consider her a weak point of the case.
- Spark Brushel thanks to a majority of the fans being put off by his Non-Standard Character Design and odd animations. His numerous character tics make his perception phase in his testimony that much more difficult to solve (for reference, it's actually the mundane action of sweating in his armpit).
- Dual Destinies:
- Phineas Filch is a sleazy, remorseless thief who interferes with the case and lies constantly purely because of cowardice. Unlike many examples in the franchise, the player is also never given the ability to punish him, and he never shows a Hidden Heart of Gold either. Good luck finding anyone who likes him.
- Florent L'Belle, while intended to be hated, in despised for being an extremely one-note Stupid Evil villain with nonsensical motivations trying to steal the gold that is the true identity of Tenma Taro, a plan that wouldn't even have worked, all because he was somehow so arrogant that he couldn't fathom the idea of selling his own products, made worse by how insanely convoluted his plans are. Many consider him a contender for the worst villain in the franchise.
- While not as hated as L'Belle, Aristotle Means is considered an extremely weak villain by many fans. Despite appearing quite a bit over the course of the case, he is given almost no personality or much characterization at all beyond repeating his philosophy constantly, which grinds quite a bit on fans nerves. He is never given a detailed motivation for his actions, and once he's identified as Courte's killer he does nothing but continue to endlessly argue "ends justifies the means", leaving him very uncompelling as an antagonist. Being a very poorly hidden villain does not help.
- Spirit of Justice:
- Bucky Whet for being a useless drunk defendant who only redeems himself at the end of Case 4; with a bizarre design (not ugly per se but just very weird for a 20 year old young man) he constantly vomits in his mouth (to the point it becomes an unfunny gag) and faints, speaks extremely slurred, and gets people's names wrong, particularly Athena. He's not nearly this terrible when he's sober, but that is unfortunately uncommon.
- Although Ga'ran Sigatar Khura'in is a clear Hate Sink through and through, a good portion of the fandom hates them more due to how relatively weak they are compared to the other villains of the franchise. Her Obviously Evil attire and how much the game tries to frame the fact that she's not somehow the murderer of the case (especially considering the longevity of the case) did not sit well with many fans. Adding to it, she's also not as intelligent and cunning as one would expect, making a few too many mistakes that were seen as convenient for the game to find her guilty given that she could've just not had the trial in the first place. She's usually compared to Quercus Alba when discussing worst main antagonist in the franchise.
Spin-offs
- Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth: One of the game's biggest problems is that the villains, aside from Shih-na and to some extent Cammy Meele, are incredibly underwhelming:
- Jacques Portsman isn't as disliked as the following examples, but he's still a very weak opponent even by Starter Villain standards. He's yet another Amoral Attorney who has no motives, backstory, or character depth other than just being corrupt for the sake of being corrupt. Add to that his obnoxious gimmick of constantly throwing sports metaphors into his dialogue, his even more obnoxious habit of loudly taking his jacket on and off, and the opening cutscene outright showing him as the murderer (something that Trials and Tribulations, Apollo Justice, and The Great Ace Attorney duology have avoided doing), he ends up feeling like an annoyance that you just want to get out of the way as soon as possible.
- Lance Amano is a strong contender for one of the worst villains in the franchise. His plan to defraud his father is insanely stupid, he's a glaringly obvious culprit, and he's a whiny and obnoxious idiot who doesn't even put up that good of a fight.
- While not a villain, Lauren Paups is another hated character by fans, owing to her gimmick of obsessing over love being incredibly irritating and one-note, her unhelpfulness in the case as a whole, and her continued loyalty to her boyfriend Lance despite it being never explained why on earth she even likes the whiny Jerkass. That she gets off almost completely scot-free (although she is implied to have spent time in the detention center) despite actively taking part in a fraud scheme and displaying no guilt over it does not help.
- Big Bad Quercus Alba, widely considered the worst main villain in the entire franchise. Besides his infamously overlong final confrontation, many fans consider him a very weak character due to his lack of development. He has very little if any screentime before being revealed as the Big Bad of the game (so much so that Edgeworth never has an extended conversation with him), preventing there from being much if any investment in stopping him, and no ties to the backstory or characters other than being the leader of the smuggling ring, making him look like a Generic Doomsday Villain. His personality is also almost entirely defined by his arrogance, making him very one-note in terms of personality, and he constantly hides behind his extraterritorial rights throughout the confrontation with him to where it comes off as immensely repetitive and unintimidating. Quite a few fans have been left wishing Yew/Shih-na was the villain instead.
- Gyakuten Kenji 2: Delicia Scones is not too popular due to her ugly design, habit of complicating things, and generally feeling unnecessary. She drags the beloved third case down a little bit when she's on screen by setting up scenarios far less interesting than the main story. Worse, she's a Karma Houdini who gets away with her deception with little more than a stern talking to.
- The Great Ace Attorney: Joan the maid, otherwise known as Joan Garrideb, John's wife, is not well-liked among fans, mainly because she physically abuses John Garrideb her husband (an older, disabled veteran) out of crazed, unreasoning jealousy and desire to manipulate him into covering up what she suspects to be a bad accident on her part several times, and the game generally treats the abuse as a source of comedy and concludes their story with an attempt to reaffirm their feelings for one another that falls flat in light of much of the above. She's also one of the least-liked culprits in the series, as her crime turns out to be an accident resulting from Disaster Dominoes, taking a long time to prove for such an anticlimactic payoff, and lying about her own culpability to serve as a juror on a case she was heavily involved with, a huge breach of legal ethics in the real world.
