Franchise as a whole
Mainline entries:
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney | Justice for All | Trials and Tribulations | Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney | Dual Destinies | Spirit of Justice
Spin-offs:
Ace Attorney Investigations | The Great Ace Attorney
Other media:
The 2012 film | The anime
Trivia page for Dual Destinies
Meta
- Acting for Two: Several members of the voice cast have multiple roles.
- Detective Fulbright and the Judge are both voiced by Dave B. Mitchell.
- Athena Cykes and Sasha Buckler are both voiced by Wendee Lee.
- Actor Allusion: Athena's English actress is Wendee Lee, who also played the female lead of Haruhi Suzumiya, which had a famous scene
that parodies Ace Attorney. - Bad Export for You: The game is only translated to English in Western territories. This makes the game utterly unplayable for a huge number of people in Europe. For contrast, the previous entries in the franchise were translated to four other languages (the usual French, German, Spanish and Italian) with the more or less the same high level of quality as the English translation.
- To an extent, the fact that the game only got an eShop release outside of Japan is this. Some people want the joy of being able to hold a physical cartridge and play game across several different 3DS systems, something which is impossible with an eShop download as per the one game per console restriction. It doesn't help that in light of the announcement of the eShop's closure in 2022-2023, the original 3DS version (and the other 3DS Ace Attorney titles) would enter Keep Circulating the Tapes status thanks to the lack of physical release.
- The game will be widely available with the upcoming 2024 release of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy for Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC via Steam.
- To an extent, the fact that the game only got an eShop release outside of Japan is this. Some people want the joy of being able to hold a physical cartridge and play game across several different 3DS systems, something which is impossible with an eShop download as per the one game per console restriction. It doesn't help that in light of the announcement of the eShop's closure in 2022-2023, the original 3DS version (and the other 3DS Ace Attorney titles) would enter Keep Circulating the Tapes status thanks to the lack of physical release.
- Blooper: In addition to the many typos in the English translation and a few lines labeled as from the wrong character, the cleaning robot on Aura Blackquill's desk in the robotics lab has "Invalid Message" over its dialogue boxes instead of a name tag.
- Development Hell: Gyakuten Saiban 5 was first hinted at in 2007 then lay dormant for nearly five years before we even got a logo in early 2012. A demo was playable at TGS 2012, and it finally got released in 2013.
- Network to the Rescue: At first it seems that the game will be a case of No Export for You in Latin/South America outside of Brazil, and in Parts of Asia, due to it's eShop exclusive release in NTSC/UC and PAL regions. Then Capcom released it for the iOS, and later Android, worldwide.
- No Export for You: Due to the NTSC/UC and PAL versions of the game not getting a cartridge release and the fact that the 3DS has Region Coding, the 3DS version is a case of no export to countries who get NTSC/UC 3DS consoles but do not have eShop access.note Invariably, this means Central America, countries in South America other than Brazil, and many parts of South East Asia.note . However the iOS and Android versions of the game averts this as it is available worldwide.
- The Turnabout Quiz DLC will remain Japan-exclusive due to how it relies heavily on Japanese culture. However, the Feenie sweater costume DLC from Trials and Tribulations that is unlocked from the quiz is unlocked after finishing the Turnabout Reclaimed DLC case.
- Non-Singing Voice: The general consensus among fans is that Wendee Lee did not sing the Swashbuckler Spectacular song in Athena's Fantasy Sequence in the DLC. The singer is at the moment unknown and fans are puzzled since Lee is known to have a good singing voice, and she did perform the same song as Sasha Buckler, another character in the DLC who is also voiced by Lee, earlier.
- Role Reprise:
- Sam Riegel reprises his role from Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 in Dual Destinies.
- In the Japanese version, Toshiyuki Kusuda voices Klavier, having originally voiced him in the trailer for Apollo Justice.
- Uncredited Role: The only known voices for Dual Destinies were for the main characters like Phoenix, Apollo, and Athena, and those were only revealed in behind-the-scenes videos and interviews regarding the game and not in the credits themselves. The voice actor for Simon Blackquill's two voice clips in the dub (and the promotional trailer for Spirit of Justice) is still a mystery. It was initially believed that Troy Baker or Travis Willingham (or both) were his voice actor, but was debunked later on. Similarly, the voice actors for some of the witnesses or auxiliary cast who speak in the animated cutscenes (eg. Robin Newman, Hugh O'Conner, and Juniper Woods) are all uncredited in the game's English dub.
- What Could Have Been: Concept art for the game reveals:
- An Athena design that was almost chosen had blue hair in antenna-like buns and a borderline-Raygun Gothic aesthetic. Elements of this early design would instead be re-used for Aura Blackquill.
- Florent L'Belle may have been planned to be a female character at first.
- Yuri Cosmos went through a radical redesign. His original concept had him with pointy hair, a tall elongated face and a mostache resembling fins, giving his head the appearence of a rocket. This would factor into his breakdown, which would involve the mustache "lighting" like a fuse and his hair "blasting off", leaving him with an extremely goofy looking face afterward. This was possibly cut for its similarities to Blaise Debeste's breakdown, and the "rocket hair" concept given to Solomon Starbuck, though more subtly.
- At one point during the final case, the phantom attempts to escape by using a grappling hook from his watch. He immediately comes back and it's played for a quick joke. The animation is an artifact from an earlier draft of the story where the phantom actually escapes Courtroom Nº4 making the case go on for a little longer. It was most likely cut out so the case, already one of the longest in the series, didn't feel too padded.
- Some file names discovered in the game's code indicate that, at some point in development, the DLC episode was going to be part of the main game, fitting in between what are now episodes 2 and 3 (where it takes place chronologically), and episodes 4 and 5 were once a single episodenote .
- Maya Fey returning was considered for this installment, but she was dropped as the plot was already complex enough with bringing Phoenix back as a main protagonist and introducing Athena. When the next installment was in development, Maya's return was made a priority then.
- An Athena design that was almost chosen
Game
- Apollo is the only one of the three playable characters to not have a court animation that denotes "despair". Phoenix holds his head in his hands, and Athena gets a blank stare with widget shutting off. Apollo just sticks with his Oh, Crap! face and sweating bullets.
- He does have one outside the courtroom, briefly at the end of the investigation stage of Case 4. The next game gives him a very effective one, though.
- This is the only game in the series where:
- Every murderer is male. Though from What Could Have Been below, L'Belle may have been a woman early in development.
- A character acts as the defendant for two separate cases in a single game.
- In fact, you could say TWO characters are defendants for two different cases, though one of them had their cases be solved in technically the same case.
- The amount of cases that have a female defendant outnumbers the amount of cases with a male defendant.
- None of the victims are Asshole Victims.
- Connected to the spoiler-tagged entry above, the ending of the DLC case has a few surprising similarities to the fan-created My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic crossover, "Turnabout Storm". Namely, just when it seems that the true culprit has been identified, Phoenix spots an inconsistency which drives him to turn down an immediate Not Guilty verdict for his client in order to prove that the victim's death was actually accidental.
- The original release was the only game in the Ace Attorney series to date to be given an M by the ESRB; the rest, as well as this game's own 2024 re-release as part of the Apollo Justice Trilogy, were given the T rating.
