Visual Novel / Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth

aka: Ace Attorney Investigations

He has Logic and he knows how to use it.

"My name is Miles Edgeworth. And I work as a prosecutor in my local district. Little did I know that upon my return home after a month abroad... ...I would be thrust into a multitude of cases, and some very frantic and busy days."

— Miles Edgeworth, Case I1-1: "Turnabout Visitor"

A Spin-Off of Ace Attorney, Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth (逆転検事, "Gyakuten Kenji" in Japan — lit. "Turnabout Prosecutor") landed its American and European releases in February 2010. Investigations stars Miles Edgeworth, the main rival of Phoenix Wright, as he investigates crimes outside the courtroom. Assisting him on his search for the truth is Detective Dick Gumshoe and the franchise newcomer Kay Faraday, a teenage self-declared thief. Compared to the main series installments, the game takes on a more traditional point-and-click adventure style, with walking sprites exploring areas rather than simply moving from scene to scene. Instead of engaging in courtroom battles, Edgeworth solves mysteries through Logic, and by countering arguments from witnesses, culprits, and rival investigators.

The game is set one month following the events of Trials and Tribulations, where Edgeworth finds himself solving numerous cases connected to both an international smuggling ring and the Yatagarasu, a mysterious Phantom Thief who opposed said ring. However he finds his investigations challenged by Shi-Long Lang, a cocky Interpol Special Agent who doesn't trust prosecutors to get the job done and has a bone to pick with the smuggling ring.

Investigations was followed by a Japan-only sequel, Gyakuten Kenji 2, which was released on February 2011.

After several years of being only available on the Nintendo DS, the game was released for iOS and Android on December 8, 2017 in both English and Japanese territories.

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These games provide examples of:

Both games

• Amateur Sleuth: Edgeworth does far more of the detective work than any of the actual police. Somewhat justified, as a majority of the prosecutors and police are more concerned with getting a guilty verdict than actually finding the truth. It doesn't stand out as much as in the main series, since in-universe prosecutors and the police are shown working as partners in investigations. It just so happens that Edgeworth is assigned Gumshoe as his detective...
• Arc Welding: Each game has its respective cases interrelated in some way, more so than the rest of the Ace Attorney games. Possibly to make up for the lack of recurring rival prosecutor.
• Art Shift: Detective Tyrell Badd is drawn in a similar, but noticeably different, style with facial definition and dark colors that markedly contrast everyone else's simple faces and bright colors.
• Despair Event Horizon: How the Life Meter is justified in this game: If it runs out due to Edgeworth making too many mistakes, he concludes that the truth of the case is "lost for all eternity" and gives up.
• Doom Magnet: Between both games, Edgeworth has just returned to the country after spending a few months abroad, and immediately gets caught in nine different murder cases^note One of them is an attempted murder, but he gets to solve another murder that happened in the same place over the course of one month, and all but one of them happen in locations he was already in or was heading to anyways. Case 4, while being a flashback case, still applies as Edgeworth had just got into the courtroom when the victims are killed in the room next door.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Edgeworth gets left out of the loop and pushed to the side by Lang in the first game, and is even in danger of losing his prosecutor position in the second. Presumably this is to give him (and the player) the challenge of solving a case while under the kind of handicap that defense lawyers have to deal with.
• Evil Versus Evil: In both games the Big Bad rivals someone who is probably just as nasty as them. For the first game Alba had to deal with The Starscream that was Manny Coachen, who wanted Babahl to become the representative of the reunited Codohpia, likely so he could leverage Alba's smuggling ring for his own purposes once the country was reunified. In the second game the manipulative and misanthropic Simon Keyes loathes the villainous triumvirate of Patricia Roland, Blaise Debeste, and the impostor Dai-Jun Huang; a team that successfully arranged an assassination of the real Dai-Jun Huang and even planned to turn on their hired killer. And at the very end of the second game, Sirhan Dogen halts Shelly de Killer's decision to kill Keyes.
• Extremely Short Timespan: The whole first game takes place over about three days (contrasted with the typical separation of months at a time in other Ace Attorney games), with Edgeworth solving four murders in a little over three days (case 2 happens on one day, 1 and 3 happen the next, 5 happens the night after that). The second game only kicks up about two weeks later and finishes up in about as much time. The fourth and fifth cases of the second game occur over the course of two days, allowing none of the characters to even get a wink of sleep in between.
• Fictional Flag: One case is set in two embassies of fictional countries: Allebahst and Babahl. The country the two used to be split into and later are re-unified as - the Principality of Cohdopia - has one, too. Allebahst's features a flower, Babahl's features a butterfly, while Cohdopia's features both as a unified state.
• The Ghost: Phoenix Wright. He's referred to obliquely as "him", "that lawyer", "a certain defense attorney", and even "the guy in the blue suit", but never by name (even though it's no big secret that Phoenix and Edgeworth and Larry are friends), and only makes one background appearance in each game—his cameo in the first game is extremely easy to miss, at that. There's even a generic flashback in the second game which features Edgeworth in a court session as the "Demon Prosecutor" with him narrating that someone "saved him", only for an unvoiced OBJECTION! to ring out and immediately pans to the defense's side of the room, but the screen whites out before the camera reaches it. He can be seen rowing just off the bridge in the third case, along with Maya and Pearl.
• Hardboiled Detective: Homicide detective Tyrell Badd.
• Heinousness Retcon: Downplayed with Manfred von Karma. A flashback to the case that led to the DL-6 Incident reveals that the forged evidence von Karma used in the trial was prepared by someone else and he wasn't aware of the forgery. At the same time, he's still very much the same Persecuting Prosecutor he is in the present, and it's still implied he forged evidence in past cases, and the flashback case also reveals he had the defendant interrogated non-stop to the point where his hair turned white, which is what he actually received his one penalty for. It's also implied that, through the events of this game, Franziska finally comes to terms with how horrible her father was.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: In both games, Edgeworth gets around Jurisdiction Friction by finding someone with authority to investigate the case and signing on as that person's "assistant." Invariably, that means doing all the actual work.
• Jurisdiction Friction: It is difficult to find a single case in which someone doesn't claim authority over the crime scene and demand that Edgeworth leave.
• Kleptomaniac Hero: Averted for once: it's "Jotted down in the Organizer" unless the object is explicitly given to Edgeworth and/or clearly his to take.
• Left Hanging: Both games are notable for leaving almost no loose threads hanging. It's even subverted with the second case of GK2: one may wonder how a blind assassin was able to read (much less write) a correspondence chess memo to send to Knightley... until the fifth case, where it's revealed that Simon Keyes acted as a middleman who translated the memos in order to eventually kill off Knightley.
• Leitmotif: If Edgeworth's "Objection!" theme sounds fitting for him, it should: it's "Great Revival" sped up and remixed.
• Life Meter: The usual explanation for how this works is absent here, but Edgeworth can evidently deplete his lifemeter by thinking wrong, if the player screws up the logic segments. Mistakes take him "further from the truth", as he explains it. Presumably depleting the whole thing causes Edgeworth to entirely lose the thread he was following and become confused, thus letting the culprit slip through his fingers.
• Magic Realism: Kay's "Little Thief" is a technological equivalent, being a cell-phone sized device able to generate room sized holograms.
• The Many Deaths of You: Every situation where it's possible to get a game over is unique, but they all end with the same line: "Thus, the truth was lost for all eternity."
• Musical Nod: Music from older games that was associated with characters from past games.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Logic in both games and Logic Chess in the sequel are spectacular visualizations for... stringing thoughts together or picking information out of an uncooperative witness.
• Musical Spoiler: Whenever you hear "Confrontation: Presto" playing, you know the person you're cross-examining is the killer. Played With in the sequel though, where "Presto" is often used for characters unconnected to the murder as a fake-out. Examples include Jay Elbird in Case 2, and John Marsh in Case 5.
• No Smoking: Hardboiled homicide detective Tyrell Badd always has a white stick in his mouth, but it's eventually revealed to be a lollipop. He even keeps a mirror in his coat "to keep an eye out on who is behind him". It's possible this is a Kojak reference. Who loves ya, Badd?
• One Degree of Separation: In both games, the murderers are all connected to each other, although the ones from the second game do not belong to a particular group, unlike the first. See Arc Welding above.
• Parrot Exposition: You could make a drinking game out of the times somebody repeats a key word or phrase in the form of a question. (In the form of a question?)
• Rule of Three: In most of the cases, the third person to come under suspicion is the actual killer.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: It's odd that the heroic and noble Great Revival heralds the arrival of Manfred von Karma in both games. The second game even has him coming out of a fairytale castle made of sweets.
• Thief Bag: Kay, befitting a Great Thief such as herself (in her mind, anyway), wears a pink-and-white-swirl variation on her shirt. If you look closely you can see the same pattern on her father's bandanna, an interesting piece of foreshadowing.
• To Be Lawful or Good: Edgeworth's major decision in the last case of the first game, over whether to use a piece of illegal evidence to find the truth, boils down to this. He uses it. In the second game, he's faced with a decision over whether to sacrifice his badge to continue to defend Kay Faraday, and he does.

Ace Attorney Investigations

• Absence of Evidence:
  • In the first case, the killer claimed to have lost his keys and asked a security guard to open the door to "his" office for him. The absence of the security guard's prints on his door, combined with some other evidence and Logic, suggests that he tricked her into opening a different door that she thought was his.
  • In a later case, the absence of blood on the hilt of a knife that was found inside a victim suggests that the hilt was switched, as there were several knives with hilts and blades that fit each other.
• Accuse the Witness: In Case 5, Lang accuses Franziska of the murder of DeMasque II as a ruse to continue the investigation.
• Affectionate Parody:
  • The Judge at one point uses the famous "HOLD IT!", but then apologizes for being too loud and simply says "Hold it".
  • Similarly, Edgeworth using "OBJECTION!" out of sheer habit during case 2, only to get called on his Suddenly Shouting behavior.
• Alphabetical Theme Naming: Allebahst and Babahl were originally one country named Cohdopia.
• Always Murder: Of course. Edgeworth can't even take a simple plane trip without someone winding up dead in an elevator (and himself accused of the crime).
• Ambidextrous Sprite: Pretty much everyone, but it's particularly noticeable with Franziska, who gets another mole on both sides of her face because of this trope, and the Pink Princess, on whose shoulder the kanji is reversed.
• Amoral Attorney: Calisto Yew takes this to its logical conclusion, murdering her own defendant and a witness. Then again, she isn't a "real" attorney, she just poses as one.
• Anachronic Order: As a flashback case, case 4 is this but is also predecessor to everything that has happened to that point in the entire series (previous flashback cases included). The true sequence of the first game is chapter 4, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 1, chapter 5.
• Anachronism Stew: Case 4 is set before anything else in the franchise, but has a flat screen TV, color security video with sound, and video on tape. While the first two aren't bizarre for 2011, it is bizarre when chronologically later games use less modern TVs and black and white photo.
• Anime Hair: Rhoda Teneiro and her 3-layered cube-shaped bun.
• Arc Words: KG-8 and "seven years ago"
• Artistic License – Biology: Miles comments at one point that passionflowers are vines, not flowers. This is not true. Any plant that is under the angiosperm clade is a flowering plant (as Passiflora is). In fact, most vines, whether the have showy flowers like passionflowers or tiny hard-to-see ones, are angiosperms.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Gumshoe cleverly hangs a lampshade on it. In Case 5 when the group is chasing the Yatagarasu and end up in the burnt embassy building. Gumshoe mentions that the Yatagarasu hasn't stolen.
• Asshole Victim:
  • Probably Lance Amano from the third case except that he's not actually a victim.
  • Manny Coachen wins the prize for Assholiest Victim in the series. Not only did he murder Defector from Decadence Cece Yew and get away with it due to the Amano Group's influence, but he also tried to usurp his "boss" Alba by ensuring Palaeno became the new Ambassador of Cohdopia. The cast even notes he was as much of a selfish prick as his killer.
  • Subverted with Colin Devorae. It's initially thought that he was an escaped convict who was killed because he tried to steal the ransom money for himself, but it turns out that he was forced into Taking the Heat for Ernest Amano, and Lance most likely blackmailed him into participating in the kidnapping.
• Back for the Finale: Larry again. A rarity as he usually shows up in the same game before the last case.
• Bait-and-Switch: During the introduction scene showing Buddy Faith's murder, the killer expresses a "get a conviction at all costs" mentality, as well as the belief that he's a prodigy among prosecutors. You might think it's pre-Character Development Miles Edgeworth, but it turns out to be Jacques Portsman, who's far less moral than Edgeworth at his worst and doesn't have the talent to back up his boasts.
• Bait-and-Switch Boss: The killer from case 4 turns up in the final case, and you'd expect them to be revealed as the head of the criminal syndicate, right? Nope: it's either the shifty looking Colias Palaeno or the doddering Quercus Alba, both of whom have suspicious names in the Japanese version (Damian and Carnage, respectively). While both of these characters are awesome, a section of the fans would have preferred Calisto Yew to have been the real Big Bad.
• Bathroom Search Excuse: Alba gives bathroom-searching as the excuse for leaving a play in the middle of the show and ending up in the changing room of the actors. To the surprise of nobody, he's lying.
• Be as Unhelpful as Possible:
  • You prove that Larry couldn't have been the murderer after a lengthy discussion with Lang. After that, Larry questions your theory and you have to play another discussion to convince him that he couldn't have been the murderer, while he tries to prove you wrong. In front of Lang. And tries to submit it as an actual testimony.
  • Completely averted with Colias Palaeno. When Edgeworth asks if he can investigate, Palaeno says to go right ahead. No questions, no obstructionism, nothing worse than a polite request that you not touch the Primidux Statue (since it's a national treasure).
  • Gumshoe leaves out details from his testimony and brings suspicion on himself as a result because he doesn't want it to get out that he bought a swiss roll with Kay, thus causing her to break her promise not to take anything from strangers, even though her father, the one he was trying to keep this from, was already dead.
• Big Bad: Quercus Alba, current ambassador of Allehbast, is the leader of the international smuggling ring Franziska has been investigating since before the game even started. He ordered the murder of Cece Yew, thus kickstarting the KG-8 incident in the game's backstory. He personally kills Manny Coachen and Mask☆DeMasque II, kickstarting Case 5. He's also responsible for the counterfeit bill chaos in the Republic of Zheng Fa. And it takes a significantly long amount of time to prove all of his misdeeds because of his stubbornness and his extraterritorial rights as an ambassador.
• Big Damn Heroes:The final case takes this to an art form. No fewer than four people burst into the room to save the day during the final showdown with the villain over the course of the confrontation. They even hang a lampshade on it when after a dramatic shout of HOLD IT!, everyone looks around to see who it was, and it turns out to be the random forensics guy with no name or portrait.
• Big "NO!":
  • Cammy Meele in case 2 does one of these directly before her Motive Rant while blowing a whole bubble factory of bubbles, which then burst all over her as if she were exploding.
  • Edgeworth himself has three when he realizes that Larry was playing the Steel Samurai and Oldbag was the Pink Princess (and before that, the Pink Badger.)
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • Several name puns are in non-English languages — for example, Quercus Alba = the scientific name for the white oak, Colias palaeno= the scientific name for the Moorland Clouded Yellow and Shi-Long Lang = Chinese for "soldier dragon wolf" — the "soldier dragon" of the "wolf" family.
  • Also, "shifu" is Chinese for "master", which is fitting coming from Lang's respectful subordinates. It also, in broken English, looks / sounds like Chief.
• Blood-Stained Letter: A directives card from ten years ago has a bloodstain on it, showing that the order was carried out.
• Book Ends: At the beginning of Case 1, a mysterious armed assailant threatens Edgeworth from behind with his gun, then proceeds to shoot his framed jacket. In Case 5, the assailant, revealed to be Detective Badd, threatens Shi-na from behind with his gun, and proceeds to shoot at her, only for Shi-long Lang to take the bullet.
• Brick Joke: In case 3, Lang's agents sound off from one to a hundred. Lang gets annoyed at this and tells them that in his book, everyone is number one. Later on in case 5, Lang's men sound off with a chorus of ones.
• Broken Pedestal:
  • Edgeworth's respect for Manfred von Karma is emphasized here for Dramatic Irony, but it also turns out that Ernest Amano, another person he respects, is also a criminal. It's not surprising since the two were close financial pals.
  • Ambassador Palaeno evidently placed a great deal of trust and respect on Manny Coachen, constantly talking about how he let the guy do all the important work for him and how much he relied on him, and is outright shocked when he is revealed to have been a genuine criminal.
  • Badd when he realized Calisto Yew betrayed both him and Byrne Faraday.
• The Bus Came Back: Not counting all the characters last seen in Trials and Tribulations, for the first time since the first game ... Missile came back!
• Busman's Holiday: The first game in particular is a rather blatant use of the trope, most evidently in case 2 (a flight that happens to turn into a murder case wherein Edgeworth ends up being the one to discover the body and takes it upon himself to reveal the real killer).
• But Thou Must!: A notable one near the end of the game, even by Ace Attorney standards. When the time comes to finally confront Quercus Alba, Edgeworth is presented with a personal moral quandary; he must choose between finally bringing an end to Alba's crimes through the use of illegally obtained evidence, or pursuing the path of the Law and letting Alba get away. The choice is presented to the player much like the choice was presented in Justice for All about whether it is more important to save an innocent life by allowing a murderer to go free and condemning another innocent to death or to allow justice to be served at the cost of the hostage's life. The difference here is it doesn't actually turn out to be much of a choice. Choosing not to present the illegal evidence simply results in all the other characters pressuring Edgeworth until he decides that the the illegality of the evidence is subjective anyway and proceeds to present it.
• By the Power of Grayskull!: While she doesn't transform or anything, Kay evokes this when she's about to use Little Thief.
  Kay: Dark skies of evening, when no other bird dares to take wing, one alone remains all-seeing! Now, witness the true power of a real, modern-day Robin Hood!
• Call-Back: When the fifth case seems to involve a flying entity, Franziska mentions that she has been involved in two cases with involving flying people before. This is a reference to "Turnabout Big Top" and "Bridge to the Turnabout" in the Phoenix Wright Trilogy.
• Call-Forward:
  • Case 3 gives us a glimpse of the Gavinners' equipment along with their logo on a stage. A banner emblazoned with "Troupe Gramarye" is also nearby.
  • Case 4 makes a reference to Phoenix getting hit in the head with a fire extinguisher 6 years before it happens.
  • The Borginians and the smuggling ring being investigated by Interpol, in a nod to Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney. Is smuggling a regular problem in Borginia?
  • Case 4 shows Gumshoe's professional determination towards the future:
    Gumshoe: [S]omeday, I'm gonna become an Ace Detective [...]
  • Case 4 dramatically alludes to the fourth case of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, which takes place 5 years later:
    Franziska: I'll make sure each and every person on this stand is declared guilty.
    Edgeworth: You are aware that there are people besides the defendant who stand at the podium, right?
    Franziska: I don't care! You'd just better make sure that you never find yourself standing there.
• Canis Latinicus: The "Theatrum Neutralis" in the fifth case.
• Catchphrase:
  • Unique to this game, Edgeworth gets "Eureka!" for his.
  • Shi-Long Lang's Not so fast!, which is fitting as he's not a lawyer of any kind but an Interpol agent. He also goes on a Hurricane of Aphorisms when he brings up his scroll and begins reciting: "Lang Zi says: ...".
• The Cavalry: Several different parties burst in to assist Edgeworth during the finale, usually with a dramatic "HOLD IT!". Two of the more literal instances are Shi-Long Lang returning with his army of 100 agents to announce that Alba's diplomatic immunity was revoked and Babahl's embassy guards stopping Alba and his own army of guards from leaving.
• Chekhov's Boomerang: The Yatagarasu's Key from cases four AND five. It starts out as a key, then it becomes a weapon, then a key again, then the weapon part becomes a key. Finally, as a weapon, it becomes the ultimate key to defeating the Big Bad. Allebahst's Primidux Statue also gets more than its fair share of use in the last leg of of the fifth case.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • In the first case, Gumshoe delivers the line "So I guess only a GREAT cat burglar could get in! That must be who our culprit is!" The person who got into Edgeworth's office was a burglar. Or more specifically, the last member of the Yatagarasu thief group, Detective Tyrell Badd. Good guess, Gumshoe.
  • Larry does it again in the fifth case and pulls off a Big Damn Heroes with none other than Wendy freaking Oldbag.
• Chekhov's Skill:
  • Missile's fondness for Samurai Dogs made him a useless option in the original Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney game. Come Case 5 in Investigations, though, it comes in handy during the investigation.
  • Early in Case 2, Cammy Meele's ability to understand Borginian is used to translate some of Lablanc's statements. Near the end, this is used to prove Cammy's role in the smuggling ring, and that she wiped out the victim's blood with a piece of Borginian cloth.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Calisto Yew who betrays each and every organization seen working for, including the smuggling ring she was The Mole for.
  Shih-Na: Why? There is no "why". I was destined to betray everyone from the beginning.
• Collective Identity: The Yatagarasu—Badd, Faraday, and Yew.
• *Click* Hello: Badd gets the drop on Calisto Yew during the last case.
• Clothing-Concealed Injury: In "Turnabout Ablaze", the final case, Quercus Alba, the man suspected of leading an international smuggling ring, reveals a stab wound under his clothes, claiming he was attacked by a masked thief who came to burgle his office, justifying the thief's death at his hands. With Alba being an ambassador and the murder being within his country's embassy, this mean the thief's murder will only be tried in Alba's country to his advantage. However, as it turns out, Alba actually got wounded while he murdered fellow ring member Manny Coachen for being The Starsceam. Coachen had managed to stab him once before being killed. As this occurred outside of the embassy grounds, Alba is able to be arrested and tried locally, especially since his diplomatic immunity was just revoked moments before.
• Cloudcuckoolander: In case 3, you meet Lauren Paups. You quickly learn that's she's...really out in her own little world.
• Co-Dragons: In different ways, Calisto Yew/Shih-Na and Manny Coachen to Quercus Alba in the first game.
• Computer Equals Monitor: Averted in case 2 of the first game. The group finds a cell phone with a broken screen, but some experimentation shows its internals are still fine, and another character is able to transfer a case-relevant photo off of it to another phone.
• Concealing Canvas: Edgeworth's office has a variation—instead of a painting canvas, it's the frame for a suit jacket he used to wear.
• Continuity Nod: Has plenty of these, usually when you meet up with a fellow character from another game.
  • There's also a very minor one in case 3 —if you look behind the stage at the stadium, you can see a sign for "Troupe Gramarye", as well as the Gavinners' logo.
  • If you examine the sign up during the re-creation scene, it mentions the Gavinners and Max Galactica vs Troupe Gramarye as upcoming events.
  • At one point, Franziska discounts some evidence by pointing out that, "people can't fly". Edgeworth then claims to have worked on a case involving a flying person (3-5), and after a pause, Franziska realizes that she's actually worked on two (2-3 and 3-5).
  • Also in Case 3 we see Phoenix, Maya and Pearl on a boat in the background◊ near the entrance to the park. But only if you go there before there's any real reason to do so.
  • Kay asks if she can keep a bear statue that she found in Edgeworth's possession, referencing 2-4.
  • If you examine the Judge's seat in Case 4, you get an exchange about Edgeworth having a nightmare about being squashed by the Judge's gavel. This nightmare is a reference to the one Phoenix has at the beginning of 2-1 and 2-4. Same case, if you examine the fire extinguisher in the Court Hallway, Edgeworth will muse how a person getting hit over the head with that could lose a memory or two...which is exactly what happened to Wright in 2-1, when he was bashed over the head with one by that trial's villain prior to the trial.
  • On the airplane, Edgeworth recalls a traumatizing experience when the plane has a major case of turbulence that reminds him of an earthquake, then he sees an elevator, lampshades this, then sees a dead body inside. You have to respect the guy for being able to hold it together for the entire case, the only time he panics is just after he sees the body.
  • Manfred Von Karma boasts that he would have found Manny Coachen guilty in three minutes.
  • The ladders and stepladders -conversation appears in the first one, between Edgeworth (ladder) and Kay (step-ladder). Kay comments that from a thief's perspective, the best kind is a rope ladder. Miles thinks that from a prosecutor's perspective, all ladders are equally guilty - of being dangerous during an earthquake.
  • Minor characters Ema Skye, Winston Payne, Sal Manella, Lotta Hart, Wendy Oldbag, Maggey Byrde, Mike Meekins and Missile also return. You cross-examine the judge, for crying out loud.
  • Also in the third case, the 'Love Letter' from Viola of Tender Lender.
  • If you're paying very close attention in the third case as well, you may notice that the real Proto Badger is the Bellboy Who Swore the Affidavit from the first game.
  • A Running Gag in the first three games is a detective in Criminal Affairs talking to himself, usually image training or some sort. In Rise From The Ashes, he can be found writing a novel where the killer uses a tape to fake a gunshot, which is exactly what Calisto Yew did in Turnabout Reminiscence.
  • Larry mentions that he dressed up as Santa Claus once before at Gourd Lake. Edgeworth responds by imploring him not to bring up bad memories (of 1-4).
  • In the same case, Edgeworth tells Larry that he doesn't have time to search for "a key to unlock your heart" to find out what Larry is hiding, a reference to when Edgeworth used the Magatama on him in 3-5.
  • In a discussion about the Steel Samurai, whom Franziska was unfamiliar with, Edgeworth reminds her of the Nickel Samurai, which brings up some traumatic memories because he was the very subject of the court case that Franny was shot for prosecuting.
• Conviction by Counterfactual Clue: A very minor example. During one crime scene recreation in case 3, Edgeworth deduces that the culprit must be right handed based on the location of the wound and blood from where he was struck. However, it's entirely possible that a left-handed person could have hit him back-handedly or just stood to the right of Edgeworth. While not case-breaking or definitive by itself, it does steer suspicion toward the real guilty party.
• Contrived Coincidence: The whole game, full stop. One day Edgeworth finds himself on a plane when some turbulence causes him to black out and then is accused of killing a man found in an elevator on the plane. The day after that, he's at an amusement park delivering a ransom to save the kidnapped son of a friend...when that turns into a murder too. While doing this, he stumbles across a girl he met years ago when first working as a prosecutor during a case that involved the murder of her father. Then he returns to his office to find the body of a police officer lying next to his book case. All these incidents are related, despite the fact that Edgeworth's presence at all of them is no more than simple good luck. The final case pulls these events together but only explains that they are related, not that they have any meaningful relation to each other. The plot is driven purely by Edgeworth being in the right place at the right time.
• Cool Key: The Yatagarasu's Key. Very ornately designed, and transforms into a knife to boot.
• The Corpse Stops Here: Lampshaded if you press Lang on his being the first to find Mask DeMasque II's body. Edgeworth will point out that Kay was suspected because she was the first to discover Manny Coachen's body.
• Cosmetically-Advanced Prequel: Case 2 features a camera (possibly "smart" given the owner is described as playing with it) phone, while Apollo Justice has a (already slightly dated at the release) flip phone. Further, case 4, which is set before anything else in the series has a color video camera with sound, while the original Phoenix Wright Trilogy had all still pictures in black and white. The first case also had flat-screen televisions in the courthouse witness rooms that weren't there in the first 4 games.
• Counterfeit Cash: One of the smuggling ring's various operations is the production of fake Zheng Fa currency, throwing Zheng Fa's economy into shambles. This is why Lang, who is an Interpol agent from Zheng Fa, is persistent in chasing after the ring.
• Dark Reprise Ambassador Alba gains a darker, menacing version of the majestic Cohdopian national anthem as his new Leitmotif, which was previously used as the two ambassadors' leitmotif. The change is so dramatic, you really have to listen really, REALLY closely in order to realize that it's the same piece, only played in a minor key and smoothed over heavily.
• Death in the Clouds: The second case, Turnabout Airlines.
• Deceased Fall-Guy Gambit: Attempted by Quercus Alba, much to Lang's outrage. Also Calisto Yew was originally planning to make it look like Byrne Faraday and Mack Rell killed each other.
• Detachable Blades: The embassies each have a collection of three knives with interchangeable blades. Since it's a reoccurring theme that things traveled between the embassies, so does a knife.
• Did Not Do the Bloody Research:
  Lang: Human beings can't fly, you know.
  Edgeworth (taken aback) Of course not! That's bloody common sense!
• Didn't Think This Through: Never mind the "hideous" design of the luggage that was being sold by iFly airlines, but selling them on the plane? That's the last place any reasonable person would buy luggage. Eventually, either the company or Rhoda wised up on this and started selling them online instead, where they became a huge hit.
• Diplomatic Impunity: Naturally plays a part in the final case, what with it being set in an embassy. Played a bit more realistically than usual. Alba being accused of a crime as serious as MURDER isn't waived so easily; once the suspicion points his way, Lang is able to get it revoked with a single phone call.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Shih-na/Calisto Yew in Case 5. From the start of the case it's quite obvious to the observant player that Shih-na is really Calisto Yew and likely the guilty party in the murder of Manny Coachen. When you finally corner her however, she says that while she's Calisto Yew, she really had nothing to do with Coachen's death. Moreover, the murder of Mask DeMasque II is still unresolved, making it obvious that there's still a long way to go in this case.
• Distressed Dude: Miles Edgeworth, twice; he's handcuffed in his seat early in Case 2, and in Case 3, he's ambushed by the kidnappers and tied up.
• Dodge the Bullet: Edgeworth in Case 4.
• The Dragon: Calisto Yew who works for Quercus Alba's syndicate and is his accomplice in the final episode. It is also highly likely that Manny Coachen is the second in command of the ring. Of course, that makes Manny Coachen a Dragon with an Agenda when he tries to backstab Alba.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • The flashback cases are full of this from the player's point of view (and no doubt Harsher in Hindsightinvoked from the point of view of the characters): for example, when von Karma tells Miles that he must become a famous prosecutor because "otherwise, it wouldn't be interesting", Miles seems to take this as reassurance, whereas any player who's followed the AA series will realize that this is some rather ominous foreshadowing of Case 4 in the first Ace Attorney game. There's also one example that doubles as Foreshadowing: Edgeworth says that no man is above the law. Von Karma disagrees, saying there are people like that. To the player who knows von Karma killed Edgeworth's father, the implication is that the speaker is referring to himself. However, the very next case in Investigations deals with a criminal who hides behind his diplomatic immunity, making him "above the law".
  • Edgeworth and Von Karma's lamenting over the fact that Edgeworth would have to wait until a later case before he could conduct his first "perfect" case. In Trials & Tribulations Case 4 Edgeworth's first case ended prematurely, when Terry Fawles killed himself unwittingly due to Dahlia, resulting in a permanent mistrial.
• Dramatic Wind: Kay gets this at the end of case 5, along with her Scarf of Asskicking.
• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: Cammy Meele has these since she's constantly nodding off. Once her identity as the true murderer becomes apparent, she loses them.
• Enemy Rising Behind: In the third case, when Edgeworth drops off the ransom money in an amusement park's Haunted House dining room and steps into the hall, a slumped, seemingly-lifeless costume stands up and begins creeping up behind him.
• "Eureka!" Moment: Taken rather literally: "Eureka!" is Edgeworth's unique exclamation for making a connection with Logic. More traditionally, about once per case Edgeworth hits a brick wall in his deductions, only for someone to say or do something mostly unrelated that causes this. He immediately flashes back to a number of previous hints, and the player is given several new pieces of logic to sort through and reach a conclusion.
• Evil Laugh: Calisto Yew/Shih-na and Quercus Alba both do this when cornered. The latter is lampshaded.
  Kay: Wow, you really know how to laugh at inappropriate moments!
• Fake Alibi:
  • Episode one has the culprit take advantage of a mistaken belief about the time the crime took place to make an impromptu alibi for himself when accused.
  • Episode four has the culprit use a recording of a gunshot to throw off the time.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture:
  • Zheng Fa is an Asian country that Shi Long Lang is from. A lot of it seems Chinese, although the structure of given names and the architecture of things we see like the Alif Red could also point to Thailand or Vietnam.
  • Boriginia is confirmed to be European, but few details exist other than that. Its people are fair haired and have extravagant, colorful clothing, so a Nordic background might be likely.
  • We are only told that Cohdopia (and later Allhebast and Babahl) is European and abounds in natural beauty, particularly butterflies and flowers. It could be anywhere from the Mediterranean to the Balkans to the Baltics.
• A Father to His Men: Shi-Long Lang, to all 99 of them. And he takes it to ridiculous extremes by remembering the birthday of the younger brother of the wife of the younger brother of one of his officers. When Lang's men are counting off, he gets mad at the MIB (his assistant) because he believes they are all number ones. Later, all 99 of them count off "1!", and at the end, the MIB says that probably all 99 of them are there. Taken to a more serious extreme in the final case, where he takes a (fortunately non-fatal) bullet for Shih-na, who had immediately prior been revealed as a traitor and a mole planted by the smuggling ring Lang had been investigating. His reasoning? Because no matter what kind of backstabbing wench she really is, she's still his subordinate, and he's responsible for her.
• Flashback: The fourth case is a playable flashback. To a lesser extent, so are cases 2 and 3; they take place, respectively, two days and one day before the first case.
• Foil: Edgeworth and Calisto Yew. One's an always serious and uptight prosecutor and the other is a more casual defense attorney prone to bursting out in laughter. And of course when Yew reveals herself to be an Amoral Attorney with a hidden agenda, the contrast strikes hard against "pursuing the truth" Edgeworth.
• Foregone Conclusion: The beginning of Turnabout Reminiscence, the flashback case. After Byrne Faraday is dismissed from the trial of Mack Rell, it is arranged for Edgeworth to fill in, and it's explicitly stated that this would make it Edgeworth's first case. However, it had already been established in Trials and Tribulations that Edgeworth's first trial was that of Terry Fawles, so the audience knows something will happen that prevents Edgeworth from taking over. And sure enough, just as court is about to reconvene, it is announced that both Faraday and the defendant have been killed, making the trial moot and leading to Edgeworth investigating their deaths. And even when he finds the real culprit, he doesn't prosecute the culprit in court because the culprit escapes before the police can take them into custody.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In Case 2, flight attendant Rhoda Tenerio serves as your game-appointed "Partner" character for an investigation sequence early on, after Edgeworth clears her suspicion of him as a suspect. When Cammy Meele, her co-worker, comes with you to the next crime scene after dismissing Rhoda, notice that the game does not label Cammy as a "Partner" character like it did so for Rhoda.
  • In Case 5, upon pressing Shih-na's last statement, Franziska mentions never wanting to know what it's like to be falsely accused. And then who does Lang accuse towards the end of the case? Subverted in that she was falsely falsely accused as a ruse to investigate Allebahst once more.
  • In case 3, after Lang mocks Edgeworth's investigative skills, Shih-na comments that she can barely contain her laughter in a deadpan tone. At first, it seems like a throwaway line, but it makes a lot of sense after you discover that Shih-na is actually the human laugh track known as Calisto Yew, and is indeed holding back her laughter, since she's talking to Edgey.
  • The shadow of the Yatagarasu is caused by not one object as Franziska assumed, but a combination of multiple things. So's the real deal.
  • Along those lines, the real kidnapper of Lance Amano is three people, including Lance Amano himself.
• Framing Device: Case 4 is being discussed by Kay and Edgeworth to help Edgeworth recall how they came to cross paths originally during the conclusion of Case 3. Interesting since the first side of the frame is established in the epilogue of case 3 but the other side of it isn't seen until the end of case 4, which can push the Framing Device out of mind until case 4 wraps up, at which point the player remembers what was happening before the flashback started.
• Frothy Mugs of Water: In "Turnabout Airlines," all the dark red stuff that is very obviously wine is never called anything but "grape juice." In the original Japanese (for all the Ace Attorney games too), it was... still grape juice. Go figure.
• Futureshadowing: All over the place.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: In the first case, Edgeworth says he's going to do "what I always do in court: I'm going to cross-examine him." But throughout the series, cross-examining is depicted as virtually exclusively the defense's job, and the only time Miles has ever been seen doing it was when he was posing as a defense attorney in "Bridge to the Turnabout" in Trials and Tribulations.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: In-universe, The Steel Samurai is very popular in Allebahst, as they sponsor a stage show in their embassy; meanwhile, The Jammin' Ninja is more popular in rival Babahl.

• Glasses Pull: Shih-na and Lang do this a lot. At some points, they seem to have put on sunglasses while offscreen for the sole purpose of doing this.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • One testimony in the third case is incredibly bizarre. Lang says that Lauren knew Colin Devorae's true identity, and thus the two of them were able to plan the kidnapping as a father-daughter team, then demands that Edgeworth disprove it. On the first try, most players will probably deplete the truth meter trying to prove that Lauren didn't know. The correct answer is to prove that there were three kidnappers to disprove Lang's description of the kidnapping as a two-person job. This bit is particularly infuriating because Edgeworth's inner monologue outright misleads you as to what you're meant to do. It somewhat makes sense in retrospect, but it's one of those pieces of Ace Attorney-logic where you have to completely forget about what you just proved and concentrate on the one statement that you know is false.
  • Around the same time, we have Lauren Paups' testimony about how she fears she may have killed her father with the gun she got from her boyfriend. The obvious contradiction is that the gun she has is very obviously the fake gun from the Bad Badger suit, and thus she couldn't have killed anyone with it. The correct contradiction is that the man she supposedly shot in self-defense was using his left hand to hold his weapon instead of his right. You're liable to burn up half your meter presenting information related to the gun on various statements (at least three are directly related to the gun) before you finally present the dossier with the minuscule detail about Devorae's dominant hand.
• Happily Ever Before: Turnabout Reminiscence, the flashback case, starts with a murder rendering the trial Edgeworth was supposed to prosecute moot, and after he investigates said murder, the flashback ends with Edgeworth saying that his first trial would finally come a few months later. Said first trial had already been shown in Trials and Tribulations, and we know it doesn't end very well for him.
• Height Angst: Young Fransizka von Karma does not take kindly to being used as an example of someone who wouldn't reach the window in the flashback case of Ace Attorney Investigations.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: In the final case , Quercus Alba shows you a wound he got defending himself to prove that Demasque2's murder was self-defense (even though the wound was really from a separate incident). Later on, when you find unknown blood at the murder scene, the fact that he showed you this wound is the only reason you can prove that it's possible that Alba bled at the scene and that the blood could be his. Edgeworth even calls on it after he discovers that the Yatagarasu's Key was the weapon used to injure Alba. After all, it was Alba himself that left the blade on the victim's corpse, expecting it to be discovered. The entire case seems to be an example of this. Alba plotted everything that happened at the embassy in advance and kicked it off by sending the Yatagarasu's card, which was supposed to pin the whole smuggling ring on Coachen and then conveniently kill him off to keep him from doing the same and then becoming the new kingpin.
• Honor Before Reason: Lang takes a bullet in the leg for Shih-na and cites his responsibility to protect his subordinates, no matter who they might be.
• Hurricane of Aphorisms: Lang quotes Lang Zi rather often.
• Item Get!: Kay suggests that when capturing one of the badger family on camera, Edgeworth shout "Badger GET!" every time, or it doesn't count. She does it herself, eventually.
• The Hyena: Calisto Yew, who laughs at the most inappropriate times.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: Manny Coachen seems to be the one really getting things done when working under Ambassador Colias Palaeno.
• Informed Ability: In Case 3, upon examining the mic during the stadium re-creation, Edgeworth mentions the only instruments he can play are the flute and piano. Playing the flute is a reference to the second "Gyakuten Meets Orchestra" album cover◊.
• Interface Spoiler: Franziska was called "von Karma" in the text boxes in the Phoenix Wright Trilogy, but it is now "Franziska" in this game. Manfred himself shows up in the flashback case. Granted, Edgeworth does call her by her first name when speaking to or about her.
• Jumpscare:
  • In Case 3, The Bellboy dressed as the Proto Badger nonchalantly pops out of a trapdoor backstage, which can spook players since the other one attacked Edgeworth in an infamous scene.
  • In Case 5, Larry suddenly rises out of the fountain at one point.
• Karmic Death: Mack Rell is hired to kill someone. After he carries out the shooting, the person who hired him to do it kills him with the same gun.
• Killing in Self-Defense:
  • The culprit of "Turnabout Ablaze" insists that the killing of Ka-Shi Nou was an act of self-defense, though it's heavily implied to be a lie and ultimately a moot point seeing as he committed another murder on the same evening that very clearly wasn't self-defense.
  • The culprit of the third case also claims this, since Colin Devorae/Oliver Deacon had tried to kill him over Lance blackmailing him into participating in the fake kidnapping, but Edgeworth says that will be determined in court.

• Last-Second Word Swap: Mike Meekins. "B-b-b-b-however, sir!"
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • In case 5, Kay describes Edgeworth's "Logic" ability through the sound effect it makes when you trigger it.
  • In the same case, Quercus Alba compares the whole thing to a game (though that's more a product of his incredible arrogance), and Larry Butz does not like the introduction he gets in Edgeworth's internal monologue.
• Like Father, Like Son: Ernest and Lance Amano in case 3. Initially, Ernest seems to be a wishy-washy old man while Lance is a timid young kidnapping victim; however, both are ruthless, conniving individuals to stop at nothing to achieve their own ends, even if it means supporting a vast criminal conspiracy and covering up a murder.
• Like Brother and Sister: Gumshoe describes Franziska and Edgeworth as this, at one point.
• Little Girls Kick Shins: Kay in Case 4. It looks like she hits Edgeworth in the back of the knee, but the lack of detail in the sprites and the severity of his reaction could mean it was actually a Groin Attack...
• Locked Room Mystery: Case 4.
• Long Song, Short Scene: The marching remix of the Blue Badger's theme is played exactly once, in a part of the intro to Case 3 that will take a good minute less than the song to finish.
• Made of Iron: Agent Lang! He took a bullet to the leg, then spent the rest of the case wandering around like nothing happened.
• Marathon Boss: Quercus Alba, who will take great pride in shooting down Edgeworth's logical arguments by abusing his extraterritorial rights. This turns into an annoying struggle to find any way to convict him.
• Meaningful Name: Quercus Alba in the Japanese version, where his name is Carnage Onred.
• Memory Trigger: In Case 4 of the second game, Kay Faraday recovers from her amnesiac state when Edgeworth bestows her father's Promise Notebook to her.
• Mexican Standoff: The final confrontation with Calisto Yew.
• Mirror Character: Like in case 3-5, Edgeworth's inner monologue is surprisingly similar to Wright's.
• The Mole: Calisto Yew/Shih-na to not only Interpol but to the Yatagarasu.
• Mood Whiplash: Case 4, From Kay Faraday standing up for Gumshoe to "I'm...not...gonna...cryyyyyyyyyyy!" to Kay blowing her nose on Edgeworth's cravat.
  • Earlier on, Kay stands up for Gumshoe, comically trying to pick a fight with Edgeworth, until he pacifies her with a Swiss roll. Then she says that she was saving it for her father. At that exact moment everyone in the room remembers that she's the daughter of the victim.
• Morton's Fork: After the killer of Case 5 is finally defeated, Edgeworth smugly asks whether said killer would like to first be tried in the US's / Japan's courts or Allebahst's, not that it matters because "either way, it's game over for you."
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The Big Bad is also an extremely unsubtle example of this. Quercus Alba... or his Japanese name: Carnage Onred?
• Navel-Deep Neckline: Cammy Meele, who's missing an entire panel from her nurse uniform, and exposes both cleavage and stomach. Funny enough, she also wears her prisoner uniform in the same way.
• Nerves of Steel: Of all the reactions Edgeworth could have had to the armed robber that just killed someone in his office, he goes with "stoic defiance" without budging an inch.
• Never Speak Ill of the Dead: Badd had to yell at Manfred von Karma for criticizing Byrne Faraday right after his death.
• Never Trust a Trailer: The official trailer showed several scenes of Kay Faraday assisting with the investigation of the second case. The player doesn't meet Kay until the beginning of case 3.
• Noodle Incident: It's not made clear exactly why Cohdopia was split into two countries. The only thing known is that it happened at some point after the KG-8 incident.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: Subverted. The hardest part of pursuing the main villain is a government-sanctioned reason up until Shi-Long Lang and Interpol manage to convince his home country to remove that protection.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome:
  • In the finale, having a wounded leg doesn't stop Lang from contacting the Allebahstian imperial household, informing them of Alba's crimes so they fire him, and returning to the embassy with his agents to prevent Alba from retreating into his office.
  • Quercus Alba's trial. We don't see it (because it would just be a rehash of everything that's gone before), but several supporting characters show up just to watch Edgeworth tear the defendant a new one, and he doesn't disappoint.
• Ominous Pipe Organ: There's a bit of pipe organ in Quercus Alba's leitmotif just before it loops.
• Only a Flesh Wound: Lang gets shot in the leg partway through Case 5, but he apparently just walks it off.
• Passing the Torch/Take Up My Sword: Kay Faraday does this. She finds her father's diary and believes him to be the Yatagarasu, taking on the title and mission of Stealing Truth for herself. She's...not quite as effective, though at the end of the game, she's got new resolve to gather allies and do it like he did.
• Persecuting Prosecutor: We have Jacques Portsman, who is the killer in the first case and also happens to be a member of the Big Bad's crime syndicate. According to Gumshoe, he's been suspected of tampering with evidence for some time.
• Pet the Dog: Lang quite literally gets one of these moments when Missile shows up. It's plausible he's partial to canines, considering his wolf motif.
• Phantom Thief: The first Yatagarasu. The second is a Highly-Visible Ninja.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: The Yatagarasu's mantra is to "steal the truth", which for the original Yatagarasu meant actually stealing as a means to blow the whistle on corruption. Meanwhile, the new Yatagarasu, Kay Faraday, while constantly calling herself a Great Thief, apparently interprets "steal the truth" a little more literally and never actually steals anything beyond abstract concepts like character focus and lines. This becomes Hilarious in Hindsight when you realise Phoenix Wright's supposedly non-thief sidekick Maya regularly expressed an interest in "acquiring" items from crime scenes, whereas Kay does not.
• Precision F-Strike: In a series where swearing is rare, Lang beautifully delivers one to the villain of the last episode.
  Lang: Quercus Alba! You BASTARD!
• Real Men Wear Pink: In addition to the title character's berry-red suit, Detective Badd has a pink lollipop.
• Revealing Cover-Up: In "Turnabout Ablaze", Shih-na and Alba use a black cloth to cover-up the fact that they were switching statues between the embassies, giving off the impression that the Yatagarasu was flying in the air (which is ironic, considering the Yatagarasu ended up besting them in the end).
• The Reveal: Shih-na's Laughing Mad moment.
• Rewatch Bonus: When Shih-na says "It was all I could do to hold my laughter in," towards the end of "The Kidnapped Turnabout". She really means that...
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: In "Turnabout Reminiscence," Edgeworth solves the mystery of Byrne Faraday's death by naming Calisto Yew as the real Yatagarasu, and thus the murderer. He's right that she's the real Yatagarasu, but he's wrong in assuming that Faraday wasn't — three persons were the original Yatagarasu.
• Say My Name: When he's finally defeated, Quercus Alba yells Edgeworth's name so forcefully that he can't even complete the word before he goes into full-on screaming.
• Schizo Tech: It is a bit odd to see a flat-screen television in the courthouse defendant lobbies hooked up to VCR players, though in fairness it is there for security tapes and many places still use old-school tapes for security.
  • This manages to trip over itself in the context of the larger Ace Attorney franchise. Despite "the present day" of this era of the series referring to the years between 2016 and 2019, the technology in use is reckoned to the early 2000s at best^note As this is the time period the original trilogy was released on Game Boy Advance, given the standards of cell phones carried by the characters or the lack of flat-panel PC monitors. But the aforementioned flat-screen TV not only looks out of place among these dated technologies but appears during a case set five years before "the present day", which makes its presence even more of an anomaly than it already is.
• Shaped Like Itself: A certain witness from case 5:
  Dumbass: My claim is a claim claiming my claim!
• Shout-Out:
  • The painting hanging in the airplane stairway is a reference to Napoleon Crossing the Alps by Jacques-Louis David.
  • Edgeworth references Clue towards the end of Turnabout Kidnapped:
    Edgeworth: Lance Amano! I propose that you killed Mr. Deacon with the revolver in the haunted house!
  • Lang gets an awesomely fitting one near the end: "Your diplomatic immunity (dramatic point) has just been revoked!"
  • Present the knife to Calisto Yew in Case 4, and after a fit of laughter, she'll ask Edgeworth, "Why so serious?"
  • Kay at one point mixes up a baby mobile with a ceiling fan. When Edgeworth says she's confused the two she replies: "No! They spin those babies right round! Like a record!", referencing the band Dead or Alive.
  • Quercus Alba blurts out the *And I would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for those meddling prosecutors!* line after being proven guilty.
• Sleepy Enemy: Subverted. Cammy Meele is a flight attendant who is seemingly highly prone to falling asleep randomly. In reality, her sleepyheadedness is a façade to hide her role as an agent in the smuggling ring who murdered an Interpol agent who was investigating the ring.
• Snot Bubble: Cammy Meele. She actually invokes it with a bubble pipe!
• Soundtrack Dissonance: While Calisto Yew's theme seems like the appropriate track to be played after Shih-na's Reveal, the upbeat theme doesn't mesh well with the fact that she was Laughing Mad not even a second ago.
• Soundtrack Lullaby: Cammy Melee is a witness who constantly falls asleep. Naturally her theme is half asleep itself.
• Staring Contest: The fourth case reveals that Edgeworth once won a glaring contest against his own reflection. Somehow.
• Stealth Pun: The Yatagarasu's Key is an object from the Codophian Embassy stolen by the Yatagarasu. The national symbol of Codophia is a butterfly and butterfly symbols emblazon the handle of the artifact. The secret of the key is the fact it has two ends, the other of which can be used as a knife. It changes form by the handles swinging around to cover the currently exposed side, hence it is a butterfly knife.
• Suddenly Shouting: Lampshaded.
  Edgeworth: OBJECTION! Ms. Teneiro!
  Teneiro: Wh-Why are you shouting all of a sudden?!
  Edgeworth: (Argh! Force of habit!)
• Superdickery: The opening cutscene of Turnabout Ablaze makes it seem like Kay caused the titular fire, or at least that Edgeworth suspects her of it. In the actual game, she didn't do it and Edgeworth is actually worried she was caught in the blaze.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Edgeworth is given two pieces of evidence, a card and a video, proving that Manny Coachen was ordered by someone to kill Cece Yew. However, the card was evidence concealed during a case years ago and the tape was evidence part of another investigation that stolen from the police, which makes both illegal in the court of law. Despite this however, they can still be used outside the courtroom. With no other options, Edgeworth decided to try and see if the evidence somehow proves that Amabasador Alba is leader of the smuggling ring. Upon further examination, the tape shows that Alba was potentially the one who ordered the hit on Cece, which allows Edgeworth and co. to press Alba.
  • There's one on Diplomatic Impunity. Yes, it's true that ambassadors have certain rights that make it a pain in the ass to convict them, but it's also true that most nations really don't like their ambassadors to be outright criminals. Lang is able to get Alba's diplomatic immunity revoked by taking the aforementioned evidence (which is illegal in court, but the court system doesn't choose ambassadors) to the Alhbastian government, thus proving that their diplomat is guilty of smuggling and ordering someone killed. The government naturally fires Alba rather than risk a diplomatic incident with Japan/the United States.
• The Syndicate: The international smuggling ring that Interpol is investigating. Through the course of the game (3 days), Edgeworth proves that two of this ring's members committed murders, and finally takes down the ringleader (the Big Bad of the game).
• Take That!:
  Edgeworth: You know I've seen it occur a lot recently, and it's been bothering me greatly... but why does nobody know how to properly capitalize and space nouns anymore!?
• Tap on the Head: Edgeworth takes a solid hit by the Proto Badger/Lance in the third case, leaving him out of it long enough for his assailant to move him halfway across an amusement park. He's a little woozy when he comes to, but he's perfectly fine otherwise.
  • Edgeworth isn't unconscious the whole time, as he briefly wakes up while being transported to the storage room. He passes back out shortly, which can be attributed to claustrophobia resulting from the DL-6 incident. This is when Edgeworth is being transported in the Badgermobile, and he can overhear the heavy rainstorm, as well as snippets of Lance talking to Lauren remotely, telling her that Colin has betrayed the group and to meet at the hideout (presumably so he can give her the prop gun and stage the fake murder).
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Discussed as it is applied to the Pink Badger, the Blue Badger's Distaff Counterpart.
  Edgeworth: I suppose this is the Pink Badger? But since it has the same design, doesn't it seem forced to call this one a female?
  Kay: You think so? I mean, just look at how long her eyelashes are!
  Edgeworth: That's the only difference.
  Kay: And the fact that she's pink.
  Edgeworth: Yes, and?
  Kay: And her lips are red! See, lipstick!
  Edgeworth: (What? She has nothing to say about the giant pink ribbon, or is that too obvious?)
• That One Case: The KG-8 incident, the arc case of the game.
• Unnecessarily Large Interior: Edgeworth notes that the plane in case 2 is a special model. That's definitely true—it has the passenger level, a lounge below that reached by staircase (both very spacious), and an elevator down to a cargo hold which is two stories in height. The staircase is high enough that a man can die if he's pushed from the railing. It's hard to imagine how such a gargantuan flying machine can even leave the ground, even before you start packing it with twenty-foot stone statues.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: At one point in case 5, you can present evidence to Larry. Anything that doesn't result in a specific reaction from him leads to a conversation in which Franziska whips him until he's knocked out, while Edgeworth approves of it due to Larry's sheer unhelpfulness. Like with any other "I have no specific thoughts on this evidence" dialogue, you can repeat this as much as you want.
• Wham Shot: Things have already taken an interesting turn in Turnabout Ablaze, when evidence comes up that (seemingly) points to Shih-na being the one who murdered Manny Coachen. However, the real twist comes when when, upon being confronted about said evidence, Shih-na suddenly starts letting out a very familiar laugh from Turnabout Reminiscence.
• What Would X Do?: Edgeworth does this twice. Although the "X" is never named, Edgeworth is obviously referring to Phoenix.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Edgeworth fears earthquakes so profoundly that a bad spot of turbulence on an airplane triggers his phobia. He passes out and lies unconscious for a full ten minutes.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: Quercus Alba, who manages to keep going the lion's share of an entire chapter after having his Diplomatic Impunity revoked.
• You Keep Using That Word: At one point, Prosecutor Portsman claims that there is a "mountain of evidence" pointing away from him. If you press him on this point, however, it turns out his "mountain of evidence" isn't really evidence at all; simply a claim regarding his supposed lack of motive. Edgeworth hangs a lampshade on this:
  Edgeworth: ...Might I recommend that you review what the word "evidence" means.
• You Meddling Kids: Alba says this word-for-word at the end.
• You Shouldn't Know This Already: If you try to present the horse pendant to Lauren in Case 3, Edgeworth and Kay will quickly decide not to because she would go into one of her flights of fancy. And also because she would recognize it as a match for her own wing pendant, and the game needs that to stay hidden until the reveal in the next segments.

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