YMMV / Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Case 5: Turnabout Substitution

• Complete Monster: The Mysterious Bust Killer, Apollo's partner Rhea Wits, murdered a dozen people, including her brother. Wits tricked the innocent Robert Erlenmeyer into believing he was responsible for the murders, and made him confess. After Erlenmeyer's escape, Wits planned to kill him and hide his body so the police would be left searching for a dead man, leaving Wits free to kill again. After the judge witnessed Wits trying to bury Erlenmeyer alive in a cemetery, Wits decided to just kill the judge and frame Erlenmeyer for his murder as well. After being accused by Apollo of being the true killer, Wits taunted him and implied that Apollo would be the next target. When finally revealed, Wits said that at least she made better use of her life than the victims did of theirs.
• Harsher in Hindsight: EVERYTHING about Rhea Wits is harder to think about/watch again the second time, because everything about her, from her Plucky Girl personality through her cutesy appearance to her romantic interest in "Polly" is a big fib. A sham. At her core, Rhea is a Straw Nihilist Serial Killer who cares about no one but herself, which makes it painful to go through the game again, knowing she's just stringing you along, ready to stab you in the back the moment she's done with you.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: On the first trial, your client is Judge Chambers. Juniper Woods, one of the clients of Dual Destinies, is training to be a judge. She also is a better match for Apollo than Rhea Wits.
• Magnificent Bastard: Paul Strings, the Chief Justice, is a shrewd, cunning figure with a mind for philosophy and a Self-Made Man par excellence. In the past, Strings rose to prominence in the legal system by taking part in a conspiracy to catch the Mysterious Bust Killer, forging a psychological profile of the defendant, Robert Erlenmeyer, in exchange for power. Secretly believing in Erlenmeyer's innocence, Strings leaks the profile to Erlenmeyer's defense attorney, sparing him the death penalty. Strings kicks off the events of the game by faking Erlenmeyer's death and framing the corrupt Judge Chambers for his "murder". This elaborate prison break not only frees Erlenmeyer from the insane asylum, but also stops Chambers from making any more unfair rulings and allows him to install his more upstanding son in Chambers's place. When Strings's plot is unravelled, he willingly admits defeat, fully convinced that he did what needed to be done. At the climax, Strings leverages his position while still in prison to get a search warrant for the real Mysterious Bust Killer, allowing Apollo Justice to conclusively reveal the truth of the case and clear Erlenmeyer's name once and for all.
• Moral Event Horizon: Killing twelve people? Murdering your own brother? Convincing a delusional man that he's a Serial Killer, so you can get away with it all? Becoming friends with the man whose brother you murdered, and then driving him over with his own car for seeing too much? For the Mysterious Bust Killer, Rhea Wits, when they crossed the horizon is not the question; figuring out how many times they plan on doing so is.
• Nightmare Fuel: The ending shot of Rhea standing in a cell, her hair, the flower in said hair, and her clothes all in tatters, glaring at a (photoshopped?) picture of Apollo and herself standing together. The former is aptly called "scarhea" in the game's files. The fact that the music for the scene keeps rolling after the credits are done doesn't help.
• One-Scene Wonder: Vivian Snow.
• Strangled by the Red String: Subverted. The relationship between Apollo and Rhea seems to progress unnaturally quickly. However, it eventually turns out that it was simply a ploy on Rhea's part to get inside information on the case. Lampshaded when Apollo, after learning that Rhea is the serial killer, curses himself for trusting her so easily when they only met days ago.
• Take That, Scrappy!: Most of the Mysterious Bust Killer's victims from the backstory who aren't relevant to the case are OCs with punny names. The exception is Benjamin Woodman, the ventriloquist from Turnabout Big Top, one of the least popular cases of the series.
• The Woobie:
  • Arguably Robert Erlenmeyer. He blames himself for the death of his cat as a child, and gets framed for murder.
  • Apollo Justice is more of an Iron Woobie but still... finding out that the Judge he's worked with on cases before is dead, and then discovering that his recent assistant/Love Interest is not only his killer, but the Big Bad of the whole case, clearly is a lot to take.