Case 4-4: Turnabout Succession

This is it, the last case in Apollo Justice and the Ace Attorney series (so far) and the case that links the end of Phoenix Wright’s career with the start of Apollo’s.

First off, with the amount of flashback content in this case, it can turn out to be a VERY long case.  The progression of this case is very different from others.

Turnabout Succession also alters the game’s judicial system a bit, with the “Jurist System.”  This doesn’t necessarily change the outcome too much but it also ties into the different progression.

After the first day of the trial is done, the flashback begins, and you go back to Phoenix’s final trial seven years ago.  Everything looks the same, old backgrounds, old courtroom, except that maybe the sprites for Klavier, Zak, and Valant are all out of place. (With new DS sprites on GBA-ish backgrounds.)  The case plays through like any other as it goes through the case that brought Wright to ruin, and when that is over, the game has another twist for you.

After this case, you’re pretty much playing as one of the jurists, who is playing through a story as Phoenix.  This is the MASON system, the system developed as part of the Jurist System, and in this case you have to go through different places in both the post-Trials and Tribulations era and the Apollo Justice era to find out what links the two cases together.  Through all of this, you’re playing as Phoenix Wright through normal investigation chapters.  That being said, this reintroduces something that’s been in previous games but not in Apollo Justice as of yet: The psyche-lock.

That being said, the second day of the trial is probably one of the shortest trial days since Case 1-1, and at the end of it provides you with a bit of a twist:  The fate of your client is in your hands.  As a jurist (who is another important character in this game) you get to choose the verdict.  I know a lot of people that saw this as a turn-off, though.  Obviously, though, picking guilty is going to give you the “bad ending” wheras choosing not guilty gives you the proper one.

And for now, that ends the story of Apollo Justice, and finally completes the series to date for the North American market.  Gyakuten Saiban 5 is currently in development but so far there’s no news on how far they’ve gotten, and even still once it’s out in Japan it will most likely be a while before it reaches other places.

~ by Moofey on March 5, 2008.