Favorite Ace Attorney level/case

[Misterian]

For those of us that played the Ace Attorney games. what would you say was your favorite level?

For me, I think I'm torn between Turnabout Academy from Dual Destinies or Turnabout Reminiscence from Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth.

With Turnabout Academy, I oddly enough found it to be one of the easiest cases I've figured out, I already had a good idea who the true culprit was from the get-go and I turned out to be right at the end, the tricky part was figuring out how the actual killer did it, but thanks to Athena, Apollo, and the clues I gathered, I was able to gradually piece the rest together as the case went on.

With Turnabout Reminiscence, I like it mostly because of it how it shows Edgeworth back in his early days as a prosecutor, we get to see how he first met Gumshoe, we get to cross-examine the Judge, and seeing a really young Kay Faraday was just adorable!

(just as a side note, those two were cases I figured out completely on my own, it was by the time I finished the Phoenix Wright trilogy and got to Investigations 1 and Apollo Justice where I got to the point that I could solve Ace Attorney cases with little to no help from an online walkthrough.)

Anyway, what was your favorite Ace Attorney Case?

 

[Ronald Nand]

Nice to see another Ace Attorney fan on the forum.

Anyway if we're including all the cases from the games I'd pick 2-4, Farewell My Turnabout, I loved how they turned the players expectations completely on its head (if you played the case you know what I'm talking about), making the final trial both incredibly unique and tense, furthermore it got into the philosophy of what it means to be a defense attorney and prosecutor, had an excellent and extremely hate-able villain, and had excellent characters too. If it wasn't for the lack of connecting theme and that circus case, this case could easily have made JFA the best game in the series.

If we exclude the final cases of each game (they always steal the show), there's so many good ones its hard to pick out one that stands above the pack, I'm quite fond of Turnabout Airlines and Turnabout Reminiscence, I love seeing Franziska and Edgeworth work together, I also like The Stolen Turnabout, it managed to balance the silliness and seriousness of the serious rather well, and Reunion and Turnabout, I enjoyed the development of the Fey Clan story and the found the villian a bit sympathetic too.

 

[Uncle Comrade]

Anyway if we're including all the cases from the games I'd pick 2-4, Farewell My Turnabout, I loved how they turned the players expectations completely on its head (if you played the case you know what I'm talking about), making the final trial both incredibly unique and tense, furthermore it got into the philosophy of what it means to be a defense attorney and prosecutor, had an excellent and extremely hate-able villain, and had excellent characters too. If it wasn't for the lack of connecting theme and that circus case, this case could easily have made JFA the best game in the series.

Definitely one of the best (if not the best) cases in the series. I still remember being completely swept up in it when I played it the first time.

Another favourite of mine was 3-2, The Stolen Turnabout. I loved the characters, and the idea of confessing to one crime as an alibi for another. Plus it was the case that first introduced us to the coolest prosecutor around, Godot.

 

[GabeZhul]

My second favourite is 1-5. The longest case in the series I believe, has a really cool cast, an awesome villain, the best fake out moments in the series, and is all around just a really good, self contained story. Plus, the gimmicks make the investigation parts more interesting.

1-5 is a bit of a black sheep among all the cases because it was an after-the-fact addition for the DS release. It was nice, and some of the gimmicks returned later in the series, but for me it always felt out of place, like reading a book-series out of order.

As for my favorite, I am going to pick a controversial one: The first case of Apollo Justice. It introduced the mystery behind Phoenix's dismissal, added a few new gameplay gimmicks and most importantly it introduced a cool, collected, non-butt-monkey Phoenix with the promise of him becoming a cool mentor figure for the next generation... then the rest of the game happened, and it managed to botch every single one of those premises... but hey, the hope was nice while it lasted!

 

[xaszatm]

Ah sweet, my favorite case is 2-4. It's perhaps the best stand-alone case in the series, plus it's great to rub it in the bad guy's face at the end.

 

[ChaoGuy2006]

From Dual Destinies I really liked the case in the Japanese Village.

And from the old games, Will Power's first case, and the case with Shelly De Killer in the second (?) game was really cool!

 

[The Wykydtron]

Farewell, My Turnabout is the obvious choice, it's the biggest character defining case for Phoenix and addresses his undefeated attorney career really damn well.

The final case of T&T is my favourite though. Godot elevated that game to such a high level as the prosecutor, he's probably the best one in the series.

I didn't really like Turnabout Academy though, if you've played Persona 4 you will immediately notice that they're going full Persona 4 homage for the entire case. I spent a while thinking if it was just my imagination but then Athena said the words "reach out to the truth" and that settles it.

I should have liked it since Persona 4 is still perfection incarnate but Ace Attorney... You aren't Persona 4. You don't need to imitate Persona 4 at all. It reminds me of Duke Nukem Forever in a way, forever paying homage/poking fun at other games that are vastly, vastly superior to it so it just makes you want to drop DNF and play one of the good FPS games instead.

Turnabout Academy is comparing itself to Persona 4 the entire case and it doesn't make itself look good. It has like 5 hours to set up friendships and characters *and* the ongoing mystery while also developing Athena as a character. Persona 4 had 50+ hours to do that, you cannot compare no matter how good you are.

 

[Steve Waltz]

It?s OBVIOUSLY 1-4: Turnabout Goodbyes. I mean, dude! You cross examine a parrot! I was literally rolling on my bed laughing with tears in my eyes. Granted, I was playing it lying on my bed, but it fucking got me rolling. I?ll never forget pressing the parrot, man. ?OBJECTION! Don?t think you can get out of this by just squawking! TALK! NOW!? It was solid-fucking-gold, man. Plus, it has one of my favorite characters: Lotta Hart. ?Hey! I said NO SNEEZIN?!"

 

[Kotaro]

Um... Can I say "all of them?" Because almost every case in the series has at least one moment in it that makes me go "This is great!"
Though if I absolutely HAD to pick one, I would have to agree with most of the people here and say 2-4.

 

[DarkRawen]

Well, 2-4 has already been mentioned by a lot of people (although, I adore the bad guy in that one), so I'll add the Dual Destinies final ones, 4 and 5 (they're basically one level/case, like, come on). I just liked seeing everything come together, even if I did manage to guess the big spoiler a bit before it was revealed. Still, definitely my faves.

And, since someone said that the last cases of each game tend to steal the show, I'll add a non-final game case, which is the past case where you play as Mia in her first case (think it's 3-4 or something). It's just rather tragic, and I think it has one of the best themes, but it also ties into a lot of other people's backstories.

 

[Vlado]

1-4 because Von Karma is an awesome villain. The last cases are unsurprisingly the most epic ones. 2-4 and 3-5 are also great.

 

[Ima Lemming]

Turnabout Goodbyes from the first game. We get to see Edgeworth is a lot more respectable than the smug bastard he came off as in the second and third chapters, Von Karma is both a terrifying villain and the most satisfying in the first four games to finally skewer, and just being the first of those sickeningly happy Phoenix Wright endings makes it special.

And you get to cross examine a parrot.

(Ah dang, Steve Waltz up there already made the parrot observation.)