Saturday, 23 April 2016

Ace Attorney Episode 4 Review

Wright vs. White
(This review contains spoilers!)

So we’ve reached episode 4, concluding the second case out of the four in the first game. Part of me feels like they showrunners are rushing a little too fast through the cases, but since I just now learned that the second half of the show will be comprised with cases from the second game (which I am mostly unfamiliar with), I guess the pacing is all right.

We rejoin Phoenix and Maya, after Phoenix has been framed for the murder of Mia Fey. The true (and completely obvious) killer Mr. White is on the stand, being completely and insufferably annoying whenever he’s on screen.

So how does the final episode of this arc do? Well, it feels more like an uphill climb than anything. The first half of the episode is nothing but what I assume to be tension building, having Edgeworth and White counter all of Phoenix’s arguments and contradictions. It doesn’t exactly make for entertainment, especially when you know how everything plays out.

Then, in a turn of events, Maya pulls out as many conveniences out of her bag of tricks as possible. Hey, remember she’s a supposed ghost medium? She can summon her sister, who has all the evidence Phoenix needs to win the trial! How lucky is that?

But still, even with how convenient everything turns out to be, watching Phoenix do what he does best, presenting the evidence and catching the killer with a loud “Objection!” is always a blast, especially with the anime’s improved visual style.

Speaking of visuals, what was with those weird polygonal CGI models on the crowd? We didn’t see them for more than a few seconds, so why bother going through the effort to render them in CG? Why not just paint them into the background or something? It’s not a problem with the episode, just something I found bizarre.

Anyways, all in all a decent episode for Ace Attorney. Now that we’re getting into the later, better cases from the first game hopefully things can finally start picking up.

FINAL SCORE
6/10

Okay

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