Solfadore ranks all 127 Ace Attorney Characters

In honour of Kanz and Omega's playthrough of the AA series, I decided I might as well rank the series' best and worst characters, since case rankings are done all the time and since it's been a long time since we've had a comprehensive ranking of AA characters.

I don't think my taste in characters is way out there, so there shouldn't be a lot of surprises as we get near the top, but then again, there might be two or three controversial rankings. As a rule of thumb, I tend to like well-executed and fascinating villains more than I like heroes, so expect to see a few of these alongside the top. That said, a lot of Ace Attorney's good guys are really, really well-done, while a good bunch of villains (save for the few great ones) tend to fall flat on their face.

Please note that this ranking will only include characters featured in games up to and including Ace Attorney Investigations. Since I haven't played AAI2 or Dual Destinies yet, I will not bother ranking characters featured in these games.

One other thing: I'll be cheating a bit with my rankings and will consider PW1-PW3 Phoenix as one character, and AJ Hobonix as another. Why do I do this? Because contrary to even, say, Ema Skye, Nick's character in PW1-3 and AJ is so radically different that I almost feel like they designed the 'Hobo character' first, and then decided to name him Phoenix Wright due to executive pressures. So yeah, in order not to be unfair to Shu Takumi's protagonist, I'll divide up the entries.

Tier Eleven: The Dreaded Turnabout

Yes, I made a tier just for a single character. I'm sorry, but I just hate that person too much. Please note that that person is ranked lower than all the victims. Make of that what you will.

127. Wendy Oldbag

Cases: 1-3 (Witness), 2-4 (Witness), E-3 (Witness), E-5 (Witness)

Let me get things straight: Oldbag was fine in 1-3. The dev team was obviously aiming for an annoying first witness who let her anti-Powers/pro-Hammer bias get the better of her common sense; that’s par for the course as far as PW witnesses go.

The awful, awful thing about her character is how they just keep recycling it in nearly every single game. She was a huuuge pain in the ass in 2-4, since on top of being her usual annoying, uncooperative self, she also happened to be the toughest witness in the game, IMO – and for bad reasons, with really unclear contradictions and the like. The rest of the case is amazing, but she just brings it down. Oldbag has NO business being in a final case.

You’d figure since she hates Phoenix, she’d be a lot more fun around Edgeworth or something (especially since she has that huge crush on him), and lo and behold: here comes AAI, in which she's just as bad as usual, and where she not only appears once, but twice! First in the terrible E-3 case, where she brings nothing of value, and then – since apparently they haven’t learn their lesson from 2-4 – in yet another final case… and in the showdown against the Big Bad, too. Even if they have some sort of Oldbag quota to fill, couldn't they at least have her be the first witness and get out or something?

Save for Edgeworth in 2-4 and 3-5 as a whole, I feel like the AA series hasn’t handled cameos well at all, and Oldbag is most definitely the worst offender. Can’t we get back, like, Morgan, who’s actually interesting and could be delved upon a bit more? Or, hell, the whole cast?

I hate Oldbag.

Tier Ten: Turnabout Victims

Get ready for a bit of boredom, but we'll have to trudge through this sooner or later anyway, so might as well get this done with and get to the good, meaty characters (or the ones we love to hate).

126. Ka-Shi Nou

Case: E-5 (Victim)

Thoroughly uninteresting guy whom we still know nothing about even after finishing the case. The double-murder setup in both embassies was cool, but where Coachen was an interesting victim, that guy definitely is not. It’s just such an anticlimax to go back to this murder after the whole Shih-Na/Yew stuff.

125. Dustin Prince

Case: 2-1 (Victim)

Nothing interesting about the case, nothing interesting about its victims. He’s a… policeman. Woohoo. Next.

124. Buddy Faith

Cases: E-1 (Victim), E-3 (Side Character)

Well, what can you expect from a guy murdered just because he walked in on the killer committing another crime? Nearly as bland as Prince, but at least he did something before dying, as opposed to just being… there.

123. Cindy Stone

Case: 1-1 (Victim)

The first victim! Yay! Just as bland as the others, but apparently, she did genuinely love Larry. From the top of my head, she’s probably the only character in the series to actually love the guy. That has to count for something.

122. Ini Miney

Case: 2-2 (Posthumous Character)

This is the one that died in the car crash. The twist alone would normally be enough to at least move her up a few spots up the list, but I find Mimi’s façade to be incredibly annoying, and since Mimi… mimicked her sister’s personality, I guess Ini’s to blame for this.

At least she had the good sense to die in a car crash, which is more than I can say for Oldbag (if it ever comes to that, I’m rooting for the car).

121. Cece Yew

Case: E-4 (Posthumous Character)

I have nothing. Can’t even recall if we knew anything about her aside from the fact that she was an important witness/defected from the smuggling ring. If it is the case, that has to be enough to put her above these other jokers.

120. Ami Fey

Cases: Various (Posthumous Character)

She has to be the least relevant character in the entire franchise. Well, I have nothing negative to say about her, at least, and I think it was stated somewhere that her lingering spirit might be why that urn keeps breaking again and again. Which means she’s responsible for that cute as hell Maya/Mia picture at the end of T&T.

119. Sean 'Bat' Dingling

Case: 2-3 (Quasi-Posthumous Character)

A blustering idiot, but his name is so hilariously bad that he ranks above Ami and her cohorts.

118. Akbey Hicks

Case: E-2 (Victim)

That guy looks like Kristoph. I remember being really pumped up for AAI, thinking Edgeworth’d meet a younger Kristoph, but alas, it was not to be. Plus the whole Interpol shtick is a pretty cool deal, though I expected him to put up a better fight than this.

117. Glen Elg

Case: 3-3 (Victim)

Hey! Look! Another terrible name!

116. Doug Swallow

Case: 3-1 (Victim)

That guy was one of the few that was on to Dahlia. Plus he acted like a bro by warning Phoenix about the spawn from hell that is Dollie. Sadly for him, he’s not compelling at all beyond this.

115. Kane Bullard

Case: 3-2 (Victim)

Dude was an *******, but as far as victims go, that’s a point in their favour. At least they have some character. Sadly, we barely even learn about Bullard aside from the fact that he blackmailed Atmey, and since we only ever learn of his existence after the first day of trial, well… he wasn’t going to rank very high.

114. Mack Rell

Case: E-4 (Victim)

These awful names…!

I don’t like that guy’s design for some reason. It just… stands out, I don’t know. That said, Rell was Yew’s accomplice, which makes him a bit less bland – and a lack of blandness is good in these rankings! Not much more to say beyond that, sadly.

113. Romein Letouse

Case: 4-3 (Victim)

Awful name streak currently set at 2. Letouse was chill and had a cool gun on one hand, but had that streak of terrible flashbacks on the other. 113 sounds about right.

S-Siren.

112. Bruce Goodman

Case: 1-5 (Victim)

He was a… good man. Stood up to Gant and everything. That takes some balls.

111. Pal Meraktis

Case: 4-2 (Victim)

Pal Meraktis. Mal Peraktis. Malpractice. Hah.

Bad pun aside, that dude is almost the real villain of 4-2, and that ‘killer nearly acted in self-defence’ is pretty much the only good thing 4-2 has going for it.

That, and he almost ran over the terrible train wreck that is Hobonix.

110. Deid Mann

Case: E-4 (Posthumous Character)

This right here. That *has* to be the single best name in AA history.

109. Neil Marshall

Case: 1-5 (Posthumous Character)

Neil looked alright and did manage to overpower a serial killer. Aside from that, not much to note about the guy.

108. Celeste Inpax

Case: 2-4 (Posthumous Character)

When you first see her appear in your Court Record, she’s shrouded in an aura of mystery. Her name as well reinforces the idea that she might be really, really important to the case. Turns out she ain’t.

107. Russell Berry

Case: 2-3 (Victim)

That guy was an idiot. “Oh, Acro may be planning to hurt my daughter in X days? Let’s not do anything for now and go meet him at that exact time/date, instead of, say, GO TALK TO HIM RIGHT AWAY.” Awful case aside, though, he seemed kind – and they had to pull the “wrong target” twist sooner or later.

106. Byrne Faraday

Case: E-4 (Victim)

I cannot for the life of me remember anything about the guy except that he was Kay’s father and one third of the Yatagarasu. That, and I don’t like his design that much (like Mack Rell, it just seems weird).

Tier Nine: Turnabout Vaguely Interesting Victims and Other Non-Entities

Nothing much to distinguish this tier from the last one, but I feel like these victims are slightly more interesting than the last batch.

104(T). Missile

Cases: Various (Item)

Aww. Missile is adorable. Not much to say about the guy, since he really is little more than an... item... as far as character importance goes, but he's adorably useless and makes for a more compelling character than a lot of the riff-raff we've seen thus far.

104(T). Shoe

Case: 2-4 (Item)

Let's be frank here: Shoe is a top-tier character and a fantastic villain. Great reveal, great breakdown, a ***** to cross-examine - all-around awesome. Problem is: if I rank him higher, I kinda spoil the whole "Shoe is the secret mastermind behind 2-4" shtick, and that just won't fly. Newbies to the series could get spoiled. And, well... Shoe would want it this way. Shoe's okay with 84. Because Shoe knows deep down that, in the end, he'll be Number One.

Long story short, I've always liked the "Shoe is evil" meme, though it wouldn't feel right to rank the cat any higher when the reason for its awesomeness doesn't derive from the game itself. Just like Zak is a jerk, but we'll get back to that later.

103. The Blue Badger

Cases: 1-5 (Item), E-3 (Item)

The wriggling piece of plywood is actually really funny in 1-5, eliciting great reactions from everybody involved. I might be alone in this, but its presence in 1-5's 2nd trial day and its unexpected resurgence in Ema's account of SL-9 is one of the very rare instances of mood whiplash/comic relief I've tolerated in high-tension, high-drama final cases.

102. Gregory Edgeworth

Case: 1-4 (Posthumous Character/Victim)

That Atticus Finch expy really did sound like an all-around inspiring/awesome guy, and he raised a damn fine son… that said, getting shot by Von Karma can only get you so far.

101. Turner Grey

Case: 2-2 (Victim)

Hey, look! Someone who’s actually alive! And human! And not Oldbag!

Grey’s way too fidgety for my tastes, and let’s face it, he was kind of an *******. BUT we did get to talk to him, at least. Glad he died, though.

100. Colin Devorae/Oliver Deacon

Case: E-3 (Victim)

As much as I hate E-3, Devorae was a pretty good victim. Looks like the bad guy at first (even if everyone who has played 3-2 knows the kidnapping is probably staged, meaning the culprit has to be Lance), but he did stand out for his daughter in the end.

99. Manny Coachen

Case: E-4 (Side Character), E-5 (Victim)

Coachen had potential – shame we didn’t get to interact with him a bit more. I like his sleazy/creepy design, plus he made for an interesting E-5 victim (as opposed to the bland pile of boredom that is Ka-Shi Nou).

98. Valerie Hawthorne

Case: 3-4 (Victim)

What I like about her:
- Has the ability to make you go “Oh ****” when you first see her name and realize that this case will herald Dollie’s return as the first recurring villain in the series. From her name alone. That’s pretty cool.
- She’s actually pretty rounded for a victim. A greedy douche at first who staged her sister’s death so they could make off with the diamond… but then feels guilty and tries to turn things around. I like that.

97. Jack Hammer

Case: 1-3 (Victim)

The fact that he was 1-3’s real villain is a very nice twist (because let’s face it, Dee only acted in self-defence and is almost blameless in all this, manslaughter aside, although she did blackmail him). That said, I have no idea how his plan of murdering Dee would have ever actually worked. “Ha! I have now just drugged Powers, leaving him without an alibi! The plan is perfect!” And you, Einstein? Where’s your alibi? And why the hell would Powers ever murder Dee?

96. Bruto Cadaverini

Case: 3-3 (Side Character)

Dude looked cool as hell – a damn shame we didn’t get to meet him. Still, he gets some props for utterly terrifying Tigre, although his position as head of the mob does help a lot.

Tier Eight: Turnabout Interesting Victims and Terrible Characters

Just to make things clear: the victims in this are all good characters and definitely in the victims' top tier. The actual characters, however, are either bland or terrible.

95. Wocky Kitaki

Case: 4-2 (Defendant)

Let’s face it, Wocky is utterly terrible. In a game filled with awful defendants, Mr. Haircut here just has to be the worst of them all. Stupid, non-cooperative, annoying gimmick – all-around terrible. I think the main problem here is that he wants to get convicted, yet lacks a real reason for it. Lana wanted a conviction to protect Ema (no doubt she saw that as a liberation as well). The fact that she constantly kept pushing for a guilty verdict, yet still held out to that one, mad hope of seeing the real murderer, explains why she didn’t fire Phoenix outright when he turned out to be way more competent than anticipated.

Wrighto himself in 3-1 didn’t want Dollie convicted, but still wanted to avoid a guilty verdict as well. That’s cool. Ron Delite in 3-2 has a damn good reason to gun for a guilty verdict. But Wocky? Just because he’s dying anyway, he absolutely wants to go down as a murderer. Because it’s cool. Screw that guy, seriously. There are many problems with 4-2, but I’d say the second-biggest one is its defendant. As for the worst flaw in 4-2…

94. Wesley Stickler

Case: 4-2 (Witness)

…that’d be panties politics, as embodied by Mr. Stickler right here. Just looking at him makes me think of horrible 4-2 Day One memories. He has a terrible gimmick; his testimony is nothing refreshing for the series, and well… the case really *is* that uninteresting, at least until late Day 2 where it gets slightly more bearable. He had potential, too, if you take away the panties and just have him be the usual obnoxious witness who never thinks they’re in the wrong and then surprisingly turn out to be correct in the end… but no, they had to raise the panties question again.

I hate that guy.

93. Mike Meekins

Cases: 1-5 (Witness), 4-4 (Side Character), E-3 (Defendant/Witness)

I think I hate that guy even more, but at least his character is objectively a bit better. He was fine in 1-5 (although by far its worst character), but of all the potential AA cameos, Meekins is the one they bring back for AJ? Seriously? Like (a) certain other character(s), Meekins reappears way too often for his own good. He’s incredibly shallow and just feels like a badly-done Gumshoe.

Plus, his megaphone is really grating on the ears.

92. Director Hotti/Director Hickfield

Cases: 2-2 (Side Character), 2-4 (Side Character), 4-2 (Side Character)

Yawn. Next. (Am I the only one who finds his crush on Trucy disturbing?)

91. Penny Nichols

Case: 1-3 (Side Character)

Yup. They could seriously take this character away from 1-3 entirely and not a single thing would be changed, just like…

90. Lisa Basil

Case: 3-3 (Side Character)

Why does she even exist? At least she has that amusing SPARDA line. Great job from the localization team! But yeah, just like Penny, I fail to see the point of her character. IMO, a character in a mystery should either be there because they’re the murderer, an accomplice, a witness or a red herring. Penny and Lisa are neither – they’re just empty space.

89. The Bellboy

Cases: 1-2 (Witness), 2-4 (Cameo), E-3 (Cameo)

Aww, who doesn’t love the Bellboy? I like how he keeps coming back for random cameos, too! (See, THIS is how you make a funny, non-intrusive cameo!) Everything about him is so… I don’t know, ambiguous, for lack of a better term? Either way, he’s weirdly likeable… but being the Bellboy can only get you so far.

88. Magnifi Gramarye

Case: 4-4 (Posthumous Character/Flashback Victim-Culprit)

The Supreme Jerk, second only to Zak himself. No, seriously, think about it: how could Valant ever have a shot (hehe) at winning the rights to Magnifi’s magic? If Zak goes first and shoots the clown, Zak gets it. If he shoots Magnifi himself, Valant gets nothing either. Dude only called Valant at the scene so he could be a fall guy when Magnifi inevitably suicides/gets killed by one of the two magicians. Magnifi Gramarye is a terrible person. No wonder he chose Zak.

I think a way to round this character a bit better would be to have him secretly believe that Valant was the one who shot Thalassa. Hell, maybe that’s what he thinks and this is why he’s such a **** towards the guy, but the writing team sure as hell didn’t spell it out or even hint it!

87. Robert Hammond

Case: 1-4 (Victim)

Okay, see, this guy was an ******* as well, but he at least raises compelling questions. Save for maybe one or two exceptions, we never really see an “evil” defence attorney, and the few we do see aren’t really evil in their attorneying. Kristoph, for instance, may have forged a piece to get back at Phoenix, but given his paranoia over that one bit of forgery, I doubt he did it regularly, if at all, or else he’d have clocked *quite a few* more people along the way.

Hammond, on the other hand, is a character that this series sorely lacks otherwise: a slimy defence attorney who’s ready to do anything just for a Not Guilty verdict. A guy like this would make for a fantastic antagonist in AAI/AAI2/etc., and would introduce compelling moral issues as well. So yeah, Hammond ranks as high more for what he represents than what he is, per se.

86. Joe Darke

Case: 1-5 (Posthumous Character)

Darke’s cool. I like how his face is framed in shadows – and how he’s simply just crazy. The man’s been dead for years, and yet you still feel uneasy whenever they bring him up. Nice change of pace, for once.

And yes, he does rank higher than the likes of Penny because he’s a more interesting character, even though you only learn about him from second-hand accounts.

85. Redd White

Case: 1-2 (Culprit)

Admittedly, it was a tough call between White and Wellington for the ‘worst culprit’ position, but in the end, I feel Redd hurts his case more badly than the other guy does (mainly because the other guy's case is already terrible), so he edges out a win.

The problem with White is that they built him up too much and gave him way too important a role for the kind of… threat he projects. He’s described as this incredibly threatening, uber-powerful blackmailer who controls everything and everyone… and then you meet him, and he just comes off as a pretentious cretin. That, plus he has a terrible breakdown – “Oh no, a dead person allegedly summoned via spirit channeling mumbo jumbo is about to provide the list of names everybody knows I’m blackmailing anyway. I CONFESS EVERYTHING”. He’s like the anti-King Madagascar in Pandemic II, where the slightest hint of a potential damaging information is enough to send him into a confessing frenzy.

Plus, the fact that you know straight away that he’s your guy takes a lot of the fun away. Sure, AA is often more about the howdunnit than the whodunnit, but it’s still fun as hell to suspect X or Y character and see your suspicions validated when they decide to stop playing games and start getting serious – would 2-4 be as great as it is if Engarde had been drinking bourbon/coloured grape juice right from the start?

84. Richard Wellington

Case: 2-1 (Culprit)

Yeah, that guy sucks. Not sure why I have him higher than Redd White or the others, but oh well. Why would clunking Phoenix on the head do anything? How can one expect the other to develop amnesia? How would that even help? WHY WOULD YOU EVEN TESTIFY, YOU TWO-FACED IDIOT? THEY GOT NOTHING ON YOU OTHERWISE! He’s like Frank Sahwit, but less endearing.

83. April May

Case: 1-2 (Accomplice)

The problem I have with April is less with her and more with the terrible case she appears in. She’s alright in it, although her seduction gimmick gets old pretty fast – and contrary to, say, Dahlia, I have a hard time seeing the court buy it (not that any real-life court would ever buy into Dahlia’s shenanigans, but Dollie’s antics are at least believable in the PW universe). Here, though, it’s too upfront to allow for reasonable suspension of believability – and that hurts her character quite badly, since that’s pretty much all she has.

82. Cody Hackins

Case: 1-3 (Witness)

I get what they were trying to do with this character (have a child witness that’d lie for a very ‘childish’ reason), and it does make for an interesting combo w/ Oldbag, allowing the series to spread its wings with two unreliable witnesses who don’t actually have anything to do with the murder.

That said, Cody is an annoying brat, and unlike Oldbag (1-3 Oldbag, that is. After that, she’s just a pain), there’s no particular fun in sticking it to the kid. It does make sense to have a child witness in a case like 1-3, though, and I fail to see a case where it’d be more relevant. It had to be done; luckily the two/three other child characters in the series are far, far more likeable and interesting.

81. Sal Manella

Case: 1-3 (Accomplice)

His 1337-speak got annoying really quickly, but I like that he’s pretty much AA’s first decoy villain (though you stop suspecting him to be the culprit as *soon* as you see Dee). Yeah, I don’t really have any more to say about him. He’s not terribly interesting and back in 1-3, the series was still defining itself.

80. Juan Corrida

Case: 2-4 (Victim)

Don’t be fooled by the low ranking: Juan is probably the most interesting victim, barring characters that had a chance to interact with Phoenix/Apollo at one point or another before punching out. I like how both he and Matt were jerks of epic proportions, and his whole “I’m dumping Celeste because Matt used to date her” shtick is both terribly saddening and strangely funny. As evil as Matt is, you never really feel bad for Juan. When you discover Celeste Inpax and her suicide, and realize that Juan dumping her was the last straw. You can think in the back of subconscious as the entire chapter goes on after the discovery that the guy had it coming. Both before and, hell, even AFTER Matt's hair flip scene. Which we WILL get to later.

Tier Seven: The Lame Turnabout

For characters that could've been good, but just turned out lame as hell.

79. Larry Butz

Cases: 1-1 (Defendant), 1-4 (Witness), 3-2 (Side Character), 3-5 (Witness), E-5 (Defendant/Witness)

Don’t get me wrong: he’s a pretty good character per se. He’s just re-used WAYYYYYY too often. Way too often.

- He’s the perfect 1-1 defendant. Incompetent, yet strangely sympathetic (perhaps because of said incompetence), well-meaning, kind if a bit naïve. The character is well-developed from the get-go.
- His presence in 1-4 is welcome as the one sure-fire ally you have sans Maya and maybe Gumshoe. Plus he bails you out in the trial, which makes for a good sidekick/underdog story.

But then he comes back in 3-2, just as useless as ever. And he’s somewhat important to the case. At least you don’t have to cross-examine him again, right? Sure. But then 3-5 comes around, and Larry is the one, single bad thing about an otherwise perfect case. Every other character is great and had to be there. Even Bikini’s a great witness! But this guy? Just some bad, bad comic relief that falls on its head and never wants to leave – which detracts like hell from the drama surrounding 3-5.

I don’t get the need to bring in comic relief that late into the game. We’ve already been through 3-4, guys! There’s no longer any space for comedy – we’re just here to finally put the past behind us, bring Dahlia to justice once and for all and resolve all those unfinished mysteries and questions that mired the trilogy (such as the Misty Fey enigma). We don’t need Larry.

I hate his E-5 shtick even more, where he comes back for absolutely no sound reason. At least with 3-5, you could somewhat understand the… idea behind him being there – since they’re bringing back almost every relevant character, might as well have this guy in there as well, no? I tend to disagree, but the reasoning is at least understandable. Here, it’s just stupid. “To bring back the Steel Samurai?” Why would they need to bring back the Steel Samurai in a diplomatic context? It’s dumb. I hate this guy almost as much as I hate Oldbag now, even though he was pretty solid in AA1.

So yeah, Larry gets ranked this low not for who he is (despite his annoying tendencies, he's still a fairly likeable and well-established character), but for what he represents: the writing team's tendency to always bring back unneeded characters for endless cameos.

78. Lauren Paups

Case: E-3 (Main Defendant)

Don’t like her, don’t like her personality. I like, however, that she was an accomplice in the kidnapping scheme. Don’t like that she’s doing it out of misplaced love for a douche like Lance. I just don’t buy that relationship (Lance is obviously a jerk, so I’m fine with him pretending, but she obviously doesn’t love him – or shouldn’t, given how she reacts to Edgey – yet still acts like she does.

77. Maggey Byrde

Case: 2-1 (Defendant), 3-3 (Defendant), E-1 (Main Defendant)

I’m a bit divided on this cameo. On the one hand, I do still feel like it was done a bit too much; on the other, it’s not really intrusive. Maggey’s first appearance in 2-1 is brief, since 2-1 is after all a short case; 3-3 gives us great moments with Gumshoe, and she doesn’t detract too much from E-1.

However, I do find her character to be a bit… lacking. The whole “I’m so unlucky, yet remain hopeful that things will turn out okay in the end” trope has been done countless times and has never been particularly interesting. Plus, how is she less lucky than, say, Maya, who got framed three goddamn times and survived two assassinations/kidnappings, in addition to losing her mother and sister? I fail to relate to Maggey here.

The one thing she brings to the table is a delightful relationship with Gumshoe, but here’s the thing: that’s all on Gumshoe. Gumshoe’s the adorable one here; Gumshoe’s the one you root for. Maggey just sits there. You could literally replace Maggey with Random Character #1043 and keep Gumshoe the same, and the relationship would be just as sweet, meaning I can’t credit her for it.

76. Regina Berry

Case: 2-3 (Side Character)

Lame character in a terrible case, and since she’s the most to blame for how 2-3 turned out (along with Acro), she’s the first to go. Why’s she higher than the others we’ve seen so far, though? Well, she’s still somewhat interesting – what with the sugary view of the world she has and her astounding naiveté. See, the problem I have with 2-3 is not that its characters are bad, but that they never click together. At all. They’re just there, all of ‘em living their lives apart from one another, and you never feel tension between them.

There’s tension between Oldbag and Powers, between Marshall/Starr and Gant, Morgan and Maya, Engarde and Andrews. Nothing of the like in 2-3. I blame it on the lack of a good strong character to pull everything together in a cohesive way. Usually, it’s the murderer, but given that pretty much everyone in the Berry Big Circus has a huge crush on Regina, it could very well have been her as well – and she dropped the ball big time.

Thus, as a standalone, she’s quite acceptable, the problem being the fact that the rest of the cast and her just don’t click together.

75. Benjamin 'Ben' Woodman & Trilo Quist

Case: 2-3 (Witness)

On the matter of characters that just don’t click together…

Not much to say about that one that I haven’t said in the Regina write-up. I guess that he’s (they?) there mainly to serve as a decoy culprit, and though I feel like the ventriloquist gimmick could’ve been really interesting, these guys just… don’t pull through. I’m mostly going to blame this on Ben being such an extreme doormat. Instead of making him all shy and fidgety and weak, they should have made him really kind. The contrast it’d have made with Trilo would’ve been really surprising, yet also interesting and eerie.

The way it is, though, I just feel like Ben/Trilo is wasted potential.

74. Machi Tobaye

Case: 4-3 (Defendant)

Another day, another terrible AJ defendant! That game really does have the worst defendants in the series, and it’s not even remotely close.

Same as Wocky, this guy almost seems to want to get that guilty verdict at first, although that at least is justified in the circumstances, since he barely speaks English and probably figured that being a child, he’d get life behind bars or something, instead of the automatic death penalty that is Borginia cocoon smuggling.

Even then, the character doesn’t quite click – for quite obvious reasons. I don’t know whose idea it was to have a character who doesn’t speak English – or at least isn’t supposed to – as a defendant, but they clearly didn’t think things through. We’re supposed to pull for this guy, remember? If you don’t want him to speak, at least give him hand gestures or something, I don’t know. His design is quite bad as well: the sunglasses, the lack of visible emotions, etc. It makes him really non-relatable, which is rather bad for a defendant.

At least the whole thing clicks at the end, so you can kind of forgive him for being so uncooperative, but it’s still annoying. On paper, this character makes sense, but in practice, he’s just too distant to rank any higher.

73. Lance Amano

Case: E-3 (Culprit)

Uuuuuugh I hate E-3 for no rational reason. I dislike every single one of its one-shot characters. I find the whole setup to be uninspiring. Some of the blame should therefore properly lay on Lance Amano’s shoulders, who comes as little more than a slightly smarter Richard Wellington (not a good sign for criminals, and especially bad the later into the game we are!).

The minute he comes in and turns out alright, you just know he’s behind all this, but since he’s just not compelling at all, you never really care about exposing him. He’s just a selfish brat whom I can’t even get to hate. I just dislike him a lot. Maybe because of his design (ugly fat rich kid has seldom been a compelling selling point). Maybe because the actual plot of the case is a tad lazy and predictable.

Either way, out of all the characters in the case, he should’ve been the one to carry it (or at least the case’s ‘main plot’ that is; instead, Lang and Kay have to carry the whole thing by themselves – which they thankfully did as best they could, but it’s still not enough to redeem this boring case in my eyes, and for that, I’ll blame Fatty here.

72. Winfred 'Big Wins' Kitaki

Case: 4-2 (Side Character)

A+ design (that apron + Vito Corleone combo is just too good). Lacklustre animations. Not enough screen time. The result? A lot of wasted potential, all of it amounting to a quite mediocre character.

Big Wins, I feel, could’ve been used much more efficiently as a red herring – the fact that he’s so impassive as well could’ve fooled players into thinking it’s all a façade. Sadly, the dev team just decided to have him hang there in the background being vaguely – but so vaguely – threatening. Take the ‘wonderful’ panties shenanigans and stuff them in a box somewhere, and instead, give more screentime to the Kitaki family, and you’ve got a recipe for a pretty solid case.

Alas, it was not to be, and as is, Big Wins deserves nothing more than the 72nd place.

71. Jean Armstrong

Case: 3-3 (Accomplice)

Looking at my list, I think we’re about to near a turning point; that is, I kinda like all the characters left, at least to some degree (barring one or two exceptions), even though the one or two elements I like in them may be grossly overshadowed by a massive heap of flaws. Armstrong’s a good example of that.

I like his ‘role’ in the case. At first, he seems like he’s simply the usual terrible/pointless 3rd case witness that everybody hates – and his design sure screams that… And yet, you start to figure out after a while that the Pink Chef is a lot more involved in the actual crime than one might’ve thought at first glance. Plus, his motivations (blackmail, which ensued because his oils are understandably not selling well at all) actually make a lot of sense. His stand in court is also surprisingly pleasant from such a flamboyant character – you’d expect a pile of awkwardness, but it’s actually quite serious and, while easy, provides a nice opportunity to think through the Court record and what one knows of the case.

On the flipside, his gimmick is terrible and he’s just so unpleasant to be around with that one can’t really *like* the character that much.

Also, the kleptomania thing was really unnecessary.

70. Angel Starr

Case: 1-5 (Witness)

Out of all the “serious” 1-5 characters (that is, out of all the 1-5 characters not named Mike Meekins), Angel Starr is by far my least favourite, which is just as well since you only see her for one day and then she’s pretty much gone.

That being said, she’s pretty much the reason why Day 1 – Investigation AND Trial – sucks so much. I find her gimmick to be terribly uninteresting and kinda tacked on her character just for the sake of giving her a gimmick.

What she *does* have on her side is a good dynamic with Lana – she makes a good first witness in that she did witness the somewhat-murder-but-not-really, but on the other hand can’t be trusted because of how much she despises Lana. That alone should have been enough to propel her to at least the top 60 or so – especially when she essentially turns out to have been correct with respect to what she saw – but on the other hand, her cross-examination is so awful and hard for all the wrong reasons that I really can’t do anything than rank her this low.

69. Victor Kudo

Case: 3-3 (Witness)

Heh. Dude’s an alright “first” witness and did lead to the cleverest contradiction in the game (stain on the wrong side of the cup, which took me way too long to spot, but was totally fair game). And while he has that ‘annoying old man’ vibe, it’s never played to the extreme – he’s fairly rounded out in a way Oldbag absolutely isn’t: just a lonely, bitter old man who has a hard time finding a place in today’s society. In the end, you almost feel bad for poor Victor Kudo.

Still won’t prevent me from ranking him this low.

68. Ernest Amano

Case: E-3 (Accomplice)

Oh wow, I have him this high? Guess I liked his kind demeanour and the fact that he was actually kinda smart to boot, even though he turned up to be somewhat of an *******. All in all, him turning up to be evil was still pretty much a surprise (though I really shouldn’t have been surprised, given his design), and I liked that he tried to ingratiate himself to Edgeworth, instead of bullying him around like most of the early AAI villains do. Speaking of early AAI villains…

67. Jacques Portsman

Case: E-1 (Culprit)

Ah, good ol’ Jacques Portsman! Quite alright for a starter villain, even though by the time AAI comes around, the formula’s gotten just a wee bit stale. And then again, when you think of the competition he’s up against (sans Wellington), you’ve got Sahwit, who’s pretty damn effective and memorable as the series’ first witness, and the two powerhouses, whom we’ll reach much later in these write-ups. When you think of it that way, Portsman starts to pale a bit.

So yeah, all in all, Portsman is good and strong, but I rank him this low because he feels like too much of a rehash of past characters, and given the (quite good) way the rest of AAI turned out to be, it’s… really not that hard to invent new quirks and personalities.

66. Maximillion Galactica

Case: 2-3 (Defendant)

I feel like this guy gets too much flak for the terrible case he’s in, while he’s, all in all, a pretty decent character. Nothing great, sure, but I like the fact that his fabulously confident façade crumbles really fast to give room to a strangely sympathetic defendant (in fact, if you think about it, he’s probably the most sympathetic JFA-exclusive defendant, which is not saying a lot given that the competition is Maggey and, er… yeah, but still).

His character works as a fabulous magician and as a normal, sympathetic human being as well. Not very compelling, sure, but enough for me to rank him at 66.

65. Cammy Meele

Case: E-2 (Culprit)

Another villain yaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

I love villains. I love ranking villains. Villains are fun characters. And when you think about it, Meele was a pretty clever one at that, able to think on the fly and hide her traces well enough that it’s not immediately obvious that she did the deed.

That being said – and just like Angel Starr – I feel like her gimmick is really tacked on just for the sake of having a façade and surprise players. Her ‘waking up’ sprites tended to be pretty annoying after a while, and all in all, that whole side of her personality really detracts from her character. At least her transition from sleepyhead to conniving murderer wasn’t too ridiculous, and when you think about it, she did hinder Edgeworth’s work a whole lot without seeming to do so.

I just can’t rank idiotic gimmicks any higher. I’m sorry, I’m really picky about my villains: when they’re well done, I adore them; when they’re not, they tend to scrape towards mediocrity.

64. Marvin Grossberg

Cases: 1-2 (Side Character), 1-4 (Side Character), 3-1 (Mentor)

Good ol’ Grossberg. The best decision they made involving this character was removing him entirely from 3-4, and it says a lot about his character that the reason I like him the most is that he’s not there to ruin the mood of such a great case.

When it comes to Grossberg, I’ve always found his… “evolution” between the first and third game to be strange and a bit weird. I mean… in the first game, he’s kind of a coward and kind of a good guy – while he’s not the most dramatic of characters, I always pegged him as a serious element in all the cases he’s featured in. Basically, he’s there to serve as a contrast and a balance to the likes of April May/Redd White and Lotta Hart/Uncle. And then comes PW3 and all he’s blabbering about is his haemorrhoids. Why? Why?

Didn’t like the fact as well that he’s the first to clue you in about Von Karma being behind 1-4. One minute, you’re trying to figure out the deal with Uncle and the next, he’s all “AND SUDDENLY VON KARMA.” Feels like a cop-out – and one of the reason I don’t like 1-4 all that much, compared to the fantastic 1-5/2-4/3-5. (Let us not speak of the 4-4 abomination.)

63. Plum Kitaki

Case: 4-2 (Side Character)

Oh hey, she’s still there. Easily one of the least grating characters in the trainwreck that is 4-2, and one who could’ve been afforded much more screentime. She’s strangely sympathetic, probably because she actually has believable motivations and worries (in AJ, you take all you can). One problem I felt she had, however, was that she just wasn’t threatening at all, even with the knife, and yet they play her as if she’s some terrifying donna – at least judging by Apollo’s reactions.

Which makes me think that 4-2 really wouldn’t have been so bad if:
a) They just removed the panties stuff.
b) Didn’t have Wocky as a defendant. Hell, you can even keep Wocky in the case and still have him scream “I did it! I stabbed that guy!”, but just have Stickler see someone else (e.g. Plum or Eldoon), who would serve as the defendant (therefore making Wocky innocent). And then by digging a bit more through the night’s events, you figure out that Wocky might be indirectly protecting his fiancee, and it all falls down from there.

Makes for a more compelling case than the PoS we got.

62. The Judge's Brother

Cases: 3-2 (Side Character), 3-4 (Judge), 3-5 (Judge)

Poor replacement for our good ol’ Judge, but since it was necessary to give us Miles Edgeworth: Ace Attorney in 3-5 (and paved the way for AAI), I won’t complain one bit. Once again, though, the Canadian thing was an unnecessary gimmick. I’d rather they have him as a hanging judge, or something – that way, you increase the tension (and since he only appears in the high-drama 3-4/3-5 – save for like ten seconds in 3-2 – that’d work really well).

Too bad aboot that, eh.

61. Polly

Cases: 1-4 (Witness)

Oh come on, who doesn’t love Polly? Love that she gave us a legendary moment in court with that whole “let’s cross-examine the parrot” (plus the hilarious/scary fact that Von Karma actually retrained her to prevent her from bringing up DL-6). And, contrary to Grossberg’s explanation re: Karma which came from nowhere and took a lot away from the case, her whole “Don’t forget DL-6” is plausible and cryptic enough to not force-feed you the solution, and yet leave you wanting for more.

Still, she’s a parrot. That can only get you so far.

60. Terry Fawles

Case: 3-4 (Defendant)

As great a case as 3-4 is, Fawles doesn’t make it. Well, he does, but it’s not his character that sells it, rather than what happens around his character. The fact that he kills himself is poignant and is the perfect introduction to 3-5, but it’s an event which happens to his character (even if he’s the instigator), rather than a fact about the character himself.

Deep down, he’s kind of a moron (and unlike Gumshoe, he’s not really an endearing moron), and I’m not even bringing up the pedovibes, which do take away a lot of the potential sympathy you might have had for him.

Sorry, I just don’t have a lot to say about the guy. Great case, mediocre character.

Tier Six: The Mediocre Turnabout

For characters that turned out to be just below average.

59. Misty Fey/Elise Deauxnim

Cases: 1-4 (Quasi-Posthumous Character), 3-5 (Victim)

This low? Yeah, this low. Misty’s cool and all, but let’s face it, she’s kind of an idiot.

‘Oh crap, my evil sister is planning to kill my darling (AND ONLY SURVIVING) daughter by using my sweet niece as a murder weapon? Let’s not watch over Pearl and not warn Phoenix over what might happen! Yup!’

I get why Godot did it. It’s stupid, but it’s absolutely in character – and he even acknowledged how stupid it was. How it was his own pride and desire to save the love of his life through a proxy that pushed him in that direction. So he gets a pass.

I get why Iris did it, kinda. She just wasn’t as involved. I still fault her for not noticing the OBVIOUS FLAWS in the plan, but hey, it’s a minor quirk. And you could perhaps push for the “subconsciously jealous of Maya” angle if you wanted to, although I don’t subscribe to that school of thought.

But Misty? Seriously? How can you derp so bad?

58. Zinc Lablanc II

Case: E-2 (Witness)

Oh wow, I have him this high as well. What was I smoking?

I, er… yeah, he wasn’t too annoying for the classic early-game annoying witness. And I kinda remember him having somewhat valid objections, contrary to the classic early-game annoying witness. Guess that’s why I put him there. I really don’t know anymore.

57. Vera Misham

Case: 4-4 (Defendant)

Let’s just take a moment to notice how we’ve already been through three of the four AJ defendants. PW1 still has everyone sans Larry (and even that’s a debatable call, since as far as PW1 is concerned, Larry’s stellar); PW2 still got Maya and Lucifer; PW3 has more than half of ‘em left. Meanwhile, AJ has Hobonix left. Spoilers: he’s not breaking the top 40 despite arguably being the game’s main character. And I’m only awarding him such a generous placement through a debatable thread of logic. AJ’s defendants suck.

So, Vera. All in all, she’s alright, I guess. Here’s the problem: we don’t need another uncooperative defendant. We don’t. We don’t. We’ve had these for three cases now, and just this once, for the final case, it’d have been great to have someone we care about. Someone relatable. Someone who would talk to us. A shy, but adorable girl who fell into an impossible predicament and needed Apollo’s help to get out of it. That would have been fun.

Instead, we got a mute. Yaaaaaaaaaaaay.

Goddamn AJ sucks. Get that **** out of my sight and let’s move back to happier times.

56. Desirée Delite

Case: 3-2 (Side Character)

Awww yeah Dessie. My #1 terrible guess in the series. I have to confess something here, guys: for the longest time, I had her pegged as 3-2’s real culprit. Yup. Sure did. I mean, she was just so useless otherwise. And her clocking Bullard to prevent him from blackmailing her husband was a good motivation. Remember how she was ridiculously proactive in getting Atmey pinned as Mask de Masque? Would’ve been weird in the end for her not to be the culprit (or so I thought), given that if she wasn’t, she was pretty much useless.

I think I actually presented her profile the first time around when the game asked me for a culprit, which led to funny results which shall not be disclosed here, except to say that it was a truly terrible guess (IIRC, you actually get a few more lines out of Godot this way).

Given that I’m a bitter fellow, though, I have to rank her this low because since she didn’t turn out to be the culprit, she *was* pretty much useless to the case, except as a weird red herring that might have fooled, like, 3 people in the world along with me. (Seedfall adds: I am one of those three! Good to know I'm not a complete idiot.)

At least she’s fun to be around.

55. Lotta Hart

Cases: 1-4 (Witness), 2-2 (Witness), 2-4 (Side Character), E-5 (Cameo)

Pfffff…… do I really have to do this write-up? I just really don’t have anything great to say about her. I mean, she’s the poster child for uncooperative first witness (yes, I know you have another name in mind, but we are not talking about The Dreaded One unless we have to, which is never), but she’s still somewhat sympathetic. And she stands up to Von Karma – that has to mean something.

I blame her for the series’ single worst contradiction, though, which is that terrible, terrible Old Samurai photo back in 2-4. “Oh sure, Solfadore, you pointed out something wrong with the leg, but the pointer was in the middle-lower leg, instead of the lower-middle-lower leg, you fool! Now have fun clicking on every square centimeter of that terrible picture, failing and having to reload every single time because of the 100% penalty. LOL!”

Well, **** you too, Lotta.

54. Ken 'Acro' Dingling

Case: 2-3 (Culprit)

Ohai 2-3. Thought I was done with you. Still two more to go, I guess. So yeah, Acro. Interesting character, terrible villain. Not threatening in any way, plus the fact that he’s a cripple means he can’t even get the kind of “polite psychopath” vibe some of the better villains have. Now before you object, I know that wasn’t the point. Acro isn’t a psychopath. He’s not even evil!

And this is exactly why, even though he sucks as a villain and even though 2-3 is a terrible case, I still can’t rank Acro any lower. They tried something daring with their villain – have a guy who not only appears nice, but who is also actually genuinely nice (save for the whole murder thing). Interesting twist on the whole, and though it wasn’t executed very well at all, probably because the whole “tragedy” angle fell flat on its face, it had to be attempted sooner or later.

Still, 2-3 sucks and as its culprit, Acro should share the lion’s sha-… the brunt of the responsibility.

I have also now realized that I don’t have Leon the lion and Money the Monkey anywhere on these rankings. Nothing of value was lost.

53. Alita Tiala

Case: 4-2 (Culprit)

Speaking of terrible villains in terrible cases…

Well, Alita ain’t so bad, actually. One of the two or three adequate characters that came out of this mess. This won’t be a really long write-up, simply because she’s probably one of the most forgettable murderers in the series for a reason, but I liked her style. Kind and gentle façade at first, and then you dig a bit more and realize she’s a complete *****. I like that the mistakes she made are perfectly understandable, given the circumstances (no way to go back to the clinic and get rid of the evidence when she almost died herself). Classic villain with a risky, but good plan. Alita’s decidedly not the weak point of her case, which is why she’s so high compared to the terrible Wocky.

That said, one thing I didn’t like about her, aside from the fact that it’s very easy to guess that she’s the culprit, even without the second day (let’s face it, there are like two suspects in this thing, and it doesn’t take long to pin Eldoon as innocent), is that her façade crumbles way too fast. I’ve always seen the “let’s get dangerous” aspect of a character as some sort of ‘checkpoint’ to let players know they’re doing well. You get two or three rounds of cross-examination against kind little Miss Tiala, and then after some nasty bits of contradiction and finger-pointing, the monster gets out and the real battle begins.

You get none of that with Alita. “Okay, let’s start the second day of trial. Oh hey Alita! Gonna betray your fiancé right away, huh? Sure, let’s try to point out- AND SUDDENLY SHE’S EVIL.” Even Apollo lampshades this, saying she wasted no time in dropping the little games. It’s lame and it robs us of one of these great final trial moments (and given how the rest of AJ turned out, the game would’ve needed more of these!).

52. Rhoda Teneiro

Case: E-2 (Main Defendant)

Oh come on, another AAI minor character? I’ve only played AAI once and one of its major flaws is the lack of good, memorable side characters. Instead, you get kind of a forgettable mess.

So yeah, from what I remember, Rhoda is a pretty cool, albeit straightforward character. She’s pretty much the case’s defendant (even though the game switches defendants all the time throughout the cases), and she’s a pretty sympathetic one, which is a nice change of pace after the previous game! The suitcase gimmick is nothing too memorable, but it’s good and cute enough that it gets a pass, which is why Rhoda nearly breaks the top 50.

That said, she is really one of the middle-of-the-pack forgettable characters, only with more screentime, which is why I can’t rank her any higher.

51. Yanni 'Uncle' Yogi

Case: 1-4 (Witness/Side Culprit)

The first and I believe only “major transformation” character in PW1, in that the difference between serious Yogi and senile Uncle is nothing short of astounding. That said, I really would’ve liked to cross-examine the ‘real’ Yogi a bit more, instead of him just admitting through everything as soon as he sheds his façade (though it would’ve been hard to justify).

Not much to say aside from that. Cool character, but they had a lot of room to improve as well.

50. Olga Orly

Case: 4-1 (Witness)

I gotta say, Olga is a pretty smart move on the writing team’s part. The first time you see her, she just screams “culprit”, even without the whole ‘first witness in a first case = clearly the murderer’ thing. She acts all meek and innocent, but you just know she has something to hide. And then she sheds the façade and she seems… strangely honest. It works.

All in all, though, she spent just a little too much time in “meek mode” for me to rank her any higher. It’s cool that she did that, or else the case would’ve been much shorter (and weaker), but though it strengthens the case, it doesn’t help her character. She’s pretty much a decoy villain, and that can only get you so far, sadly.

49. Spark Brushel

Case: 4-4 (Witness)

Yeaaaaaaah that guy. Another annoying first witness, but for once, I don’t have much room to complain. His gimmick is cool and I’m really surprised it took four games for them to actually introduce this kind of character. His design fits him to a tee, his animations really set the mood – and the character’s actually pretty smart, when you think about it.

Which brings us to the infamous ‘Perceive’ part of his cross-examination, which is probably the toughest thing to figure out in the game (and therefore quite frustrating). Well… I can’t really fault him – or the designers – for that. It’s a pain in the *** to find, but the sweating armpits actually make sense. It’s just weird that it took me – and presumably other players – so much time to figure out. The rest of the testimony is fine and the Phoenix-Brushel conversation in the MASON system is far from its worst part.

So yeah, Brushel might be an annoying first witness, but he’s probably the most bearable annoying first witness in the series. Kudos for that, Spark.

48. Frank Sahwit

Case: 1-1 (Culprit)

Awww, good old Frank Sahwit. Now I might be getting some flak from Scep, arguing that the only reason I’m ranking him so high is because he’s the first witness in the series. No deal. I mean, sure, he does benefit from some sort of weird nostalgia factor, but he’s more than that. Sahwit is the epitome of a PW witness. He’s pretty much the whole series crammed into a single witness.

First, he’s shady as ****. Even without the intro, you just know it’s him in seconds. That ingratiating and yet so clearly fake smile, that posture, those arms moving back and forth… it’s perfect. Second, he has terrible contradictions. Not terrible in the sense that they’re unfun – on the contrary, it’s very fun to point them out actively and see him squirm. Terrible in the sense that he really should’ve thought more before opening his mouth. Or hell, even testifying (what do they have on this guy otherwise?). And he has the slow descent into breakdown mode as you point out more and more contradictions in his story. All of that complete with the toupee toss near the end, which, let’s face it, is one of those iconic early game moments which set the tone for the rest of the series.

As a standalone, maybe he’s not that cool (and, hell, he’s only #48!). As a representative for the rest of the series, though, and for being perhaps singlehandedly responsible for hooking so many people on the series (since Larry and Mia sure as hell didn’t do that!), he deserves at least some recognition.

Tier Five: The Average Turnabout

Hey! We’re actually reaching always decent characters now! And what better way to start this than the star of the show, the one guy you’ve been waiting for so damn long:

47. Zak Gramarye/Shadi Smith/Shadi Enigmar

Cases: 4-1 (Victim), 4-4 (Side Character/Flashback Defendant)

Hey! You made it! Zak has at last been ranked! Who would’ve thought he’d rank so high? Certainly no one in this topic but me, judging by the reactions so far! Oh well.

So, Zak. Certainly a problematic character. One that had a lot of potential. One that failed at achieving a lot of that potential, but who still achieved quite a lot.

I think the main problems you guys have with Zak is that the game isn’t too sure sometimes whether it should portray him as a good guy or a complete jerkass. Most of you (or at least those who commented on Zak so far) seem to think that the game kind of settles for a ‘heroic’ portrayal, which is where we’ll have to disagree. The crux of my argument is: aside from trying to bail out Valant, that guy is a total douche, and the game never denies it.

Let’s look at it chronologically. First, he potentially injured his wife Thalassa in a tragic accident. We see Valant crushed by guilt over that single event, struggling with it his whole life, trying to put the incident behind him and failing. We see Zak… laughing wholeheartedly like the ******* he is. That guy doesn’t regret anything. Even when the matter’s brought up in the Borscht Bowl Club, he’s somewhat melancholic for two sprites before bursting into laughter. The game isn’t treating him like some unsung hero – Valant’s getting the sympathetic portrayal here.

Then he flees from his trial without warning anyone. And chooses his attorney over poker like some terrible moron. That’s not heroic, that’s pathologically egotistical. And the game kinda shows it: the ‘heroic’ way to frame it would be to immediately cut to the present once we see him flee from the courtroom. Instead, we get a few scenes with Trucy to show how alone she is and how utterly ****ing monstrous that douche is for leaving HIS DAUGHTER behind. Was that emphasized enough? Hell no! The game never really mentions it, except in passing with Phoenix wondering what the hell he’s supposed to do now that Zak has run away. But it’s there. The game doesn’t completely shy away from it or the consequences. The game confirms that Trucy has indeed been abandoned by her own father for the rest of her life.

And finally, the jerk comes back to the Borscht Bowl Club because he felt like ruining Phoenix’s life (again) and ****ing off with Valant. Here, we veer away from the actual cannon and more into theory, but I think that’s totally consistent with the way Zak’s been portrayed. See, he’s not doing that to mess with Phoenix or help his poor little daughter who’s all alone. Oh no. He’s doing that because he’s an egotistical maniac. 1) He doesn’t want to ruin Phoenix’s record just because. He wants to ruin it because Phoenix has been exploiting his daughter to win it. That is, Phoenix has been exploiting the gifts of his own genetic material to win games. Zak doesn’t accept it and thinks it’s fraud. 2) He doesn’t want to give the rights to Magnifi’s magic to his daughter because he loves her or something. He does it because she’s his daughter – that is, the closest thing he has to himself yet. He obviously can’t return because he bailed on justice, so he’s acting through proxy.

Is it coherent? Yes, I rather think so. Is it well-presented? Hell no! But it’s there. And though it’s all conjecture, it fits with the rest of the character. Think about his design: dark hair, dark-skinned, ominous facial hair, pink costume – that doesn’t scream hero to me. The whole design actually feels closer to a villain. Think about his introduction in 4-1 as well. His alter-ego is named Shadi. Not “Riddle”, not “Nigmo”, or “Mysterio”, but Shadi. That’s important.

Think of his sprites and animations. He’s never had a truly sympathetic sprite. His laughing animation feels shallow and jerkish because, well, it’s shallow and jerkish. The whole character hasn’t been presented very well, which is why I’ll only rank him this high and not, say, in the top 30. But it’s there. It’s there.

46. Phoenix Wright (Apollo Justice Incarnation)

Cases: Apollo Justice Series Regular (Mentor/Protagonist)

N.B. This write-up is limited to Hobonix. You’ll (thankfully) have to wait some more before we reach the PW1-PW3 incarnation.

Yeah, that guy’s problematic as well. Here’s my take on the character: name him anything else than Phoenix Wright, and he’s actually a brilliant character. Top 3 for his game for sure - perhaps even its best character. A lawyer who took a wrong turn somewhere. You know all those times you were pissed at the game just because it’s just so ridiculously hard to convict somebody when you’re the defence attorney? Like in 1-3 when you’ve proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that Will Powers COULDN’T kill Hammer, and if you fail too much in the last day, he still gets convicted? Yeah. That guy has faced those odds as well. And he’s had enough.

So he forges a piece of evidence, or uses (perhaps knowingly) a forged piece of evidence, to take a shortcut. Because, hey, if Zak is innocent, it’s gotta be Valant, right? And then he forges an ace, to incriminate the guy who caused his downfall in the first place. Because, hey, Kristoph is way too obviously guilty, right? And he forges some more, here and there. And some time in between, he manages to talk to Valant, for real. Realizes that the guy’s actually innocent of the Magnifi murder. Oh crud, maybe using that forged diary wasn’t so right after all, wasn’t it? Which is when he first starts to devise the jurist system. To get back at Kristoph the ‘right’ way. To convict the man so paranoid that he never left a single piece of damning evidence behind. And to do that the ‘legit’ way.

That’s a hell of a good character arc, ain’t it? There’s one problem, though. That man’s name is Phoenix Wright.

And here’s where it all goes wrong. “Hobo Lawyer” could’ve knowingly used a forged piece of evidence to get Valant (whom he believed to be guilty) convicted. Phoenix Wright can’t. So he has to be dumb about it. “Hobo Lawyer” could’ve knowingly given the forged ace to Apollo in the hopes of getting back at Kristoph in all the wrong ways – and could’ve then gotten a villainous portrayal. Phoenix Wright can’t. So instead, he has to actually convict Kristoph himself from the defence bench and then get no further comeuppance than a punch in the face. And so on and so forth.

Hobo Lawyer’s actually a pretty good character. But the fact that Capcom decided that Phoenix Wright absolutely had to be in the game ruined the whole thing. Instead of a morally fascinating Hobo Lawyer character, we get bizarro Phoenix Wright. Who sucks.

So in the writing team’s honour, I feel like bizarro Phoenix deserves better than bottom tier, because really, if you strip the Phoenix Wright name from him, he’s top 20 material. But… I just can’t condone the kind of **** they’ve pulled by naming him Phoenix and forever tarnishing the name of our glorious protagonist. As well as overshadowing Apollo in his own damn game.

45. Thalassa Gramarye/Lamiroir

Cases: 4-3 (Witness), 4-4 (Cameo/Quasi-Posthumous Character)

Well, I just finished two huge write-ups, so I’ll be brief on this one. I’ve always had a bit of a weak spot for apparently unreliable witnesses who actually turn out to be 100% right. I also like the fact that Thalassa’s one of the only characters in that game who’s never a ****. She’s always fully cooperative, helps a lot with the investigation and provides some interesting twists along the way.

That said, she’s kinda boring. And that “actually Apollo and Trucy’s mother” twist is all kinds of stupid.

44. Winston Payne

Cases: Ace Attorney Series Regular (Prosecutor)

Not a long write-up for this guy since, you know, it’s Payne, but he really is the perfect first case prosecutor, no matter what the first case actually is about. Endearingly incompetent, with a tendency to simply disappear near the end of the case when the plot evolves towards a Phoenix vs. Culprit duel… he’s essentially a tutorial opponent and a good one at that. His design (and design changes) is A+ and fits him perfectly; he’s actually pretty funny and well, yeah.

I think the character speaks for himself.

43. Quercus Alba

Case: E-5 (Culprit/Final Boss/Big Bad)

Well, here we go. The first Big Bad falls. It had to happen eventually, and it’s a shame AAI had to see its final boss rank so low.

I don’t like Alba very much for the simple fact that he’s so damn unoriginal. He’s a poor Gant expy and was probably designed with that in mind, but he really falls flat on his face. His façade is terribly unimaginative (“old man blaming himself”? C’mon! That’s just obviously shallow!). His status as the game’s final villain is also terribly obvious once he walks out on screen.

Apparently useless character? Check. Keeps popping up in various areas for no reason? Check. In a position of power that could spell bad news if he was actually evil? Check. General design? Yup. Clearly faking his self-loathing? Indeed. ‘Quercus Alba’? Well then.

I mean, I can get why people would rather suspect Shih-Na, but c’mon, this really is obvious, and the worst part is it’s not well done. The transition between frail old man and evil general is lame and without meaning: Yogi and Engarde’s transformations had meaning. Their façade makes sense and you can somewhat glimpse who they truly are through the act they pull. This guy? The façade is obviously fake, and yet there’s no adequation between the two. And, well… as soon as he breaks into ‘Final Boss’ mode, he’s just too clichéd. He feels like a Final Fantasy/RPG main villain. Clearly evil and shady for no good reason.

The main problem, though, is that the final fight against him is just so anticlimactic. Sure, he takes forever to defeat, but it feels lame the whole way. Gant has incredible tenacity as well, but you always feel like you’re making small progress against him. He’s also able to threaten Phoenix/the player very well, so much that it’s almost like he’s cross-examining you as well.

No such thing with Alba: you nearly kill his argument every time, until he finds a way to pitifully worm his way out of it and renew the fight. Sure, it takes a long time, but making him appear so weak right off the bat really diminishes the threat he poses.

The one funny thing he does have for himself is his downright hilarious Japanese name. Just for fun, let’s play a game. Try to guess the Big Bad’s name from the list of pseudonyms provided therein: Damian, Shiryuu, Ittetsu, Shih-Na, Reiji, Masashi, CARNAGE ONRED. I mean, seriously now.

“Oh, hello there, AMBASSADOR CARNAGE. How are you doing this fine morning?” Yup, totally a good guy.

42. Guy Eldoon

Case: 4-2 (Side Character)

Woooooo we’re done with Turnabout Corner! Rejoice, everyone!

Once again, not a long write-up because that thing above this was huge and I don’t really care about Eldoon. Oh sure, he was fine and dandy, and had some measure of hidden depths (him being a surgeon is cool). The melancholic part of him was interesting as well, even though it’s been done to death before and isn’t particularly memorable/colourful.

But, well… he’s pretty boring, don’t you think? He’s a good character objectively – and most of all, he makes sense – but that’s pretty much it.

Says a lot about 4-2 though that Eldoon is far and away its best one-shot character.

41. Drew Misham

Case: 4-4 (Victim/Flashback Witness)

Man, feels weird saying that, but I kinda liked Misham. He’s a bit cowardly, a bit unassuming, but most of all, he feels… genuine. Despite his funky design and terrible haircut, he lacks the weird quirks that nearly all Ace Attorney characters have – and is all the better for it. One understands his plight; his relationship with Vera is relatable and believable – and since Young Vera doesn’t speak about her father and Adult Vera is a terrible character, that’s all on Drew. Pretty cool guy.

That said, I just can’t understand why he feels the need to spy on Apollo this way. ‘Oh geez he actually put Kristoph behind bars, I have to paint his various cases for no valid reason’. I mean… why doesn’t he track the Judge or something? Or hell, Phoenix? Makes no sense. Let’s be honest here, the game pretty much only included those paintings to grab our interest… and then had no clue how to proceed about it in any meaningful way.

Tier Four: The Good Turnabout

I like every character from this point onwards, so don’t expect me to rail on and on about their flaws anymore. These guys just don’t have as many qualities as the ones afterwards, but I like them all the same.

40. Bikini

Case: 3-5 (Witness)

Bikini is pretty much the epitome of a “witness. Someone who genuinely saw what they claimed to have seen, and never seek to obstruct justice for stupid and petty reasons, always collaborating with the prosecution and defence alike. Aside from maybe Will Powers in 2-4 and Lamiroir in 4-3, there’s really… not many of those anymore.

Which is why I enjoy Bikini’s character. She’s the perfect first witness for the trilogy’s final hurrah. She’s serious, to the point, appropriately dramatic while still leaving room for further, more interesting witnesses. Never detracts from the atmosphere. Her bad back ‘gimmick’, if you can call it that, is never shoved down our throats.

Like Drew, she’s cool and helpful, but unlike Drew, never acts unreasonably. Good character.

39. Kay Faraday

Cases: E-3 (Assistant), E-4 (Assistant), E-5 (Defendant/Assistant)

Oh man, I’m going to get so much flak for this one, but here we go: I don’t like assistants. There, I’ve said it. One single, very narrow exception aside, I don’t like the general character archetype. They’re usually overly enthusiastic and kind of silly, yet also are somewhat shallow given the vast amount of screentime they enjoy. Please note that I’m not railing against said screentime – I understand why assistants are here and do think they’re necessary to provide some way of alleviating tension. Doesn’t mean I have to adore every single one of ‘em. As I said, I prefer villains.

So, with that in mind, Kay often feels like a rehash of previous assistants. Like they took Maya or Trucy’s character and decided to go for the Ninja Thief gimmick instead of the Spirit Medium or the Magician gimmick. After a time, it just feels hollow.

I had a lot of trouble ranking Kay, because a part of me felt that she *had* to score higher than 39. I mean, she’s (nominally) one of the two or three most important characters in AAI. I thought about it, though, and tried to imagine a situation where Kay would appear in another game as a cameo and, honestly… I just didn’t care. I’d be pretty much just as happy at seeing Bikini in AA5 than Kay. So yeah, it feels weird somewhat, but she’s no higher than #39.

I like her enthusiasm; she obviously makes a good foil for the overly-serious Edgeworth, but as I said, it’s been done before in previous games and after a while, it gets repetitive. Give me something new. Maybe a slightly whackier protagonist with an overly serious assistant? A female protagonist w/ a male assistant? A slightly older assistant? Or hell, the Big Bad of the game? Imagine how that would sound. Either way, there’s a lot of room to explore as far as the assistant role is concerned, and the writing team didn’t try *anything* gutsy with Kay.

38. Dee Vasquez

Case: 1-3 (Culprit)

Another short write-up to follow Kay because there’s not that much to say about Dee aside from the fact that she’s a pretty solid villain. As far as villains go, I’d probably rank her dead average, actually, and since I like villains, that means she’s in the ‘good characters’ tier.

Her design is snazzy, even though you know she did it within seconds of laying eyes on her. She’s appropriately smart, tough to break during cross-examination (ohai thar, Redd White!) and her connections with the mafia makes her much more threatening than the allegedly-terrifying-but-actually-pretty-stupid Redd White.

I like that in spite of the aura of malice she projects, she’s actually pretty innocent as far as PW villains go, having killed Hammer in self-defence. That aside, though, there’s really not much to draw her apart from other characters. As I said, she’s a dead average villain – well-done, with no glaring flaws, but not much more than that.

37. Lawrence 'Moe' Curls

Case: 2-3 (Witness)

Aww man, I always forget about 2-3 at the worst possible moment. At least I’ll be done with it after this write-up.

So yeah, Moe is EASILY Turnabout Big Top’s best character for the simple reason that he actually *has* character beyond being a shallow archetype with no aptly defined personality. Yay! Courtroom penalties aside, I actually do like Moe – he may be the tragic clown who makes bad jokes, but talk to him a bit and you realize that he has a family, cares about them and genuinely tries to make the circus and the world around him a better place.

He’s like Drew (aka strip away his gimmick and he seems like a genuine human being), but I’d rank him higher because him being tri-dimensional is actually surprising, since he comes forward – at first glance – like a bad instance of comic relief. So yeah, props for the terrible jokes and the strangely likeable character underneath.

Now, let us never speak of 2-3 again.

36. Ron DeLite

Case: 3-2 (Defendant/Side Culprit)

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeah I’m not sure what to think about Princess Leia here. His design is good and fits him to a tee; he’s actually pretty damn smart for such a buffoon; he’s also strangely likeable and very cooperative once you reach Day 2, but all in all, he’s not much more than that. I liked him and wanted to help him out, but it never really ‘clicked’. That’s probably due to his general character archetype – it’s hard to care very much for him when he’s self-effacing like that.

Good thing 3-2’s pivotal character is someone else entirely!

35. Jake Marshall

Case: 1-5 (Witness)

We’re getting perilously close to actual great, memorable characters now! Man, can’t wait until we reach them.

So, Marshall. Don’t like his gimmick, which is really stupid when you think about it. Nearly every other AA gimmick makes sense (this of course excludes AJ), even when they’re really weird. For instance, it’s logical for a children’s show’s director to be a huge geek. It’s logical for a ventriloquist to be unassuming. It is not logical for a somewhat highly-ranked police officer to be dressed as a cowboy and talk like a 19th century Far West sheriff.

That said, I like his role in the case. He’s a good decoy antagonist, has believable motivations and provides enough resistance in court to make the day fun (*despite Meekins*, which is an achievement by itself). Had they taken his stupid gimmick and replaced it with something actually interesting, he would’ve made a great character. Oh well. Can’t have everything, I guess.

34. Klavier Gavin

Cases: Apollo Justice Series Regular (Prosecutor)

Oh hey, that guy! Now that I think about it, there are not many AJ characters left. Only six left, actually, excluding Klavier. Wonder who’ll get ranked the highest?

So, Klavier. Do I have this guy too low? Maybe. But I don’t think so. All in all, he’s a ‘good’ character – tridimensional, smart, sympathetic, with believable motivations. But… I just don’t know. He’s bland, for a prosecutor. Alita aside, he pretty much helps Apollo nail down every culprit quite quickly. The result? No tension. No meaningful character journey.

Edgeworth helping you put Dee behind bars is meaningful precisely because he was such a **** in 1-2. Franny turning the tables and helping you pin down Engarde in 2-4 is obviously not as memorable, but still great. Klavier, though? He’s too… fair, right from the get-go. They had a lot of room and potential with his character.

A smarter way to go at it would be to have him support Daryan the whole way through. Never doubt him, rail against Machi because the alternative would mean pinning the blame on his best friend (hell, his faith in Daryan would even explain the incomprehensible prosecutorial decision to go against Machi even though it’s obvious he didn’t do it!). Have Apollo bring the decisive proof to corner Daryan, and *then* have Klavier doubt. That way, when he decides to turn against Kristoph in the final case, it’d hold much more meaning. It’d be symbolic. A turn in his character. When Apollo is stuck (after a long and arduous courtroom showdown against Kristoph, not the two-minute press-and-perceive skirmish we got), have Klavier come in and save the day.

Instead, we get a bland prosecutor. He’s a cool and likeable character, sure, but there’s just so much more that could’ve been done with that guy. Too bad.

33. Colias Palaeno

Case: E-5 (Witness)

That guy’s great. He’s the definition of a red herring done well. Too bad the case’s culprit(s) was/were so obvious.

As I said in a previous write-up (can’t remember which), I love shady people who actually turn out to be pretty darn helpful and cooperative. And let’s face it, Palaeno is totally shady. His design screams ‘villain’; you could easily see him get another bunch of ‘evil’ sprites if the dev team cared to – in short, he could totally have been the final villain.

And it never pans out. He remains helpful and honest the whole way through. Never impedes the investigation. Always eager to help Edgeworth investigate the scene. Dude’s great and refreshing surprise.

But that only brings you so far. He’s a fun character to be around, but the people in the above tier are, well… a tier above him! >_>

Tier Three: Turnabout Greatness

I really dig these guys. They’re pretty much just short of the “truly amazing” characters tier. Not much more to say than that.

32. Trucy Gramarye/Trucy Wright

Cases: Apollo Justice Series Regular (Assistant)

Probably a lot less controversial than that 39-Kay placement, although I could see someone ranking Kay above Trucy.

Not much to say about her than I didn’t say in Kay’s write-up, although since Trucy was pretty much the first full-blown assistant we got since Maya, I can understand the writing team being cautious around her character and not wanting to try anything too new. I still maintain that a whacky Apollo and an overly serious assistant would’ve done wonders for the game, though! Oh well, one can hope.

Trucy gains a lot of points for being all-around adorable and a fun addition to the cast, and loses some for all the panties-related inanities. Not to mention the fake hostage thing in 4-2, which is beyond stupid and I can’t believe there were no consequences for this.

That said, she’s a pretty interesting character, with a nice aura of mystery – she can obviously be quite silly at times, but at others, you can glimpse a much more serious side to her that Maya kinda lacked. All in all, it makes for a strong and interesting character, and though I don’t like her enough to put her anywhere near the amazing tier, I don’t see how she could’ve been improved any more than she was.

31. Will Powers

Cases: 1-3 (Defendant), 2-4 (Witness)

When you think about it, PW1 had really great defendants. I mean, Will Powers is only the second to fall, and we’ve already reached the top 25%! That’s quite impressive.

Will’s great because he’s such a nice guy. He’s cool, gentle, cooperative and most of all, he never asked for all of this. That’s what makes him such a great defendant. Edgeworth in 1-4 kind of asked for it (first by agreeing to that sketchy as hell meeting on the boat, second by confessing about DL-6). Lana is self-explanatory. Maggey’s an idiot. Maximillion didn’t help his case and was kind of a douche. 3-1 Phoenix, Ron, Terry… they all acted stupidly at some point or another and got themselves entangled into a mess that was partially their responsibility. Will did nothing except go sleep in his trailer.

His return as a witness in 2-4 is interesting – he’s actually somewhat against you this time around (in that he witnessed Matt acting really shady with De Killer), but you never blame him for it. Your client is guilty, you know it – you just have to try and discredit an old friend to save Maya. All in all, Will is super cool and contrary to Maggey, you can’t help feeling bad for him.

30. Apollo Justice

Cases: Apollo Justice Series Regular (Protagonist)

Can you believe I almost forgot about that guy? When your actual protagonist is so bland and forgettable, that’s a bad, bad sign.

But I can’t blame him too much for that. Him being forgettable is not so much because he’s a bad character than because Hobonix takes way too much screentime. Apollo himself is pretty much the one, single voice of reason in a world of idiots and as such, you can’t help but root for him. Like Kanz and Omega said at times in their respective playthroughs, Apollo’s the only character who actually wants to practice law and rely on reason and logic (only at times, admittedly, but still) to back his positions, instead of playing air guitar or making wooden mannequins appear out of nowhere for no adequate reasons.

That was a shrewd decision on the dev team’s part – if you can call it that, since I am utterly convinced they absolutely did not intend for it to happen – in that it makes the player root for Apollo and want him to succeed, which makes him in turn a quite decent character, to say the least.

Had he been given more screentime, I’m sure he could’ve attained the next tier, although he does feel just a bit too bland to really shine through.

29. Mia Fey

Cases: Ace Attorney Series Regular (Mentor/Victim/Protagonist)

Let me be clear: she’s only this high because of 3-1 and 3-4. In those two cases alone, she comes VERY close to threatening Phoenix’s stranglehold over the ‘best defence attorney in the series’ title. She has grit and smarts, is unfazed by Dahlia’s wiles (as opposed to literally the whole ****ing court) – she may be the underdog, but she feels extremely competent as well, even in her rookie years. T&T Mia is great and you can understand why Godot fell for her.

PW1/PW2 Mia, on the other hand, is not. She’s cool, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t like how they kept bringing her back as what is essentially a repeated deus ex machina. Still, she remains smart, stern and acute, and when she’s not force-feeding the answer to Phoenix or bailing him out with a ‘revelation from beyond’, she’s a great mentor. T&T just expanded on that and gave her a believable origin story.

28. Daryan Crescend

Case: 4-3 (Culprit)

This guy’s pretty much the one, single high point of the whole 4-2/4-3 debacle. In the mess that were AJ’s filler cases, Daryan Crescend is the sole character to actually give you a good time. Moderately challenging without being obtuse. As resistant and stubborn as you’d expect a middle-late game culprit to be. It’s easy to forget about him, but he did pretty much salvage 4-3 from the abominable mess it was slated to be into something half decent. It should then come as no surprise that he ranks in my top 3 exclusive AJ characters (and #4 in my overall AJ characters rankings). Dude’s pretty damn great.

First of all, he’s a jerk, plain and simple, but a smart and dangerous one. This makes him unsympathetic on the one hand – in that you’d like to see him jailed, therefore giving you the requisite motivation to get that Not Guilty verdict that Machi is totally incapable of providing – and somewhat threatening on the other. Oh, nowhere near, say, Von Karma level, but enough at least that you’re a bit cautious when he’s around in Day 2. Enough that when you finally bring him on the witness stand, you can think “Alright *******, time to face the law!” It’s pretty much the only time in AJ you get to think that. (4-1 = “the ****? Why is Kristoph there?”; 4-2 = “Oh she’s already there. Okay, I guess.”; 4-4 = “What, already? You mean, he’s there right away? Lame.”)

He’s also the one, tough nut to crack you get to cross-examine on the witness stand. Alita’s not very interesting and Kristoph folds immediately with terribly obvious contradictions. Daryan, on the other hand, offers ample testimony and some somewhat challenging contradictions – and he’s hella resistant to boot (without decaying too fast).

I pretty much have only two problems with him. First, his design. The hell is that? Like Marshall, I have a lot of trouble believing that a guy with such a terrible haircut would work in the Police Dept. Second, the game’s need to actively point him out as the culprit. Why would you do that? You’ve got an interesting case, a few potential red herrings, a good, strong culprit. Why would you have Lamiroir actually point him out of the blue? Why would you immediately show his ‘evil’ sprites near the beginning of Day 1? Why would you have him say “I’ve never liked you” near the end of Day 2, just to emphasize the fact that he’s evil? It’s just so stupid.

27. Mimi Miney

Case: 2-2 (Culprit)

It’s been a while since I played JFA, and 2-2 isn’t the most memorable of cases, so please forgive this short write-up. What I do remember is how smart Mimi actually was. She’s pretty much an improvement over Yanni Yogi – seemingly an airhead, actually very cunning. Of course, the ‘Ini’ personality irritated me considerably, like everyone else, but the reversal at the end and the brilliant plot twist that came with it totally justify the whole thing.

Most of all, though, Mimi’s pretty much one of the staple “let’s get dangerous” witnesses throughout the series (not the best one, obviously, but still one of the classic examples). Actually, she’s a mix of the better parts of Yanni Yogi and Alita: Yanni was good because he seemed so stupid and senile at first, and then “transformed”, however briefly (his shortcoming was that you never had a chance to take the true Yogi on – he immediately confessed). Alita was good because her ***** persona made for an adequate villain (the downside was that we never got to enjoy crushing ‘Fake/Delicate Alita’). With Mimi, you see both: the seemingly harmless façade, the breakdown leading to the ‘Evil’ persona and an adequate showdown with the much smarter Mimi.

Not anything top-tier worthy, but still a fun experience and one of the best 2nd-case villains in the series.

26. Lana Skye

Case: 1-5 (Defendant/Accomplice)

Awwww yeah, now we’re finally getting to the truly great characters. Lana’s kind of a mystery for me, because she’s the sole absolutely uncooperative defendant that I absolutely care about and root for. I’m… not quite sure how they did it, but whatever it is, it’s pretty damn clever.

The fun thing about 1-5 is that you start with such overwhelming odds against you. Defendant was seen stabbing the victim by a reliable witness (i.e. a witness who is quite clearly not the culprit); defendant also confesses to the crime and specifically tells Phoenix that she did it… how the hell are you supposed to win in these circumstances?

And yet, despite it all… you can’t help feeling that there’s something more to this case, and until Gant takes the stand and explains the whole double-murder conundrum, nearly everything that makes this case interesting rests on Lana. She’s cold and emotionless, but through clever design and great input from her younger sister, you root for her. She may be uncooperative, but you… just know that she’s being insincere (as opposed to Wocky who is just plain stupid), albeit for good reasons.

And finally, most of all, she shows tremendous courage during the final day. That final day of court is probably the high point of the series for me (along with 3-5 as a whole), and a lot of it might be due to the fact that your relationship with Lana – and her trust in Phoenix – essentially develops on the spot, through testimony. You see her gradually shifting, gradually gaining the will to fight, and to see it all erupt in the end in a beaming smile is so rewarding/touching.

Still not sure how they made an uncooperative defendant so appealing, but I won’t complain!

25. Ema Skye

Cases: Ace Attorney Series Regular (Assistant/Detective)

Oh hey, Ema. Pity about AJ, hmm? As far as 1-5 is concerned, Ema’s certainly a top 20 character, maybe even top 15 or top 10. Remember when I said I don’t like assistants? 1-5 Ema is the one, single exception. 1-5 Ema is a fantastic character – comic-relief, yes; good way of relieving tension, yes; but not only. She also provides the player with all kinds of fun setups/mini-games, something that Maya never did (the Magatama’s incredibly fun, but that’s all on Pearls). And most of all, she’s central to the story – and not simply by virtue of her role as an assistant.

Through Ema, you learn to bond with Lana and finally muster the will to take down Gant. Taking down Ema on the witness stand, unwittingly leading her towards apparent doom, is unbearably painful. Ema herself is probably the single hardest witness in the series – though some 2-4 Oldbag contradictions were annoying, and though Gant is a monster to take down, I’d say Ema as a whole provides tougher contradictions. She’s funny, endearing, smart, relatable. Great assistant, great character. That’s how you do it, folks.

HOWEVER.

AJ.

Dang. I wouldn’t actually go so far as to call that character assassination, but it’s not pretty. Poor, poor Ema. AJ Ema’s not *that* bad, tbh, if you forget the fact that she’s named Ema. A bit bland, sure, and the snackoo thing feels hollow, but it makes for an interesting dynamic with Klavier and Apollo. It IS sad, though, to see such a great character turned into this… Remember when I said Apollo should’ve been whackier and Trucy much more serious? Had they done that, they could’ve kept 1-5 Ema just as she was, and she’d have provided some great contrast to serious!Trucy. Instead, we got that. Such a shame.

All in all, 1-5 Ema is awesome and AJ Ema is okay. Taking the two facets into account, I’d rank her around #25.

24. Furio Tigre

Case: 3-3 (Culprit)

Gool ol’ Tigre is a fun character and a great filler villain. I think what I like most about him is the contrast between what he projects and what he actually is. I mean: one quick look at him and you think you’ve figured him out: a dumb brute who screams all the time and uses blind force to threaten other people into submission. And then you progress through the case and realize that Tigre is actually pretty damn smart, going as far as faking the whole crime just for Kudo’s benefit. I’ve always liked the brutish types who turn out to actually have some brains (Mass Effect’s Wrex probably being the best example), and Tigre is no exception.

Of course, the game doesn’t beat around the bush and pretty much states outright that he’s the culprit, which does take some fun away from the case – that said, the brutish/creepy duo he makes with Viola is a terrific idea on the dev team’s part, and I can’t help but enjoy every second of that Tender Lender investigation.

Shame he suddenly got hold of the Idiot Ball at the end and blurted out his implication in the crime. I guess Phoenix did prompt that stupid comment, but it would’ve still felt better if we could’ve cornered him through testimony or evidence.

23. Shelly de Killer

Case: 2-4 (Accomplice/Final Boss)

Not quite sure why I like him that much, since he’s not *that* well-defined, but all in all, he fulfills his role as 2-4’s ‘invincible enemy’ perfectly. He’s calm, collected, incredibly threatening and one of the two or three most terrifying characters in the series. The game needed an overwhelming threat to back Engarde’s bravado, and they sure got it with De Killer, who’s almost like a force of nature by himself.

By itself, though, that wouldn’t be sufficient to make this tier. The great thing about him is also how arduous and difficult his testimony is, and for all the right reasons. You know he’s got Maya, you know he’s ready to kill her if you press too much, but you’ve got to stall for time all the same and try to prevent him from pinning the crime on the innocent Adrian. It all makes for wonderful tension, and one can end up so wrapped up in it that they can get blindsided the sneaky “Is what De Killer said important?”. It’s hard to call him out on his contradictions simply because he projects this aura of invincibility and casual danger. While he may not technically be the main villain of the case, he still makes for a great, great final boss.

22. Viola Cadaverini

Case: 3-3 (Accomplice)

Oh man, I love Viola. Every second with her onscreen brings excellent moments of tension and creepiness. I always make sure to investigate everything at Tender Lender whenever I get in the mood to replay the game (which is not very often, but still).

Her design is cool – I love how the bandage both plays into the story and reinforces the general feeling that something’s not quite right with this girl. Not much more to say than that, unfortunately: she’s a one-bit character that works really, really well and makes the 2nd investigation day so much more amusing.

Pity they didn’t allow us to cross-examine her; I’d much rather have her creep everyone out than Armstrong.

21. Luke Atmey

Case: 3-2 (Main Culprit)

To finish our shining antagonist quartet, might as well rank the always great Atmey, who might just be my favourite non-final villain. Atmey totally steals the show in 3-2 by being grandiose and sinister at the same time. His design is great (except maybe the hair), he has some hilarious lines and is just straight-out fun to be around.

A lot of the comedy surrounding him comes from his strangely self-deprecating sense of humour: he often makes grandiose claims about himself, claims that turn out to be eerily mundane when he’s actually pressed about it. But it’s more than that: what’s great about his character is not only the contrast between his boasts and the reality, but also the fact that this contrast actually serves to make him more suspicious, and therefore benefits him considerably. All through Day 1, it’s almost like he’s actively seeking to make himself as outrageously ridiculous as possible, just to make the Luke = MaskdeMasque hypothesis more likely. It’s really brilliant when you think about it. Case in hand: when you actually confront him during the 2nd trial day, he quickly stops kidding around and seeks to downplay his fabulous persona.

And well, let’s face it, that final cross-examination was brilliant and the perfect way for him to go down. That contradiction is subtle, him making that mistake is quite understandable (unlike Tigre who suddenly became an idiot) and when you actually point it out, it’s pretty much impossible for him to back away from that guilty verdict.

Great villain, great case.

20. Iris Fey

Case: 3-5 (Defendant/Accomplice)

You know, I’m not quite sure why I have her this high. I just really, really like Iris. Thinking about it, though, I’d say it probably comes down to what the ‘appearances-true self’ difference I’ve been highlighting with a few other characters. To clarify: I like Tigre because he looks like a dumb brute, but he’s not; I like Palaeno because he seems so slimy, but is actually super helpful, etc. etc.

It’s probably the same with Iris. You start 3-5 expecting to find a class-A ***** who’s simply hiding some nasty plot behind a harmless façade (probably yelling at Phoenix along the way for once again falling for that angelic face)… and yet you feel that something is not quite right. For once, this ‘Dahlia’ is… strangely likeable, even though you’ve now spent two cases just learning about all the horrible stuff she did. It’s really weird and special.

It’s probably a bit sad that ‘Dahlia’ turned out to be, in fact, not Dahlia, but I still have to credit Iris and the way she was introduced for giving me all those goose bumps and awkward moments. And while I’m at it, she’s a pretty damn likeable defendant as well, even if she turned out to be somewhat of an accomplice to the murder.

Which makes me think: 3-1 Phoenix is actually not that dumb. Remember how he defended Dahlia to hell and back for no seemingly valid reason? I mean, one look at Dahlia and everyone was like ‘How could you even trust her, you moron?’ Since he was dating Iris the whole time, though, who actually fell in love with him, it’s actually… very believable and ‘Phoenix-like’ that Wright defended her so adamantly.

I guess I’d only have one complaint about her character: why did she side with Dahlia on Day 2? I know the game said she felt bad about her having a happier life than her sister (and feeling like being shipped off to the monastery turned out for the best, while her sister led a miserable existence), but I’m really not satisfied with it. She actually decided to help Godot and Misty protect Maya – now that Dahlia is roaming about freely, why the hell would you not tell everyone else? It’s just so dumb.

The smart thing to do on the dev team’s part would have probably been to have her realize that Maya was channelling Dahlia and that Pearls would probably try to channel Dollie as well; therefore, letting Dollie run free without telling anyone meant she had no chance whatsoever of hurting Maya. Alas, they seemingly never thought about that line of reasoning – meanwhile, I don’t buy the pseudo ‘guilt trip’ explanation they came up with.

19. Franziska von Karma

Cases: Prosecutor 2-2, 2-3, 3-5

Franny’s great and all, but that’s about as high as I can rank her.

Oh, I like the idea behind her. We needed a prosecutor that’d contrast with Edgeworth (who turned out to be all about justice and the truth), while still posing a challenge to more experienced players. Having her be the daughter of the previous game’s ‘Final Boss/Big Bad’ is pretty cool, and even though it’s been done before in other media, it’s still done cleverly and exploited to maximum extent, notably with the emblematic Edgey/Franny rivalry, which carried on to subsequent games. All in all, a nice little twist.

One other thing I like is that Franny’s a pretty unexpected character – you’d think that the first female prosecutor in the series might try to somehow ‘charm’ the opposition/judge into agreeing with her position, but Franziska’s all about power and domination (ahem), which is a nice and interesting subversion on the character archetype.

That said, the whip gimmick gets rather old after, say, the first case. Old and silly, because even though we’re in the AA universe… a whip into a courtroom? Whipping THE JUDGE? Really now? The ‘foolish fool’ antic doesn’t feel natural at all, while we’re at it.

Still, she’s there for one reason, which is to serve as Phoenix’s opposition so they can have Edgeworth come back at the end and take us by surprise; she’s there to appear good, though somewhat mediocre compared to the Edgey/Manfred beasts, which only serves to make the final confrontation with Edgeworth in 2-4 more memorable – and though she’s only there for one thing, she does that one job exceedingly well, which warrants her position as what I consider to be the 19th best character in the AA series.

Tier Two: The Amazing Turnabout

I love these guys so much! Basically, these are all excellent characters – the only reason why they’re there and not above is that the top 4 is just too damn good.

18. Maya Fey

Cases: Ace Attorney Series Regular (Assistant)

Might as well get this over with.

Maya’s great. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. She’s a great foil for the slightly-more-serious Phoenix and serves as one of the best sources of comic-relief – she may not be laugh-out-loud funny, but she’s one of the most prominent examples of a relieving-the-tension character done well. No matter how desperate things get, she’ll always be there, by your side, on the defence bench.

The (clichéd) saying goes that you don’t realize what someone is worth ‘til they’re gone – well, one doesn’t realize how Maya is integral to the story until she’s kidnapped in 2-4. That’s when one usually realize how much of a rock she is to Nick and to players in general – the often overlooked member of the protagonist duumvirate.

Still, I do feel like she’s been around… a bit too much. Edgey not being there for most of the 2nd and 3rd game is precisely why he’s so memorable (I mean, I’d probably have him around the top 30 or so even if he did show up for every damn case of every damn game, but it’d be a bit more annoying). Having her around for the 2nd game is understandable, since you can’t have her returning in 2-4 and then be suddenly kidnapped. Still, it might’ve been good not to have her be there as much for the 3rd game (maybe only for 3-2 and 3-5?), just to keep things a bit sparser? A minor complaint, but given the incredible amount of screentime she gets, maybe a warranted one.

Actually, to try and narrow my impression of her character, the problem isn't really that she's there too much, but that she never develops enough compared to the importance she has in the series and the screentime she gets, beyond very particular instances. The person following you in, say, 1-3 is pretty much the same person in 3-3, despite the ludicrous number of potential changes that could have affected her. Phoenix changes, Edgey changes, Gumshoe changes, but Maya stays almost the same, save for some progression on 1-2 (thankfully) and 3-5 (of which we barely saw the results).

That said, she was the perfect final witness to the first trilogy.

17. Calisto Yew/Shih-Na

Cases: E-3 (Rival), E-4 (Rival/Culprit), E-5 (Rival/Accomplice)

Alba might have been the nominal ringleader, as well as the game’s final boss, but Calisto Yew is pretty much who I consider to be AAI’s true main villain – and the game is all the better for it.

What’s great about Yew is that she’s a very dynamic villain. Oftentimes, culprits tend to hang in the shadows, waiting for Phoenix, Edgeworth or Apollo to question them before appearing on the witness stand. Not Yew. On the contrary, she devised an elaborate, yet entirely believable plot (as opposed to the cluster**** that is E-5) on the fly to essentially murder two very embarrassing witnesses, and then actively covered her tracks all through the case. At the end of E-4 (by far AAI’s best case), I really felt like I engaged in a cat-and-mouse game with the case’s culprit, instead of a par-for-the-course investigation phase.

The fact that she actually got away, only to be later revealed as Shih-Na (a twist which floored me, even though I suspected Shih-Na before even starting the game, just from promo material), obviously adds to the whole thing. She’s a great antagonist, with a pretty grating personality – but in a good way. She’s never annoying, she’s… just irritating enough that she’s still fun to be around with, but you want to show her up – and eventually arrest her once you figure out that she’s behind pretty much everything. They got the balance just right, it seems.

To keep things short: I like my villains to be smart, engaging, tough to break down and just all-around interesting – and Yew pretty much satisfies all criteria. A bit of a shame that the game ended with the boring showdown against Alba, since Yew made for a much better villain.

16. Morgan Fey

Cases: 2-2 (Accomplice), 3-5 (Accomplice)

If there ever is an overarching Ace Attorney villain, you’ve got her right here. Pretty much the only AA villain who never got her comeuppance – sure, she’s in jail, possibly for a long time, but since she only ever planned crimes instead of actually committing them, you can bet that she won’t be there for too long.

Morgan is probably the most classic villain in the series – motivated by pride and envy – and perhaps that’s why I like her so much. She’s really sinister in demeanour, but most of all, you feel like she’s always in complete control of herself. I think a lot of what makes her character so fascinating is how much we just don’t know about her. I mean, sure, we figured out that she wants to put Pearl at the head of the main family, and that she’s proud and was the former heir to the Fey family, but beyond that, she’s still a mystery. We never saw her lose control beyond the occasional killer-stare sprite. We never really got to engage with her in court.

And yet, piecing the whole puzzle together with the various tidbits we collect through the trilogy, she seems to be extremely smart and super dangerous, able to plan elaborate crimes from the comfort of her prison cell. As I said in the write-up above, I like smart and controlled villains, and she’s one of the best examples of that in the series. Really engaging and fascinating antagonist, and I hope we see more of her and get to engage with her in court in some fashion (tbh, we probably will at some point).

15. Adrian Andrews

Cases: 2-4 (Witness), 3-2 (Side Character)

This is mainly based on her 2-4 appearance – while I did like her 3-2 cameo, I feel that it was on the whole rather unnecessary, except to let us know that she turned out okay.

So, Adrian. The quintessential decoy villain – and so much more at the same time. Basically, when you’ve got a case that relies so much on two characters (because let’s face it, De Killer is pretty much a force of nature by this point) – especially a final case – you’ve got to make sure that they’re really, really good. The whole point of the case is to provide us with a dilemma: save Maya, or let a villain go free/convict an innocent. To make that dilemma worth a damn, you’ve thus got to make the villain truly despicable and the innocent really likeable. They did just that, and while the villain thing was pretty over the top (but still great, more on that later), I really like the underhanded way they went about making us care about Andrews.

See, the classic move would’ve been to just have Andrews be a really kind and charitable person – someone you’d just want to root for, basically. Then – when faced with a choice between an absolute ******* and the kindly jovial Andrews – you’d be struggling with the decision. But that’s not it. Thinking about it now, it wouldn’t work quite as well as the trick they pulled.

What they actually did was make Andrews weak and strong at the same time. What a weird decision – and perhaps the most surprising thing is that it works so well! On the one hand, you have strong Andrews – the one who acts, tries to pin the crime on the man she hates so much. Rather cold, rather unflinching, everyone suspects her pretty much from the get go (which is great, since she’s supposed to be a big fat red herring at first).

And then there’s weak Andrews, the one you discover after carefully tearing apart her testimony. This one isn’t kind or relatable: she’s just so… distressed, so alone that you can’t help but want to protect her. It’s like kicking someone who’s already down and didn’t ask for any of this (even though she did ask for a lot of it) – it’s just so hard and painful. And if you don’t do it, Maya dies. Weak Andrews awakens some kind of primal feeling that leads you to just not want to get her convicted, which, along with the “that evil ******* must bay” surge of emotion, counterbalances the primal “I must save Maya” feeling.

The beautiful thing is that you can’t even rationally dismiss Andrews as a weak person whose existence won’t really be missed (a despicable line of reasoning, but at this point, you’re struggling to make a choice and jumping to conclusions is the easy way to do it), since she acted with overwhelming strength of character by pinning the blame on the true guilty party, all for the sake of the woman she loved (presumably, but come on!).

Really a great exercise on pathos, and the best thing is that they chose such an unorthodox way of making us care. Fantastic character right there.

A pity 3-2 took away a lot of that aura, which is why she didn’t break the top 10, but hey, she’s still pretty high and definitely one of the series’ best characters.

14. Tyrell Badd

Cases: E-1 (Side Character), E-4 (Witness), E-5 (Side Character)

And suddenly, AMAZING CHARACTER FROM NOWHERE. No seriously, where the hell did that guy come from? E-4 is such an unassuming case at first: the setting is absolutely wonderful, of course, but the general feeling I had when I first started it was "fanboy's delight, and maybe not much more"... and then it churns out great characters and a damn good plot. It's amazing when you think about it.

Badd thrives on design, and let’s face it, his design is, simply put, absolutely incredible. His appearance is formidable, the bullet holes in his coat evoke more than any story ever could, and his overall demeanour – at first glance, at least – suggests a million theories. A++ design, right there. Wow.

Of course, the seemingly-evil detective (I don’t know for you, but I sure suspected him at first >_>) is all about subverting appearances. He comes forward as a much more threatening and much more competent Gumshoe, with decades of experience. He’s also extremely shady – and you can just imagine him dropping the pretence and starting to ‘get dangerous’ if pressed too far. And then… the lollipop comes up. And the bubble is all deflated. And it’s just great. The contrast between this super-serious noir detective and a stupid little lollipop (as well as his overall kindness) is arresting and a stroke of genius. Makes the character larger than life and thus memorable – which means you can’t help but want/hope for him to return.

Not much more to say beyond that: Badd's a really cool character with some sort of "badass quirky" vibe which is weird but works really well. I'd say his only weak point is that he's not *quite* as deep as some of the other characters on this tier (but more than others, mind you). Once the lollipop sprite has come and gone, what you see is pretty much what you get - but what you see is so great that he entirely deserves a spot in the top 15. And, well... every character doesn't have to be a paragon of complexity for them to be enjoyable.

As I said, I like smart and competent characters, and he’s both helpful and a good person with whom to bounce ideas. Mr. Badd gets a thumbs-up!

13. Kristoph Gavin

Cases: 4-1 (Mentor/Culprit), 4-4 (Culprit/Final Boss/Big Bad)

Hmpf. I’ve been putting it off long enough – time to actually tackle AJ’s Big Bad. All in all, brilliant character who could’ve been much higher (oh yes) without that terrible motive.

I’ve talked a bit about the previous character’s great design, and while Kristoph’s design is pretty mediocre (the ‘unicorn hair’, in particular, is quite unnecessary), his actual sprites are utterly fantastic. I’m floored that it took as much as four games (and AJ!) to have such a controlled witness on the stand.

The whole point of Kristoph is to see the slow demise of an extremely calm and collected killer into the pathetic little pile of anger and madness that he ends up as – and let’s face it, it’s done super well (at least where 4-1 is concerned). He starts off as a pretty cool mentor figure – you don’t get the immediate “good guy” impression that you got from Mia, sure, and he does come across as just a tad bit eerie, but everyone blames that on general design and moves on.

Then, he turns out to be pretty helpful on the defence bench and helps you manoeuvre the game’s first case without being overbearing; he’s also got some charisma to him – which might stem from his calm demeanour. And then, the twist. That’s where Kristoph starts – ever so slowly – to take a turn towards the sinister, an adjective which he would retain for the remainder of the game.

While he’s cool and all on the defence bench, the witness stand is where Kristoph really shines. He puts up a very clever testimony, immediately figuring out a story to spin and providing a testimony devoid of any clear contradiction. He’s also a very capable killer, immediately realizing the implications of the bloody ace and moving to dispose of it (and to dispose of it utterly, instead of keeping it in an obvious spot at home or something). Apollo/Phoenix bring out the forged ace, and he catches himself in time to realize that outing the ace as fake would actually implicate him much more directly. Think about this as well: all throughout the game, one can almost never call him on one contradiction. His testimony is made of iron – in fact, the only three things that can actually be used to pin the crime on him is (1) forged evidence, (2) a stupid perceive bracelet and (3) a cheap and morally questionable trick with the jurist system that Phoenix oh-so-conveniently pulled on that very trial. All in all, he’s a very clever, very dangerous killer – and it’s all for the best that he turned out to be the game’s Big Bad and one of its only two decent characters.

That said, what really distinguishes him from the other characters on this list (below or above him) is the sheer quality of his spritework. The very small movements – from the position of his head, to the glasses, to the small, twisted smile and the shadows that slowly creep upon his face, all the while remaining absolutely still. You slowly start to see how much of a monster that man is, and it’s done so subtly, so gradually, that I couldn’t help but be in awe. His breakdown is, of course, a must-see, and the resulting mess would be truly satisfying… if only he’d have lasted a bit longer in that final trial.

Pity he had to get such a terrible motive. The worst thing is that they’ve hyped it quite a bit: first, he didn’t reveal it back in 4-1, then Zak turns up again in 4-4 with Kristoph in the background, then the Black Psyche-Locks which are just terrifying… The fact that it all turns out to be a petty, childish decision on Kristoph’s part because he wasn’t chosen to be Zak’s lawyer… Though Zak may be stupid himself, it’s still a terrible move on the dev team’s part to have… that… be their main villain’s motive.

Still, the rest of the character is so eminently great that he fully deserves a spot on the top 15, although the lack of a proper motive would place him below the sole remaining AJ character. Probably a bit of a controversial decision on my part to have that other character above Kristoph, but hell, I think it's justified and I'm running with it!

12. Valant Gramarye

Cases: 4-3 (Side Character), 4-4 (Side Character/Flashback Witness)

The best Apollo Justice character, and deservedly so. Honestly, at times, I feel like he’s the only one actually worth a damn, Kristoph be, uh, damned.

I don’t think I need to elaborate much on why Valant got placed so high in these rankings; if you have him far from the AJ podium (I *could* understand a Kristoph > Valant > The Rest ranking, even though I don't agree with it), you might need to pay a bit more attention to the game.

Valant’s funny, well-written (ripping Spark Brushel's card, etc.), has a great gimmick for once (and a great "damage" animation), and is… actually pretty damn deep for someone who turns out to have *nothing* to do with any actual murder plot save for the flashback case.

Most of all, though, Valant’s a very strong character simply because of how human he feels in the end. Save for one or two very narrow exceptions (who took the first and the second place in these rankings, it turns out!), I would also consider him the most realistic character in the series, despite his outlandish magician persona. Once you tear out the façade, you find out flaws and qualities so desperately human that you can’t help but forgive him for the few morally questionable actions he took seven years ago.

Valant’s life turned to **** pretty early with Thalassa’s near-mortal injuries, and it only got worse with the Magnifi ultimatum. His decision to frame Zak might seem a bit selfish at first, but when you think about it, he came to the hospital room only for Magnifi to tell him that he already failed the test because Zak already got there first (at Magnifi’s behest!). Basically, Valant had no chance of ever succeeding, and what he got for his trouble is either the ‘chance’ to commit murder – which he refused! – or the unfortunate consequence of being pretty much framed for said murder. In these circumstances, I could understand the impulse to save his skin by framing Zak and maybe get the eventual rights to Magnifi’s magic in the process.

Thing is, the dude felt pretty guilty about it afterwards, which led to a very interesting heart-to-heart between Phoenix and Valant in the detention center.

And then his story resumes: as he’s about to finally be able to put the whole thing behind him, Zak comes back and gives the rights to Trucy(what an utter jerk), to be opened at a later time so Valant’s life and career can be ruined even more. Phoenix actually gives him the envelope, to warn him ahead of time (which was cool on his part), and what does Valant do? Does he kill Trucy in a fit of anger? Does he silence Nick to prevent him from giving the envelope to Trucy? Does he even forge another envelope – now that Zak is dead – awarding himself all the rights to Magnifi’s magic?

No. He acknowledges the decision, wishes the best for Trucy and actually turns himself in. Man, if there ever was one character that deserved to get away with it and enjoy life… It's rare in this series to find a character who actually seems to evolve independently from what players would expect - this kind of character would normally scheme and ingratiate themselves with Trucy to try to get into her good books and get the rights; instead, Valant makes an unexpected decision, trying to cope with his guilt as best he can. Hopefully, he doesn't spend too long in prison and gets to resume his career with a Valant/Trucy duo.

I’ve got to tip my hat to such a truly decent and human character, definitely the most relatable in the whole game. Poor dude’s got it rough, but he came out of it with class and dignity. A job well done.

11. Shi-Long Lang

Cases: E-3 (Detective/Rival), E-4 (Side Character), E-5 (Detective/Rival)

Man, I did NOT expect to like Lang that much. I usually despise the ‘rebellious jock’ character archetype (and when I say despise it, I really mean it!). I was completely unfazed and indifferent towards his promo material – Interpol detective who hates prosecutors? Really? How bland and unoriginal.

And then he was introduced in-game and everything was forgiven.

More than anything, Lang’s really intense about pretty much everything he does, but even though he can be really uncooperative and obstruct literally everything you do, I couldn’t help but have mad respect for his tenacity and open-mindedness. It all comes down to, once again – you guessed it – the differences between appearances and actual depth.

As I said earlier in this write-up, Lang initially comes off as a bit of an airhead: intense, ‘cool’ but all in all pretty incompetent – you get the initial feeling that he’s simply there to be sort of the classic obstructive bureaucrat (even if he’s the farthest thing to a bureaucrat there is… let’s call him the obstructive cowboy cop). However, the more you progress through the game, the more you realize that… Lang’s actually pretty damn smart. That’s the thing: he acts like a cowboy cop to make himself appear dumber and less competent than he is, but he’s actually a shrewd investigator able to put his principles aside for the sake of justice and the truth.

More than anything, he develops intelligently. You’d expect such a character to be annoying and aggressive throughout the whole game up until the point he realizes he’s wrong, Edgeworth catches the real culprit and he grudgingly comes around to Edgey’s point of view, leaving with some minimal respect and some passive-aggressive bent-up frustration.

And… it’s really much simpler (and believable) than that. Sure, he arrives on the scene in E-3 despising prosecutors and their ilk. However, it’s not long before Edgeworth pins the kidnapping and murder on Lance – and here’s the great thing about Lang: he immediately revises his assessment of Edgeworth and starts to see him as a very competent investigator. More than anything, he takes that into account in E-5, being able to frame plans that rely on Edgeworth being smarter than he is himself. I’m of course referring to that brilliant “Franziska killed Ka-Shi Nou” accusation that he pulled at the end of E-5 to bait Alba into letting Edgeworth investigate his office.

Apart from that, he of course has hilarious antics with his subordinates – such as remembering the birthday of a subordinate’s very distant relative and acting all intense about it. Plus, no matter how obstructive he proves about it, you can’t help but respect his trust for Shih-Na – which culminates in him taking the bullet for her, yet still arresting her. The man has principles, but he also comes through in the end.

Mad respect from that guy. Admittedly, it was a tough call between Badd and Lang for the title of top AAI character, but in the end, I feel like Lang deserves it more for being such an integral part of the game and such a cool rival.

10. Matt Engarde

Case: 2-4 (Defendant/Big Bad)

At last we're here; The Top 10! I’ve got to hand it to Dollie and Kristoph for putting up such a good opposition, but in the end, there’s no way around it: the most evil character in the series is none other than dearly beloved Matt Engarde right here. Complete monster doesn’t even start to describe the guy.

As I said in my Adrian Andrews write-up, 2-4 needed to actually accomplish two things to make the Maya dilemma as mortifying as it was: make us care for Adrian in the span of one day (done!) and make us despise Engarde with all our hearts in the span of one scene. That’s right: they couldn’t just come right out and reveal Engarde as the case’s main villain. In order to keep the suspense going and make us squirm a bit more at the reversal of fortune, the game pretty much had to make us suspect Adrian, at least until the end of the first trial.

Engarde’s a brilliant bait-and-switch character, but the good thing is that they didn’t try to make him really kind at first. It would’ve been a mistake to have him be all gentle, understanding and sympathetic, before reverting to his true self. The mood whiplash and suspension of disbelief would’ve been too great. Instead, they make him thoroughly unsympathetic, but nothing worse than that. Dude’s an airhead with no character depth, and everyone’s initial reaction, after “…This is my client?”, is “Why the hell would De Killer want me to defend him?”

For a while, you kinda forget about him, focused on saving Maya and getting your defendant a not-guilty verdict, even if he’s somewhat distant and unlikeable. But then… then you start to wonder if maybe, possibly… he could’ve done the deed after all. It starts as a slow creeping suspicion. Surely they wouldn’t dare, right? And yet it makes perfect sense. Two games, nothing but blameless defendants (save maybe Lana, and even then!). That would be gutsy, but oh so good.

Which brings us, of course, to the hair-flip scene and the series’ most stupendous reveal. Engarde’s culpability, by itself, is not really surprising by this point – the beautiful thing is just how it’s done – and how badly it subverts your expectations. One goes into it fairly convinced that Engarde hired De Killer, and one’s ready to make him come clean about it – and then figure out how attorney and defendant can both address the problem from there. Because that’s how it’s always been done. Sure, he may be guilty, but… maybe Juan deserved it? Maybe that’s the struggle? Here’s the thing: I expected the game to be kinda shy about it and try to reconcile things.

And BAM, hair-flip. Total game-changer.

Engarde’s not really deep. He’s not marvelously subtle or anything. But he doesn’t need to be. He’s a cartoonish villain, a demon, as vicious and in-your-face as anyone has any right to be, and this is exactly why he’s such a great villain: you’re stuck with him. If any other villain were to do that, well, you’d just be glad to stick it in their face in trial. Him? You’re screwed. He can taunt you as much as he wants, and there’s nothing you can do. I’m glad the game resisted the temptation to give him some sort of motivation, troubled past, etc. etc. He needs to NOT have one – or else one would be tempted to justify his misdeeds. That’s not the point of the character. The point is that you’re stuck in a cage with the meanest demon that ever graced the series.

I may prefer 3-5 and 1-5’s last trial day as a whole, but there’s no question in my mind that finally rubbing it in Engarde’s face and forcing him to beg for that guilty verdict is the single most satisfying moment in the series.

9. The Judge

Cases: Ace Attorney Series Regular (Judge)

Perhaps unusually for such a highly-ranked character, this write-up won’t be too long, since there’s not much to say about the Judge except that he’s a terribly underrated character – or feels that way to me, at least. I mean, everybody loves him, but it’s hard to see him as Top-10 material unless you really think about it.

The quote I selected above is probably not the most fitting one, since the reason the Judge is so great is not because of his fairness or great sense of justice – given the lengths you actually have to go to get that non-guilty verdict, I’m not totally convinced yet of this guy’s incredible fairness, no matter what other characters have to say (though he *is* always ready to listen to whatever outlandish theory Phoenix brewed, I guess).

Nah, the Judge’s great, of course, because he’s the single best source of comic relief in the series. Perhaps not the most eminently quotable – people cite Edgeworth’s mishaps much more often than they quote this guy – but a near-constant source of good ol’ tension-relieving comedy, that can always bring a smile upon one’s face.

But it’s more than that, or else he wouldn’t have made the top 10. It’s not only that he’s funny, but also – and mostly – because he’s been there the whole way through and… never really lets you down. He’s more than a character; he’s an institution: an irreplaceable part of the trial, and also the one who guides the whole thing. It’s often forgotten in lieu of some great lines of his, but the Judge has pretty much the thankless role of moving the plot along and making sure players figure things out in the order the game wants them to – and the most amazing part is that it very rarely feels forced. Sure, you might occasionally realize the odd contradiction long before Phoenix does, but mostly, everything progresses with some kind of thematic coherence. He asks the right questions, gets the right testimony at the right time and for the right reason, such that the game’s ‘railroading’ (I don’t like calling it that, since AA is at the core a visual novel, meaning ‘railroading’ is obviously a good thing and an expected element of the game) never feels forced or detrimental.

It’s a testament to how well he’s written that even after 18 cases worth of the man, he’s still more often remembered for his great/outlandish lines than for the essential groundwork he does in establishing the progression of each case (the virtue of which is not to be noticed, of course).

8. Manfred von Karma

Cases: 1-4 (Prosecutor/Big Bad/Final Boss), E-4 (Side Character/Cameo)

This. This is the definition of what a Phoenix Wright Final Boss should be. In fact, Von Karma has very little depth to his character apart from his Final Boss qualities, but what a Final Boss he is! He dogs you during the whole case; 1-4 is little else than an incredibly long (and plain incredible) showdown against the most ruthless prosecutor that ever was and ever will be.

From the get-go, von Karma is presented – both through hype and through these first moments in court – as a completely over-the-top/ridiculously intense war machine. Edgeworth – who’s pretty devious himself – starts out by hyping him as 10 times as good and 20 times as ruthless as he was. Plus he never lost a case in his 40-years career. This was smart on the game’s part: simply meeting him out of the blue might have been a bit bizarre and anticlimactic – instead, you’re wondering exactly what you’ll be facing.

The trial quickly begins, and of course, Von Karma completely lives up to the hype, immediately ordering the judge around and projecting an air of indomitable authority. He’s just as bad during cross-examination, objecting to every single thing Phoenix says, even questioning the point of having a cross-examination in the first place when the evidence is (allegedly) so clear already. Winston Payne was a push-over; Edgeworth was smart and devious; Von Karma makes you fight tooth and nails for every little point you can grasp.

No need to beat around the bush: this is precisely why I love his character so much. We often speak here of certain witnesses that are hard to crack, or who fold way too quickly. Kristoph barely lasts a few minutes on the stand in 4-4; Angel Starr’s pretty nasty and resilient in 1-5. This guy, though, is on a whole other level, since he’s pretty much the first and last instance of a “Boss Prosecutor”. Even Godot is pretty much the secondary villain in his case – an afterthought, almost. Von Karma, however, is here every minute of every trial. He’s in your face; he pushes you to the utmost extremes with ridiculous charisma and persistence.

This is exactly what I want in a villain. Someone smart, competent and tough as nails. I don’t want a pushover: I want to feel proud of myself after the fight. The stronger they are, the funnier it is to finally rub it in after they’re down. And let’s face it, here, Karma being such a monster is exactly why the last segment of the final trial is so fun and satisfying. After beating around the bush, cross-examining parrots and outing senile old men as murderers, you finally get to put the real mastermind on the stand, so to speak, and for once, HE’S on the defensive, HE’S about to get crushed and HE’S about to get payback for 40 years of ****ery. Man, I still get pumped even by writing those lines. The man is that good of an antagonist.

I won’t spend that much time elaborating on his importance to the series as a whole, except to say that he’s pretty much indirectly responsible for everything. Him killing Greg led to Edgey becoming a prosecutor, which led to Phoenix becoming a lawyer. It also led to the Misty Fey debacle, prompting the exile AND the Morgan-plotting. And potentially Mia becoming a lawyer, although that’s a bit in the air.

A bit like Engarde, Karma is not super well-defined beyond that (besides perfectionism, that is), but he doesn’t need to be. Like Engarde, he’s not there for you to feel sorry for him. He’s there as an immovable and malevolent force of nature that you must take on as best you can and finally vanquish. And it’s great. So damn great.

7. Pearl Fey

Cases: Ace Attorney Series Regular (Side Character/Assistant)

Pearl is just the best.

Maya may be the “heart” of the original trilogy, but for me, it was Pearl that stole the show for the last two games. Child characters are ridiculously hard to get right – the younger they are, the harder it is. In fact, the only other VG child character I remember liking is Clementine (Ellie from TLOU doesn’t count because she’s a teenager and therefore mature enough to be compelling without excessive skill).

Pearl is just… it’s nothing too fancy, nothing too groundbreaking, but the character simply works. She’s complex, tridimensional, believable, relatable – and just plain adorable. Think about it: you’ve got a very young character, with much stronger powers that the assistant we all came to know and love, who whines and cries every time Phoenix interacts with another woman than Maya. Sounds like a recipe for disaster on paper, and yet by adding some small paint strokes on the canvass, they managed to justify everything.

What I like most about her character is how her backstory and early childhood integrate so well with who she currently is. Generally, writers start with who the person has become (“let’s take Villain X and make him really evil”) and then figure out a backstory explaining how he became like that (“he was an orphan and his father beat him!”). And it just doesn’t quite mesh, isn’t it? Like what happened earlier shouldn’t translate into the kind of character we got, or rather: these kinds of characters shouldn’t exist outside of fiction.

With Pearl, it’s the opposite: I’m pretty sure they designed Morgan first, then decided to give her a daughter, and then wondered how Morgan’s backstory (and therefore Pearl’s) might have impacted on who she is. The result? It works really, really well. You can’t ever be mad at Pearls for ruining any potential relationship between Phoenix and whoever isn’t Maya, because she’s just idolizing the two of them for perfectly standard reasons. Dahlia/Iris’ father left her mother very quickly and with little regard to her well-being. All her life, she’s always lacked some sort of family anchor – sure, she had her mother, but knowing Morgan, it probably was a… somewhat unstable family. Which is why she tries to recreate what she doesn’t have in Phoenix/Maya, who are like some sort of weird sister/brother-in law slash mother/father hybrid. It’s understandable, it’s adorable and it’s pretty poignant too, when you think about it.

One often overlooked part of her character is her relationship with her mother Morgan, and how tragic it is that she essentially gets betrayed twice by the person who should love her unconditionally. The second time is easily the most tragic, as she almost played a direct hand in the downfall of her ‘big sis’ Maya, out of a desire to help her out as best she could. She ends up absolutely traumatized, feeling guilty as all hell, and though I’ve faulted Maya earlier with a lack of character development, she totally came through in 3-5 with astounding feats of maturity by bailing out Pearl and helping her out on the right path.

The Fey family is a… pretty messed-up one, to say the least, and I can’t say I like some of their relationship interplay (I have a bit of a hard time buying the Maya-Mia and Maya-Misty relationships). Everything involving Pearl, however, makes perfect sense and is either cute or tragic, be it Pearl-Maya, Pearl-Morgan or Pearl-Elise. I’m starting to see a pattern here, and honestly, aside from (arguably) Pearl-Morgan, Pearl does most of the legwork on both relationships, apart from the aforementioned 3-5 epilogue with Maya. Therefore, she gets all the credit.

Plus, she’s the best.

6. Dahlia Hawthorne

Cases: 3-1 (Culprit), 3-4 (Culprit), 3-5 (Side Culprit/Big Bad/Climax Boss)

And there you have it. The final – and best – Big Bad falls at last, not long after the last of her peers. It truly shouldn’t be that surprising, given how thematically important she is to T&T’s whole story.

Dahlia is the series’ first instance of an ‘overarching’ Big Bad – that is, instead of simply being the villain of the final case, she also happens to be the villain of the game as a whole. While you could make an argument for Von Karma in PW1 – him being ultimately responsible for Edgeworth’s Start of Darkness and Redd White’s blackmailing – Dahlia’s the very first villain who actually engages with Phoenix/Mia the whole game. It worked so well that the series basically decided to integrate this to the formula from now on.

I think a lot of the reasons why I love Dahlia is precisely because of subverted expectations. In short, you never realize until the very end just how far the rabbit hole goes. She always keeps you guessing, thinking you’ve pretty much understood her before realizing that her malevolence goes on to a whole new level.

At first, she’s just the traditional first case witness/culprit who offed an ex-boyfriend for whatever reason. That being said, she’s immediately more interesting than both Sahwit and Wellington (and Orly and Portsman), and for a reason that is both simple and impossible to describe directly: she has some sort of mystical aura to her, be it her design, her fantastic theme song (second-best in the series), or some sort of unidentifiable mystique. The minute you lay eyes on her, you know that that one might be a bit harder to break. This, double with the fact that Mia and Dollie quickly engage in a little interplay, referring to some unknown case in the past, marks her as a very memorable case 1 witness.

And then, as I said… we go down the proverbial rabbit hole. First, it’s Doug Swallow. Then you realize she probably killed a certain Diego Armando as well. And planned to kill Phoenix, too. One later learns that she killed her own sister. Because Valerie planned to reveal a scheme Dahlia cooked that sent the man who loved her on death row (all for some diamond). And then she indirectly kills the very same Terry, too. Before hatching a plan to dispose of Maya. From beyond the grave. All to spite Mia. Her list of crimes is just so ridiculously long, and yet it never starts feeling unbelievable: it all started with a rather small crime, which erupted into a cascade of crimes all designed to cover the previous one or take revenge over previous slights. Dahlia’s a slippery slope made flesh.

But that’s not why I like her that much. That’s not why she’s so great. No, the unique fact with her – unique in that for the first time, the game’s Big Bad is engaging with you on equal terms. They’re not some evil prosecutor who benefit from the insane advantages prosecution gets during trial. They’re not some diabolical police overlord who can just abuse their terrible powers to destroy you. They don’t have access to an invincible serial killer, nor to mad stalking skills. Dahlia is just one girl, who doesn’t have a modicum of power save for her feminine wiles.

This creates a protagonist/villain connection to a very personal level. You’re not just there to save your client, or Maya. You’re there for blood. More than that, Dahlia herself is responsible for much pain and tragedy for so many characters. Mia, Phoenix and Godot, of course (who do comprise pretty much all of the actors involved in the final trial, sans the Judge), but also Edgey. Also Iris. Basically, they build her up so well in her first two appearances that by the time she finally rears her pretty head in 3-5, the tension in the room immediately multiplies by ten. When you see Godot get shocked at the revelation that the ‘Iris’ on the stand is, in fact, Dahlia, it’s not just a prosecutor freaking out about losing control; it’s also a very personal shock, Godot being horrified at the idea that the woman who ruined his life and doomed him has been standing right there, under his nose. Everyone who touches her is ruined to some degree, and that makes for such an electrifying finale – instead of just Phoenix vs. villain, it’s everyone against her. Phoenix, Mia's channeled spirit, Edgeworth, Godot and hell, even a returning Fransizka all team up and support each other throughout the investigations and trials because they all know it's going to all of their abilities and their cooperation to take Dahlia down once and for all.

Dahlia's great as well because the game doesn't portray her as some sort of invincible monster. Pretty much all of her plans end in miserable failure, and instead of shying away from it and trying to depict her as more magnificent than she is, the game embraces it completely and throws it in her face in a no-holds-barred verbal beatdown, courtesy of Mia.

The writers realized very quickly that Dahlia was not, and should not be, the same kind of villain as the likes of Karma, Gant and Engarde were before her - an invincible, all-powerful overlord ready to take down the hero with brute force. Dahlia's a much more personal, much more intimate villain, and while she fails a whole damn lot, the repeated encounters with them (as well as her failures) emphasize how human she is in the end, and also how gruelling and momentous her final defeat is.

Basically: she's not there to be impressive, she's there to be shockingly maleficent and to connect personally with every character involved, so as to create a deep-seated, intimate hatred for her, a primal need to finally see her down and, through her, say a final goodbye to such a great trilogy, before moving on the emotional rollercoaster final stretch that constitute Godot's final stand-off.

5. Dick Gumshoe

Cases: Ace Attorney Series Regular (Detective)

Aaaaw good ol’ Gumshoe. Guy’s just great.

I’ll try to keep things rather brief this time around, since Gumshoe is a pretty clear-cut character – and the reasons why everybody likes him are, well… pretty clear-cut as well.

First, of course, is because he’s adorable. The bumbling detective archetype is always fun to see, and this time, it’s done exceptionally well. Gumshoe’s a bit dumb, but not excessively so, by which I mean that while you can always bank on him missing a crucial detail from the crime scene, it’s never terribly obvious; while he can never keep up with Phoenix and Edgeworth’s level of reasoning, he’s still able to interact with them, piece some things together and generally be able to help them around quite a lot. That helps make him a believable and relatable character, instead of just the walking caricature he could’ve ended up as.

Plus, you know, his endless string of failures and mishaps is hilarious: him getting endless pay cuts because he’s always fumbling around, him trying to woo Maggey, which never quite works until the end of 3-3; him always getting owned in court over some random detail he couldn’t have possibly been expected to notice… It’s great.

Second – and more importantly – the reason why he’s such a strong character is his progression. Take away the ‘bumbling detective’ aspect of his personality, and he’s a really great and believable guy. See, the dev team decided they wanted a bumbling detective, and so they thought about how that bumbling detective would react to the circumstances around him. Since he’s a bumbling detective, obviously everyone mocks him, right? Right. Therefore, him respecting and admiring Edgeworth so much is just the natural course of action for his character: since Edgey’s the only one who tries to listen to him, who (somewhat) respects him for what he does and who respects the job – as opposed to Payne who’s too incompetent to care and to Manfred von Karma who’s too evil to even notice someone as incompetent as him.

And therefore, when he comes to realize, throughout the course of the game, that Phoenix also cares about Edgey, and is also pretty damn respectful for a defence attorney, Gumshoe comes around to support him as well. That’s one of the reasons why Edgeworth being the 1-4 Defendant is such a brilliant idea: first, it gives us an awesome final boss, of course; second, it marks a turn in both Edgey and Gumshoe’s character. From that point on, Gumshoe will always squarely be in Phoenix’s team, no matter the odds, just as he would always be in Edgey’s team. It’s fantastic character progression right there. He starts as a wholly antagonistic incompetent detective and ends up as someone who’s always got your back and manages to save Phoenix’s cases/life in more than one instance (in Gant’s office in 1-5, against De Killer in 2-4, rebuilding the bridge in 3-5…).

Great progression and a great, lovable character. What’s not to like?

Tier One: Turnabout Perfection

Well, this is it. These characters are more or less perfect, in the sense that there is not a single element with them that I would change. Some characters, you might think they’re pretty much the best, and can’t figure out a way to improve them; with these guys, though, it’s not that I can’t figure out a way to improve them. It’s that I believe there is no way of making them better than they are.

4. Damon Gant

Case: 1-5 (Culprit/Bonus Boss)

Never has a big orange powerman made a case as much as Gant made 1-5. He’s the only reason why 1-5 is as high as it is. I mean, sure, Ema’s awesome and Lana’s great, but without Gant, Rise from the Ashes is a middle-of-the-pack case. Its first two days of investigation are terrible and the Marshall cross-examination is “pretty good” at best. Gant is the one that makes it all come together in a brilliant whole.

Gant’s the definition of a perfect villain, in that he’s a great character AND a great villain. Godot’s a ludicrously amazing character, but not that memorable a villain (he’s actually not a villain, so yeah); Von Karma is an incredible villain and an ‘alright’ character. Gant’s both. He’s a show-stealer through and through.

I’m not going to spend too much time on Gant’s “good” persona, except to say that he’s great because he’s just so eccentric and defies expectation from beginning to end. Everything he does is weird, but awesome: from the endless stare, to the silly nicknames, to his absolute confidence on the stand – and to little funny aspects of his character (#7777777, anyone?). If you feel like I’m just gushing over his character, well… you’d be partly right, but the point of this tirade is not to say “He’s awesome!”, but to show that’s he has this larger-than-life presence that makes him immediately memorable. Just with that, he’d probably be a top 30 character or so, which is more than I can say for Von Karma if you were to strip him of all his villainous qualities.

But that’s not where he shines, obviously. Gant’s the one villain in the series who ENTIRELY lives up to the hype. Sure, Von Karma’s crazy awesome, but once you actually bring him to the stand, so to speak, he folds rather quickly (not that I have a problem with that – it was appropriate in the circumstances, but you know). Engarde’s never confronted directly; Dahlia’s point is not to be threatening, and Kristoph… let us not speak of Kristoph. Here’s the thing: Gant’s standards are the absolute highest in the series. We’ve seen Karma already – we know he’s strong. Engarde’s an ******* and not much else. Dollie’s been confronted twice already by the time the final showdown begins in 3-5.

Gant, on the other hand, has spent the whole case appearing invincible and completely unflappable. Everyone knows that there’s probably another side to him, that he’d be the only satisfying culprit to that case. And given how great he is as a “good guy”, he’s surrounded by insane hype as a villain. Is he going to fold? Will he laugh and clap his way through the trial?

And then he arrives to the stand, and it’s just amazing through and through. The most electrifying challenge in the series (not the hardest – not by a long shot – but the best). See, Gant’s incredible because he’s just so utterly, fantastically, absolutely terrifying. He doesn’t play softball. He’s not there to testify on random stuff and wait for Phoenix to tie the noose around his neck by poking through a few contradictions.

Nah, aside from maybe Dahlia in 3-5 (who folds rather quickly), he’s the only witness in the series who FIGHTS BACK. “Oh, you’re going to bring me to the stand? Okay. Sure. Do it. But Wrighto, you’ll be disbarred before it’s over. Just saying. And your career will be ruined, Worthy.” The stakes are just insanely high. You’re fighting to rid the district of a corrupted scheming evil chief of police – and you’re fighting to remain free, to retain the right to practice law. To save someone from the clutches of a cold monster who’s been managing her life for years. And that monster fights back.

Most witnesses are simply satisfied with being there and waiting for Nick to own them. Gant has a plan. He wants you to present the piece of cloth, tie it to Ema, pin SL-9 on her and get away scot-free, with everyone related to the case either dead (Goodman, Lana through the death penalty), in prison (Ema, Marshall, probably Phoenix) or utterly discredited (Edgeworth). And since he has that game plan, he pursues it with implacable determination, throwing traps left and right. He’s tenacious, springs right back up even after being crushed by what one would think to be decisive evidence.

He has the most brilliant retorts out of anyone in the series: “Chief Gant, your safe number is #7777777! Therefore, you have ID Card 7777777!” Does he hide behind the weak “Oh, well, it’s just a coincidence”? No. He argues that Phoenix is lying, that he already has illegal evidence, broke into the police chief’s office and allegedly took something that oh-so-conveniently helps his case. This allows him to remain on the offensive and also to hurt the defence’s credibility, while losing nothing on his side.

The path to defeating him is slow and tortuous, one having to rely on the very few (and understandable) mistakes that he makes here and there. Gant fights back the whole way, pulling every dirty trick in the book, down to leaving in the middle of cross-examination and coming back just as Lana is about to implicate him, arguing that the piece of decisive evidence that Phoenix has against him is illegal, etc. etc. Dude’s just crazy.

And I don’t know for you, but I was floored by the possibility that Gant could very well be behind SL-9 from the get go! At first, I just thought Ema did actually accidentally kill Marshall and that Gant simply exploited the situation. The jolt I felt when realizing that the police chief was actually the mastermind behind SL-9 itself was one of the most electrifying sensations I ever felt playing this game.

This guy is just crazy awesome. Such a great, great character. Such a great, great villain. There is no doubt in my mind that Gant is the shining standard to which every PW villain should be compared. He’s just that good.

Hehe big orange man go clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap

3. Miles Edgeworth

Cases: Prosecutor 1-2, 1-3, 1-5, 2-4, 3-4 Defendant 1-4, Defense(Acting) 3-5

Miles’s all about character development. I mean, sure, the other two characters are anything but static, but Miles in particular is probably the #1 character in terms of progression. He wouldn’t be as great without it. But first, let’s get down to brass tacks and talk about his surface character.

Edgey’s great in all kinds of situations because he has that ‘comically serious’ edge, which means he’s perfectly at home both as a sort of comic relief in early cases AND as the dramatic focus in the game’s climax. This comic/dramatic interplay is at the focus of a large number of scenes featuring Edgeworth: in 1-2 and 1-4, he’s largely there to be a dramatic presence (first as a villain, the second as some sort of redemption arc), whereas he’s partly humorous in 1-3 with all kinds of great lines which we know all too well already. He once again returns to his dramatic high in 2-4 to basically ‘show Phoenix the way’, but his time as a protagonist in 3-5 is mostly comical, as the player spends most of their time laughing at how Edgeworth addresses problems which typically plague Phoenix.

More than that, though, he’s an excellent, excellent foil to Phoenix – whereas the spiky-haired defence attorney is a laid-back, optimistic underdog, our good friend Miles is the consummate perfectionist, cold, professional and efficient. Both of their styles are exceedingly different, but they both complement each other ridiculously well, which is why they make such a great team when they decide to work together (as is usually the case post-1-2) – it’s entirely plausible that Phoenix would be able to outline, as he often does, outlandish theories using the spectacular groundwork provided by Edgeworth, whereas Edgeworth might be able to capitalize on some of Phoenix’s better ideas to figure out some of the case’s intricacies. It didn’t take much of an effort to shift Edgeworth from ‘Rival’ to ‘Protagonist’ – which is a testament to how well he complements Phoenix, but also how adaptable he is to all sorts of situations.

Of course, that’s not the main draw of the character – as I said, Miles’s all about the journey.

I’d first like to point out how interesting it is to have the series’ “main prosecutor” be the son of a famous defence attorney. I mean, it would’ve been way too easy to have him be, like, von Karma’s son or something, simply wanting to follow into daddy’s footsteps before evil-daddy tries to pin some crime on him because evil-daddy’s a ****. Would’ve been easy, but rather bland and clichéd. Instead, we get some compelling character progression as Miles first starts off as an aspiring defence lawyer, who then shifts his priorities around to prosecutor once his father’s murder goes unpunished (the game pushing the irony so far as to have his father’s murderer be Miles’s own mentor).

What’s interesting as well is how it shifts him from the original good-guy Miles to a very shady and amoral persona. Guy’s ready to do anything to get a guilty verdict, which makes for a great contrast both towards Payne and Phoenix. But – as was clearly intended – the journey has only just begun: throughout the first game, Miles slowly shifts his allegiance and personality in favour of his original goals – you can see, after Redd White’s defeat, how he gradually comes to terms with his decision to become a prosecutor, how he finally snaps and how he decides to actively pursue the truth from now on, (im)perfect record be damned. You can see as well how Phoenix’s relentless defence and confidence in him definitely shatters everything he believed in while he was under Von Karma’s wing. 1-4/1-5 Miles is not the same as 1-2 Edgeworth.

I didn’t think it could quite be topped, but then 2-4 Edgey rolls around and completely steals the show. I’m still dumbfounded as to how exactly they did it, but the dev team managed to completely reverse the 1-4 situation, up to the point where Edgeworth is the moral compass and Phoenix is the one in doubt, torn between two equally valid (from his perspective) objectives. They managed to make the same story just as compelling from both sides of the equation. It’s quite impressive.

So yeah, 2-4 Miles absolutely steals the show, serving as a great contrast (once again! This man was born to be a rival…!) to Franziska and as a paragon of what a prosecutor should be. He’s both ridiculously persistent and tough to defeat – second only to Manfred himself – but also supremely fair, so much that you almost end up cheering him on over Nick (if you weren’t that much worried over Maya, of course).

And there you have it. Miles’s pretty much the perfect foil, to, well… everybody, which really shouldn’t work like that given that the characters he’s a foil to are so wildly different, but wherever he is, Edgeworth’s always a fantastic addition to any case.

It shouldn’t be a surprise, then, that he works so well as a protagonist in AAI. It does make the dynamic a bit different, since Edgeworth pretty much too smart and figures out everything from the get-go (instead of making outlandish deductions at the last second like Phoenix), but I’m glad they went that way and didn’t try to shift him into Phoenix 2.0.

Love the guy, and as I said, I could easily see him #1 in any ranking. In mine, though, he’ll have to settle for bronze while the two titans ahead duke it out.

2. Phoenix Wright (Original Trilogy)

Cases: Ace Attorney Series Regular (Protagonist)

Aaaaaaaaaaaaw yeah. Amazing protagonist right there.

Allow me to repeat, since that certainly went over your head.

Amazing. Protagonist.

Villain protagonists aside (e.g. Count of Monte-Cristo, Yagami Light, Lelouch Vi Britannia, etc.), Phoenix Wright himself is one of the very, very rare examples of a fictional protagonist who is without a doubt among the top 3 of a high-quality cast. Unless the protagonist is specifically designed to outshine secondary characters, he usually flounders right in the middle of mediocrity. Especially someone like Phoenix, who is not designed to be whacky or otherwise memorable.

Well, our spiky-haired lawyer did it. What a great, lovable protagonist. As always, you never quite know what you have until it’s gone, and it took me until Apollo Justice (who’s not so bad himself, but hey) to truly appreciate the original trilogy’s protagonist.

Phoenix is pretty much the guy you can root for non-stop. He’s never frustrating. Never stupid (3-1 aside, but we’ll get to that later). Every decision he makes, the player supports entirely. Every time another character does something terribly stupid or weird, Phoenix is there to call them on it, just like the player would if they were part of the AA world. Think about it: think how hard it is to devise such a character.

What I like about Wright is how he’s a scrappy underdog archetype done astonishingly well. No matter the situation, he’s always the underdog – in a terrible situation, with mounds and mounds of evidence piled against him – but that doesn’t mean he’s incompetent, either. Normally, underdogs tend to **** at first, either through overconfidence or just general stupidity, and then manage to edge out a win at the last second over some contrived deus ex machina. Well, the deus ex machina might be here sometimes as well, but that doesn’t stop Phoenix from being smart, charismatic and all-around admirable from the get-go. It’s easy to forget, after all, that Wright is essentially the one responsible for all the crazy-awesome, blood-pumping moment in the series. He’s the only one with the guts to take Manfred Von Karma head on; the only one with the audacity to fight Gant to the death (though I’ll have to give Edgey a nod here); the one, at last, with the charisma to turn things around over and over against so many shady witnesses.

And while most of the trilogy’s “big cases” revolve alternately on different characters (Edgeworth in 1-4; Ema/Lana in 1-5; Maya in 3-5), it’s easy to forget just how much Phoenix develops throughout. From the nervous newbie in 1-1 to the fire-forged friend in 1-4 who’d be ready to risk everything to save the one he believes in first and foremost. The first ‘phase’ of Phoenix’s development – along with his rise in competence (denoted by Mia appearing less and less as the series goes along) – is about the unflappable trust he has in his clients. Sure, it’s easy with Larry, or Maya, or Will. But then Edgeworth himself comes along, and though most players are really rooting for Phoenix to take the case because “it’s awesome” or something, people often forget how admirable it is of Phoenix to defend his bitter rival and old friend like this when no one else is ready to take his case… and once again in the end, when Edgeworth himself confesses to DL-6 – when Phoenix is believing in his clients DESPITE THEMSELVES. Dude’s all kinds of awesome.

Which makes the 2-4 struggle all the more compelling. Sure, you have Maya on the line, which does help make the choice… a bit easier to pick, if not any more morally justifiable. Still, you can tell how utterly Engarde could’ve destroyed a lesser hero. For someone, like Phoenix, who trusts his clients so dearly, trusts them above all… to have the job to defend such a monster… But our hero clutches through. And more than anything, he very, very quickly comes around and decides that the right thing to do, once Maya is safe, is to get Engarde behind bars. Think how long it took Edgeworth to come to that conclusion. Sure, Maya might fudge things over and prompts Phoenix to stall for time and semi-defend Engarde at first, but in the end, Phoenix comes through, once again, and decides to forsake his perfect record for the sake of justice. And people everywhere cheered.

I won’t go into much detail over the fantastic emotional journey that is T&T – what with Phoenix coming to terms over his love for Dahlia/Iris, etc. etc. since I’ll be pretty much doing nothing but that in the next write-up. Let me just say that by the time 3-5 comes around, Phoenix has once again surpassed himself and became, in essence, a “complete” lawyer, thanks to Edgey, Godot and everyone else who helped him or opposed him along the way and helped make him a better man.

So there you have it. I don’t feel like my write-up did any justice to Phoenix’s character, but I have a hard time talking about all that makes Wright such a great protagonist. Let me just say, then, that he’s in an extremely rare tier of excellent protagonists.

Or rather, to phrase it perhaps a bit less formally, Phoenix is a bro and always has your back. Terrific character. Misses the top spot by an inch.

1. Diego Armando/Godot

Cases: 3-2 (Prosecutor), 3-3 (Prosecutor), 3-4 (Mentor), 3-5 (Prosecutor/Main Culprit/Final Boss)

Well, this is it. The end of our long journey. How fitting that Godot’s the one remaining foe to tackle, just as he was the final mystery to solve in the original trilogy.

I’m not sure exactly why, but I’ve always got the feeling – from the minute I closed my DS after finishing T&T to this very moment – that Godot was the deepest and objectively best character in the series. It’s rare to see a character this deep, complex and desperately/beautifully flawed in a video game – now or ever. And let’s face it and state things clearly: it’s often the flawed characters who are the most beautiful. The ‘heart’ of The Last of Us may be Ellie, but its strongest character is without a doubt Joel. Well, it’s the same with Godot. Phoenix and Edgey may be the amazing fire-forged friends, engaging in fantastic courtroom battles to save innocent lives from the electric chair and to put hardened criminals to justice, but beyond that, they might be just too perfect and just for this human world.

But Godot? Oh, Godot’s part of this world alright. And that’s what makes him the greatest character in the AA series.

Diego’s story is just so tragic – and the way he reacts to it and tries to put everything behind him is so… beautifully stupid and yet frustratingly understandable. He’s not there for justice, like Edgeworth. He’s not there to win, like Manfred. He’s not even there to take revenge against Phoenix, to settle the score, like Franziska. No, he’s there to see what Phoenix is worth. And also – here’s the beautiful part – he wants, he so badly wants Phoenix to screw up. He taunts him relentlessly, tells Phoenix he doesn’t have what it takes, never had, because at the core of it all, he’s trying to convince himself that Phoenix screwed up. That he didn’t have what it took, that he couldn’t protect Mia, that he wasn’t there for her, when in truth… he was the one who disappeared.

It all comes down to Dahlia and Mia, of course. How his carelessness led to the former poisoning him, when he should’ve expected it. How he laid in bed, drifting between life and death, while the love of his life perished at the hand of Redd White. And when he finally woke up… he had no one left. No one to greet him, to wait for him at his bedside.

His lover was dead. Her murderer was behind bars already; perhaps executed as well. Dahlia, the little demon who ruined everything he had, was on death row as well – Mia having decided to take revenge for the quasi-murder of her boyfriend at the earliest opportunity. Truly, Godot had… nothing.

And so he decided to blind himself to the truth. He decided he had one last thing to do, and that was to see whether Phoenix really had it in him to carry on Mia’s torch. More than that, though – and as I said – it was a way to flee from his guilt. To pin the responsibility on the innocent Phoenix.

This is, of course, where Morgan/Dollie come in and devise the plan to get rid of Maya once-and-for-all. I won’t go into too much detail over Godot’s decision, except to say that it fits his character so damn well. How despite all the lies and wilful blindness, he immediately saw the whole thing as an opportunity for redemption. How he craved the occasion – so much that I believe he secretly wished for Misty to screw up and let Pearl go away. I don’t think he cared whether that was Pearl or Misty who came for Maya’s life that night. He just wanted to be there, sword in hand, freezing under the cold mist, ready to defend his lover once more, like he should have done all those years ago – because for all intents and purposes, Maya wasn’t Maya that night, but a mere proxy for someone worth so much more. Pretty sure as well that Godot was really glad to get a chance to ‘stick the pointy end’ in the back of the woman who ruined everything he had.

All that, and the desperate, desperate efforts he takes to erase any and all hints that could potentially link back to Maya – these make the character. All that, and the way it comes crashing down at the end: just like he secretly hoped for Dahlia’s channelling to work, I’m sure he secretly craved for Phoenix to finally take him down. Notice how he specifically asks the court to continue the proceedings, when a simple ‘Not Guilty’ verdict would’ve ended it all. He’s now seen what Phoenix is worth. He’s seen him save Maya’s life even when being kept out of the loop. He’s seen him destroy Dahlia once and for all (along with Mia). So now, for the first time, he’s done with the wilful blindness: he wants to see if Phoenix can truly carry the torch, once and for all. And he puts himself – his own person – as the final obstacle, the final test. Perhaps as a way to alleviate the guilt as well. Godot’s hard to seize like that.

So yeah. Of course Godot is funny. Of course he has all these great incomprehensible metaphors, his love for coffee, his biting wit, his unmistakable air of melancholy, his fantastic lines and his marvellous theme music (both themes, actually, are fantastic). But that’s not why he’s here. No, he’s here because underneath the shell, underneath these games, he’s a magnificent character.

I’ve always made clear from the beginning that I like villains more than heroes. Well, Godot’s no villain, you’ll say. And you’d be right. But you’d have to ask yourselves, then, why I like villains. It’s not because they’re evil, but because they’re flawed. And because they’re closest to us than any hero could ever be. Phoenix and Edgeworth are amazing – and all the more amazing to be as intricate and fascinating as they are despite being more admirable than any normal human could ever pretend to be.

In the end, though, I have to stick with my favourites. And, to me, such profound and believable flaws will always be more compelling.

And this is why, 126 characters and nearly 29,000 words later, I’m not crowning Phoenix, or Edgeworth, or Maya or even Gant as my top character. Nah.

The honour’s all yours, Godot.