This article was originally posted in the r/AceAttorney subreddit, and details complaints about its second case, "Turnabout Samurai." It has been backdated to match the post time. Much discussion happened in the comments over there, if you're interested in that.
Ok, so probs doesn't need a spoiler, but whatever.
I'm playing through the games again in Japanese to practice, and hit on the Steel Samurai case again. And I gotta be honest... It was SO BAD. I'm wondering if it's because I had vague memories from ten years ago or whenever it was, but there was so much that got me genuinely frustrated at how the case was presented.
So, I hope you'll let me rant a bit, and best case scenario, you can tell me what I missed in order to smoothe over my misunderstandings.
(Heads up, but since I played it in Japanese, I'm just gonna refer to most of the characters by their job/role).
Without further ado! In the order they pop back into my head; there's such a mess of logical errors that I can't order them in any sort of neat way:
First complaint isn't too bad, but in the graphic we're shown of the victim's body being found, we see what looks like the director in the frame discovering the body. But for like the whole first day of trial, we only think that the accused, victim, stagehand, and guard are there, so we as the player are like.... who's this guy? I don't think that was an intentional bit of dramatic irony--if it was, it didn't really add much.
Next up, the frickin' archway camera. You look at the thing, and you clearly can see that people could go around or through the woods to dodge it entirely, but they're pretty adamant that ANYONE passing by would have their picture taken. I thought, "ok, fine, we have to rule out some crazy scenarios for the sake of consistency in the narrative, so we can assume no one took a walk through the woods," but then the kid comes to the stand.... and tells us he went through the woods to avoid being seen by the guard.
This raises a lot of problems in and of itself!
For one, if it IS possible to go through the woods, the whole thing about the monkey head blocking the road is moot. Anyone could just go around it through the woods.
And if the kid went through the woods, got lost, and popped out around Studio 2, there's no reason for him to have gone through the archway, so why would the guard say that his picture was the first one of the day? If you remember, the guy wearing the suit was pic number two, and pic 1 was erased. There IS a potential explanation for this--the kid never got his picture taken in the first place, and instead pic 1 was the producer and director heading over to studio 2 together. This would explain why the guard erased the photo and was a bit hesitant to say who was in it, since she was told to keep their presence a secret. I don't remember this being explicitly mentioned, though, which either way is fine.
But even if THAT was the case, why was no one asking why the victim wasn't caught on camera? Does no one thing it was strange that there was no picture of the victim at the start? And once we established it was the victim in the suit, why wasn't anyone pointing out that the client was never caught on camera, either? If my previous theory is true, it would have been pretty good evidence of his innocence.
And another thing that bugged me was that the spear was fixed with tape--something we knew the whole time. This fact is only brought up very late in the trial when we say that it wouldn't have been possible to use the spear to kill, since it would have broken again before piercing the armor on the victim's costume. But despite the fact that I knew that the whole time, I never got a chance to bring it up!
And as an aside, did they stick the spear in his body after the fact? Was there no autopsy on what the actual murder weapon was? Why did the investigation not figure out that due to the lack of blood in his costume, that he was murdered in a separate one?
There's a few other minor gripes I have, like how we had to specifically figure out that the kid was fiddling with his camera and therefore didn't get a good pic, or that it was weird that there was no bone on the director's plate--it was used as proof that they never ate the steak itself and just chucked it, but they could've very well eaten the steak and then chucked the bones. (I will give points back here a bit, since the director did initially claim to not eat the steak but later amended it when it was mentioned).
But now for the BIGGEST flaw in the entire case... it should have ended after the second day of trial. The judge even tells the prosecution then to reconsider the suspicion on the client, because at that point, we establish pretty well that we think our client was asleep during the time of the murder, and as the investigation revealed, yeah! Very strong likelihood that our client could not have committed the crime. And we know they have the legal ability to swap who they're prosecuting mid-trial, because we saw them do it in the very case before this one. But then we get back into the courtroom, and the judge is all like... "well, then, if not the accused, who committed the crime?" The answer? I don't care. Not my job! I am a defense attorney, and have defended my client. I rest my case; gimme the not guilty verdict, please! If the prosecution wants to try the producer after this, be my guest! Not my problem anymore.
And it's not like the game establishes that you *need* to find the real perp in this legal system in order to exonerate your client; the judge is pretty surprised that you establish your client's innocence by sussing out the actual criminal in your first two cases. So why does the judge continue the trial after you prove your client was conked out during the murder, assuming the prosecution can't refute it at all? If you get a game over at that point, does your client still get the guilty verdict??? That'd be insane if so! Didn't ever happen to me, so idk.
So then you're farting around with the producer, going back and forth, and she says something along the lines of "ok, so you've established that there is a possibility I did it, but not a certainty!" And again, I'm not sure what the burden of proof is in this universe, but if it's "beyond reasonable doubt" that your client did it, then establishing a possibility someone else could have is all you need.
But even aside from that, you never actually "prove" she killed him! You just provide a plausible story of what happened. She could have very easily just stuck with the "you haven't proved anything" story and rode it out, but she confessed, oddly enough.
And then AFTER that, the game treats it as though the prosecution did you a solid by continuing the trial to hear the producer's testimony again. The detective even says that the whole reason your client got off the hook was because of the prosecution. But again.... he didn't do anything for my client. *I* used evidence to prove he wasn't there at the scene of the crime when it happened, so that should have been it! Him going after a separate witness should have been completely unrelated to the verdict of my client at that point!
Overall, I think this case really suffers when you look back on it after you're done. If you take things really narrowly, step-by-step, then it can seem logically sound, but if you take two steps back and look at the whole thing, the logic completely falls apart. Very glad I've finished this and will be moving on to the next case, since this one had me literally yelling at my tv screen lol
Again, if anyone can point out anywhere I'm wrong, I'd appreciate it! Anything to regain some sanity.