Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney/YMMV

Take general series tropes to Ace Attorney, and take tropes specific to the Phoenix arc, or Investigations to those pages, please.

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• Accidental Aesop: Don't use your daughter as a pawn in a criminal scheme. In addition to the character who did this in Phoenix Wright's trilogy, there are about four characters who do it in Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney. Phoenix Wright had his daughter give Apollo Justice evidence that Phoenix had forged so that Apollo would present it in court, Drew Misham had his daughter forge paintings and evidence for money, Magnifi Gramarye arguably did this when he blackmailed his students with something they had done to his daughter while apparently not doing much to help her, and Zak Gramarye had his daughter help him escape from his murder trial.
• Broken Base:
  • Apollo Justice has divided fans into a Phoenix Wright camp and an Apollo Justice camp. Some think the promised fifth game should bring Phoenix back as a lawyer, others believe that Apollo is a good character who just needs another game or two to develop. With the confirmation that it will be Phoenix-centric with Apollo and a new lawyer serving as major characters, fans are still divided about it.
    • Both sides end up getting what they wanted: the sequels to this game include both a healthy slice of Apollo, as well as Phoenix making a comeback as a lawyer.
    • Some still view the following games as Phoenix taking away most of the attention from Apollo, whom is viewed by Apollo fans as the successor to Wright as the series protagonist and titular defense attorney. Wright fans of course simply wanted Wright to return to his position. The developers attempted to compromise and keep the balance by featuring both characters in protagonist roles, in order to please both sides. But ultimately you can't please everybody, evidently.
  • It's also possible to Take a Third Option and enjoy both characters, but dislike the time skip and related case. Considering that the Phoenix arc ended on an Earn Your Happy Ending moment, Apollo Justice opens with information that's something of a mood killer, to put it mildly. It's hard to tell whether people hate Apollo himself, the re-characterized Phoenix, or what the Apollo Justice game itself did to the canon timeline (which goes way beyond Fanon Discontinuity territory).
• Complete Monster: When one of his clients summarily dismissed him after a game of poker, Kristoph Gavin took it rather personally. So personally, in fact, that he didn't just ensure the man's case was lost - he got the lawyer defending him (Phoenix Wright himself) disbarred using some evidence that he had ordered forged for his own trial, then tipping off the prosecution that it was a forgery. This, on its own, would only qualify him as a Magnificent Bastard, but there is more to the story. There were several loose ends to clear up, including the defendant's disappearance. First, he staged an attempted kidnapping of the forger - a sheltered, timid twelve-year-old girl by the name of Vera Misham - and when it left her too traumatized to go outside, he stopped by and gave her a good luck charm in the form of a bottle of clear nail polish...which had a painful, extremely virulent, slow-acting poison in it. Kristoph had noticed her habit of biting her nails when nervous, so surely that would take care of her if she was ever pressured about what he'd had her make. He took great pains to make sure her father Drew would die as well by placing a stamp with the same virulent poison on it and ensuring that he'd have to use it in order to send a specific letter. And as a result, Drew died and the now-nineteen year old Vera slipped into a coma and almost passed too. He also murdered Zak Gramarye/Shadi Smith in cold blood over a seven year old game of poker that Kristoph had lost. He then meticulously kept tabs on everyone who had been involved with the case for seven whole years to make sure nothing went wrong - including befriending the man whose career he had ruined. And if that man hadn't been Phoenix Wright, he probably would have gotten away with it all.
• Contested Sequel: Some enjoy the new setting and characters. Others consider it to be the oddball of Ace Attorney since it barely connects to the first three games. How Phoenix is handled in this game is the biggest point of contention.
• Draco in Leather Pants:
  • Valant Gramarye: ok, Zak was a jerk; almost definitely more of a jerk than Valant. But that doesn't excuse Valant for deciding to frame him for murder, especially when the main motives were jealousy and money. Try telling that to Valant fans though.
  • Kristoph Gavin is adored by some fans for his handsome looks, but there isn't much beauty on the inside. It could be said that he's the male equivalent to Dahlia from the previous game. The parallels go even deeper: both Dahlia and Kristoph make use of poison to goad certain people into offing themselves.
• Evil Is Sexy: The devilishly handsome Kristoph Gavin. He's a bastard alright, but at the same time he just looks so damn good in a suit.
  • The same goes for Daryan Crescend once you get past the silly hairdo. He's every bit the handsome pretty-boy as his bandmate Klavier.
  • And then there's the incredibly beautiful gold-digging bitch Alita Tiala, who unsurprisingly has her fiancee Wocky head over heels in love with her.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Some people just can't accept where Apollo Justice took Phoenix's character, which is probably why Phoenix returns to his original role starting in Dual Destines. Others ignored the game entirely, except for Trucy and Apollo's existence in the office.
• Foe Yay:
  • Phoenix and Kristoph are portrayed as friends. The fandom took it to the next level.
  • On a more humorous version is Ema and Klavier. Despite the former claiming to hate the latter all time, they are frequently shipped together with Ema usually depicted as being a Tsundere towards Klavier. Even some official art give strong vibes of shipping between the two.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In the first installment of the series, Mia's advice to Maya is to give Phoenix "three more years" before calling on his representation in court. The final trial of Phoenix's career happens during his third year.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The whole incident about Phoenix Wright getting hit by a car and flung into a pole and only suffered a sprained ankle. With his inclusion in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, he had to contend with a variety of attacks, such as She Hulk's Level 3 Hyper, which involves getting hit by a car (Sunday Driver, according to her), and her new attack in Ultimate swinging a pole. The best part is that the hit and run incident in the game took place on a Sunday.
• Ho Yay: Has a page for it.
• Idiot Plot: Many people think this about Case 4-3, which has all the characters think it's perfectly feasible for a prepubescent boy to use an incredibly powerful revolver without injury, carry a 250lbs man across an arena, and even for the boy to be a secret Interpol agent based on a bit of bloody writing despite that having been used as a red herring as far back as Phoenix's second case. While Apollo does dispute the feasibility of the accusations early on, Klavier blew him off immediately. For this reason, the case is one of two (the other being Case 2-3) that are generally considered to be the worst in the whole franchise. Shu Takumi has since admitted to the flaws in the case's storyline, and revealed that he was working on the assumption that Daryan was using his position in the police to manipulate the investigation and throw Machi under the bus for his own crimes, but forgot to make this clear in the dialogue. However, people have defended this by using logic that was used in previous installments of the series: once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. There was no way to explain how anyone else could have left the crime scene, even ignoring all their alibis, but it can merely be said that blind luck was how Machi was able to fire the gun without injuring himself.
  • Case 3 has another idiot moment from one of the witnesses who fails to mention one vital detail in her testimony; she heard the crime take place during the second act and not the third when everyone thought it took place. That could have saved a lot of headaches.
  • Even worse was the fact that everyone assumed Machi was an Interpol agent based on the bloody writing. Given how many times something's been written in blood and turned out to be a false lead, you'd think everyone would pick up on that (especially since Apollo claimed that he's read over some of Phoenix's old case files, and Ema had the same kind of thing happen to her in the SL-9 case).
• Memetic Sex God: Klavier Gavin was the former page image.
• Moral Event Horizon: Depending on your point of view, Kristoph crossed this either when he ruined Phoenix's life, or when he set up the chain of events that led to the near-death of Vera Misham, who he intended to have killed at the ripe age of twelve.
• Player Punch: Mixes with But Thou Must! in the flashback trial. Phoenix is blissfully unaware that he's about to present forged evidence, thinking he's riding the easy train to victory. Both the circumstances and the context of the rest of the game already make the player aware this will not end well, but they are dragged kicking and screaming into presenting the evidence to move the plot forward. Really makes the player feel like they're responsible for Phoenix's disbarment.
• Porting Disaster: While they did tune up the visuals for the iOS and Android release, the audio came over very muffled and tinny. Also the first case is broken in half in order to make the first half a demo. And we hope you like that first half, because it's the only thing in the port you can play without online access or cellular. While this may not often pose a problem (depending on location), it's especially strange because the "demo" isn't free like it is in the other Ace Attorney iOS ports.
• Replacement Scrappy:
  • Apollo for Phoenix, to some.
  • Trucy mixes this due to her Be as Unhelpful as Possible tendencies ("Take that memory, bury it deep down inside you, and never speak of it again"), but your mileage will vary on how long the trope fits.
  • While not outright hated, Klavier Gavin is not as well liked as some of the other prosecutors by the fandom, mostly because of his Designated Villain status removes the antagonistic conflict that made the other prosecutors rivals. Others feel like a prosecutor that's actually helpful and non-villainous is a refreshing change. Again, how long this trope fits is subjective.
• The Scrappy: Wocky Kitaki is considered to be among the most hated defendants, if not characters in the series thanks to his obnoxious "Gangsta" mannerisms and speech patterns, as well as his abrasive attitude. Some people wished that he truly was guilty so he could be tossed into prison for being such an obnoxious asshole.
  • Spark Brushel for some, mainly due to how damn hard it is to find his habit without consulting a guide. Though for some, his helpfulness towards Phoenix later on saves him from this status.
  • And last but not least, we have the infamous Zak Gramarye and his callous, dickish behavior that played a part in ruining Phoenix's life.
• Scrappy Mechanic: The various "scientific investigation" segments were widely regarded as being boring and slowing down the game's story. As a result, the two Investigations games and Dual Destinies dialed it back to only having fingerprinting and luminol testing segments.
• Squick: A large portion of the second trial in the game is taken up by the "plot point" of someone stealing Trucy's panties.
• That One Level: Case 3 ("Turnabout Serenade") thanks to being a major Idiot Plot that both fails to make sense and makes actually arguing anything about it a challenge. And some of the logical leaps the player is called on to make verge on the nonsensical. It also makes the player watch a long unskippable video multiple times.
• That One Puzzle: Perceiving Spark Brushel's nervous tic. He has so many tics (something he admits to later on) yet the one that has to be Perceived is among the least obvious ones.
• Uncanny Valley: Lamiroir's 3D model in the concert video resembles a wax doll on the verge of melting.
  • Klavier's 3D model is colored oddly and has this weird gangly-too-skinny look to it.
• Unfortunate Character Design: Some people find Daryan Crescend's hairdo rather... phallic. With his abrasive, unpleasant personality, players have taken to calling him a figurative and literal dickhead.
• The Untwist: You would think that a prosecutor in this series being this nice and friendly outside of court to you must have something to hide. Nope! Klavier Gavin has no dark secrets. He really is just a good guy who's genuinely dedicated to truth and justice.
• Values Dissonance:
  • A recurring fact throughout the game is that it's hard for civilians to acquire guns. This is true in Japan, which has strict gun laws, but in America, it's relatively easy to acquire firearms.
  • The same goes for gambling, which is illegal in Japan, but commonplace in the United States.
• The Woobie:
  • Apollo is either this or a Chew Toy, depending on how funny you think his suffering is.
  • Vera. Dear god, Vera.
  • Possibly Trucy as well, especially if you take some lines from Phoenix at the end of the game into consideration.
  • Wocky is a Jerkass Woobie, undoubtedly the worst client Apollo gets. In fact he's worse than almost all of Phoenix's defendants because he doesn't come around by the end. But still, almost getting himself killed and all, lied to concerning this, then realising the truth about Alita... He does start to cry at the very end, then abruptly returns to his "gangster" persona before exiting at top speed. It's implied he understands what his father has done for him and that the family will be okay.
  • Klavier. It's easy to forget since he's a very laid-back, upbeat guy. But by the time this game has been over, he has unknowingly helped ruin Phoenix Wright's life over evidence that Phoenix didn't know was forged and was horrified to learn the truth as well as had to prosecute one of his closest friends and bandmates as well as his own brother Kristoph. It's especially sad when you finally see him and Kristoph in the same room, and it's clear that there's a rift between the two brothers with Klavier cowed by his brother's abrasive and toxic personality.

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