case by case: 6-5b: ga'ran down a dhurke path
It is Monday-ish once again, if you can believe it, and that means it's time for more Ace Attorney! Last week we thwarted a man's electoral chances, this week it's time for revolution! Spoilers follow.
I very nearly decided to just do this segment the same night as the other one and I am very glad I didn't. This segment was about eight hours long, and, as my cursory read of the cases suggested, it was also not connected nearly well enough to justify that sort of blitz. But that's not really important--this is the big finale we've all been waiting for.
This one's another locked-room-adjacent mystery, and the solution to this one is spirit channeling. It's fairly well executed and isn't surprising given that this game takes place in Spiritchannelingvania, but some part of me always bristles at a mystery which only works with the use of magic. Not a major complaint but, you know, it's there.
This one has enough big reveals to fill a soap opera: people we thought were dead are alive, people we thought were alive are dead, people we thought were related to one person are actually related to another. They all work fairly well in context and it didn't feel overwhelming at the time, but it is kind of a lot in retrospect.
I think I understand after this one why they felt like making Apollo the secret son of the cool guy revolutionary leader Dhurke makes sense here: they wanted him to move on from simply being Phoenix's subordinate, and it would be a little weird for him to just move somewhere else if he didn't have a personal connection to the place. Still not sure this is how I would tell the story, but, y'know, it works.
I think "it works" ultimately kind of sums up my thoughts on this one. It wasn't bad, but nothing really stood out, either. There were some good character moments--I think Rayfa gets a chance to shine in this one in particular--but I feel like it may have been trying to do a little too much in one case, and as such there is not quite enough focus on any one thing to really let them shine. But also, no major complaints.
Okay, one moment that stood out as particularly clever: the queen, as a tyrant, rewrites the laws mid-case to allow her to just call for the execute anyone who tries to get her arrested for murder, and Apollo needs to come up with something that will resolve that particular issue, along with several other related things. And he comes up with two things: one, based on the evidence, it seems that the queen actually can't channel spirits as she claims; two, based on information we've received several times through the game, political legitimacy for Khura'in's queen is derived from her ability to channel spirits. As such, she is an illegitimate monarch and everything she has done, including the Defense Culpability Act, is therefore null and void. Problem solved, tyrant toppled. Solid moment--especially given that the story doesn't then just dust its hands off and say "we won" but instead says "okay, now it's time to rebuild." That's good!
Having reached the conclusion of his story, I gotta say, I am still not convinced on Sahdmadhi. He has been knowingly abetting a tyrant for fifteen years, out of concern for his little sister, and the narrative doesn't really convince me of his redemption; I feel more like we were just told "he's good now, it's okay!" rather than seeing that redemption actually happen. Part of that, I think, is the aforementioned "focusing on too many things" problem: he doesn't even get to prosecute most of this trial because Queen Ga'ran was too busy cosplaying as Maleficent; the other part is that many of the things about him I find disagreeable aren't really excused by the ol' "I did this under duress" excuse. They're just him being shitty.
(As an aside: as an enthusiast of Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota series I have some thoughts on redemption arcs, which I will hopefully remember to share at some point.)
So overall: this one was . . . solid. It did the job; it resolved the revolution plot more competently than I expected, delivered on Rayfa's character arc nicely, gave Apollo's arc a neat conclusion, didn't really accomplish much with Sahdmadhi . . . solid. Which sounds like more of a complaint than it is: at the end of the day this was a conclusion that does the job it set out to do. I had fun.
And that about does it for this week. Next week it's the DLC case! I forgot to do the thing I usually do and watch the intro cutscene, so I have no idea what will happen, except that apparently there's time travel? Can't wait; I'll see you then, friends.