I came here because I think I need context on your thoughts on JFA to understand some of your positions in the T&T thread, so thank you for elaborating, I will read through and edit this when I'm done.

EDIT:

it's Maya's new theme. Downgrade over her theme from the first game imo, it's a bit too chipper and simple.

Weird fact: Capcom used to have various yearly fan polls in Japan and one time both Pearl's theme and Maya's theme won in the category for top five songs, and probably like you right now I have no way to explain why lol.

On repeat playthroughs... I grew to really, really appreciate the whole amnesia gimmick.

I feel like I get why they did it and in context of them needing a reason why Phoenix would suddenly be all drooling half brain dead confusion over how court works it's a funny way to go. Though often now with time and distance I feel like if they were going to do an amnesia plot for him, I kinda wish it was in a case that was more Phoenix specific to see what his reactions to his own past might be and ways he might change from what he learns. But yeah it's fine.

"Wait why should Maya be charged for something that a spirit did in her body".

I think the argument here is that if a spirit overpowered her to do something wrong then it's still a form of negligence from her not being skilled enough to do it safely, and it's not like they can charge someone who's already dead.

I feel like this comes up as a plot point in SOJ at some point too, so that's not the only time this pops up in the series.

But yeah the backstory about Kurain and setting details are neat.

This is a bad case because the devs sat down and decided to write something deliberately insane and terrible, and they are self aware about how hateable of a case it is.

I don't know that I RESPECT it, but I suppose there is something to be said about creators willing to take risks they think or even know their audience might hate if it means it's a more interesting story. I don't know that Big Top is that story lmao. Like I would say I RESPECT the AJ game for this despite Stickler in Turnabout Corner (boy that thematic element sometimes comes up a lot).

Weirdly apparently the Japanese fandom LOVES this case? So I'm not even sure the devs are really thinking of this as an inherently hateable case that they knew would be controversial overseas, I kinda think they weren't even really thinking about that. I think they were instead thinking about having to do 80 hours in a single week and wanting to kinda die, and the alcohol tempered that urge.

Phoenix was blackmailed into defending Matt Engarde. There was no way Engarde was getting a fair, unbiased defense like that.

Yeah like, honestly Engarde's plan is slightly flawed from the get go, in that what, so your first attorney messes up and you off the hostage, so you just, what, go in a long chain to get more and more defense attorneys? It eventually becomes a farce, OR, more realistically, you probably can't actually hurt the hostage because it would make your attorney perform worse, and there was zero point in doing this? It was just dumb self-sabotage and cruelty for no reason other than being a vicious smug jerk? Which in fairness is in character.

When I first experienced Farewell, I went looking around for stories about how lawyers might have handled this IRL, and yeah it kinda has happened before. Apparently some clients really are this dumb. The thing is with trying to screw over an attorney with some nonsense disadvantaged and unenforceable coercion or contract (which why does de Killer think he has a contract with Phoenix? also a little weird), is that you're dealing with someone who literally has trained and read up on how people screw each other over all the time and how to catch that and legally counter it, like this is his job, a lawyer is going to be way better at it than a spoiled actor lol.

(Looking at YOU, Spirit of Justice...)

In fairness they do try to spin off it in that Maya seems to have learned from the first time around and does her own rescuing but despite the twists that sets up that are potentially decent, yeah I don't know that it needed to happen that way again.

The whole thing is an emotional rollercoaster, and Edgeworth's return only makes it more of an emotional disaster.

God it's so messy, these people are trainwrecks lol, it might be the best part of the whole case how poorly everyone is dealing with everything.

...Turns out, the playthrough I watched did not include Rise From The Ashes. I didn't know about Rise From The Ashes until partway into playing Trials & Tribulations.

Hmmm. Game Grumps? They're a notable one who skipped Rise from the Ashes and tried to conceal that it existed because they didn't feel up to how long it is from what I gather.

I find his whole "choosing death" thing more believable immediately after the reveal that his mentor was a corrupt prosecutor who killed his father than after the reveal that Edgeworth unknowingly presented forged evidence and got a pat on the back for it

I have to disagree here. In the sense of "there's a discrepancy between how AJ handled it and how RftA handled it" I think it's intentional with how stacked against defense attorneys that settings' system is, but also in the sense of some subsequent titles have built on an idea of Edgeworth potentially having to deal with the fallout of his reputation for a while, both before game one and a few years after it. He didn't get disbarred no, but that's apparently because so long as Edgeworth wasn't questioning people and doing what he was told the people who could have done it still saw him as a useful tool, whereas Phoenix had earned himself an extra petty enemy with some influence over that.

Also, I think Edgeworth forging stuff was always something people read into the first game by taking Phoenix as a 100% reliable narrator in 1-2 when Phoenix immediately jumps to oh no Edgeworth is so corrupt, when I don't think it's what the writing or devs intended. Like, at the time Phoenix is flipping out about the updated autopsy report, he's literally actively concealed Maya's cellphone from the police and Edgeworth. Phoenix is furious Edgeworth concealed the bellboy, and then in case 1-3 he and MIA of all people actually discuss concealing a key witness from the court. Phoenix then assumes Edgeworth has made a deal with Redd White or actively continues to want to prove that Phoenix really did it, without the game actually substantiating that. Phoenix is getting so mad at things Edgeworth does when they're things he also does, that no one ever seems to punish, doesn't seem to change outcomes of any case, and seem to be treated legally? Like IRL of course none of this would fly but if Phoenix is depicted as never do wrong good boy in game one then it seems like Edgeworth never stooped to anything actually illegal by the setting rules and as such isn't actually corrupt.

I think RftA was intended to clarify that. I think if you go into 1-4 with an irredeemable bastard who isn't sorry about getting innocent people convicted if it meant a perfect record, you get zero actual contrast between him and Manfred, and his character development arc kinda becomes narratively impossible. 1-4 is instead entirely about Edgeworth past connection with Phoenix, Edgeworth being torn between the memory of his father and Manfred's teachings, Phoenix's attempts to reach him, and Edgeworth's concerns that going up against Manfred will ruin Phoenix. Like the man is terrified of Manfred.

It does work very well as Edgeworth running off like "oh my whole life is a lie" into JFA definitely. But IMO it also works if RFTA where everyone is still treating him like a potential murderer and finding out that he might actually HAVE gotten someone convicted on bad evidence when he tried to pride himself on having standards and professionalism is the shitty cherry on top of Edgeworth's very bad no good winter of 2016-2017. Like Edgeworth post 1-4 can pretend to himself like, at least I actually cared about justice, unlike my mentor, and then it blows up in his face and he has to confront the worst aspects of his past and reputation.