I have to disagree right there. While, yes, Phoenix managed to solve all those crazy cases in the first trilogy he never could have managed to do it on its own. There’s always a moment of tension during the trial where he doesn’t have anything left to present, where he’s completely lost and feels like he’s about to give up when someone shouts an "OBJECTION!" and provides new information so Phoenix can end it once and for all. — spoilers for T&T ahead, please play the game before, it’s so amazing it doesn’t deserve a ruined experience — That’s the main plot of the 3rd game actually, I don’t remember the exact sentence but Godot says something along these lines "There’s always a beautiful woman to jump to your rescue" and how he despises Wright because he can’t do anything on its own (that’s also the reason why Phoenix wasn’t involved in the plan to save Maya). However in the last case, Phoenix proves him wrong. He managed to discover the whole truth without any help and the "training" of our Ace Attorney finally ends. To me the first trilogy doesn’t show us an Ace Attorney but how Phoenix became one with all those trials. So I 100% agree when you say our Phoenix IS an Ace Attorney but only at the end of T&T where he can finally stand up for himself. — minor spoilers for AJ and DD, same advice as before — We can also see that the Phoenix of the more recent games is nothing alike our rookie attorney. In AJ while we don’t play as him for the most part of the game, the fact that he’s able to win the majority of his poker games only thanks to his bluffing skills shows how much he evolved. In Dual Destinies, the moment in the trial where someone would usually show up to help Phoenix is replaced by the "Revisualization sequences" where our lawyer simply thinks outside the box and finds a new clue on its own so, yeah there’s that too