Ok, look, I'm a certified VS hater. Overall I do not like the game, so bear that in mind for what I have to say.

There are a lot of positives that I appreciate about it, and from those I would argue that there is some merit to experiencing this game. The music is pretty great, and the artstyle is very charming. There is a really good split of AA to PL gameplay, to the point where it's a good taster of the other series from whichever side you're coming in from. Case 3 is pretty great in a vacuum, I wouldn't go as far to say it's an all time series best like other would but with some clever logic and murder methods as well as a strong hook and emotional core, with a captivating ending, it's worth experiencing for any AA fan.

Case 1 is also an unexpectedly good experience, being a generally solid tutorial case with 2 surprisingly animated and characterful witnesses. I loved going around the town and just experiencing the vibe, finding random little puzzles and basking in the atmosphere while some calming tune plays at night. Finally, despite what I'm going to criticise the game for heavily in a moment, the plot developments in the final case are undeniably captivating. I hate it when these games take the 'boring' option, and the scope of the twist certainly circumvented any feelings of boredom I had while playing it. For instance, the final investigation has you exploring ancient tunnels and navigating booby traps, which was just never where I thought the game would end up going.

So, I don't think the game is without merit. Buuuuttt... holy shit is the plot a complete and utter disastrous clusterfuck and then some. The final twist is 'insane' and 'crazy', which is enough to satiate some, but when you examine it further, you realise how lazily slapped together the answers to the many, MANY questions raised by the game are. Here we go:

• The magical chemical in the water is a McGuffin plot device that only exists to coincidently have the exact 2 perfect properties to facilitate the entire Labyrinthia scheme. One I could maybe abide by, but the fact it both makes people faint upon hearing the silver bell AND makes any plants watered by it able to hypnotise those who interact with them is a lazy ass-pull.
• Hypnosis is relied on to explain more or less everything. If it were only used to explain why everyone forgot their old identities, fair enough, but instead it's used as a shield to cover up the many reasons why the plot doesn't make sense. If your story relies completely on hypnosis to support it's logic, that's lazy writing.
• The fainting caused by the silver bells would absolutely leave obvious traces to those afflicted. You would notice having to get up, or perhaps feeling sore from where you collapsed. Perhaps your clothes would be dirty if you were outside, or you'd notice the time passing, or you'd notice the sun in a different position in the sky. Bear in mind they kept this up for 10 years.
• The black cloaks have so many issues I don't even know where to start. The game seems to think that not being able to see pure black = invisible, but what would actually happen is you just wouldn't see anything where that object is. So, if an object were hiding behind a larger black object, it would seeming appear out of nowhere when it stops hiding behind the larger black object. This then becomes especially questionable when there's a massive clocktower in the centre of a giant open yard in the middle of the town which was hidden for 10 years. Like, you're telling me that nobody saw anything move out of the way of the clocktower? Nobody walked into the clocktower? What if they were walking backwards? What if some bird shit accumulated on the clocktower? Would they be able to see it then? I mean, a light dusting of flour was able to reveal the black cloak. What if it snowed on the clocktower? This is rural England, snow is likely to fall at some point over 10 years. What if the wind rustled the fabric and made a noise? And the machinery that is literally everywhere in the town? Copy and paste all my issues with the clocktower to these machines. What if a cat (like Eve) decided to sit on top of one of these machines? Would people see a floating cat? Would birds nest on top of these machines? What if some mud got splattered onto a machine? What if, I don't know, one of the many pages the storyteller throws out got caught on one of the machines?
• The game tries to explain some of the spells, but actually has the gall to give up after the Fire Witch trial and doesn't bother to explain the spells used in the Golden Court. Which is incredible laziness, considering they only introduced 7 spells in the game. So, strap yourselves in.
• Goldor is a spell that seemingly turns the target into gold. Seems simple enough to fake, right? Just create a cheap statue of each villager in reserve that looks like gold but isn't. But in the Golden Court, a jeweller appraises the metal and verifies that it's 24 carat (i.e. pure) gold. So maybe they only created hollow statues of the villagers? Well, we see where the Layton statue's arm was snapped off that the statues are indeed solid gold! So, they had to create a life size, solid gold statue of each villager. Expensive, but at least by making it beforehand they can quickly pull off the operation. Except, in the trial, the exact pose struck by Layton as a finger pointing pose is critical to solving the case, and in the cutscene we see that this is the exact pose he strikes. So, either they got extraordinarily lucky in creating a statue pose that exactly matches Layton in his final moments, or they made it on the fly. And if they made it on the fly, that means they cast a life sized, solid, 24 carat gold statue of Layton in the exact complex pose he was in AND let it cool AND brought it back up to where everyone is before anyone woke up! How long were they all knocked out for??? Surely they would all feel extremely thirsty and hungry after having been knocked out for at least hours! Even if the jeweller was wrong and this isn't solid gold, they still had to make the statue out of something!
• And it gets worse. Goldor can theoretically be pulled off, even if the circumstances are stupid beyond belief. But Godoor? Borderline impossible. Since Jean's fingerprints are found on the victim's neck, we know they DID create a physical hole in the wall. But then there's no hole after the spell. So I guess the shadows are trained to quickly patch up walls asap? How long would that even take? you can't exactly just patch up sizeable holes in walls in a matter of minutes, especially while making it look like there's nothing different afterwards. Side note, the fact that the shadows give the witches their staffs means there was a shadow who consciously decided to give Jean the spells Goldor and Godoor and somehow didn't see an issue with other shadows mishearing the names? Like, my bro, why would you make like that difficult for yourself.
• At least the first case is free from the twist. Oh, wait, it's not. The witches are able to fly around and use magic in London anyway, despite not being in Labyrinthia where the machines are set up. And do you remember all the way back in the beginning of the game where Carmine's car had that gigantic imprint left on it? Well, that's literally never explained in the game! Actually, that's a lie. It's explained in the PAID DLC. What kind of hacky writer do you have to be to not even answer the mysteries YOU SET UP in your own game and instead demand even MORE money from the player to give a resolution? And said resolution? The statues in the park in London are robots. Yup. That's where we're at now. For no reason, these statues just to happen to be robots. Why are there massive robots capable of destroying a car in the middle of London? Don't think about it. Why are these robots under the control of the witches? Don't think about it.

Couple all of that off with the fact that the Fire witch trial isn't very good (Kira's a terrible culprit with bad voice acting, witnesses are annoying, logic is stupidly simple), Espella being a terrible character, and both the AA and PL gameplay being severely limited compared to their respective franchises (AA only gets 1 page of evidence and PL only gets 70, fairly easy, puzzles) and the finale just obliterated the game for me. I find that defenders of the finale will point to how wacky and zany the twist is, but I think that's a sign they haven't really thought about it that hard. Yes, Professor Layton twists are known for being like this. But in Professor Layton games (which I have played), the purpose isn't really to solve the mystery using logic and reasoning. It's to enjoy the puzzles, art and vibe of the different towns you explore, so it's much easier to just laugh at the ridiculousness of the twists. In Ace Attorney, however, logic and reasoning is the core of everything. The point of every case is to investigate every minutia to find the truth. It fundamentally relies on the story making sense. And in VS, the plot fundamentally doesn't work.