Finished my third playthrough of this a little bit ago and it's still a classic. Banging tunes, some banging cases (love u steel samurai) and banging twinks. No matter the game in this series, I'm always guaranteed at least one point where I'm shaking the DS in sheer excitement. I'll never forget the moment when the tide turns in the Steel Samurai case, or using the metal detector on Von Karma. The music kicks in; the camera runs around the courtroom and you slam through all that dialogue with such elation.
Those little tippy-tappy text boxes really know how to build tension, and the release it offers is so, so good.

Definitely rough at times with the hindsight of like, 20 other lawyer games, especially the ending of Case 2 being one of the most limp-dicked ending in the series. It's more noticeable after a playthrough or two but the difficulty also veers a liiittle too much on the easy side.

And of course, has to be said that Rise From The Ashes really needed a disclaimer before it starts. Just a little "hey this case is the longest one we've ever done, don't do this right after Case 4. Take a break plz" would go a long way. That being said? It fucks.

This whole game fucks. It was so good it gave us a million other lawyer games!

Takes everything the first two games did and blows it out of the fuckin park. I think all three games have their own unique issues and eccentricities but T&T gets so much (w)right it's almost perfect.

The best music in the series, the best cases in the series, maybe even the best prosecutor in the series? It's all here.

It's hard to give reasons for why this game works other than "it's everything you've seen already, but way better" but I think the most telling part is in the final case: Bridge to the Turnabout

When replaying Farewell, My Turnabout in JFA, it's still a great case. But I'd be lying if I said the drama isn't a bit dampened when you know the true culprit. It's got a lot of great moments to it, but you know what it's all building up to.

It has a nice subversive ending, but it's a classic whodunnit at heart at the end of the day. I talked about why I loved this case (and still do) in my other review. When I played it again, it really felt like, well, a replay. This is definitely the second time playing this case.

In contrast, replaying Bridge to the Turnabout was like playing it again for the first time. I know the real culprit going in but the mechanics of this case are insane. You aren't concerned with the real killer half the time, but proving how this borderline nonsensical crime could even take place. This case isn't a whodunnit, it's a howdunnit!

For god's sake, you end up proving that the real crime scene was actually over on the other side of a massive ravine that was transported by wire in a pendulum-like motion. And it's executed so beautifully that it doesn't even feel like a massive leap of logic; I get to feel like I'm almost the one coming up with this absolutely crackpot conjecture.

Every single piece of evidence you present adds another piece to the jigsaw; a jigsaw that is in itself a piece of a larger jigsaw which is in another jigsaw etc. etc.

There's so many moving pieces in this final case alone that I find it impossible to retain the exact structure in my head. Normally that's bad, but it gives this case an insane amount of replayability. It's like the best dinner I've ever had, and I have unlimited leftovers in the fridge.

It's an amazing feeling when you are at the last testimony in the game and you suss out that final clue. When you point that finger and the remix of Cornered from AA1 kicks in, you've fuckin made it. You've made one of the best games ever. I can't help but gush about this game.

Man, this game is a mess. My main problem from my first playthrough is realising that I barely knew anything new about Apollo at the end of the game. That same issue arises here.

A story that's supposed to introduce your new attorney that ends up spending 75% of its plot tying up loose ends of the previous one.

The best moments come from when you are free from that gosh darned ex-lawyer Phoenix Wright. I don't even think he's written poorly; hell, it's kinda interesting as a premise. The problem is shoehorning in a old character's redemption arc with the first entry of a new trilogy. With only four cases in the game, it's bound to get cluttered.

And the cases? Oof, it's mixed. Turnabout Corner and Turnabout Trump are pretty good cases, especially the latter. Trump breaks the mold by having a longer-than-average intro case with some pretty challenging elements to it off the bat. It ends on a stark note and really sets up the mystery of the game.

Unfortunately, the rest of the game falls flat. Turnabout Corner is a decent case. By which I mean, the crime is interesting, but the characters and crime-family-drama don't really engage me compared to past cases. It gives me similar vibes to Recipe for Turnabout from T&T, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

One of Apollo Justice's best additions that thankfully stays in the series is interactive evidence. Using the touch screen to analyze fingerprint and blueprints, as well as rotating evidence for more precise clues has great potential.

And you know what? It does pay off a lot of the time! The game doesn't outright say what makes a piece of evidence unique. You really need to go digging in your court record to find out the quirks.
At the same time, there are still a lot of growing pains. I think that's most evident in Turnabout Serenade.

Mechnically speaking, this case is all over the place. One of the better moments is using a sound mixer to isolate a dud note in a song (foreshadowing a later point where you use it to detect a gunshot; it's really well handled imo).

But then you have the video tape. That accursed FMV. That siren song. I close my eyes and I see it. It echoes in my ears. This video is the bane of my existence. Seeing a single frame of it sets off my fight-or-flight response.

It just never ends. You have to examine it so many times, presenting it in court, re-watching it, with minimal playback control. Rise from the Ashes had something similar, but at least that was used more sparingly (and had more than one or two clues to suss out).

Along with generally tedious investigation segments, a lacklustre story and an almost nonsensical choice of defendant, it's not a great case in the slightest.

But it's not even the worst case in the game.

That infamy belongs to Turnabout Succession. It has the potential to be the sloppiest case in the entire series. In real-time, you get to see the game crumble under the weight of its ambitious storyline. Phoenix is redeemed, Apollo gets the bad guy, we have a new court system.

And that's it I guess? Barely anything feels satisfying. You don't really grow with Apollo like Phoenix in AA1; you discover just how shallow the main villain is; you discover the (very questionable) disbarrment of Phoenix Wright; and you have to go between the future and past in a semi-simulation, semi-recollection using the MASON system. To top it all off, you don't deduce anything major for the final section of this case; you have a button that says Good Ending/Bad Ending.

I finished this game with a feeling of wanting less. If this was how the rest of the new trilogy was going to go, I might've just been content with the original games. Thankfully, this game is a hurdle worth getting over for its sequel.