Has Ace Attorney stagnated?

Has Ace Attorney stagnated?
AA5 and especially AA6 felt pretty, don't know, stale?
Like, they were alright, but this franchise is still pretty much the same shit.

It's basically because Yamazaki and the fans refused to let go of the old characters and let the main series move on in any meaningful way.

It's also a big gripe of mine that they just keep the same characters around, and add even more to the already bloated cast.
AJ was the step in the right direction with a new setting, but DD had to play it safe and bang for the nostalgia pandering.
Hell, bringing Maya in AA6 and had her do nothing was the most insulting. Don't even get me started on that DLC case.

I'm one of those people who really enjoyed AJ and what it did with the characters, both old and new. That's why both DD and SoJ rubbed me in such a wrong way.

AJ had a couple of returning characters, but they all had some new character development. All DD and SoJ have done is revert those characters back to their previous selves and bring back more old character who only exist as cardboard cutouts for fans to gawk at. The cast feels so superfluous and bloated.

The original trilogy is the best. Ends everything off on a great note and didn't need to continue. Just play that and let the series die.

>ignoring the Investigations games
Gyakuten Kenji 2 was the absolute best the franchise had to offer

AJ was a step in the right direction but maybe it would have been received better if it wasnt also a fucking mess even on its own merits

i want to know if great ace attorney is good but localization literally never

The AAI games were good enough side games to justify their existence, and added a lot of character for some neglected trilogy characters, and AAI2 was great.

Honestly I thought Spirit of Justice was pretty good. Probably my favorite in the main series since Trials and Tribulations. Though, I would like to see the team do something new with the gameplay. Miles Edgeworth Investigations style crime scene investigation would be pretty cool imo. It would also be cool to see Shu Takumi do something not Ace Attorney related like he did with Ghost Trick again.

AAI2 was amazing and playing the fan translation only made me more pissed at Capcom for opting to not localize it.

>tfw there is a parallel universe where Apollo got his own trilogy of running around with Trucy helping lowlifes while being ghost lawyered by Wright ala case 2
Why are we still in the universe where AJ was retarded 7 years worth chess grudge match between Phoenix and Kristoph.

Yee Trucy´s a cutie

It's not just the characters, a fair amount of the big cases themselves and the writing in general are just throwbacks of earlier ones.

Apollo basically just being a slightly angrier Phoenix isn't helped by the fact that his apparant big case is a massive throwback to Phoenix's older big cases as well, for example.

I think Ace Attorney 6 is one of the highest points in the franchise besides (but not over) T&T and AAI2.

Enjoyed it completely and thought it was excellent (except for the 4th case, which is a quite alright filler case, but as a franchise I thought we'd moved on from the 'literal filler cases + plot cases' to 'overarching plot that developed through the entire game in some fashion', that's why I didn't like it).

I'd like someone to elaborate on why they think AA6 is a legitimately bad game without memeposting if possible.

Maybe some of the general complaints are about Apollo's muh foster dad and brother shoehorning? Coming from Dual Destinies, which did the 'childhood friend' theme HORRIBLY, this time I thought it was even somewhat properly developed in comparison. They even pieced it together with the story of Apollo's biological father's death, which makes everything fit together and is probably the best link to this entire theme.

Still not completely believable, but at least acceptable in my mind, and the rest of the game is so good I at least kinda forgive it because all of the great moments.

The story overall is retarded.
Nahyuta is an awful prosecutor and character. The final case just made him even worse.
Dhurke is too much of a mary sue for me to care/give a shit about his corny and tiring character.
Maya just does nothing.
Final case rehashed too much from previous finales.
Final villain was completely unappealing and unsatisfying. Boring as fuck, even worse than the Phantom. I felt no sense of accomplishment when the trial was over.
1st case is also terrible, a mess all over the place and not a good way to introduce Khurain to the player.

How is finding Apollo needing so much personal motivation three games in to just do his literal job properly dumb memeposting?

On a more general note regarding his background, it's completely understandable to find it ridiculous
>just so happens to be the son of the Gramaryes and assistant to the mastermind
>also just so happens to have his best friend work at the same place Athena grew up in
>also just so happens to have grown up in a country that's the root of the same spirit channelling shit as the Feys
If it was just one of those plots then it'd be fine but all three together is just hard to swallow no matter how you cut it.

Personally I think they should just bench all three of the MCs for a while and do another character spinoff or something. They have no idea what to do with Phoenix or Athena, and Apollo requires all other characters around him to get shat on to even get pushed at all for some unexplained reason. The characters aren't bad individually but there's clearly some difficulty being had balancing them against each other.

Oh I had a bad case of that with DD. I was just about to enjoy the final case, but then it hit me that it was just a mashup of 1-4 and 1-5 with Athena playing both Ema and Edgeworth.

This is the opposite of elaborating your opinion you fucking goofball. Stop puking all over the game and give me some reasons besides "this is bad". What the fuck am I supposed to do with that.

I agree that his backstory is kinda bloated, I don't even like what they did on Dual Destinies but at least they gave him more character, I felt he accomplished more as both a lawyer and as a character on either 5 or 6 than on his own game. Of course the Wright boner on Apollo Justice is mostly to blame for this.

I think Athena lacks a little bit of character as well right now, just like Apollo did on his game.

Nah, the newer games are good too.
But fucking god I want to play DGS

Regarding AJ specifically, I think Apollo was fucked from the get go even if Phoenix wasn't there. Klavier's the one who overshadows him the most in that game (Phoenix himself was really only prevalent at the very beginning and very end of the game, Apollo was exactly the same whether he's there or not), and even in the finale there was nothing stopping the writers from atleast having Apollo slap some sense into Klavier while Phoenix confronted Kristoph but they didn't even grant him that.

AJ itself just felt like a bunch of ideas that sounded interesting on paper but weren't executed that well. What the main character is like doesn't even matter that much in AA I feel (despite basically being the only thing Sup Forums seems to talk about) as long as everything else is strong, which wasn't the case in that game.

being good doesn't mean they can't be stale.
I honestly don't give a fuck if AA7 ever happens or not because this franchise just refuses to evolve.
If it comes out then okay, I'll play it. If not, then whatever.

I don't really mind them being stale since that's what I play these games for

I kinda agree with your all of your points, since it's not mutually exclusive with what I said. There's a lot to like about AJ, and a lot to dislike as well.

My points about Apollo not doing much is that the first and last cases are handholded by Phoenix, and on the third case... Klavier's sided with him so you don't feel it's truly his accomplishment. His biggest spotlight is case 2 which wasn't very good so that's where the feeling of "the character didn't do as much for himself as we'd like to.

Despite the Mia handholding, Phoenix earned more on his first game than Apollo did on his, and that tightens the connection with the player in my opinion.