Spoilers - Turnabout Serenade Very Poorly Written

[Hannah Montana]

It seems every game has one case/trial that is very poorly written. For this game, it's Turnabout Serenade. I haven't completed Turnabout Succession yet.

The first problem is having Machi Tobaye as the defendant. At the start of the trial, we're supposed to believe that Machi, who is half the size of Romein and blind (we find out later that he's not), is able to shoot Romein, an undercover Interpol agent, with his own high powered gun. The first obvious problem is the size difference. Machi is fingered as the defendant because he's able to fit into the vent. The problem is that this ignores the fact of a physical struggle with Romein who is much larger and a trained police officer and that Machi is able to singlehandedly move Romein's body after the murder onto the stage. There were so many other ways to cast doubt on Machi being the murderer.

The second problem I mentioned above is that the game never explained how Romein's and Machi's bodies were relocated onto the stage after the murder. Romein was bleeding. Bleeding enough to write something in blood. There should have been a blood trail and a bloodstain on whoever did move him. The coliseum was on lockdown after Ema and Apollo discovered Romein's body. How was it possible that Romein was relocated without being noticed?
Machi said that he escaped through the vents. So how did Machi end up incapacitated next to Romein's body on stage? We never hear Machi's testimony about this.

[Ryo]

I think the "purpose" of the case was to show how absurd the current law-system is and why Nick's "reform" is necessary. I will admit that they did a pretty poor job of conveying that, though.

[MasterOfTheMoon]

The part about the gun bugged me to no end. Before Machi Tobaye becomes the prime suspect, the mention a million times that the murder weapon was a high-powered gun and that someone without any experience with guns probably wouldn't be able to use it without dislocating their shoulder because of the kickback. And then once they try to pin the murder on Machi, they just conveniently forget about those detail. Which makes sense given that the prosecution has been tasked the "powers that be" with getting this trail over with as fast as possible. But it is vexing that the player can't bring this contradiction at all.

[HolyThursdayBot]

Regarding the gun, I don't think too much of it in and of itself. It's true I'm probably bigger than Machi, but I'm not actually very strong for my size, and I fired a 45 caliber magnum once around the time I was 15-16 and didn't injure myself on my first try (I did get instructions on how to fire). Since it turns out Machi isn't truly blind, it's feasible (though maybe not likely) that he would've fired some guns in his life.

But I agree it's annoying that they made a point of hinting towards this like it was going to be part of the arguments and making something of a big deal of it, and instead the attorneys never make mention of it. It's definitely the kind of thing that a typical PW series lawyer would bring up early, get some traction, end up with prosecutor dismissing it, then it turns up later as part of some bigger theory.

[Degrassi Knole]

The part I find worse is the Siren's testimony. There's a big deal about how she accidentally mistranslated and said small window instead of air vent, but she could have easily mentioned that Machi was up on stage at the time of the shooting on her first testimony, and ended the case a day early.

[fericfirefeather]

If i remember the gun's power was used to hint at the real kill. Because the kill hurt his arm by firing the gun, and that injury caused the killer to a make small mistake during the Gaviners' performance that Gavin yelled at the kill for and that's it. it was annoyingly unused detail in general

[Tsu]

Hannah, I thought you were dead. Why are you playing Ace Attorney?

[Maya-Neko]

Originally posted by Hannah Montana:

The first problem is having Machi Tobaye as the defendant. At the start of the trial, we're supposed to believe that Machi, who is half the size of Romein and blind (we find out later that he's not), is able to shoot Romein, an undercover Interpol agent, with his own high powered gun. The first obvious problem is the size difference. Machi is fingered as the defendant because he's able to fit into the vent. The problem is that this ignores the fact of a physical struggle with Romein who is much larger and a trained police officer and that Machi is able to singlehandedly move Romein's body after the murder onto the stage. There were so many other ways to cast doubt on Machi being the murderer.

That's not really a plot hole on its own. Weapons are specifically made to compensate for human weaknesses, so if Machi somehow got his hand on the weapon, then he can definitely kill LeTouse, since the bullet is always of the same strength, no matter who fires it, that makes him as deadly as any other person.

On top of that, he being smaller and still shooting in the wall can easily be explained by LeTouse kneeling down or Machi climbing on some objects. After all something similar was already discussed in Reunion, and Turnabout. Even the window being the place Machi would've shot from would've been an idea worth exploring, though we never learned what is behind there, because the case was never steered in that direction for good reasons (the finger prints on the vent).

As for the strength of the weapon, i don't have an answer to that, though i wouldn't be surprised, if Gavin planned for answering this, if Apollo would've somehow steered the case to that point, but given that Apollo can't just randomly ask other people about it, it simply got mostly irrelevant by the time Machi got questioned due to other topics being more important at that time.

Originally posted by Hannah Montana:

The second problem I mentioned above is that the game never explained how Romein's and Machi's bodies were relocated onto the stage after the murder.

That's something i've noticed as well, though i wouldn't say, that the whole case is poorly written due to that alone. I could definitely see, why Gavin doesn't mention it, because it doesn't help him to win the trial to point out a flaw in his theory, while Apollo is pretty much limited by what the witnesses tell and he needing a clear proof for anything he says

Originally posted by Hannah Montana:

Romein was bleeding. Bleeding enough to write something in blood. There should have been a blood trail and a bloodstain on whoever did move him. The coliseum was on lockdown after Ema and Apollo discovered Romein's body. How was it possible that Romein was relocated without being noticed?

Once the heart of the victim stops working, there isn't any further bleeding anymore and the blood that is already out there starts to immediately clot due to getting into contact with air. By the time Daryan reacht his body, it was still liquid enough to be wished away, by dry enough to keep the message intact. So when Daryan carried him, the blood probably didn't drop down anymore and he only needed to make sure, that the blood soaked cloth didn't touch the ground, for example by pulling him from the body instead of the legs.

As a police inspector he probably knew about how these things work, so it's no surprise, that he was able to prevent it from happening. And his plan was super silly, since there was no way to make sure, that nobody would see him, but if he was able to pull of the plan, it would've been his best defense and he probably knew, that since all the other band members were police related to, that they were busy with making sure to control the crowds and trying to prevent a panic, until more police arived. Apollo and Valant were pretty much the only unpredictable variables, but in case of 2 people he was simply lucky enough to have Apollo/Trucy being occupied with Lamiroir and Valant being more interested in running away to have the chance of not telling his trick to the police

Originally posted by Hannah Montana:

Machi said that he escaped through the vents. So how did Machi end up incapacitated next to Romein's body on stage? We never hear Machi's testimony about this.

The vents didn't really matter though. He went back to the stage, met up with Lamiroir and those two were told to stay in Klaviers dressing room. While Apollo talked to Lamiroir he went out and that's where he ended up being incapacitated. It's not clear where it was, but no matter where, it didn't matter, since Gavin wouldn't have any reason to ever talk about it and Apollo wouldn't have any advantage in going into a cross examination, given that he didn't had any actual proof for anything that happened in that time span and as shown in the end, witness testimonies alone don't proof anything on their own in favor of the defendant.

It's not that hard to imagine, that Gavin just went with Machi, because the only other option from his POV was Lamiroir, of which he knew she wouldn't be able to due it due to being the actual blind person. Daryan was on the stage on act 3 after all, so that wasn't possible to begin after hearing Emas testimony

Originally posted by Degrassi Knole:

The part I find worse is the Siren's testimony. There's a big deal about how she accidentally mistranslated and said small window instead of air vent, but she could have easily mentioned that Machi was up on stage at the time of the shooting on her first testimony, and ended the case a day early.

No, she couldn't.

For her first testimony she got asked, what she saw and in that regard she isn't allowed to testify about anything that has nothing anything to do with this question (another thing that Phoenix probably hates about the system), including telling, where Machi was, unless either Gavin would've thrown that question or even fact in (and he didn't had any reason to do so) or Apollo being able to find a contradiction in her statement and steering her into a direction to state, where Machi was in that time.

Though as you might remember, the first contradiction Apollo found was to connect Lamiroir with the crime scene by establishing, that she actually was in the room and loosing her brooch. From thereon she wasn't able to ever claim, that Machi was by her side, because that would've instantly proven, that Machi needs to be the killer, since as for the prosecuters side of view, there were no other people close to this room in the 3rd act.

And if you want to say, that she could've said, that it happened in the 2nd act, where Machi was actually on the stage playing the piano, keep in mind that Ema and Apollo heard the shots on the 3rd act, so telling it at this point would've completely obliterated Lamiroirs credibility, if Apollo weren't able to prove, how it was actually the second act and the necessary evidences were only found on the 2nd investigation (most notably the video and the fire crackers, without which it would've been an instand loss on day one).

Originally posted by fericfirefeather:

If i remember the gun's power was used to hint at the real kill. Because the kill hurt his arm by firing the gun, and that injury caused the killer to a make small mistake during the Gaviners' performance that Gavin yelled at the kill for and that's it. it was annoyingly unused detail in general

This was mostly a tutorial for what came later.

In the actual case this type of evidence wouldn't really have a chance to be used though, because no matter what Apollo would've said, Gavin could've just thrown in some other reasoning, so Apollo would've needed to actually prove, that he was injured due to the weapon.

And btw it wasn't neither Gavin nor Apollo who dismissed this part (Gavin even tried to keep the pressure on by stating, that Daryan usually only uses .38 caliber, but it was actually Daryan who forced Apollo to drop this direction due to not having any definitive proof at this point and thus, having to allow Daryan to go on with the 2nd part of his testimony of the "Proof of Innocence".

Obviously Apollo could've always threw this argument back in, but for what reason? To make this happen over again and again? It was just the better option from Apollo to concentrate more on the smuggling instead, since that was a stronger attack that wasn't as easy to dismiss than a small injury that probably already healt at that time.

------

And all this combined, it's as Ryo said: This case was mostly build to show, how broken the system is in this universe and building up the reason why Phoenix stopped being a lawyer.

It's not about finding the truth, it's about being fast. Gavin only had half a day to build a complete case around it, so there's not that much room for exploring different pathes. Like imagine he would've dismissed the case against Machi after 5 hours, what then? He can't just randomly blame Ema or Apollo for it, because they had an alibili and for Valant he would've had a big problem to find a motive. Machi was really the only possible culprit due to the finger prints on the vent being the only thing there were out of place with the limited time he had to find evidence.

And furthermore, all these strange excursions to statements that seem meaningless at first or the dismissal of statements, that couldn't be proven is pretty much what this was all about and what Phoenix hates about the system, because half the case against Daryan was simply build onto weak evidence like testimonies and assumptions. Apollo proved, that Damyan was smuggling stuff, but obviously not, that he killed LeTouse, even though pretty much everyone in the court knew, that he did it right before his confession (more or less).

Though i can understand why this case can look like it's poorly written, because most of the important stuff isn't told in the direct conversations, but rather hidden in the very small appereance of Phoenix, completely turning everything 180° around that has been said up this point, only getting more clear as it gets to the end.

If you're not paying that much attention to Phoenix' statements and even more importantly not trying to view past the horizon, then you'll most likely miss the point that was made. This case is not the first one, which went down this super ridiculous path of the defender living off of drops of mistakes, while the prosecutor can just throw in any claims without needing to further proof anything. Most of Phoenix Cases also went like this. Even cases against Payne go that way to some degree, even though he is more reasonable with his claims than any other prosecutor after being called out (mostly due to making mistakes though^^)

This case was in general just made to be more obvious with this kind of unreasonable focus on unimportant things, though in case of abusing this system, i would claim the the cases of Manfred von Karma and Lana Skye were even more ridiculous (especially the later), given that the person, who tried to abuse the legal system in these cases, had even more influence than Daryan, not to mention the whole build up of Godot, that probably ended in one of the strangest ways i've seen so far.

(also i've yet not played any case after Turnabout Serenade, so if there's any case afterwards that makes this case look worse, then i've yet not seen it yet^^ I can just tell how i feel about this case from the view of playing this the first time)

[Degrassi Knole]

Originally posted by Maya-Neko:

No, she couldn't.

For her first testimony she got asked, what she saw and in that regard she isn't allowed to testify about anything that has nothing anything to do with this question (another thing that Phoenix probably hates about the system), including telling, where Machi was, unless either Gavin would've thrown that question or even fact in (and he didn't had any reason to do so) or Apollo being able to find a contradiction in her statement and steering her into a direction to state, where Machi was in that time.

Though as you might remember, the first contradiction Apollo found was to connect Lamiroir with the crime scene by establishing, that she actually was in the room and loosing her brooch. From thereon she wasn't able to ever claim, that Machi was by her side, because that would've instantly proven, that Machi needs to be the killer, since as for the prosecuters side of view, there were no other people close to this room in the 3rd act.

If she didn't stumble into the first completely unnecessary lie described, she could have easily stated "I heard gunshots during the second act, when Machi was on stage. I didn't realize what I heard until then. I did not see the shooter, but I can recognize their voice if I hear it again." She actually has a reason for being coy about the magic trick's process that I'm not going to spoil, but her acting like that makes me like her and Machi a lot less than the writers probably intend due to how much they lie to you directly during the case, even worse than Wocky last case.

Originally posted by Maya-Neko:

And if you want to say, that she could've said, that it happened in the 2nd act, where Machi was actually on the stage playing the piano, keep in mind that Ema and Apollo heard the shots on the 3rd act, so telling it at this point would've completely obliterated Lamiroirs credibility, if Apollo weren't able to prove, how it was actually the second act and the necessary evidences were only found on the 2nd investigation (most notably the video and the fire crackers, without which it would've been an instand loss on day one).

I'd argue Apollo could argue for a new investigation based on trying to discover when the victim actually died, especially if they discover the gunshot during the second song, though I'm surprised that the firecrackers weren't the first thing that was destroyed by the killer.

[Maya-Neko]

Originally posted by Degrassi Knole:

If she didn't stumble into the first completely unnecessary lie described, she could have easily stated "I heard gunshots during the second act, when Machi was on stage. I didn't realize what I heard until then. I did not see the shooter, but I can recognize their voice if I hear it again." She actually has a reason for being coy about the magic trick's process that I'm not going to spoil, but her acting like that makes me like her and Machi a lot less than the writers probably intend due to how much they lie to you directly during the case, even worse than Wocky last case.

Yeah, trying to hide the magic trick made it more complicated than necessary, but then where's the fun in the game, where nobody ever lies except for the killer^^

Originally posted by Degrassi Knole:

I'd argue Apollo could argue for a new investigation based on trying to discover when the victim actually died, especially if they discover the gunshot during the second song, though I'm surprised that the firecrackers weren't the first thing that was destroyed by the killer.

On day one there was no reason to assume it being 2 different times of the shooting and Apollo just guessing into the blue or Lamiroir just saying it without any proof (especially without being able to tell, why she heard it on the 2nd act) wouldn't have been enough to warrant a 2nd trial day, especially since Apollo could've easily proven that it wasn't possible for Lamiroir to be on 2 spots at a time. And on the 2nd day it got completely proven, that there was the fire crackers and the shooting on 2 different times, so there wasn't any further investigation needed for that in particular.

In general, the only way to prolong the trial at the end of the 2nd day was to show new evidence, that would've disproven any prior statement without said proof being capable of finding the truth, however all evidence was completely explained and all contradictions in the witnesses testimonies were completely explained, so there was nothing that could've been used to ask for another day, which is yet another reason for why this system is so broken^^

The missing evidence at that point to fully connect Daryan to the killing would've been traces of gunpowder on Daryans clothes, but since this was already 2 days after the killing and Daryan not being arrested in that time, it's highly likely, that he already washed his cloth, which is why Apollo rather used Machi's possible testimony to scare Daryan, even knowing that it's highly unlikely that he could've proven anything about it anyway. In the end it was just purely luck, that made Daryan freak out and that's not a good way to win a trial, but it was necessary to show everything wrong with the system.

And yeah, it would've been best to relocate the igniter and fire crackers to a spot outside the crime scene (since he was taking out the body anyway), however keep in mind, that in that case, Ema would've simply found evidence of fire/explosions under the sofa and Apollo probably finding those parts somewhere else, so it wouldn't have really changed anything about the case at all beyond the conversations about it probably just being a bit longer, maybe even talking about how even investigators weren't able to take stuff out of the area (so it must've been found on site anyway). And if we assume, that he should've been able to actually destroy it or smuggling it out of the stadium, then we also need to assume, that Apollo would've lost the case and i wouldn't be surprised, if people would've called that even worse writing, even when they would get back to Daryan in the 4th case^^