Edgeworth: I only first started playing the Ace Attorney games in September of 2010. My boyfriend had played them much earlier, but only in late August of that year did he decide to share a link to the online Apollo Justice demo... which wasn't quite long enough for me to get a proper assessment by, but there are solutions to that... *cough* Said solution only let me get through the first two cases, but I was hooked on this engaging story-game with a remarkable blend of humor and respect for the subject matter. Moving on to the Phoenix Wright trilogy from there was a no-brainer.
I was impressed by the characters in Phoenix Wright. I could see why AJ's rebooted cast plus Not As You Know Him Phoenix didn't come across as well. More than that, it was in playing the first game that I got a sense that here was a game -- here was something, for once -- that fully acknowledged the problem of corrupt authority, yet was idealistic about the possibility of fixing things without having to just give up on order entirely and build a rebel alliance to destroy it all with. Here was a world where evil was assailable in a civilized, fair fight, and people freaking cared about evidence and logic and the truth.
Like many fans, I'm sure, I first started growing especially attached to Edgeworth in particular in 1-4. I found and pasted a link to a sprite sheet into my IRC channel after finishing that case, prompting my friend Sherinmir to say something like, "Oh boy. Everyone, look out, Pteryx is fangirling over Edgeworth. :p " Little did I know that he'd noticed my fangirling before I had. Heck, while I'd liked characters or had favorites before, I'd never really been a fangirl before in over 30 years of life.
As I continued through the original trilogy, I was delighted with the man Edgeworth had grown into as of 2-4. In fact, I was thoroughly impressed that he developed awareness of his own flaws and grew at all, let alone into someone so impressive. By this point, I couldn't help but think that here was the man Dad thought he himself was -- not to mention, the man he should have been. Here, too, was a man who could act as a nice pole to string the positive side of the lawful axis of the alignment chart to, when so much of my experience with and exposure to law and order and authority was negative. By now, I really was starting to fangirl. 3-5 only further cemented it. Then I finally got to play AAI, which helped me to further understand him (though I did get a sense of his initial reaction to Kay warping a bit to accomodate her introduction to the story; on the other hand, I think those who insist that he was completely OOC or had no character development at all in AAI just weren't paying close enough attention).
What does it say about my life that I find a law-and-order-and-authority type who can realize his mistakes, grow, and change to be so novel?
Edgeworth is a man whose faith in humanity and ability to trust has been devastated more than once, and yet he himself wasn't quite destroyed by that; in fact, ultimately he started trying to relearn the ability to trust those who deserve it. Honestly, he's still working on it. He's also someone who's not very well socialized, though eventually learned to fake it to an extent via professionalism... which still leaves him high and dry when it comes to idle chitchat and how to deal with friends as opposed to allies. His charisma swings wildly depending on how in or out of his element he is. He's a man with a firm faith in the value of the truth that, while buried for a time, was never quite crushed as Manfred von Karma had aimed for. It's a value that drives him now that he's rediscovered it -- though he's still human, with his own biases and even blind spots to overcome.
He's someone I really, really needed to do something with my excitement about, too. LJRP has turned out to be just what I needed. :)
1/2
I was impressed by the characters in Phoenix Wright. I could see why AJ's rebooted cast plus Not As You Know Him Phoenix didn't come across as well. More than that, it was in playing the first game that I got a sense that here was a game -- here was something, for once -- that fully acknowledged the problem of corrupt authority, yet was idealistic about the possibility of fixing things without having to just give up on order entirely and build a rebel alliance to destroy it all with. Here was a world where evil was assailable in a civilized, fair fight, and people freaking cared about evidence and logic and the truth.
Like many fans, I'm sure, I first started growing especially attached to Edgeworth in particular in 1-4. I found and pasted a link to a sprite sheet into my IRC channel after finishing that case, prompting my friend Sherinmir to say something like, "Oh boy. Everyone, look out, Pteryx is fangirling over Edgeworth. :p " Little did I know that he'd noticed my fangirling before I had. Heck, while I'd liked characters or had favorites before, I'd never really been a fangirl before in over 30 years of life.
As I continued through the original trilogy, I was delighted with the man Edgeworth had grown into as of 2-4. In fact, I was thoroughly impressed that he developed awareness of his own flaws and grew at all, let alone into someone so impressive. By this point, I couldn't help but think that here was the man Dad thought he himself was -- not to mention, the man he should have been. Here, too, was a man who could act as a nice pole to string the positive side of the lawful axis of the alignment chart to, when so much of my experience with and exposure to law and order and authority was negative. By now, I really was starting to fangirl. 3-5 only further cemented it. Then I finally got to play AAI, which helped me to further understand him (though I did get a sense of his initial reaction to Kay warping a bit to accomodate her introduction to the story; on the other hand, I think those who insist that he was completely OOC or had no character development at all in AAI just weren't paying close enough attention).
What does it say about my life that I find a law-and-order-and-authority type who can realize his mistakes, grow, and change to be so novel?
Edgeworth is a man whose faith in humanity and ability to trust has been devastated more than once, and yet he himself wasn't quite destroyed by that; in fact, ultimately he started trying to relearn the ability to trust those who deserve it. Honestly, he's still working on it. He's also someone who's not very well socialized, though eventually learned to fake it to an extent via professionalism... which still leaves him high and dry when it comes to idle chitchat and how to deal with friends as opposed to allies. His charisma swings wildly depending on how in or out of his element he is. He's a man with a firm faith in the value of the truth that, while buried for a time, was never quite crushed as Manfred von Karma had aimed for. It's a value that drives him now that he's rediscovered it -- though he's still human, with his own biases and even blind spots to overcome.
He's someone I really, really needed to do something with my excitement about, too. LJRP has turned out to be just what I needed. :)