Ace Attorney Deep Dive: “Turnabout Memories” (Trials & Tribulations – Case 1)

Ace Attorney had amassed quite a cult following by 2004, so Shu Takumi and his team needed to pull out all the stops to make the final game in their trilogy a memorable one. The end result, “Trials & Tribulations”, exceeded expectations and then some – and the first case “Turnabout Memories” got it off to the best possible start!

I’ll be deconstructing the case in ten distinct categories and giving a score out of ten for each. This will give a definitive score out of a hundred, if the maths checks out!

Before we begin, you can check out some of my related blog posts below:

Micro Story

Doug Swallow, a university student, has been murdered on campus grounds, and the prime suspect is … Wait, is that a young Phoenix Wright?!?

Yes, “Turnabout Memories” is indeed a flashback case with Mia Fey at the defence’s bench. This is her second trial (already an intriguing prospect), and she seems to have a bone to pick with this case and culprit in particular.

Having a young Mia Fey as the defence attorney means the tutorial is much more justified this time around … if you look past the fact this is supposed to be her second trial against a much easier prosecutor. The story of how Dahlia Hawthorne managed to entangle herself into Phoenix’s life is fascinating and will only get better as the narrative of “Trials & Tribulations” continues.

In other words, this is a really excellent opening case that sets up many narrative threads to look forward to!

Score: 8/10

Macro Story

Due to “Turnabout Memories” being a flashback case, two important aspects of the Macro Story take centre stage – we see the origins of some of our favourite characters, as well as the (almost) exact starting point to all the narrative tragedies in Trials & Tribulations.

It’s such a great choice to have Mia Fey at the defence’s bench, as we finally get to peer into her inner psyche as well as view her attorneying methods first-hand. It’s a little weird how timid she is on her second case, but I can almost forgive her when the first case was such a disaster (more on that in Case 4). I love the hinted backstory with Dahlia, which both teases that fourth case as well as the overarching narrative of the game. A few more concrete details would’ve been nice, but I’m happy with what we got.

The biggest surprise has to be Phoenix Wright, as he’s completely different from the defence attorney we grew to love. He’s peppy and naïve, and although some of the eccentricities carried onto his professional life it’s bizarre to see him so zany. He’s a much better source of comic relief than Grossberg, and it’s tragic to see how such a youthful, naïve man could have been manipulated by Dahlia.

Score: 9/10

Mystery

This is the first opening case where we’re not immediately told who the culprit is, so that already earns it some early points in the “Mystery” category.

Once you see Dahlia for the first time, however, it’s game over. Nobody else is remotely suspicious apart from her, so the rest of the case becomes a classic tutorial example of how to catch someone rather than whodunnit.

Score: 6/10

Side Characters

There aren’t many Side Characters to talk about (and none of them are new), so this should be a quick category.

Winston Payne still sucks as a prosecutor. He’s just a tutorial adversary so I don’t expect much, but it’s always jarring going back to these kinds of cases to see how far below the standard he is compared to every single other prosecutor. Oh, and he comes off as quite annoying too.

It’s great to see Marvin Grossberg back as Mia’s mentor and defence aide, but he’s characterised so weirdly in “Turnabout Memories”. He’s the “voice of reason” for this case alone, which doesn’t really work when he’s blabbering about his hemaerrhoids doing the Harlem Shake every five seconds. Ew.

And, I suppose if I’m being pedantic, the Judge is back? He’s the same as ever. Clueless and a pushover. Not much more to say.

Score: 5/10

Soundtrack

The first case of a new Phoenix Wright game always brings its fair share of new soundtrack updates and additions, and I have some (potentially controversial) thoughts.

Lots of old classics have been revamped – “Courtroom Lobby”, “Trial” and “Cross-Examination” all sound great, and “Telling The Truth” is the best it’s ever been. The Pursuit theme “Caught” is also good … but it’s one of my least favourite Pursuit themes in the series. Sorry!

The stand-out (other than “Telling The Truth”) is Dahlia’s theme “Distant Traces of Beauty”. It’s haunting before we even know anything about Dahlia, and it does a fantastic job of both enticing you and getting under your skin – much like the character herself!

Score: 8/10

“Investigations”

This category is always a funny one to wrap my head around whenever there’s a Trial-only case like “Turnabout Memories”.

Since there’s no Investigations in sight, I tend to examine the Courtroom and crime scene … and since we’ve already seen this Courtroom a dozen times, I have to turn my attention to the university campus that Doug Swallow was murdered in. It looks fine, I guess.

Score: 5/10

Trial

There’s just one, tutorial-heavy Trial in “Turnabout Memories”. While it was never going to be sensational, I respect how in-depth it was for an opening case.

There’s some actual thinking required when it comes to the poison bottle and the university blackout, and it was irrationally satisfying to take down a villain whom we didn’t even know the extent of their crimes yet.

Score: 7/10

Case Logic

As I mentioned before, I appreciated the poison / ColdKiller X twist. It was well thought-out and delivered, and it really ties the whole case together by the end.

The Case Logic in “Turnabout Memories” isn’t perfect, though – Phoenix swallowing the entire (no doubt sharp) necklace whole always breaks my immersion, and Mia being far less composed on her second court outing makes replaying the flashback cases of Trials & Tribulations a little jarring.

Score: 7/10

Culprit

When I was scoring each individual category, the Culprit was surprisingly the hardest one to do. I have to rate the murderer based on their performance in this case alone, so I can’t let the future cases of Trials & Tribulations affect my grading.

That being said, Dahlia Hawthorne makes a fantastic first impression. Her design and theme song are sickly straight off the bat, and her whole sweet-as-roses appearance is unsettling for reasons we don’t yet know.

Her plan with the ColdKiller X bottle was very clever, her manipulation of Phoenix was sadistic, and her teased rivalry with Mia made for a great first culprit in a fantastic first case.

Score: 8/10

Charm

The characters are zany, the soundtrack is banging, Dahlia’s manipulation makes you hate her immediately, and the teased backstory between Mia and Dahlia makes you eager to keep playing.

“Turnabout Memories” didn’t exactly reinvent the wheel, but it was a superb way to kick off my favourite game in the series.

Score: 8/10

FINAL SCORE: 71/100

It’s a noticeable improvement from the Case 1’s we’ve seen thus far, but the short runtime of “Turnabout Memories” as well as the relatively simple murder plot meant the final score was good but not great.

Aaaaand that’s my list! You can check out some of my latest blog posts below: