This has nothing to do with the quality of the fancase, which is quite good, and more with the premise. One of the reasons I haven’t reviewed more AA fancases before now is because I knew there would be a hurdle for those who hadn’t played AA before. I did A Game of Turnabouts because it’s pretty simple and doesn’t depend on knowing the plot of the AA games. But Turnabout Retribution, a fancase by The Fury Wraith, is different. The very premise of the case is a massive spoiler.
The plot revolves around the antagonist of the fourth game, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney. The game opens with our hero about to face justice, when they’re suddenly transported to Hell. By the Devil. Who has an offer for our protagonist, because they’re just that much of a scumbag (“…Plus I think someone might have seen me appear on your hand in that one court case…”) The Devil will send our hero 24 hours before the court case that spelled their downfall. If they can avert their fate, they can live a full life. Fail, and the Devil gets their soul now instead of later. But that task is harder than it looks. In short, even if our hero finds a simple solution, there’s a ticking time bomb in the background that will ruin them anyway. The Devil happily leads them to the only real solution: Kill Phoenix Wright.
Unfortunately, it turns out that Phoenix is very safe for the full 24 hours. He was attending a poker tournament at a run-down casino, only for the dealer, one Roy Elflash (ugh) to wind up dead in his safe with a knife in his back. Luckily, the police already have a suspect in custody: one of the players, Bethany Ittal (ahhhhhh). She was caught in the locked safe with a bagful of money, and seeing as the dead man had the only key in his hand, there’s no way it could be anyone other than her (“It’s like one of those locked-room mysteries in novels. Only with an obvious culprit!”) However, our hero can’t let that stand. If they can’t lure Phoenix Wright into a blind alley to smash a bottle over his head, they’ll do the next best thing: Take Bethany’s case, and frame Phoenix for the murder.
Turnabout Retribution does a pretty good job at matching the Ace Attorney vibe. It’s not perfect; some of the contradiction logic is wonky, but for the most part this is a reasonable pastiche of an AA case. There’s only one original character, an actress participating in the tournament, but she’s good. Her gimmick is just the right level of annoying and her skill at brushing off contradictions makes her a formidable opponent in court. The mystery is good too. I found the contradictions were usually reasonable but sometimes quite hard, especially at the beginning and about two-thirds of the way through the case. One of the big contradictions in particular is tricky, because I can see players dismissing it as a limitation of the engine, but when taken in context, it’s clever.
The reason I highlighted this case is because the locked room is great. If I were to describe the solution flat-out you’d think it was stupid, but it’s very well done. It’s so silly, but it’s very well-justified. It feels like an Ace Attorney-style solution, with an idea that sounds absurd on paper until you start thinking about it... There are proper clues pointing to it (in fact, when I replayed the case, I wondered how I missed it) and I like how the case leads you to the bizarre but very creative truth.
The main hook for AA fans is the protagonist and their relationship with Phoenix. Let me start by saying that I think they’re a little too easily flustered. This character is usually portrayed as smooth and in-control, and they have a few too many freak-outs for me. Sure, you can argue it’s like Phoenix in Turnabout Revolution where he seems much more confident when you’re not getting his internal monologue, and the case does throw our hero curveball after curveball, but it didn’t sit right with me. I also didn’t 100% buy the face-turn you can have them make at the end. But I liked how the case handled Phoenix. This will mainly be of interest to those who are familiar with the fanon surrounding Apollo Justice-era Phoenix. While I found this less subtle on my second playthrough, I think case does something interesting with that and really plays with how fans view the battle of wits between our hero and Phoenix. It avoids a common cliché in AA fanon.
Of course, the case then does something I don’t like to see in fancases, but that’s more me.
All in all, Turnabout Retribution is really good! The hook is interesting, the mystery is very clever, and the characters are all great. I do think that you’ll get the most out of this if you’ve played Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney first. But if all you’re looking for is a new locked room mystery, you could do a lot worse than this. Recommended.
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