My Top 20 Favorite Ace Attorney Characters 20-11

Ace Attorney has tons of characters! There are your main characters, other attorneys that you have to fight or help in court, and then the complete strangers you will meet. These are the guys who take the stand or help out when there is no evidence. Some of these guys are criminals and others are completely innocent. It is time to list off all these characters!

20. Larry Butz

Starting the list off was originally going to be Wendy Oldbag, but with the recent two games I have played in Ace Attorney them being Spirit of Justice and Edgeworth 2, I think Larry wins this thanks to how many times he appears. Larry has been around since the beginning of the series and it is surprising to see how he changed over the years and then not so much too. I love it when Larry is involved in a case, it means it is going to be a hassle, but the reward will be strong. Larry is usually there for his buddies in his own special way. Phoenix and Edgeworth know him well and can pretty much interpret whatever he has on his as evidence. Larry then does question himself if he is useful or not and of course he is! Again, without Larry some cases would be left in the dark and his constant failures with romance never gets old. Finally, there is a saying, “Whenever something smells it is usually the Butz.” I just love that line.

19. Dhurke Sahdmadhi

I do feel bad for not putting Dhurke’s son on the best attorney’s list, but I simply like others better. I will not lie and say he was a strong prosecutor, but his most redeeming moments come at the end of Spirit of Justice. Meanwhile, his father, Dhruke left a big impression quickly. While being busy being a rebel in his own nation he could not be around his children all that much. This soon lead to Nahyuta working for the Queen instead of working against her. It even leads to him not seeing his adopted son, Apollo all that much. Again, this is a huge spoiler, but even in death he thought of his sons. Dhurke was murdered one day and with the help of Maya, she channeled him and gave him the chance to finish things off. Dhurke went to Apollo to find the Founder’s Orb and later on, his spirit still got blamed for a murder of a man who actually killed Dhurke! The big part about Dhurke was how tough he was in any situation; this guy took three bullets and still scared the shooter! He has had the saying about how a dragon never gives up which Nahyuta never did lose and still carried the tattoo on his hand. He influenced many people around him to believe in a revolution and it finally got carried out, even if he had to take a bullet or two… or three.

18. Pierce Nichody

The DLC case for Spirit of Justice was an interesting one with dealing with Larry again and the concept of time travel. Of course, the time traveling did not happen, yet we had to show that theory and disprove it too. Well the true culprit of this case has a strong story to him and his desire for revenge was strong and misguided. Pierce Nichody was original a surgeon who got close to the Sprocket family and was supposed to marry the future heir of the family, Selena. An accident occurs with a car and during the surgery, Selena makes a request to save her brother before here. Pierce did save Sorin, but at the cost at another’s life. This grief changed him and when Sorin became the next heir and was going to get married himself, he felt that Sorin did not deserve all of it. His original target was Sorin’s future wife, but when the plan failed, he murders his scapegoat in his plan and tries to blame the girl of the crime. He even tricked the people of the court by having the marriage reception twice. Finding out how he did everything was a great puzzle and revealing his true colors as a surgeon made for some funny moments of showing x-rays of Phoenix and Edgeworth. Then from finding everything out like who he is and how he was connected to Selena, just painted this quick sad image of this man that easily could have overcome this. He reinvented himself for revenge and not for what Selena actually wanted.

17. Damon Gant

This character is an interesting mixture of good intentions, but with crimes involved. The true culprit of the extra case in the original Ace Attorney, Damon Gant is easily one of the smartest guys around. Since he held someone with blackmail, that person being the defendant of the case, Lana Skye. He found a way to have Lana at his beck and call thanks to staging a murder. This did lead to a serial killer is get his punishment it is just how it was done. Thanks to Damon Gant, Drake was sentenced to death for his crimes, but to do that it involved killing an innocent man and forging evidence. The case was closed for two years, but a detective who worked on that case wanted to work on it. This then lead to Bruce Goodman to be murdered by Damon so that he can cover his tracks, which he then tells Lana to simply stab a dead body to make it look like she did everything. When finally getting to the truth about how the murder two years ago, actually happened was hard! Damon Gant is the Chief of Police and he knows the law better than anyone right now. The big puzzle with Damon was on how to reveal evidence since he hid evidence for over two years. The bad news is that most of it was in his own safe, making it his property in a strange way. You had to wait for him to make it legal evidence and finally pin him down. What is interesting is how he praises both Phoenix and Edgeworth for what they have done. Gant even tells Edgeworth that sometimes to catch a criminal, you could have to play dirty which gets Edgeworth to think about on how to be a prosecutor. This even caused Phoenix is change later on in the series.

16. Sebastian Debeste

At first, Sebastian was quite annoying, I mean extremely annoying that made me want to strangle the brat! He always got in the way even with that insane sense of logic he had! Debeste was easy to break, but he still got investigation rights even if Edgeworth always had the upper hand. Things get quite sad for this young prosecutor. We meet his father, Blaise and wow a corrupted man he was! He even used his money to simply get his son good grades creating this false sense of pride. When Sebastian learned about this, his father did not help at all. Blaise called him an idiot over and over until the poor boy cried. Even during that case when Sebastian learned of the truth before anyone else, he still wanted to believe in his father. The poor boy just wanted to surpass his father as a prosecutor and the man he looked up, pretty much stabbed him in the back and kicked him into a corner. At that point, I just felt bad for the kid and later on after helping Debeste get a clear sense of what he needs to do with his life, he comes back to finally nail both his father and one of his accomplices. At strong lasting image is Sebastian having a single tear when he finishes that trial. This boy may cry, but he knows how to feel emotions which makes him strong as he says goodbye to his father and says hello to his new way of life.

15. Luke Atmey

Man, what a fun case Stolen Turnabout was. It starts out as revealing who the true thief is which at first was Luke Atmey. What was secretly going on though was that this was a plan from the start. Even before that trial, Luke Atmey found out who the thief was. This then leads to Luke blackmailing Ron Delite into doing what he wanted. Later on, though, Luke found a way to get away with murder with a near perfect plan. By being labeled the great masked thief, it created an alibi for him since it would be impossible for the thief to be a murderer as well. What was fun about this guy is that at first the man seems rather incompetent and yet calling himself an ace detective. Then breaking down his testimony in the beginning was easy too, since he did it on purpose. Then actually nailing him down once and for all was the fun part. First, we had to even reveal that Luke was the true murderer. Then when bringing him back into court, we had limited ammo on him. This even lead to the final moment by simply catching a fatal mistake in his testimony. I do love the fact when he has his breakdown, at first, he was pretending, but when finally catching him he acts the same and says the same things and yet I think you can tell he actually lost it. Luke simply talked about how he had no one to rival him in his intelligence, guess he was wrong!

14. Dahlia and Iris Hawthorne

Already looking at the third game once more we get to meet Dahlia Hawthorne in the tutorial case. What an interesting woman she was. Defending Phoenix Wright was fun and then knowing that his lover was the true murderer was shocking. It was even more shocking that Dahlia was not actually Phoenix’s lover which I will get to later. One word I guess I can use to describe Dahlia is that she is stubborn. Ever since her first crime, she just committed crime and crime again to simply win, but she never does. Mia even catches her and later on she is sentence to death by hanging. What is shocking is that… she came back which I will get to as well. In the final case of the third game we then meet Iris, Dahlia’s twin sister. At first Phoenix thought she was Dahlia which is why he got to be around this whole case. Phoenix soon finds out the truth to these sisters. First, they are connected to the Fey family because of Morgan Fey who devised a plan to kill Maya and get Pearl to be the next master of the channeling technique. When she was arrested, she got to meet her daughter, Dahlia again. The plan was to have Pearl Channel Dahlia after she has been killed. With Iris around as well made it easy for Dahlia to pin the crime on her since when someone is channeled they will look like that person and since we are dealing with twins, yea it is quite easy to do that. What Dahlia did not learn though is that she could not win as she wanted revenge on Mia and with her dead, she went after her sister. There were people that interrupted that plan and it caused Dahlia to even be Maya’s savior in the end. So even coming back from the grave still resulted in a loss for her. Then there is Iris who felt bad for her sister since they got separated. Iris got to live a good life with a nun and meanwhile Dahlia had to deal with a horrible father and no one to care for her. This is why Iris helped her sister back then with her first crime and even later on. She posed as Dahlia to save Phoenix because Dahlia used him in one of her plans and needed something back. Dahlia was straight up going to kill him, but Iris wanted to stop the deaths and actually fell for Phoenix herself. What a complicated love story this turned out to be and you know what, I want Phoenix to be with Iris, she is a gentle soul that always thinks about others even if that other could be a psychopathic killer.

13. Matt Engarde

Now I will not lie, Justice for All was quite small with strong cases and strong new characters. There were two though and the first one to talk about is Matt Engarde. What made this guy so special is how he covered his tracks. Matt was accused of murdering a man named Juan Cordia and he did! The thing is though he had backup. He acquired the help of a professional killer and had that specialist do the murder and then they kidnap Maya to force Phoenix to defend the man. Now at first Matt does not show his true colors. He was just seemed like a young man starting his acting career and did not seem that quite smart. He would constantly try to ask his manager about everything, but at this point I am going to guess he was just pretending to use that little watch gizmo. Later on, we get to learn of who Matt really is and he loves to use people. Matt caused much suffering to people in his past which includes a girl committing suicide, one complementing suicide, and ruining one man’s career, well two in a certain way. I just got surprised when he shown his true colors because at first I did not see it coming. Even with someone kidnapping Maya, I just thought it was an impossible case to defend, especially with the limit of one day originally. The truth is though that Engarde is a sick man and finding a way to take him down was hard. To save Maya, you had to hold your wits and still pretend to defend Matt Engarde, but later on you get to talk to the professional killer. You find out that Matt was going to blackmail him and the killer does not like that sort of thing. You find a way to present that information to him and now it does not matter if Matt is guilty or not. Matt would pay for his crimes regardless in jail or being on the run from a professional killer. Overall, Matt was a surprise to probably one of the best cases in the franchise, too bad Justice For All could not be like this the whole time.

12. Tyrell Badd

The detective that Gumshoe learned under and while many would think that is the sign that this guy is a horrible cop, you would be incorrect. Tyrell Badd is more of your strict cop that plays by the book. Now there were a few secrets about this man though, but we will get to that soon. Overall, I always loved his design, that coat he has with all those bullet holes in them just says something. He even likes to reach in his coat whenever he is mad, but don’t worry he just pulls out a mirror and he does not smoke, he just likes his lollipops. So even though this guy may act like a hard-boiled cop, he sure does break some clichés with his actions. Tyrell first makes his appearance in the first Edgeworth game as he investigates a murder case that happened right in the courts. At first, he did not like Von Karma butting in by having his two apprentices investigate, but he started to open up with Edgeworth because of how smart he was and during this time he wanted to take down criminals. Now Badd here held a secret, he was part of a mysterious group called the Yatagarasu. At first it was believed it was a single thief, but there were three people in a group. Sadly, one of those members was undercover to snuff them out, but she got caught once and then caught again. We also get to see Badd again in Edgeworth 2 as he helped Gregory with his final investigation and trials. This is a big reason why Badd hates Von Karma, he knew of the dirty tricks he did to a suspect in that case. Badd also shown many signs of kindness for Gregory and the suspect which I bet Gumshoe picked up from him. This character was just stunning to me, he had an appearance that is easy to remember and thanks to how involved he was with important story bits, keep a fresh image in my head of him.

11. Juniper Woods, Robin Newman, and Hugh O’ Conner

Wow this is the first time I am talking about Dual Destinies in this list and this could be the only time too. Not saying Dual Destinies was bad, to be honest it could be my fourth favorite game of the series. For the characters though some were hit or miss. I did enjoy Simon and Aura (she was originally on this list before) then there was a villain in that game who could have been on this list, but I personally hoped his final appearance would stick to more how he was in general. In that case though called Turnabout Academy, we got to meet three awesome characters! If I had to pick my favorite of the three that would-be Robin, but these three support each other as characters so it would be unfair to leave any of them out of this spot. First, there is Juniper which we got to see how she is after this case in the beginning, but in this case, she was rather strict and a big rule follower. She did learn from a great teacher to follow the rules and that is a great trait to have to be a future judge. She gets suspected of a murder because of how things played out like a script she wrote out and then she started to show her true self a bit more. She became frail and weak as people suspected her to be a killer and even some of her closest friends started to backstab her. Robin Newman the boy who was actually a girl finally got to reveal her true colors thanks to Athena. This does lead to my personal favorite comedic sequence in the game because even I was fooled by her appearance at first. Then there was Hugh O’ Conner the much older student, he is even older than Apollo. Throughout this case, the three start to see how they have never broke their bonds and still was able to show it. These three then start to learn the true meaning of the law and how the truth is important to follow because things will work out in the end. As long as people stick to the truth there is no reason to hide things which leads to confusion amongst others. What made these characters fun were getting to each of their stories which all had their own share of puzzles. It felt extremely rewarding to help them as you continue through that case.