Hey, Turnabout Storm readers... · 1:41pm Sep 5th, 2022
A couple things that, with apologies and due respect to the late great Dr. Seuss, we’ll call Thing 1 and Thing 2:
Thing 1: Turnabout Jackpot
First, if you haven’t checked it out already, there’s a very good in-progress Ace Attorney fan case underway by Lordiban, who you may recall did the incredibly good but criminally underwatched Operation: Turnabout. It stars The Voice(TM) himself, TheGoldCrow, as Phoenix, and it’s set following the events of Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice.
Yeah, I know. 
That was the weakest of the games, and honestly a failed attempt to replace Phoenix with a new character (why they thought they had to is beyond me). But the Lordiban team actually did the games one better and made it work. It’s called Turnabout Jackpot, and it involves a murder over a subject near and dear to my heart: poker.
It’s five episodes long at this point with a sixth still to come. Phoenix is there, but not as the defense attorney this time, though he does figure prominently in more than a few places. He’s in his hobo period and still without his law license, so you have Trucy in place of Maya and Klavier Gavin as Prosecutor going up against Mister Chords of Steel himself, Apollo Justice.
It’s very much in the spirit of the games, and all the new characters and sprites they made for them are quite good. They even poke fun at the localizations and strained attempts to adopt the games for western audiences with a law called the “Japanifornia Gambling Act” and repeated wink-wink-nudge-nudge references to Phoenix’s love for ‘grape juice’.
The headcanon I‘m developing is that the reason the USA adopted a Japanese justice system in the games and has a law named like that, is that Japan more or less won WWII and invaded the west coast, leaving a strong cultural mark on America. Aside from that, the case is well-thought and rather intricate, with a slew of twists and turns. Please check it out! You won’t be disappointed.
Thing 2: Request for Gofundme donations to Chrome Regios
You may recall that a few months back, I made a request for donations to the family of the original author of the novelization, Chrome Regios. Just to recap, she lives in the Philippines with her son and his father, both of whom I’m in contact with regularly over Skype and Discord. She also wrote the first 42 chapters of the novelization herself before I fully took over the story.
They’ve unquestionably had a rough go of it over the past three years, losing their jobs and livelihoods thanks to the pandemic and forced to take whatever work they can. It was then compounded by house issues, which just got made much worse by a recent typhoon that struck that Philippines a few weeks back. They suffered a partial roof collapse following the storm that Chrome says killed several of their pets. 
I thank everyone who donated before, and know that I chipped in $300 of my own (not shown in the gofundme tally but sent to them directly). But they still need money, especially now. The gofundme remains open, so if you enjoyed Turnabout Storm or otherwise want to help them, chip in a few bucks. With the US Dollar so strong against the Philippines Peso (PHP) right now, even a little goes a long way.
Full disclosure: the money gets sent to me before being sent along to them via Western Union, since gofundme doesn’t operate in the Philippines. I can only offer my word of honor that it’s legit, and that I do send the money to them—Chrome herself can confirm that. Thanks in advance, folks, and thanks again for reading and enjoying Turnabout Storm. Will I ever make a sequel? Still possible, but I have to knock other major projects off my plate first.
EDIT: Had the wrong gofundme link before. It’s fixed now.
So basically Case 4-1: Turnabout Trump but as a fan game?
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Yes, but a far better one. Give it a watch and see for yourself.
....I'm sorry, but I really have to beg to differ on Apollo Justice. That game is criminally underrated. In regards to "replacing Phoenix" as the main character, in my opinion his arc was wrapped up nicely in Trials and Tribulations, and that he didn't need to be the star of the show again. Seeing how far he'd fallen and how jaded he became after being disbarred was extremely interesting and way more compelling than the backslide seen in Dual Destinies (which is what I'd consider the weakest game in the series). Turnabout Trump especially is probably my favorite opening case of the series. The way it plays with the expectations of veteran players (like how we'd expect the one witness who isn't our client to obviously be the culprit), the way it sets up the tone and establishes the mystery for the rest of the game. Apollo as a character was also denied the chance to grow in the same way Phoenix did as Duel Destinies (and the new director) throws out almost everything the previous game was trying to do. Phoenix is just immediately given his badge back, the thread about Apollo and Trucy being siblings is dropped, the JURIST system is never brought up again, and Phoenix suddenly is no longer a cynic. No more forging evidence, or manipulating new attorneys....it would have been nice to see Nick build back up to that, no? Have Phoenix start another character arc in a proper AJ sequel. Something that slowly develops in the background while Apollo interacts with the primary plot, maybe have Phoenix make his grand reentrance as the climax of the final case. But no. Instead we get a complete non-entity as the next big "villain".
Sorry for the rant. I recently replayed AJ with a friend since I didn't remember it well, and I was reminded of how utterly fantastic it was.
Anyway, re: Turnabout Jackpot, I've kept the first episode in my watch later list for....the whole year, really. Meant to watch it, but never got around to it. Not even sure when I subscribed to Lordiban considering as far as I can see I've never watched any of his videos. I'll probably check it out at some point, but I don't watch a lot of long videos on their own. Like, I'll put on something long that I can listen to as background when playing a game, and a fan-made Ace Attorney case is definitely not "pay half attention to" content.
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Have either of you checked out Turnabout Substitution?
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I have not, no. Turnabout Storm is the only fan-made Ace Attorney case I have seen.
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Was an interesting "Case 5" for AJ. Figured I'd recommend it.
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It’s not ringing a bell, but that’s not to say I didn’t a few years back when I was watching Ace Attorney playthroughs. I’ll find it online and check it, but honestly, I didn’t much like AJ.