After playing through the entirety of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles released earlier this year, I decided to just finish off the rest of the series to make my tier list once and for all. I just finished binging through the last case of Spirit of Justice, the most recent game in the main series released back in 2016. Hopefully there will be a day in which I can append this tier list but for now, I’ll have to deal with the gaping hole in my heart of finishing something I love ☹️ (which to be honest is why it took so long for me to finish it in the first place).
S RANK
Investigations 2, Great Ace Attorney
A+ RANK
Trials and Tribulations
A RANK
Ace Attorney 1
B+ RANK
Great Ace Attorney, Apollo Justice
B RANK
Justice for All, Dual Destinies, Spirit of Justice
C RANK
Investigations 1
From here on out, games will be referred to by acronym.
One thing to note is that anything in regards to game difficulty is not a consideration for me in ranking the games. I’m pretty ruthless at looking up guides or using story mode if I’m stuck since I’m really in it for the plot and the experience. I mention this because I often see people rate games a certain way for being too easy or too difficult.
I also have never actually played the first 5 released games (AA1, JFA, T&T, AJ, and Investigations 1). This is because when I learned of the series back in 2009, I was in middle school. I didn’t have the freedom to buy games back then, so I watched through all of them via playthroughs on Youtube (…multiple times). I’ve actually been debating getting the remaster of the original trilogy to play T&T, but haven’t yet.
Another thing to note is that the only game I truly dislike is the first Investigations game. I find every case in it to be pretty underwhelming and I think it has the worst final case and worst final case villain of the entire series. On the contrary, I think every other game has a fun and compelling final case.
JFA is a weird one especially because its final case is one of my all-time favorites in the entire series. Unfortunately, the rest of the game drags it down, but I wouldn’t say I dislike it. I wouldn’t say I dislike DD either.
The hardest one for me to place was AJ. Of all the games, that’s the one that I’m the most unsure of in terms of tier. It’s also been a really really long time since I’ve watched any AJ case other than Case 1 (which is pretty good in my opinion). I think I’m okay keeping it there for now though.
Also I am technically short one game – I’m missing the Professor Layton x Ace Attorney crossover game. I don’t feel a lot of motivation to play it though, so I didn’t consider it necessary to “finish off the series” since it isn’t canon.
Finally, if I had to pick an absolute favorite game, I think I’d pick Investigations 2. I do really love GAA2, but Investigations 2 just has some really awesome characters and is a bit more grounded and less extravagant (which I actually sorta like). Edgeworth is also my favorite character in the series and thus my favorite protagonist, but most importantly, I think the villain of Investigations 2 is amazing and one of the best in the series and I have an entire mental essay on why, but it’s so spoiler-y that it’s meant more for something in the Ace Attorney fandom, rather than my random Sunday blog post.
I found this Tier List on tiermaker that lets you make a tier list for every case in series. I don’t think I’m in deep enough yet to do something like this, but I did legitimately consider it for a while haha.
Games and Other Bits 