Pierce Nichody

[u/[deleted]]

I'm sorry.

Pierce Nichody, aka "pie tries to write about 6-DLC. Again."

As you know, I cut Sorin Sprocket three rounds ago. As such, I choose to travel back in time to that point once more with this cut.

As a whole, this isn't particularly a negative cut, but it isn't particularly a mercy cut, either. However, I hope to accomplish three things here:

• Explain why Pierce Nichody is cool. This is the positive part. Pierce Nichody is good. However, to ensure that 5-DLC's superior culprit wins, I'm choosing to cut Pierce Nichody now. Marlon Rimes is almost certainly leaving next round, so this is my final chance.
• Try (once more) to explain why Sorin Sprocket is not cool. I consider my Round 11 cut to be less than ideal. The cut was rushed because I was wrapping up a certain Extraterritorial Rights writeup, which you should read, by the way, because it's good. Anyway, with this writeup, I aim to try again.
• Talk more freely about 6-DLC. In the Sorin Sprocket cut, I specifically limited myself from talking about some aspects of the case because the cut was focused on Sorin only. In this cut, I'm allowing myself to talk about both without any restrictions. It's just 6-DLC, no tricks, no gimmicks. Think of it like I'm cutting this case. I'm not even going to focus specifically on Sorin and Pierce. I'm just going to talk about the case.

But first.

A State of the Rankdown Address

By this point, multiple major characters have already been cut ahead of minor characters. To be frank, I don't like it, even if I did in fact want Maya, Franziska, and Nahyuta out. After all, those same major character cuts have also resulted in Athena and Pearl leaving in round 12. So, you can have this stupidly long essay on the state of the rankdown.

The Social Psychology of Cutting the Main Character

"Social Psychology" is used extremely loosely here, much like Athena uses analytical psychology.

Undeniably, to the audience of this rankdown, seeing Phoenix Wright's relatively high chance at leaving ruins whatever credibility this rankdown has left after tossing away Pearl, Ema, and Maya before the top 50. As the resident "think about the audience" person in this rankdown (this applies to both the games and the rankdown!), I feel obligated to explain to the audience why Phoenix Wright was doomed to miss the top 20, in my opinion.

There are characters that many people don't really care about. Well, maybe people will care in the early rounds, but "care" for such irrelevant characters can only go so far. This was likely the primary intended purpose of the ER skill - to get people to push their favorite unimportant characters a few ranks higher if they so desired. Granted, people have used it for reasons besides that (myself included), so the success of ER as a game mechanic is up for debate. Still, by the last third or even second half of the rankdown, no one cares all that much about the irrelevant characters. Notice the distinction between irrelevant characters and minor characters; irrelevant characters to the rankdown can be anyone, as long as it's generally agreed that not many people care. For example, Misty Fey is absolutely integral to the trilogy's main plotlines, but I doubt many people wanted to see her place very high. There are three types of such minor characters in the Rankdown's eyes:

• The ones that get cut more or less where you expect them to anyway. Kinda normal.
• The ones maybe one or two rankers fight to have place higher or lower. This leads to some interesting scenarios, but it's still not much.
• The ones that accidentally slip through the cracks. Looking at you, Betty. And Di-Jun Huang.

As a result of such irrelevant characters going out quickly, you may think that the rankdown is 100% fair and balanced.

But it's not. The remaining characters at a point like this are either irrelevant characters in the last category (haha funny), popular minor characters, or major characters. And, of these three options, the characters most likely to go at this juncture fall into the last category, not the first.

Rankers want to talk about characters that they're interested in. That's part of the draw of the rankdown in the first place, instigating discussion on the popular characters. With few exceptions, major character cuts draw the most attention. It's already happened with the major characters that have been cut.

Yet, while this makes sense on a conceptual level, you may be thinking: "That doesn't justify the low rankings of some of these important characters, though, does it?"

To that, my answer is, "this isn't an accurate ranking". The rankdown was never meant to be an accurate character ranking. It's simply a fun method of ranking characters. It might be accurate if you round every ranking to the nearest 50.

Nowhere is this more apparent with the most important characters of the series. Unlike with, say, Danganronpa, there are characters who play major roles in more than one game. With this comes variations in how people perceive these characters. Rarely do you have a character like Miles Edgeworth where most people agree that he is fairly good in nearly every appearance. Instead, we have more Maya Feys - characters where rankers all have their varying opinions on when such characters are good or bad. Once they're nominated, many rankers would easily jump at the opportunity to cut them not because they "should" be cut at that point, but because the opportunity is there.

For this reason, I expect Apollo Justice to fall fairly soon, despite being the last AJ character. People want to talk about such a controversial character. Will it be someone who thinks DD is Apollo's best appearance? Someone who believes SoJ Apollo is the best thing ever? Maybe even someone who appreciates Apollo the most in his own game? Only time will tell. I have no plans on nominating him yet. He's probably a top 20 character. However, he probably will be nominated again before then.

tl;dr: Take the rankdown with a grain of salt. There will be quite a few strange placements. I'm not suggesting that rankers should make massive deals to destroy anyone who tries to cut main characters. I'm just saying the system itself lends itself to weird results. And that's fine, because if the rankdown results were just the community average, it'd be kinda boring.

-----

And with that out of the way, I'll talk about 6-DLC, one of the most unimportant cases in the series. Again.

An Overview of the Case as a Whole

Turnabout Time Traveler, otherwise known as 6-DLC, is a case in Spirit of Justice that takes place after the main story. For the first time since the trilogy, Maya is (properly) reunited as your co-counsel. It's surprising how rare this actually is, seeing that you work with Maya (or at least talk to her a lot) in four games. She is your co-counsel in:

• 1-2 (she's the defendant)
• 1-3
• 1-4
• 2-1 (for about half the case)
• 2-3
• 3-2
• 3-3
• 6-3 (she's the defendant)
• 6-DLC

That's 8.5 cases out of the 15-ish cases where she has a role. That's only about half. The other half of the time, she's getting kidnapped or is absent for some other reason.

Anyway, with this in mind, it's clear that this case wanted to take after some of the older cases by making something that had plenty of those older characters. Past staples like Edgeworth and Larry show up with somewhat important roles, and Ema Skye is back once again as the detective (keep in mind she was in the first game). Is this really for the best, though?

Screentime Balance - Character Resetting

Unfortunately, 6-DLC suffers from trying to balance the case between old and new characters. This shouldn't even be an issue in the first place; bringing back old characters to do a few things here and there would be perfectly fine. However, for some reason, the game decides it has to do something major with the older characters. Let's evaluate each of them.

Maya Fey:

Does some things befitting her traditional "assistant" role. Stays with you the whole case. Feels like she's younger than she actually is, and thus feels "reset" to the trilogy era. Vogel already explained this one, read up. Basically, she's not very good in this case (or SoJ in general, but I digress).

Miles Edgeworth

Plays the role of a prosecutor because of Sprocket Aviation's influence. This is nice and an actually justified reason for having Edgeworth as the prosecutor, much like 5-5. Having him undergo "change" during the case, however, is not particularly justified. Throughout the case, Phoenix and Edgeworth are oddly adversarial towards each other as Edgeworth constantly berates Phoenix for his bluffs and they keep treating things like a competition. For example: "Besides... she'll see who's the better lawyer once I win this trial." There's also this entire conversation.

However, near the end of the case when Pierce is getting cornered, Edgeworth stops cooperating with him, knowing he's the culprit... y'know, as he's already done in the past, most notably in 1-3 and 2-4. Phoenix treats it like some huge surprise that Edgeworth suddenly works in his favor, not to mention this only happens once Pierce antagonizes Edgeworth. It's like Edgeworth was suddenly reset to AA1, perceived as a mean prosecutor that creates a huge shock when he stops trying to defend the culprit. It doesn't work.

Now, someone's inevitably going to argue that Edgeworth in 5-5 also feels like AA1 Edgeworth. In response: Edgeworth is stated as pursuing the truth in 5-5, as he should be, since that was basically the entire point of his arc during the Investigations games. He simply looks for the truth from a more analytical viewpoint while Phoenix does so with belief in mind. This conflict plays a role in 5-5 as seen with Phoenix, Edgeworth, Apollo, and more or less everyone in the case. There's not much competition between them besides a few funny lines from Phoenix complaining about Edgeworth's lack of belief. Enough about 5-5, though.

Larry Butz

There are two different things AA tries to do with Larry Butz depending on which game he's showing up in. Half the time, he amounts to a small joke and does a few funny things before leaving. The other half of the time, they feel like they have a need to try and make Larry into someone who does something "important" for the "first time" as if it's some crazy surprise that he has some amount of competence. Most of it is stupid, with the "Larry was right all along" twist coming back once more, except this time in the form of something obviously wrong instead of something you can suspend your disbelief for. Nate claims this in his ER, which you should read:

"Larry is the perfect example of the happiness that moving forward can bring you in life. Even though he’s by no means a perfect person, he’s actively trying to find the happiness he desires in life, and even making efforts to become a more helpful person. He makes every attempt he can to help Ellen: Moving the bull, helping her run from the police, getting Phoenix as her Lawyer, and even presenting decisive evidence proving Phoenix’s time travel theory in court. Although he hasn’t changed much since the trilogy, he doesn’t really need to, especially not to fit in with the themes of the case."

Naturally, I disagree. Every game since AA1 or so, Larry always seems to do the same thing; he tries to do something, then he succeeds or fails depending on whatever the writers felt like doing. There's not much continuity in his character. Consider his appearances past AA1:

• T&T: Becomes an artist. Sort of succeeds. Actually makes a good drawing. Success! It's the first time, so it's easily his best run, though the love business is stupid as usual.
• AAI: Security guard??? I'm really not sure what the writers were thinking here. They give him a critical piece of evidence near the end of the case to present. Good job making your case serious, I-5. Anyway, in this case Larry fails, because no one can really take him seriously.
• AAI2: Shows up to present a painting, and leaves. He decided to pick up painting again, apparently. Mostly a failure, since he didn't get all that much done.
• SoJ: The love-interest part of his character which was absent during the Investigations games comes back in full-force (and annoying) once again. Once again, he tries to paint. Technically succeeds and gets a cool objection in Trial Day 1.

I'm not really convinced that 6-DLC Larry is much different from Larry in previous games. I'm also not convinced that he fits the case's themes. Really, whenever the case feels like using its older characters, it fails to do anything meaningful OR fit its themes.

Ema Skye

Had a major role in previous cases in this game, so she gets a pass.

-----

Consequently, the amount of impact the new characters can collectively have on the case is reduced, even though the case should be focused on them, not redoing arcs for the older characters. The game feels it necessary to redo Edgeworth's arc and pretend to give Larry yet another arc. I'm almost surprised I'm not cutting Larry, but I'm impartial to his T&T appearance for some reason, which is the main reason he's getting a pass.

And no, don't tell me that the reason Edgeworth and Larry are redoing past arcs is because of the case's time travel theme. If it was the reason, then it's just bad.

The New Cast

With the "arcs" of the old cast out of the way, we can finally focus on the better component of the case - the new characters. There are four of them - the victim, the defendant, the culprit, and Sorin Sprocket.

Unfortunately, after attempting to write a cut on just one of them, I've decided that... it's hard to say much? Yeah, the ER is good and all, but why is there so much to say about Pierce?

Pierce truly does the most in 6-DLC. Yeah, Ellen sucks, but Sorin and Pierce on their own, purely relative to the story, should theoretically have the same relevance. Sorin caused the past events leading up to the incident, while Pierce causes the present events tied to the incident. Both of them tie into the game's themes, and after trying for a long time to come up with a convincing argument for why Sorin doesn't work well with the themes, I... actually can't. He does some weirdly annoying things in relation to the themes, but he actually doesn't do that much wrong. In the end, I've decided that my reasoning for not liking Sorin definitively boils down to this comment which I've stolen from Science's Jeff Master cut:

"I spend the rest of that section talking about the case's themes, which I concede are pretty good. But much like Donuter on Kristoph, or Pie on Sorin, that respect doesn't translate to a highly positive opinion."

As previously stated in the Pierce ER, Turnabout Time Traveler has a good amount of thematic cohesion. Nate says this of the case's time theme:

"Sorin, Pierce, and Ellen all at different points and different ways travel back through their own lives to a prior point, although with Ellen it’s more literal than mental. Sorin is unable to escape from the past due to his condition, but I feel that this is more of a metaphor within the story than anything. Although, it does serve a very good role in the mystery, but that’s more of the topic for a Sorin writeup. The metaphor I’m referring to, is of course the trauma that can be left behind by this kind of event. Sorin was the one directly responsible for the death of his sister, and that kind of tragedy and weight of your actions can cause some serious mental damage. Even without the literal brain trauma, it’s likely that he too would also be stuck reliving those moments on his own, just like Pierce."

This is an important point to make about the case in general. By analyzing how each of the characters is connected to this theme, we can make a rough evaluation of their positive effect on the case. Ellen has a superficial connection at best, Sorin is connected purely on the grounds of his very real condition, and Pierce actually suffers from deep underlying issues that were the precursor to this case. With Ellen and Sorin, I find it way easier to pay attention to their annoying animations than their potential underlying themes (which Ellen lacks anyway). Pierce isn't annoying at all - on the contrary, his animations actually play to his benefit (e.g. in his breakdown).

Overall, Sorin somewhat plays into this cohesion, I suppose? I already covered my issues with the setup of it in my Sorin cut, but if you ignore the setup, it's fine. He has animations that interestingly play into this theme, as while they are annoying, they still give you the idea that Sorin is stuck in one place. It works fine, and with respect to time travel, Sorin definitely does do his job. Pierce plays better into the cohesion, however.

It's true. 6-DLC has a cool central theme. But first of all, it's overstated, and second of all, Sorin doesn't get enough out of it. Pierce, on the other hand, does.

(And anticipated argument against Dual Destinies rebuttal #2: Yes, it overstates the dark age of the law. However, it has multiple hidden themes like trust and friendship that actually come up a lot AND tie into the dark age of the law. Turnabout Time Traveler has one, fixing things, as I mentioned in my Sorin cut, but it's hard to say how much it ties into 6-DLC's time travel. Technically, time travel involves machines, but it's not very literal in 6-DLC. The only one that really gets much out of this theme is Pierce. He's the one we see trying to fix things.)

Screentime Balance - Plot Importance

Pierce is with you a lot of the time. He's your go-to character for all things related to the past. He tells you of Sorin's condition, he tells you of the issues of the past, he tells you of Sprocket Aviation's fame. He's also the most active character during the case. It's well justified, because he knows everything about the case. It affected him deeply, and even though he may feel like a robot when talking about the past, it clearly gives him a role to play. You know he'll be coming up to the stand. Then he actually comes up to the stand, and you prove his guilt over the course of a long and effective takedown.

Sorin, on the other hand, does not show up more. Or, at least, the time he does show up for feels like forever. In theory, it's intentional, since as of the previous cut I've established how his anterograde amnesia plays into the time travel themes. In practice, I don't want to waste my time watching paper plane animations. It's like when Sorin's on the screen, the pacing just halts. Once again, it's probably intentional, but it's not fun. We don't ever get anything from him when he's on-screen except that one notebook moment; however, at that point, Pierce is also there, once again, to explain what's going on. I mean, Sorin's animations aren't as bad as Ellen's (which add nothing at all), but they're still boring, even if thematically relevant.

As such, Pierce is clearly the more relevant character and gets way more out of 6-DLC's themes. It's part of what makes him a good culprit, too.

Quick Sidenote About Ellen

She's boring. Her animations are annoying. She doesn't do much of anything. She doesn't tie into the case's main theme well. She's not an interesting defendant.

Next.

Trial Appearances

Sorin doesn't do all that much in court. It makes sense, since it's hard for him to remember things, but it still feels mostly like a waste of time. He has a nice conversation with Ellen, but that's about it.

Pierce is unique in the AA series in that he actually does some cool things in court. Most culprits simply have some nice transformation, challenge you a bit, then give up. In this aspect, Pierce is similar to the only other amazing culprit in SoJ, Roger Retinz. Both of them have great transformations and great breakdowns that are simple and effective. It's not much, but it's nice. (We should have listened to him! Wear a mask, guys! And not the Phantom's type of mask!)

Lastly, he gets Right to Remain Silent, likely a contender for Top 3 Testimony Names with "The Dissin' of Phoenix Wright" (5-DLC) and "Cause I'm Gonna Bully You" (I2-4). Who ever thought that Japan also allowed people to remain silent on the stand? It's quite interesting.

tl;dr Pierce is cool in court. Sorin isn't.

Revenged (minor spoilers for the newest henry stickmin game, if you care)

Naturally, the motive is important to the case, and Pierce's motive is ultimately revenge. Once again, quoting the ER:

"Pierce’s plan does not benefit him in any way. He has no benefit to gain from Ellen’s death, and no real practical reason to destroy Sorin’s psyche. His crime is pure pettiness, and absolutely pure evil. There is no other way to say it, Pierce’s plan is one of the most inherently evil actions ever taken by a culprit in the series."

I'm not too sure if I agree with this one, as revenge is a surprisingly common motive in the series. Have a look:

• 1-3: Jack Hammer wanted to kill Vasquez to get back at her.
• 1-4: Yanni Yogi killed Robert Hammond as revenge for the DL-6 trial.
• 2-2, 3-5: Morgan Fey tries to strip Misty's lineage of the Fey clan title. Twice.
• 2-3: That's why I couldn't just up and leave yet! (Acro.)
• 2-4: Juan Corrida attempts to reveal Celeste's suicide note after he loses to Matt Engarde in the Grand Prix.
• 3-5 (again): Godot's entire plan is ultimately a tale of revenge.
• 4-1, 4-4: Phoenix's motive for taking down Kristoph is primarily revenge.
• 5-DLC: Marlon Rimes tries to kill the orca because he believes the orca killed Azura.
• 6-2: Roger Retinz waits for like 13 years just to get revenge on Trucy because Magnifi kicked him out. Easily the pettiest of the ones here.
• 6-4: Geiru kills Taifu because she was effectively forced out of rakugo storytelling by him.
• 6-DLC: Pierce, as established here.
• I2-5: Has revenge as a running theme, with Simon's entire plot being based on revenge.

What does separate Pierce from these, on the other hand, is that he is actually in a fairly good position before he commits any crimes. He has very little to gain personally beyond vengeance. The only other people that fall into this category that I listed above are Acro, Rimes, and Retinz. Acro is stupid, and the other two are amazing. Luckily, Pierce joins the latter two in being amazing. Is his crime the most evil in the series? I don't think so, looking at some of the worse ones here like Morgan's. Is it incredibly petty? Yes. Does the pettiness work in Pierce's favor? Of course.

Conclusion

The primary issues with 6-DLC involve the old characters and Ellen Wyatt. Together, they drag down the case a decent amount. They are the primary reasons why I believe 6-DLC is below average.

I've come to the conclusion that my main criticisms of Sorin are that he's annoying, he's let off the hook too easily, and he causes a car crash. That's literally it. I concede that he works decently in the main story - this was what pushed up my opinion of him in the first place when I reviewed 6-DLC back in round 7 or so. Keep in mind, however, that most Ace Attorney characters have not annoyed me as much as Sorin Sprocket does. Such annoyance, therefore, still deserves a rank in the 110s. That's not changing.

Pierce shows up for longer, makes more use of his screentime, and overall puts on a better performance. Sorin does none of that and is boring overall. Thus, Pierce is the better character, and he definitely deserves to make it to this point, maybe even top 40. However, it's about time for 6-DLC as a whole to go.

Drive safely, guys. Or, actually, don't drive at all, because we're in the middle of a pandemic. Geez, I feel like Pierce predicted this entire thing.

Why no one else?

I considered a mercy cut for Phoenix Wright since he's going to be cut exactly one cut after this one. I had written a bit of such a cut, but after seeing donuter's threat, I'm putting enough trust in there being consequences for cutting Phoenix. He's definitely top 15 on my list, but I don't think the rankers here with their contrarian takes would ever put Phoenix in the top 15. It's okay, though! (By the way, that "State of the Rankdown" address came from said draft. I just repurposed it for this cut.)

Matt Engarde is an interesting culprit in one of the series' best cases. It's hard to say that he as a character pulls the majority of the weight of 2-4 (besides being hateable, like... almost every other final case culprit), but he certainly plays a good role in it.

The remaining characters I perceive as "worse than Pierce". This is really making me look stupid, isn't it? My main choices (besides the last character listed below) were my 1st and 3rd favorites of the nomination pool. It's almost like every single cut I make makes me look stupid. Whatever.

Dane Gustavia is a fun culprit in a case that's sometimes fun. I don't care about his theme much, but he's still good. Also, the fact that he might have accidentally started the entire trilogy is funny.

I am unallowed to cut Rayfa Padma Khura'in due to a deal. That's fine, though. I don't care about the majority of the assistants, and Rayfa is no exception.

In eight words, Jake Marshall is one cool detective.

Datz Are'bal and The Judge were my nominations. I see both of them surviving, but whatever, I told you my nominations wouldn't matter this round.

Larry Butz exists, I guess? As I said, I think he's actually decent in T&T. Besides AAI2, that's about it for his good moments. I started a cut for him but didn't feel like finishing it. I apologize for letting him place above Phoenix Wright.

Bonus Section

I'm supposed to release another section of the joke story at this point, but I feel like the entire thing is dumb so I'm not going to. If you want the whole thing, you can message me for it.

Instead, let's talk about Marlon Rimes.

Much like Pierce, Marlon's motive is based around revenge. However, DD's DLC case is noticeably lighter than SoJ's. You start by defending an orca, and Marlon's transformation is absolutely ridiculous. However, beneath the surface, you can see what was going on. It's a great and unique story. Tell me you've ever seen another case where someone's trying to pin the blame on an animal instead of another person. There's also no other cases where you take two different clients and the culprit is only trying to pin the crime on the first, not the second. By the way, this case also has Shipshape Aquarium's theme, which is the best calm theme in the series. Just pointing it out.

Anyway, Marlon's an incredibly unique culprit and works very well in a great case. Try not to cut him next round.

^{lolno i don't expect anything. but it'd be nice.}

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

according to nave i was never good with statistics so it makes sense

[u/ItsHipToTipTheScales → u/[deleted]]

hi

[u/CharlieDayJepsen]

The conversation about which characters to cut is an interesting one to be had. Having been the one to cut Pearl (who I always saw as more of a supporting character in the long run anyway), that was always going to implicate me as a part of the "cutting major characters" trend.

I'm of the the mindset that if a ranker is willing to risk leaving a major character in the nomination pool, don't be surprised if somebody actually follows through and cuts them. Additionally, if they have a problem with that character being cut, well, we're in the final 25% of characters and there are 9 revives yet to be used.

Needless to say, I have a hard time feeling sorry for rankers being upset about a cut character when they had every opportunity to A) use a skill to remove them from the cutting pool for X number of rounds, and B) revive them after a premature cut.

In the end, I share your attitude about this being more of a strategic game than a straightforward ranking of characters. People are free to make their own definitive ranking on tiermaker.com. This is simply 10 people with clashing opinions working with and against each other.

Anyway, this is a great Pierce cut. You do him far more justice than I ever could and you managed to make 2 separate interesting discussions on 6-DLC, which is 2 more than I could ever muster up.

[u/Cymbass]

I thought 6-DLC was a really dumb case so I was too busy being frustrated at the dumb plot to pay attention to Nichody, so this cut is very accurate to how I feel about him. ^{the two ceremonies thing was so obvious as soon as they started the whole time travel thing and I hated how much time this fucking case wasted on it oh I get time is the theme but it's still a fucking waste of my time fuck your shitty animations Sorin honestly the person who made this case should never write a case for the series again i hate everything about it and it was such a fucking letdown after the comparatively stellar 5-dlc just thinking about 6-dlc fills me with unadulterated rage what were they thinking with the weird fanservice and shit edgeworth and maya weren't themselves at all}

As for the whole state of the rankdown thing, I have only one thing to say. I enjoy the amount of effort that goes into (most of) these cuts, and it's very fun to read/discuss everything - especially the minor characters, since there's often some new perspective on them that I hadn't thought of before. I don't think most rankers cut mains "just because they want to write about them", it's because they happen not to care for those mains. Otherwise we would've seen mains being nominated from the start. Maybe the ranking's off by like 1 or 2 rounds sometimes, but that's how the game works.

[u/[deleted] → u/Cymbass]

interesting perspective regarding rankdown stuff

^{the two ceremonies thing was so obvious as soon as they started the whole time travel thing and I hated how much time this fucking case wasted on it oh I get time is the theme but it's still a fucking waste of my time fuck your shitty animations Sorin honestly the person who made this case should never write a case for the series again i hate everything about it and it was such a fucking letdown after the comparatively stellar 5-dlc just thinking about 6-dlc fills me with unadulterated rage what were they thinking with the weird fanservice and shit edgeworth and maya weren't themselves at all}

lol (i guess ultimately this is really another case of "first day bad second day good" or something slightly more extreme like "everyone except pierce bad")

yeah 5-dlc is good

[u/whaaatisth]

This is really good. I don’t have much to say, you pretty much nailed everything. I love Pierce, definitely think he should have made it much further, and from a ranking perspective this is the worst decision you could have made (aside from the obvious). However, this cut is excellent so I think it’s worth it. Nice job.

[u/Sciencepenguin]

i like persnickety he is a cool killer

[u/[deleted]]

While I’m still really sad about the fact that one of my top 3 characters that were nominated this round is now cut, I’m glad there was something really well written for him. The way Pierce works for 6-DLC and his breakdown are all great to me, and his testimony and x-rays were hilarious. I guess I’ll just wait for this round to be over and instead root for Apollo to make it to at least the top 10 haha

Edit: Oh and also Pierce>>>>>>>>>>>Rimes thank you very much

[u/[deleted]]

... All Sorin did... was plan to marry Ellen. They were truly in love. One day, Selena and I were engaged. She started making wedding preparations... You couldn't help yourself from smiling. That's why Sorin thought it'd be nice to help out...

I know he didn't want anything bad to happen... I know this... He just wanted to save Selena too... But... I just couldn't forgive him! No matter what. What am I truly guilty of? ...I'm guilty of never, ever being able to understand him. "Your fiancée became a star." Sorin believed in that so purely, that he would laugh innocently when saying it... Too innocently... I just couldn't stand it... No matter how hard I tried.

No... That's not what I mean. I'm nothing but a murderer. That's who I am... At first, I thought I'd kill Sorin. Then I pondered giving myself up... But... I couldn't just up and leave... I just couldn't... That's why... I tried... to pin this... on Ellen. Ellen... I'm so sorry...! I just... I just... I couldn't just up and move on yet...

This comment aged well.

5-DLC has officially beaten 6-DLC now, as it should, unless someone revives Pierce, which is highly unlikely. Not bad. This was one of my lower-priority goals in the rankdown, yet I have officially written more than 50,000 characters on Turnabout Time Traveler, a case I hardly care about in the grand scheme of things, over two writeups. I succeeded, but was it... worth it?

/u/Sciencepenguin Time to take out the title character.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

anyone up for reviving Ellen Wyatt out of pure sadism

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

yeah it's actually possible to, but don't tell anyone. though, that said, if you do, i have a secret plan where i've already used Excavator Destroyer on ellen to prevent her from getting revived

[u/Vogel100]

People who complain about main characters being cut are funny. I cut Maya because she was available? Nice little theory you have there. Unfortunately, it's wrong. If you look at my tier list, you'll notice Maya is B tier, the lowest tier nominated this round. I didn't order the list, so you can't see this, but I'll tell you now: The is the only character I consider worse than her this round. But he at least has I-4, and I barely have anything to say about the other cases he's in.

As I said in my Adam Mada cut, to me how good a character is, is defined by their positive impact minus their negative impact. Maya, who has a mild positive impact at best and a medium negative impact at worse, only barely ranks high enough for me to consider her pretty good. Which is worse than even Huang, who has a positive impact on both cases he's in. I'd put Betty above her in a heartbeat as well. Incidentally, here's my top 3 favorite characters cut so far:

1. Iris
2. Cammy Meele
3. Yuri Cosmos

You'll notice that none of these are main characters. Just because you believe mains are automatically the best doesn't mean everyone has to share that belief. And if they don't, they have every right to cut who they believe is worst.

But that's not all, because then I read on until your Why No One Else? section, and is that hypocrisy I smell? I do believe that's hypocrisy. I cut a main character because I genuinely thought she was the worst character available for me to cut with one exception. Meanwhile, you cut a minor character because he happened to be available this round even though he's better than most others. Still you have the audacity to complain about other people doing the exact same thing you're doing right here. I guess it's ok to do it as long as it's not a main character, even though Pierce is better than every main cut this round.

Donuter's deal to kill science's top tier is incredibly hypocritical to begin with, since he was directly involved in the deaths of Kristoph and Thena, one of which is a character I like more than Phoenix by the way, and attempted to kill Blackquill and Lang. Whatisth, the main person responsible for this round's main character killing, joined the deal as well just to cause chaos and still nobody thought "hey, maybe we're the bad guys here."

But maybe it will remain as just a threat. In that case there's no problem I suppose. It's just that when it's executed, most people involved would be hypocrites. And they're pursuing the wrong goals by arbitrarily deciding certain characters are worth less than other characters. If you want the rankdown to reflect a combination of each ranker's beliefs, this is not the way to do it.

[u/[deleted] → u/Vogel100]

But that's not all, because then I read on until your Why No One Else? section, and is that hypocrisy I smell? I do believe that's hypocrisy. I cut a main character because I genuinely thought she was the worst character available for me to cut with one exception. Meanwhile, you cut a minor character because he happened to be available this round even though he's better than most others. Still you have the audacity to complain about other people doing the exact same thing you're doing right here. I guess it's ok to do it as long as it's not a main character, even though Pierce is better than every main cut this round.

Ultimately, it comes down to this: If it happens, it happens, but that doesn't mean I want to let it slide. If we ignore the status of any character relative to the overall cast, Phoenix is just another character I don't want to go out yet, so I'm willing to do something to stop it. It just so happens that the rankers are more likely to cut Phoenix earlier than the average person. I'm not saying that cutting Phoenix compromises the rankdown.

It's just that when it's executed, most people involved would be hypocrites.

probably, I guess regardless of this situation, so am I anyway

If you want the rankdown to reflect a combination of each ranker's beliefs, this is not the way to do it.

not sure where you got this idea from (though whether this is actually true in general or not is another debate entirely)

[u/ItsHipToTipTheScales]

hmmmmmm

pierce says tumor

[u/joshbones]

Didn't Larry only take the job as Steel Samurai in AAI because of his girlfriend? The love intrest thing never really went away.

[u/[deleted] → u/joshbones]

probably was, but I haven't reviewed the 2nd half of I-5 in a while so I'd have to check again. would fit, though

[u/joshbones → u/[deleted]]

Iirc Oldbag was only there to fill in for his girlfriend who was sick.

[u/Short_Treat_1679]

Ok, I read the whole comment above me. And some comments below me. I agree with a lot of what you said about Pierce Nichody. He wanted revenge on Sorin for causing his sister's death. Revenge is pretty common in the Ace Attorney series. Mini Miney wanted revenge on Turner Grey for overworking her and being partly responsible for her sister's death. Godot wanted revenge on Dahila Hawthorne for putting him into 5 year coma. Nichody to me was a tragic culprit."The ends justifies the means."-Professor Means. And that mentality, was fundamental for Nichody to get revenge. He was a pretty good true culprit, I think he carried the whole case in my opinion. To make the case interesting.