The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles is a collection of two games that were once Japanese exclusives to the 3DS. The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures was released in 2015 while The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve was released in 2017. It’s been a long time since either of those launches so fans in the West never thought the day would never come but low and behold this treat finally arrived. Not only were they translated, but they were bundled together.
That means many questions left hanging in the first game are answered in the sequel. It’s nice that Western fans don’t have to wait two years to find out, unlike the Japanese audience. While that may be true for most riddles, it is still important to make notes of the plot holes and questions that remain unanswered. There will be spoilers for all ten cases in The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles.
10 Keeping The Other Steak Hidden
In the first case in the series, Ryunosuke is confident about a certain steak and plate having blood on it. The first plate presented does not have blood which refutes his point. However, Inspector Hosonaga grabbed both plates during his investigation. Eventually, he does present both but after Ryunosuke stumbles on his findings. Hosonaga should have instinctively pulled out the other plate right away.
Why this wasn’t done was because The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures needed to build suspense. It’s obviously done to create tension for the player, but in the context of the world, every piece of evidence should be presented if it is already in court.
9 Letting Gina Keep Her Gun In Jail
There is a possible explanation why Gina was able to keep her bag and gun in the final case in the game while in jail. The developers might have opted against creating a new character model just for the jail scenes, although this is just speculation.
Regardless of the reasoning, it is weird that the police did not confiscate Gina's belongings. Maybe the London laws, or even Japanese laws, were more lenient back then but that’s pretty doubtful.
8 Drinking On The Job
It’s also odd how the courtroom allows Van Zieks to drink on the job. Granted Van Zieks only takes one sip of wine at most before throwing the entire bottle or glass away. That leads to another question: where is he getting all of these glasses and bottles of wine?
Does his podium have a secret stash? For all of the stuff he wastes during each case, the cleanup after a trial must be huge. The courtroom must be littered with glass and sticky wine which is funny to think about in this already very comedic game.
7 The Escaped Russian
In the final case of the first game, the sixth juror should look familiar. That’s because he appeared in a newspaper in the second case. He was named as a radical revolutionary on the run from Russia and was referred to as Vilen Borshevik. Ryunosuke makes a reference that he looks familiar during Gina’s case but nothing more comes of that comment.
This is a video game meant to entertain players with quirky characters. It’s hard to believe that the British government would rope a Russian into a murder trial that doesn’t speak fluent English though. Besides that, isn’t he a criminal?
6 Is Sholmes A Columbo Or A Clouseau?
In the TV show Columbo, the titular character was the greatest detective in the world. He seemed to know the culprit after each initial investigation but what made him so smart is that he feigned ignorance. He didn’t want to attract suspicion from the guilty party.
Inspector Clouseau on the other hand, from the Pink Panther films, stumbled his way through crimes. Sometimes he was lucky and got his verdict but he was mostly a goof who could barely tell which way was up. Which is Herlock Sholmes, this game's barely disguised Sherlock Holmes replacement? Is he really that dumb as he leads on or was he trying to teach Ryunosuke a lesson and merely pretended to not know what was going on? The answer is probably a mixture of the two.
5 Missing The Gas Meter’s Hole
In the second episode of the second game, there is a flashback to a case involving Soseki again. It takes place days after his first trial and he is wanted for murder again. Along the way, Ryunosuke finds out that the victim, William Shamspeare, was stealing gas through the use of water coins.
They discovered this by examining the meter with an obvious hole in it. The thing that doesn’t make sense is how the gas company missed that glaring detail.
4 The Time Bomb
In the third episode of The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve, Ryunosuke and his team find a secret room after they hear a noise. They discover the room is empty but right in the middle is a giant bundle of dynamite with a ticking clock aka a time bomb.
No one does anything about it until they find who they were looking for, Drebber, in a safe. He tells them to disarm the bomb or else. This is played off as a joke, but it shouldn’t be. It’s clearly a bomb and should have gone off in the time allotted for research.
3 Did Professor Harebrayne’s Machine Actually Work?
This mystery involves the same episode. The whole thing revolves around Professor Harebrayne being blamed for his machine killing someone. By the end, it turns out that his machine was just a ruse. It was set up by Drebber as an illusion for his real plot.
It’s never clearly stated if Drebber could have made Professor Harebrayne’s machine correctly or not. Did he even try? Could Professor Harebrayne’s hypothetical transportation machine have actually worked if it wasn’t sabotaged?
2 Kazuma’s “Death”
One of the biggest twists in this saga is also revealed in this third episode. Kazuma was not dead after all. He only lost consciousness on the boat and got amnesia in the process followed by a trip around the world. Ryunosuke confronts Sholmes on the matter about keeping it a secret and the reason he does is never genuinely answered.
Whatever Sholmes’ reason doesn’t matter. Unconscious or not, Kazuma would have had to breathe meaning Ryunosuke or Susato should have seen he was still alive.
1 Trial By Fire
The trial system in London is very strange. The jury always seems unreliable and is easily swayed towards guilty or not guilty at the drop of a hat. That’s one issue but the other big one is in regard to the fire process.
Allowing the general public, especially kids who occupy the jury court, to launch flames in crowded rooms seems undeniably dangerous. How exactly are flames even weighing down the scales in the first place? Everything seemed more simple in the cases in Japan.
The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles was released on July 27, 2021, and is available on PC, PS4, and Switch.