The 4th entry of the mainline Ace Attorney series, Apollo Justice, is the game I find the most interesting of the entire series. It represents an inflexion point, a look into what the series could have become if Phoenix never took back the spotlight from Apollo, a new era of Ace Attorney focused on the new generation of lawyers and prosecutors as they work to overcome the dark age of the law brought upon by Phoenix and his generation.
For whatever reason however, Phoenix was reinstated as the main protagonist, and the series as a whole, while never truly becoming bad in my opinion, went in a direction that I don’t think was as interesting as what it could’ve been if Apollo remained the primary focus. And unfortunately, I think the biggest victim of this was Apollo himself, and the biggest indicator of this was his backstory. It’s a common joke in the Ace Attorney fandom that Apollo has 3 separate backstories, and as someone who's played through the modern trilogy, I do think this has plenty of truth to it. And as a result of these backstories, Apollo’s character ends up suffering for it
To start with, I’ll go over all of Apollo’s backstories in each of the three modern trilogy games. First, in Apollo Justice, he’s the protege of Kristoff Gavin, a defense lawyer who, upon getting arrested for murder, end up being taken under the wing of Phoenix Wright, who was disbarred from practicing law due to the aforementioned dark age of the law, where he would work alongside Wright’s adopted daughter, Trucy Wright, who it would turn out was Apollo’s half sister, as their mother was the magician Thalassa Gramarye. In Dual Destinies, it’s revealed Apollo was friends with Clay Terran, a wannabe astronaut. As a result, Apollo would spend much of his high school life at the Cosmos Space Centre. And in Spirit of Justice, Apollo is the long lost adopted son of Dhurke Sahdmadhi, a resistance leader from foreign nation Khura'in, who took him in after his father, Jove Justice, was killed in an incident at the Khura'in queens residence. He was raised alongside Dhurke’s son Nahyuta Sahdmadhi until he was sent back to the US to protect him from the oppressive Ga’ran regime.
The main issue with Apollo’s backstories is that, while they all technically fit together, it also feels like there wasn’t much thought put into it as a whole, but as parts that would be convenient for whatever game he has a role in at the time. Apollo being the apprentice of Kristoff Gavin relates him to the conflict between the Gramayre’s, Phoenix, and Kristoff, Apollo being friends with Clay relates him to the UR-1 case, Athena’s suppressed trauma regarding her mothers death, and Blackquil’s dedication to the Cykes, and Apollo being the adopted son of Dhurke Sahdmadhi relates him to the political conflict of Khura’in, between the monarchy and defense attorney’s. It also doesn’t help that elements of Apollo’s backstory introduced in one game, is barely relevant in succeeding entries.
In comparison, Trials and Tribulations reveals a part of Phoenix’s backstory that relates to the current conflict of the fey family. However, it also fits with a consistent characterization of Phoenix Wright, as it shows how he met his mentor Mia Fey, whose legacy he has been trying to live up to after abruptly being put in her role after her murder. It doesn’t feel like a new backstory made for the sake of forcing Phoenix into another characters past, but instead is expanding on Phoenix’s own past, and why he was being mentored by Mia in the first place
So in conclusion, Apollo Justice feels like a character that was a victim of a change of focus in Ace Attorney’s narrative direction, and his backstories are the most indicative of this. It always feels like these elements of Apollo’s past were created not to expand Apollo’s currently known story, but instead to give him some role in the current games plot, making them feel like convenient additions, rather than natural ones.
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