What are your thoughts on Athena Cykes in Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies/Spirit of Justice?

[TheGamingNewsGuy]

Not sure if this is an unpopular opinion but personally i don't really get the hate behind Athena Cykes from the Ace Attorney Series. I think she is an extremely entertaining especially in Duel Destinies and she serves as a good counterbalance with her interactions with the more straight lanced Apollo (they have great chemistry and banter and honestly - i prefer Apollo and Athena as a team then Phoenix and Maya) and i love her interactions with Simon Blackquill (who is personal favourite prosecutor). I do admit i do think that Dual Destinies focused a bit too much on her compared to Apollo and Phoenix but i totally get why they decided to go this route.

I do admit though - Spirit of Justice could have used her a lot more, with her being the central protagionst of one case which was Turnabout Storyteller and assisting in The Magician's Turnabout and the first part of Turnabout Revoultion. While she is a lot more underutlised in SOJ she still have some great charcter defining moments though i admit it was kinda annoying that she kinda acted like a novice in Turnabout Storyteller and relied a little too much on Blackquill. So yeah overall i think she's a really fun and intresting charcter and has good banter and interaction with the rest of the cast in my opinion though i get why pepole were a bit frustrated with her taking a lot of the spotlight in Dual Destinies.

I am curious to know what pepole's thoughts and opinions on Athena are.

 

[Faiyaz]

I love Athena and she has great chemistry with Apollo due to their contrasting personalities. And her backstory was pretty great in Dual Destinies.

 

[Starlatine]

didnt really had the impression she was hated. the game where she "stars" is divisive at best, and her participation in SoJ is so small and (imho) during the worst case, mostly playing second banana to birdman. i was happy to finally see a woman attorney but she didnt do much other than that to me, and her "backstory" in DD is kinda dumb. voted "meh" but wouldnt mind seeing more of her to change my mind. or even better make a game about Ema Skye

cue the "this is resetera" gifs since i posted this exactly after someone saying her backstory is great

 

[Flandy]

I honestly barely remember what her character is like but I also don't remember Dual Destines in general so meh ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[JunkoAJ]

Do people hate Athena? I just think people didn't really like AA5 as a whole and she features in the worst case in AA6. I think her character is written probably the best since like Maya. It's just her arc is done and they haven't started a new one for her.

 

[TheGamingNewsGuy]

Do people hate Athena? I just think people didn't really like AA5 as a whole and she features in the worst case in AA6. I think her character is written probably the best since like Maya. It's just her arc is done and they haven't started a new one for her.

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Hopefully she will be back to being a main protagionst in AA7 since AA6 focused on Apollo

 

[Adnor]

She has the potential to be a great character but she... doesn't do much? I feel like she was barely a character of importance, even in Dual Destinies, except for the case about her backstory.

 

[Man God]

Her gimmick makes more sense than Apollo's, which is basically.... "I know you're lying because you're lying, now admit you're lying" and then they admit to lying.

She's got some of the best reactions in the series as well.

 

[MarcelloF]

I voted bad, but as a character, I find her merely boring. It's her design I find bad.

 

[Redcrayon]

I enjoyed seeing her and Blackquill, they both fit in really well around Phoenix, Apollo and Miles. I like their designs too.

 

[Annihilo]

Her animations are cute, I liked her

 

[Firebrand]

I was mostly annoyed at her spelling out the solutions to everything before I got a chance to do so myself. :P

 

[BasilZero]

I like her design.

 

[Hours Left]

She's fine. I like her well enough.

 

[Eeek]

I quite like her, but yeah I think there's only been like 2 cases where she's the lead? And both cases were really short?

 

[Verelios]

I think she was a good addition to the agency, her personality is great and her character motivations are better than 'I didn't steal that money in elementary school' and 'I got the wrong one' but there's just so much wasted potential in her. I dislike the mood matrix, her chemistry with Blackquill is iffy (and her working with Apollo is a much better set up with him being the patsy) and there just aren't enough flashes of genius seen that make it credible that anyone couldn't get a law license at 17 these days. The last one has been a problem since 4 though so it's not entirely an Athena problem, but she hasn't had enough playtime for it not to be a glaring problem.

 

[Flame Lord]

I like her design, she'd probably be better if she got more spotlight.

 

[Lemony1984]

She's fine, but I don't particularly like the games she is in.

 

[Kalor]

Athena is good and she should get her own game, but I don't imagine AA7 will be that. She felt wasted in 6 even though her case with Blackquill was pretty great.

Her Objection theme is good as well

 

[Deleted member 3093]

Lesbian

 

[Chopchop]

She's okay. I loved her "are you fucking kidding me" expression, but her gimmick never really did much for me.

I remember her as a perfectly serviceable protagonist who didn't really swing my opinion in either direction.

 

[ibyea]

I like her, but her dual destinies storyline does not land, so I voted meh.

 

[TheChungusAmongUs]

I like her and she felt pretty core to the narrative of Dual Destinies with her relationship with Blackquil...

but she is basically a side character in Spirit of Justice since that game is mostly focused on Apollo

 

[AbsoluteZ3R0]

She was really meh at dual destinies but really liked her relationship with Simon. Her solo case on Spirit of Justice was really good.

 

[Enduin]

Tolerated her for the most part, but think she was a major mistake overall. Her specific design and relative personality and interactions with the other characters were fine, but nothing great. I did enjoy 5-6 quite a lot though.

Her specific gimmick of emotions I found particularly silly and weak in terms of gameplay and execution. Easily one of the worst Attorney abilities in the series. Having a female character with wildly shifting emotions is also ehhhh. Her entire backstory and resolution in 5-5 felt farcical even for AA. It just felt super over the top in trying to create some shocking and emotional twist, but it just felt absurd to the extreme.

Overall she felt like a major distraction that undermined the overall flow of the games as we now were splitting our attention between three attorneys instead of one. This meant all three characters suffered in terms of development and focus within the story, but also in terms of gameplay as all three of their abilities saw only marginal use and never reached any real point of challenge or meaningful complexity.

She was functionally pointless in SoJ and her case there was quite weak even if the banter and relationship with Blackquill was somewhat decent.

Had she not been shoehorned into an already crowded field of protagonists I might have liked her more, but AA games need a single protagonist/playable lead, not two and certainly not three. I have little desire to see her be used in the future, even solo. They shot their wad with her character wise in 5-5. I want fresh blood with as little connection to PW and co as possible at this point, but definitely want a female attorney as the lead.

 

[Starseeker]

One one hand, I like her. But on the other hand, she's one main character too many.

 

[Symphony]

She's a cool character and the mood matrix is a fun mechanic, but AA5 didn't do a lot to endear her to people before that final case and then she was sidelined in Spirit of Justice. Realistically she would be a much better lead than Apollo the jobber given the chance, but I don't see that she'll get that - if the franchise continues it'll be riding the Phoenix train all the way to the bank with some more awful adventures in Khura'in on the side.

 

[Mauricio_Magus]

She's great, but the series hasn't done much with her.

I'd love a game that focuses more on her, I can see a lot of potential in her gameplay mechanic as well.

 

[sir_crocodile]

Kinda meh. Still a lot better than apollo though.

She's nowhere near as good a character as Kay Faraday or Ema Skye.

 

[Blade24070]

We didn't need another protagonist. Like, her story was interesting, but she could've been a side character. And it shows since they almost completely got rid of her in 6.

 

[mopinks]

she took Trucy away from me

 

[NioA]

I love her, her backstory was great, she's cool as an attorney and her psychology gimmick is on point. I hope she will be the protagonist of AA7 in the same way Apollo was in AA6.

 

[TheGamingNewsGuy]

I do wonder if AA7 will be focused on Athena or go into a new direction.

 

[leder]

I don't hate her, but I don't really like her gameplay gimmick, and if it was announced that she's not coming back in the next game I don't think I would really care.

 

[Enduin]

I do wonder if AA7 will be focused on Athena or go into a new direction.

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If anything we'll see it focused on Phoenix still since they can't seem to break away from him. She probably will still be around though. But I desperately hope they go in a new direction. We need a whole new cast not just the same core group with some minor additions here and there. They've exhausted the development for nearly all of them at this point. Phoenix saw his main arc resolve in the original trilogy and what little hope he had for an interesting future arc got nuked after AJ and them backtracking on Hobo Phoenix. Apollo's story for the most part was wrapped up in SoJ, save for his mom and sibling threads which aren't much, and Athena herself saw her major personal story get resolved in her very first game.

But beyond just the protagonists they need a fresh cast top to bottom that they can build off of and explore over a few games again. AA4-6 suffered a good deal because each game kind of jumped around way too much. You didn't get a solid supporting cast that stretched across all three games outside of Trucy and Emma. And as amazing as those two are it didn't have the same payoff and sense of progress and development as you go with the full cast in AA1-3 that were there from the start to finish.

 

[Lumination]

Her personality is whatever, but the mood matrix thing is so bad. The only gimmick I've actually disliked. Definitely part of but not the main reason AA5 is at the bottom for me.

 

[Damaniel]

I like her gimmick but I always felt it was underused. As a character, she's more-or-less average.

 

[Entryhazard]

I think she's at her best when nagging apollo
her story in DD isn't that amazing but the character itself is a good addition to the trio

 

[Deleted member 44122]

she was the worst partner in my opinion, i thought she was really annoying. the voiced cutscenes didnt help at all

 

[P-Bo]

Completely unnecessary.

But then again, I was always resentful for her stealing Trucy's role/spotlight, so I may be a little biased lol.

 

[zashga]

Kind of meh. She felt underutilized and has a silly gimmick and design.

 

[KhandoleezzaRice]

I wouldn't put her near my top but I thought she was fine but I've still to go through Spirit of Justice so my opinion might change.

 

[Entryhazard]

she was the worst partner in my opinion, i thought she was really annoying. the voiced cutscenes didnt help at all

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even worse than Maya?

 

[SalvaPot]

She is great when paired with apollo, and her arc is really good in her game (DD is for sure her game), she is also really young and it shows in the way she views the world. I'm really curious if they'll use her in AA7 considering Apollo is gone and we know that the protagonist is going to be Phoenix again. I want more of her.

 

[Luigi87]

Fun character, especially when with Apollo.
Was very underutilized in AA6, though understandable as that was kind of an end to Apollo's arc. I wonder what they'll do with her in AA7.

 

[McNum]

Athena is one of my favorite characters of the series. Her upbeat attitude and the ways she plays off the existing cast is all great, but that's not why she's a favorite of mine.

Because she's one of the few characters, if not the only character, I've seen in a game who has super-sensititive hearing, showing both the pros and cons of it. And, well, speaking as someone who has that as well, they get it so very, very right. She hears things nobody else does, but any kind of unpleasant sound is a pain reaction. And even when she's overstimulated, she covers her ears first. And I can relate to that.

There's this longer blog about Athena as a character with hyperacusis and it's definitely worth a read.

I might like Phoenix better, he's a fun character and all, but Athena has her own special place. Because she's like me. Some days it's a superpower. Some days, the world sounds like pain all over the place. And Athena is the only character I can think of who actually gets it right like that.

 

[TheGamingNewsGuy]

She is great when paired with apollo, and her arc is really good in her game (DD is for sure her game), she is also really young and it shows in the way she views the world. I'm really curious if they'll use her in AA7 considering Apollo is gone and we know that the protagonist is going to be Phoenix again. I want more of her.

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I hope they find a good balance between Pheonix and Athena. Personally i think there should be more focus towards Athena then Phoenix..also bring back Dick Gumshoe

 

[Dalik]

I like Athena way more than Apollo, give me AA7 with phoenix , athena, dick and miles.

 

[Poltergust]

I like her a lot as a character, but the Mood Matrix is probably the worst individual gimmick the AA series has ever gotten, and she is unfortunately directly associated with that.

 

[Wikzo]

I honestly barely remember what her character is like but I also don't remember Dual Destines in general so meh ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Same here. I love the Ace Attorney games and their characters, but Dual Destiny was a big meh for me.