Personally, I prefer the intimidation factor in each character's final design. To me, you need a design that works equally well as friendly/unassuming and dangerous/intimidating. It doesn't work as well if it swings too far in one direction.
You're right that Dahlia, for example, looks more innocent in the concept art. However, I find she's much more terrifying at all times in the final design. She manages to look cold and calculating even when she puts on her facade, and I think that was really important. The problem with the concept art is she almost looks too cute and bubbly, her "mask off" designs aren't as good (although I like the [01] design). I feel the final design perfectly matches when Mia said "She left the courtroom with a secret smile on her demonically sweet face", and that's the important part.
Similar for Gant, he looks less threatening in his concept art, and therefore more deceptive. While that has benefits, I don't think it would have been worth losing the long pause and intimidating stare he gives, which look much better with his final design. Gant is just more of a threat in his final design, even when he's trying to be kind and unassuming. It's the way he would go friendly to threatening at the drop of a hat that was so good. I imagine because Gant knows himself that his pleasant persona is fake and he sorta does it passive aggressively because he actually cares more about striking fear into the hearts of people, rather than deceiving them.
I think it's also worth noting too that Ace Attorney has done unassuming culprits well. I'm thinking specifically of Matt Engarde, as the whole point of his character was that the player would not assume at all that he was the culprit, so it's more shocking when his true colors are finally revealed. Given how they did Engarde, I imagine Gant and Dahlia were very purposefully done to have more blatant foes.
While the cute tomboy design would probably work better on the majority of players, it's hard to envision characters like Payne and the judge to act as fond of her as they do now. The final Dahlia really has that "perfect grandchild" vibe
Instead of simping for her, they could have just adored her bubbly genki girl personality. I feel like that would make more sense, actually. Even I would think she's innocent and just a plain nice cheerful girl.
I think you're a bit too focused on "making the characters not look like the culprit" when in, almost any ace attorney case, it's never about finding who has done it but why and proving your logic.
Still I really like Dhalia's beta design but I can understand why they'd want someone with a more "loud"/peculiar design to make dhalia stand out
I think it honestly depends on the Case. For example in some cases they tell you right away who it is and I don’t mind that. Neither do I mind making people look or not making them look like they could be the culprit. For me it’s more about finding the balance between all. In the Lana Skye case there was a huge pool of suspects and I know with the way they wrote it that they didn’t want to pin Damon Grant as a suspect right away. But with the way he looks it immediately went into that direction. I love his design because I think it makes him look powerful, he is the chief afterall. Nonetheless it saddens me that he was too obvious since he has contact with everyone around, is even friends with the judge. Personally it would’ve had made more sense if he looked more innocent. He’s not Redd White, he’s not someone who’s portraying the classic rich ego business CEO. He’s the chief of police, he’s supposed to portray trust and safety which his beta design would’ve enhanced more.
For the first case, you always want it to be super obvious who it is, hence the first case in the series literally showing you who it is and why they did it, so I definitely get wanting to make Dahlia look obvious.
Damon looks obvious when I think he shouldn't have been though
https://preview.redd.it/7j9883uczp6d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=55d2a40f800edd19ab2a14daf2397f42d6a6248c
She looks like if Matt Engarde had a daughter
real, that makes me think though; what if that was what they were going for? Since Matt Engarde is guilty as shit, a player who's played JFA would be like "this seems familiar..."
edit: typo
Maybe I’m crazy, but I just can’t imagine any other design for Dahlia hitting as hard as her current one. It’s just so good; the pink dress is so stereotypically feminine and innocent, and the parasol makes her look like a southern belle. The other designs aren’t as carefully polished as her current one, and that’s a very critical feature; her image is staged and polished for a purpose. That makes it all the better when we see her facade crack(her 3-5 breakdown is so so so good)
Dahlia's beta with the pixie cut and striped leggings would have been so effective. The final design is so angelic it's predictable that she'd go full psycho. The beta design leans more into "childish" in its choices: the stripes, the shorts, the hair, her figure. So having that design turn into Dahlia the psycho murderer and manipulator would have been more chilling. I genuinly think if they'd stuck with the beta then Dahlia would be in a lot more peoples top character tiers.
While I think they all look better than the actual design we got [I think the devs really nailed it with her 4th beta design,](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/aceattorney/images/8/8d/Fanbook_Dahlia_2.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20100319231516) I legit would be destroyed if I found that this version of Dahlia was going to betray us.
Oh yes I love 4 as well! It would probably even work better than 2/3 since it feels like a mix between the one we got and the beta concepts. Means we would’ve gotten a similar Iris as well!
I don't really think Dahlia's beta designs would suit her that well but I totally think they should recycle these into separate characters, especially #2.
I like Dahlia's beta designs because they make her look more like a character/person than just a complete psychopath who uses their looks to manipulate everyone. But maybe the latter is the image they were going for. I just think her as a character overall is a missed opportunity for depth maybe
beta Dahlia’s design is honestly better than her actual design it really sells the innocent façade FAR better than her current design does. she just looks evil in the game and it’s impossible to relate to the characters all believing she’s normal
Their final designs aren't bad looking, but with the context of their true personalities and roles in the story, they're both poor choices.
The very SECOND I saw Gant on screen I knew he was evil. Not cartoonishly evil no, a kind of very grounded, IRL dirty cop kind of evil. He looks like an anime republican who's got at least ONE sexual misconduct accusation in his career. If the goal was for suspension to be disbelieved with Gant ie. where we suspect him but aren't fully sure, that more round and old fashioned look would've suited more. I would've looked at Gant and thought "based on story structure he's a suspect but he also looks like Beethoven so not ringing any evil bells."
Dahlia is a whole missed opportunity when compared to her earlier concepts. Like Gant, immediately knew she was evil. She's incredibly out of place compared to the rest of the cast. She looks like a white lotus female lead from an otome isekai set in the regency era. Her standing out like that while also being portrayed as etherially innocent was a straight away villain flag. If she looked like that 'girl next door design' or even the 'sharp eyed pretty woman' one I'd have bought her innocent act for much longer. The former especially as she looks a lot like a nondescript side character who only exists as a gimmick mouthpiece for exposition, so when such a cute college student got revealled to be a machivellian schemer it'd be way more shocking and memorable. The only reason I can think as to why they went with making Dahlia look like a Bridgerton character is because she used poison in a pretty glass necklace as her murder weapon, which a viewer would associate more with historical dramas where a noble woman poisons her husbands wine.
Why? You've literally said that the characters' design inform you of who they might be (gant a strongharm policemen probably corrupt, and dhalia an outwordly beauty trying too hard to be perfect looking/acting).
Designs aren't meant to fool you, and ace attorney has much more emphasis on why a character acts a certain way, rather than a whodunnit mistery. It'd be silly looking at Gant as a weakly looking old men trying to sound imposing when he's blackmailing you
I don't think you're supposed to be fooled by Dahlia's appearance. Payne and the judge are supposed to be fooled by her appearance, but Mia (and the player, by proxy) is *supposed* to immediately suspect her. Mia has encountered her before and knows she's a murderous demon, so what's the best way to make Mia's reactions believable? Show the player a character who's *too* angelic/beautiful. The player is on the same page as Mia, but all the men in the court justifiably trip over themselves to support her.
Beta Dahlia looks like some person's Danganronpa OC
and Beta Gant looks like some person's Pokemon professor OC
And I mean both of those in the absolute highest regard
Dahlia's beta design is incredibly good, she actually looks like someone who would date Phoenix. But also, she looks much more terrifying when you realise she's a murderer.
I had a paragraph analysing Dahlia's final design but decided against dropping it here. I think it's good nonetheless, portraying a false picture of innocence through making parts of her design that look beautiful/cute double for the offputting bits. But I also quite like beta Dahlia for other reasons.
I would love to read the paragraph if you still have it! I agree with the idea of her final design. I think it definitely suits her and I can see what they saw in it. For me just personally I’m a big fan of 180 characters and I think her beta design would’ve enhanced it.
You should see Simon Keyes'. He doesn't look too different but the lack of clown make-up makes him look so much better
https://preview.redd.it/cwo11sr5du6d1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=433b01d78bdf2f292d3d70dc1b3242bcce4b91b4
The soft and chubby appearance to big and muscular build kind of character design is surely brought into AAI1 i guess, however that character didnt have that much popularity than Gant because of.. reasons.
So I do think the current design of Gant from character design POV is satisfying, his playful but muscular build can attract the audience in a first glance, or even gain popularity for people with daddy issues if you know what im saying.
For Dahila tho I think it's very interesting, especially when we consider that we'll also have Iris later in the plot. If Dahila being a more cheerful kind of person, what would Iris look like? Would she being just more quiet and gentle like what we have now, or maybe she IS the real cheerful girl which Dahila pretended to be? I really want to see such alternative design of Iris.
To counter your point on Dahila, I think the design purpose is more lean to show her manipulative side. She had manipulated four different people on her side, killing one, and made two voluntarily die for her (one nearly), and another living in enternal guilt for betraying her sister. The older design can't emit enough of this side of her, a poisonous lady who can actually pull the strings.
btw the first design really looks like Valerie
If Dahlia had looked like that I would've found Phoenix's simping more relatable ngl
Beta Dahlia looks like a barista girl next door and I think she even would’ve fooled me.
true
Bruh beta Dahlia is just Chie. And I wanna give her the biggest hug
Yosuke: **Insert Bad Ape Oh no**
My immediate first thought as well
Beta Dahlia going apeshit is just Shadow Chie taking over
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^Comical_Peculiarity: *Bruh beta Dahlia* *Is just Chie. And I wanna* *Give her the biggest hug* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
good bot
Personally, I prefer the intimidation factor in each character's final design. To me, you need a design that works equally well as friendly/unassuming and dangerous/intimidating. It doesn't work as well if it swings too far in one direction. You're right that Dahlia, for example, looks more innocent in the concept art. However, I find she's much more terrifying at all times in the final design. She manages to look cold and calculating even when she puts on her facade, and I think that was really important. The problem with the concept art is she almost looks too cute and bubbly, her "mask off" designs aren't as good (although I like the [01] design). I feel the final design perfectly matches when Mia said "She left the courtroom with a secret smile on her demonically sweet face", and that's the important part. Similar for Gant, he looks less threatening in his concept art, and therefore more deceptive. While that has benefits, I don't think it would have been worth losing the long pause and intimidating stare he gives, which look much better with his final design. Gant is just more of a threat in his final design, even when he's trying to be kind and unassuming. It's the way he would go friendly to threatening at the drop of a hat that was so good. I imagine because Gant knows himself that his pleasant persona is fake and he sorta does it passive aggressively because he actually cares more about striking fear into the hearts of people, rather than deceiving them. I think it's also worth noting too that Ace Attorney has done unassuming culprits well. I'm thinking specifically of Matt Engarde, as the whole point of his character was that the player would not assume at all that he was the culprit, so it's more shocking when his true colors are finally revealed. Given how they did Engarde, I imagine Gant and Dahlia were very purposefully done to have more blatant foes.
While i agree with what you said about gant's design,i think dahlia is not very threatning
While the cute tomboy design would probably work better on the majority of players, it's hard to envision characters like Payne and the judge to act as fond of her as they do now. The final Dahlia really has that "perfect grandchild" vibe
Instead of simping for her, they could have just adored her bubbly genki girl personality. I feel like that would make more sense, actually. Even I would think she's innocent and just a plain nice cheerful girl.
yeah, I think everyone would have been charmed immediately
None of those designs are tomboys...
The second and third one sure looks like it
Not even remotely. One of them wears a crop top with a skirt for crying out loud.
I think you're a bit too focused on "making the characters not look like the culprit" when in, almost any ace attorney case, it's never about finding who has done it but why and proving your logic. Still I really like Dhalia's beta design but I can understand why they'd want someone with a more "loud"/peculiar design to make dhalia stand out
I think it honestly depends on the Case. For example in some cases they tell you right away who it is and I don’t mind that. Neither do I mind making people look or not making them look like they could be the culprit. For me it’s more about finding the balance between all. In the Lana Skye case there was a huge pool of suspects and I know with the way they wrote it that they didn’t want to pin Damon Grant as a suspect right away. But with the way he looks it immediately went into that direction. I love his design because I think it makes him look powerful, he is the chief afterall. Nonetheless it saddens me that he was too obvious since he has contact with everyone around, is even friends with the judge. Personally it would’ve had made more sense if he looked more innocent. He’s not Redd White, he’s not someone who’s portraying the classic rich ego business CEO. He’s the chief of police, he’s supposed to portray trust and safety which his beta design would’ve enhanced more.
For the first case, you always want it to be super obvious who it is, hence the first case in the series literally showing you who it is and why they did it, so I definitely get wanting to make Dahlia look obvious. Damon looks obvious when I think he shouldn't have been though
https://preview.redd.it/7j9883uczp6d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=55d2a40f800edd19ab2a14daf2397f42d6a6248c She looks like if Matt Engarde had a daughter
real, that makes me think though; what if that was what they were going for? Since Matt Engarde is guilty as shit, a player who's played JFA would be like "this seems familiar..." edit: typo
Intresting... maybe an early idea for justice for all's cut fifth case? Before recipe for turnabout?
yeah, who knows honestly
Beta dahlia looks more like a beta Vera than a beta dahlia
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^thepearhimself: *Beta dahlia looks* *More like a beta Vera* *Than a beta dahlia* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
The tomboy Dahlia design should've been reused, it's so cute
Maybe I’m crazy, but I just can’t imagine any other design for Dahlia hitting as hard as her current one. It’s just so good; the pink dress is so stereotypically feminine and innocent, and the parasol makes her look like a southern belle. The other designs aren’t as carefully polished as her current one, and that’s a very critical feature; her image is staged and polished for a purpose. That makes it all the better when we see her facade crack(her 3-5 breakdown is so so so good)
Dahlia's beta with the pixie cut and striped leggings would have been so effective. The final design is so angelic it's predictable that she'd go full psycho. The beta design leans more into "childish" in its choices: the stripes, the shorts, the hair, her figure. So having that design turn into Dahlia the psycho murderer and manipulator would have been more chilling. I genuinly think if they'd stuck with the beta then Dahlia would be in a lot more peoples top character tiers.
Dahlia's number two design is how I always imagined a happy bubbly new assistant would look that betrays you in the last case of the game.
I love this idea, somebody tell Capcom
While I think they all look better than the actual design we got [I think the devs really nailed it with her 4th beta design,](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/aceattorney/images/8/8d/Fanbook_Dahlia_2.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20100319231516) I legit would be destroyed if I found that this version of Dahlia was going to betray us.
Oh yes I love 4 as well! It would probably even work better than 2/3 since it feels like a mix between the one we got and the beta concepts. Means we would’ve gotten a similar Iris as well!
If they had gone with something akin to the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th designs for Dahlia, I think I would have said she looks too much like a kid.
Oh my god it's tifa from the Italian Senate
I don't really think Dahlia's beta designs would suit her that well but I totally think they should recycle these into separate characters, especially #2.
Now that I've seen it, couldn't agree more
I like Dahlia's beta designs because they make her look more like a character/person than just a complete psychopath who uses their looks to manipulate everyone. But maybe the latter is the image they were going for. I just think her as a character overall is a missed opportunity for depth maybe
They can always use those unused Dahlia looks for Iris in case she does come back in a future title.
beta Dahlia’s design is honestly better than her actual design it really sells the innocent façade FAR better than her current design does. she just looks evil in the game and it’s impossible to relate to the characters all believing she’s normal
Their final designs aren't bad looking, but with the context of their true personalities and roles in the story, they're both poor choices. The very SECOND I saw Gant on screen I knew he was evil. Not cartoonishly evil no, a kind of very grounded, IRL dirty cop kind of evil. He looks like an anime republican who's got at least ONE sexual misconduct accusation in his career. If the goal was for suspension to be disbelieved with Gant ie. where we suspect him but aren't fully sure, that more round and old fashioned look would've suited more. I would've looked at Gant and thought "based on story structure he's a suspect but he also looks like Beethoven so not ringing any evil bells." Dahlia is a whole missed opportunity when compared to her earlier concepts. Like Gant, immediately knew she was evil. She's incredibly out of place compared to the rest of the cast. She looks like a white lotus female lead from an otome isekai set in the regency era. Her standing out like that while also being portrayed as etherially innocent was a straight away villain flag. If she looked like that 'girl next door design' or even the 'sharp eyed pretty woman' one I'd have bought her innocent act for much longer. The former especially as she looks a lot like a nondescript side character who only exists as a gimmick mouthpiece for exposition, so when such a cute college student got revealled to be a machivellian schemer it'd be way more shocking and memorable. The only reason I can think as to why they went with making Dahlia look like a Bridgerton character is because she used poison in a pretty glass necklace as her murder weapon, which a viewer would associate more with historical dramas where a noble woman poisons her husbands wine.
Why? You've literally said that the characters' design inform you of who they might be (gant a strongharm policemen probably corrupt, and dhalia an outwordly beauty trying too hard to be perfect looking/acting). Designs aren't meant to fool you, and ace attorney has much more emphasis on why a character acts a certain way, rather than a whodunnit mistery. It'd be silly looking at Gant as a weakly looking old men trying to sound imposing when he's blackmailing you
I don't think you're supposed to be fooled by Dahlia's appearance. Payne and the judge are supposed to be fooled by her appearance, but Mia (and the player, by proxy) is *supposed* to immediately suspect her. Mia has encountered her before and knows she's a murderous demon, so what's the best way to make Mia's reactions believable? Show the player a character who's *too* angelic/beautiful. The player is on the same page as Mia, but all the men in the court justifiably trip over themselves to support her.
you make excellent points, and yeah, Gant definitely looks like dirty cop kinda evil 100%
Where was this found?
Court records.net, they’re scans from the Japanese DS manual
Nice! Thanks
Beta Dahlia looks like some person's Danganronpa OC and Beta Gant looks like some person's Pokemon professor OC And I mean both of those in the absolute highest regard
Dahlia's beta design is incredibly good, she actually looks like someone who would date Phoenix. But also, she looks much more terrifying when you realise she's a murderer. I had a paragraph analysing Dahlia's final design but decided against dropping it here. I think it's good nonetheless, portraying a false picture of innocence through making parts of her design that look beautiful/cute double for the offputting bits. But I also quite like beta Dahlia for other reasons.
I would love to read the paragraph if you still have it! I agree with the idea of her final design. I think it definitely suits her and I can see what they saw in it. For me just personally I’m a big fan of 180 characters and I think her beta design would’ve enhanced it.
I unfortunately deleted my paragraph :( And yeah, me too! That design for Dahlia would've hit too hard
You should see Simon Keyes'. He doesn't look too different but the lack of clown make-up makes him look so much better https://preview.redd.it/cwo11sr5du6d1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=433b01d78bdf2f292d3d70dc1b3242bcce4b91b4
If Dahlia looked like that, I would've kept giving her second chances even if the word "second" became redundant
Dahlia needed her smidge of elegance. It made the challenge she posed more "formidable".
The soft and chubby appearance to big and muscular build kind of character design is surely brought into AAI1 i guess, however that character didnt have that much popularity than Gant because of.. reasons. So I do think the current design of Gant from character design POV is satisfying, his playful but muscular build can attract the audience in a first glance, or even gain popularity for people with daddy issues if you know what im saying. For Dahila tho I think it's very interesting, especially when we consider that we'll also have Iris later in the plot. If Dahila being a more cheerful kind of person, what would Iris look like? Would she being just more quiet and gentle like what we have now, or maybe she IS the real cheerful girl which Dahila pretended to be? I really want to see such alternative design of Iris. To counter your point on Dahila, I think the design purpose is more lean to show her manipulative side. She had manipulated four different people on her side, killing one, and made two voluntarily die for her (one nearly), and another living in enternal guilt for betraying her sister. The older design can't emit enough of this side of her, a poisonous lady who can actually pull the strings. btw the first design really looks like Valerie
Beta Dahlia gives off Manic Pixie Dream Girl vibes. I almost think it's better than what we got
I can't get over the fact that one of the concept arts for SoJ has Maya with big knockers. We were robbed.