So I have a lot of thoughts about this case. First, the culprit. For me, it was pretty obvious that Gambit was Seething and figured it out indefinitely during Act 2, with obvious clues said by other people such as the age and the blackmail letters. I had an Einstein moment when the pulley was found in the vents, man. Gambit is a very hateable man filled with spite but it felt a bit unrealistic (to me) that he easily persuaded three of the jurors to change their verdict, even if two of them knew him personally and also that Phoenix had absolutely 0 plans on what to do. I believe the fact that none of them changed their verdict though, people are like that sometimes. After Apollo said his whole "you're still hiding" speech to Gambit, I kinda just expected him to reply "screw you", lol. Terrible fashion sense by the way, clearly he's seething to himself that he doesn't look stupid.
Secondly, this case had an interesting view on the idea of the "Dark Age of the Law" and the Jurist System. I do like all the perspectives shown such as Ema's, Apollo's and Athena's with Gambit's being the absolute dogshit one. Let's be real, the Jurist System is dead in the canon of AA but I really like how it was portrayed here, basically acting more like Great Ace Attorney instead of a live stream.
Thirdly, the other characters. I think the canon characters were portrayed pretty well here. But in the end part, did both Edgeworth and Apollo
really not have any counters to "bro I got double-teamed" from Gambit? Other than that, no problems here. I like all the references to other canon Ace Attorney cases, it was neat. I also love how everyone just refers to the Judge as Udgey, I don't think that would be realistic but it's hilarious. Now for the victims, Steele and Corey. Steele is truly a coward, Gambit didn't have a shit take for once. Athena was right about how people not dealing with corruption was an issue as well. He had infinite chances to say something and said nothing, for a person named Steele, he really was the exact opposite. Corey seemed to be a bad person, but I'm still not 100% convinced that his portrayal is 100% consistent, perhaps that was just him having regrets for his past actions however.
Fourthly, the case logic was pretty well done and I liked the custom segues for the Summation Examination and Final Argument. Speaking of which, the Summation Examination felt needlessly long but I assume it was like this because there was only one in the entire case. Now, the Final Argument was cool as hell, the way that the statements changed felt so satisfying to see but it did feel contrived at points, such as when I had to refute that Hercule placed the pulley in the vent but it's understandable why only certain statements were used. By the way, through the case, I noticed a few typos that I might as well put here since I noticed them. I probably didn't find them all since I didn't go through every conversation.
Finally, the presentation was solid overall and felt like an Ace Attorney case if you remove the elements that obviously could only be done in a fanmade case. Some things felt like they weren't game-accurate but they may only be because of the limit of AAO. The music choice was good, especially the testimony themes which felt like an alternate version of the Apollo Justice CE theme, one objection/pursuit theme sounded like Hatsune Miku, which got a chuckle out of me (maybe unintentionally) and also Mega Man X music in credits, based.
Overall, it's not a perfect case but a very good one and deserving of the comp win. There are probably other things I have to say, but I can't really come up with them right now.