I just finished Trials and Tribulations and cleared the Ace Attorney Trilogy for the first time in my life. So, I'll post my thoughts and impressions here, so feel free to answer.
I have a hard time deciding whether I like AA1 or AA3 better, probably AA1 even though AA3 had that continuing mystery of Godot for me, but the ending disappointed me pretty much. I adore Miles Edgeworth and the best part of all the games was him - I loved to see him develop as a person, becoming the person Phoenix had known him to be, getting from enemies to dear friends with him. I loved the banter with him and everytime I had a chance to talk to him, I just presented EVERYTHING to him to get more dialogue. To me, he's the most fleshed out character in the games.
AA2 was good, but also kinda ... annoying to me. Franziska von Karma felt like another Miles Edgeworth pre-character development and I found her to be quite irritating. She was also raised by Manfred von Karma to be a "perfect" prosector, she had this anger at Phoenix (even though I liked that she disliked him on her own account, not on her father's), she manipulated the witnesses, withheld evidence ... and verbally, her constant "fool fool fool" and her whipping didn't do much for me. I get that this was part of the point that she was still immature and had to learn a lot, but that certainly didn't help me from being utterly annoyed by her and actually happy she was absent for most of the last case. I liked wthat she cared about Andrews after the incident and got instantly annoyed at the beginning of 3-5 again, but she grew on me later in that case again. I see a lot of potential here. It's not that I don't like characters like her - I actually love Larxene a lot - but I felt that she was rather shallow in AA2 and didn't display many different parts of her personality. The last case of JFA was the bomb though.
AA3 really sucked me in with the Godot thing and I have a really soft spot for Mia ... and though I liked the revelations of 3-5, the case itself really disappointed me. I love how it connects many cases together really well, but the case itself was so stupid at times that it really threw me out of the immersion. The pendulum thing, for starters .. yeah, sure, he grabbed the wire of the burning bridge (how did he even reach that when the bridge was already burning?), Deauxnim had NO better idea than to channel a murderous spirit while knowing she'd have no control afterwards and Godot, knowing everything from the very beginning, let everything unfold in this ridiculous way? I realize he doubted the purity of his intentions of saving Maya, but that doesn't erase the fact he was trying to protect her which would've worked WAY better by just talking to Peals, if he was that against to talking with Phoenix. Stabbing Misty and endangering Maya for basically nothing really contradicted his intentions - I'll overlook the stupidness of his hate against Phoenix because he admitted to that, but he really didn't act smart in any way and everybody was kinda fine with that (why?). The whole case kinda felt too forced for me and I was waiting and waiting and waiting for Morgan finally showing up so I could cross-examine her to the ground and get her convicted and get some sweet justice, but instead I explained a plan that was stupid as heck and convicted a guy I basically liked. The "Dahlia wasn't your girlfriend" twist was also kinda weird, but okay, why not. Maya being totally into going to training again at the end certainly didn't match all that happened and the fact that she herself said she doesn't want to get involved with the Fey clan anymore - I'd have preferred that she stayed in the Spirit Channeling business, but kinda dropped the Fey heritage, but fine. As long as she's happy but I felt that her character development was kinda dropped a bit there and the whole case felt little consequential.
Even though I'm picking the last case apart, I tremendously enjoyed the games and the characters. I'll surely play the rest of the games, but I seriously hope there are no more "oh no, something happens to Maya" cause that girl seriously needs a break. And there have been four cases with that already and it was fine, but please. No more. I also hope for some more Phoenix character development because I actually lacked that in the games a bit - he gets better as a lawyer and learns a few life lessons, but I could hardly see a difference in his act (despite mentioning a few things over and over). Maybe it was so subtle it just slipped me by, I don't outrule that possibility. Feel free to yell objection