Today, John Phoenix was on a break from his hard work at his office. Then his break came to a sudden end with the arrival of an old friend.
"John Phoenix are you there?" said Ryunosuke Naruhodo.
"Hello there Ryunosuke, how can I help you?" said John Phoenix.
"My game got review bombed by trolls on Metacritic."
John Phoenix stroked his chin to express his curiosity.
"How terrible. But what exactly is a "review bomb" anyway?"
"I'm not sure."
"Then let's find out."
John Phoenix and Ryunosuke began their investigation on Metacritic.
"Already I see a contradiction at the crime scene," said John Phoenix. He pointed at the user score. "According to this site, your game received mixed reviews by site users. But that can't be. The Great Ace Attorney is written by Shu Takumi. Therefore, the fan reception must be no less than extremely positive. Could the site have made a mistake?"
"No we didn't," said Metacritic. "As you can see from our data over 100 people gave it a negative rating."
John Phoenix looked closer.
"However, you will notice that only a handful of those have actually left reviews. How suspicious. Could it be that these neanderthals simply don't have any arguments to back up their claim?"
"We DO have arguments ackshually," said an unkempt neckbeard named Dick Pain. "It's boring! Boring boring boring!"
John Phoenix searched for more reviews by Dick Pain.
"You like Twelve Minutes, a game that glorifies torturing and raping your sister. Sicko!"
Suddenly Dick Pain experienced dick pain and ran away clutching his cock.
Then the Queen appeared!
"The writing treats the player like a child, and I just have no patience for that. Frequently you're presented with a new, potentially interesting idea only to have the next full minute of dialog be a blatant rehashing of the one idea, breaking down what it means in plain English multiple times."
"No, it doesn't," said John Phoenix. "The game gives brisk explanations of each concept because you would be lost on their significance if it didn't. It's not treating you like a child by being fairly designed."
The queen got beheaded. Then a baby came in.
"Very disappointing game i used to love the Ace Attorney games but now they have become a shell of their former self. For anyone new just ignore these new games and play the original trilogy instead!" said junior.
"Trilogy fans that reject the later games are idiots," said John Phoenix. "Everyone knows the best game is The Adventures of John Phoenix followed closely by Great Ace Attorney and then the trilogy." The junior reviewer started crying so loudly he shattered the windows. Then he got arrested for vandalism.
"Bring on the next challenger," said John Phoenix with a smirk, and so the next challenger arrived.
"There's no challange to ever solve the mystery of "what happened" as the great ace Attorney seems to go out of its way to make things as easy as possible for the player. Bringing up a mystery for the case, only to immidaltey hand you a peice of evidence that anyone over the age of 10 would be able to figure out the significance of what it means," said the new challenger.
"First of all: learn to spell," said John Phoenix.
"I'm talking. How can you know how I'm spelling the words?"
"Psychic powers! Anyway, this idea that the mysteries get solved immediately is nonsense. There's a mystery in 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, 1-5, 2-1, 2-2, 2-3, 2-4 and 2-5 where you're tasked with solving the mystery of "what happened," which means this complaint is factually untrue."
Some German guy stepped forward.
"SUSATO HAS NO PERSONALITY!"
"Wow, textbook misogyny. Is that what you people have resorted to? Laughable! Waving off any female character in fiction with a simple "no personality" is inherently misogynistic. It is also meaningless flamebait, and an outrageous claim in and of itself. How can a character have so much screentime, yet "not have a personality?" It's impossible. What you are spouting is mere incel speak."
The German guy got arrested.
John Phoenix rubbed his hands together.
"This is fun!"
"But John Phoenix, if the arguments against my game are so pathetic, why are there so many negative reviews?"
"The answer is simple, dear Naruhodo," said John Phoenix. "I noticed something peculiar about one of the previous reviewers. And that reviewer is still in this room!"
"What, me?" said EditorGX (the fourth guy, who never left).
"I'm looking through your review history sir, and you have not left any reviews for any other game besides this one."
"O-Oh, I'm just getting started with my career," Editor said with a nervous smile.
"Even though it's been years since you made this review?" John Phoenix pointed out.
"Shit!"
Editor tried to run but the guards blocked the door with their spears.
"You see, Editor, all of those negative ratings were made by you. You just used alternative accounts, or "alt accounts" for short. You used dozens of them to make it look like DGS was bad and sabotage the integrity of the Ace Attorney series, but you lacked the drive to come up with coherent arguments against it, and thus, you neglected to leave any reviews to properly convince people that these ratings were legitimate!"
Then John Phoenix pounced on Editor and pulled his mask off to reveal he was actually DYLAN FITCHAR!
"You're too late to stop my plans John Phoenix!" said Dylan.
"No."
John Phoenix created hundreds of metacritic accounts and gave a 10 rating to all three Great Ace Attorney versions on each of them and the game's rating reached the positive range.
"NOOOOOO!" said Dylan.
Dylan Fitchar ran away and all of his alt accounts were banned and the series was saved thanks to John Phoenix!