Lurker > MrSmartGuy

Oh. The body is confirmed to be Justin's. There goes that second theory.

Omigod you two, just fuck already

Oh no, Tyrion is becoming an asshole. I don't like Asshole Cuthbert.

Paper Mario
Banjo Kazooie
Diddy Kong Racing
Mario Tennis

Fuck it, Mario, Zelda, and Bond aren't gonna need any help taking the top 3 spots. Just gonna throw my personal 4 favorites in there in the hopes one of them gets the last one.

Wait, maybe Justin is actually alive, and he was the one who orchestrated the whole thing to kill the Eye-Taker, who he'd manipulated to break the guard rail and then he disappeared, so he could alleviate himself from his debt?

I dunno, it's too early to speculate; I don't really have anything yet.

Actually, now that I think about it, weren't there other spells from the second case that required someone to point at their target? Rika totally did this didn't she.....

Picked it back up this afternoon. Going into the first trial section and I'm actually pretty lost this time. Don't know who, how, or why any of this happened, other than it seems like the real Justin fell into the vat, which is what Rika saw, and then there was a second fake that fell in through the faulty guard rails afterward, which is what the other two saw.

Keep in mind this is slightly behind, given that Acheron is not in the "Currently Playable" category.

AAI1 is even worse than AJ imo. But AAI2 is my second-favorite AA game after GAA2. Yeah, even better than T&T.

1/10

Completely irredeemable garbage that never makes sense. Daryan is a fun villain and Valant is OK, but man. I truly hate every other single person involved with this case with a passion. If I were to do full series character rankings, I think Lamiroir might legitimately be dead last.

My three favorite NP animations are all over the place in terms of vibe when it comes to being "cool".

Third place goes to Jason. Every aspect of it makes me laugh.

Second place is Sanzang's. There's just something really cathartic about just punching something a bunch and then seeing a silly animation of your enemy flying into a mountain.

But first place is Zerkerlot. It's so god damn over the top and awesome.

There's a very odd pacing problem where this game actually goes a bit too fast imo. I know I complain about a lot of dialogue bloat in the genre, where AA and Danganronpa might be the worst offenders, and yet now I see what it's like without it.

Yeah, I had to just post nothing after the previous update because you stopped at the absolute worst part you possibly could've.

Easy Vote Form
SIMPLE BEAM
+3 Galvantula
+2 Suicune
+1 Steelix
-1 Remoraid
-2 Bellsprout
-3 Togetic

STEEL BEAM
+3 Sprigatito
+2 Staraptor
+1 Ursaluna
-1 Tepig
-2 Servine
-3 Shelgon

Did a ranker here and it made me realize how good 2.1 was. Did not think going into this that he would top my rankings, but yeah. It checks out.

https://honkaistarrailsorter.tumblr.com

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/0/006902f5.jpg

6/10

It's OK. I'll go to bat for this case. It starts off really rough, but gets better as it goes. It does a lot right:

• Having a murderer-turned-victim where the reason a lot of stuff happened is because of them is a nifty twist.
• The surrounding cast is really strong. Eldoon rules, the Kitakis are fun, and I contend Stickler is entertaining and has great animations.
• Alita revealing at the end that she only hired you because she thought you'd suck as a lawyer is extremely funny.
• The part where you walk in on the murderer tampering with the crime scene is tense as hell and really cool.

When I had that first 10 pull on the banner I was waiting for that I posted earlier here in the topic, I'm sure I felt quite similar. I was literally shaking for several minutes afterward.

Congrats!

I let my luck dictate how deep I went on Acheron. If I lost my 50/50, then I just wouldn't bother at all and keep saving. If I won, then I would at least try for E1. If I won that 50/50 too, then I'd go all the way for E2S1.

It decided to give me two Acherons and then pull the rug and give me a Himeko and Bronya's LC, so I had to dig into all of the new top up bonuses, but to E2S1 I got.

7.8/10

Sick case. Great twist, fun logic, neat witnesses. Shame the rest of the game is downhill from here.

G2-3 is also my favorite non-finale case. I have it ranked 5th all-time behind 6-5, 2-4, 3-5, and 5-DLC.

You might notice a pattern in those cases. Other than 2-4, all those other cases in my list still have tons of intrigue and mystery going into the final day of trial. I'm typically not a big fan of cases where a bunch of time is wasted at the end simply proving stuff. G2-3 is the only case ever that has actually fooled me into thinking it was basically over. The final twist got me real good.

9.9

Absolute banger of a case. Would be perfect if Godot's plan wasn't super fucking stupid and that the case completely depends on a ridiculous notion that the body just happened to detach from the rope at the exact angle to create a 2-story fall.

and hot.

and music.

She's still the best in slot, with Huo Huo imo. The rest of the roster is getting so focused that having a sustain only be a sustain actually kinda feels like a waste. I'm mainly saying this because Luocha has a banner going right now. Yeah, he's really nice to have, because you're probably gonna survive with him on the team, but if you're reaching the endgame and trying to full-clear MoC and PF, that's a slot that is getting used up only to stay alive and maybe remove buffs.

Fu's crit rate passive doesn't seem like much, but it's deceptively important, and she's just as good at keeping the team alive as Luocha is, at the measly cost of 1 SP every 3 turns.

Climber

8.5

It's so short, so it's not as high up on my case rankings as it maybe should be, because the tiny story it does have to tell is riveting.

I was kinda in the same boat at first. But I really despise the ending. It's every aspect I hate about FGO's storytelling wrapped up into one nice shit package.

andylt posted...

After Toby finds Drebber's hideout, it's time for a much funnier deduction dance than last time. "Life was so much simpler in those halcyon days when gravity could be reversed", says Susato, and her, Ryunosuke and Herlock are all in fine comedic form here. The cherry on top is that the timebomb Herlock instantly dismissed turns out to be a legitimate one that very nearly kills us all. Knowing that we were all chatting away and having fun while a countdown to our doom ticked away, and Drebber was hiding in the safe incredibly confused as to why we weren't running away, it's brilliant.

This might be my favorite part of the entire game. It's so fantastically stupid in a way only Sholmes could be.

Emblem

5.8/10

This is, like, right at average for an AA case to me. Defendant's fine, villain's fine, the twist is..... ok. Victim kinda sucks. Personally not as big on Viola as the masses are, and Kudo sucks real bad. Lisa is cool, but she might be the least important AA character with a sprite ever. Gumshoe is at his best here, so that's good, I guess?

It's a huge testament to T&T that this is the worst case in the game. It's so good.

Nova

Easy Vote Form
NEEDLE ARM
+3 Ceruledge
+2 Flutter Mane
+1 Tsareena
-1 Gulpin
-2 Exploud
-3 Meganium

FROST BREATH
+3 Toxicroak
+2 Minccino
+1 Cranidos
-1 Charjabug
-2 Kommo-o
-3 Cleffa

Hopefully no one mistakes this for actual 2-3. The Stolen Turnabout deserves better than that.

8.8/10

The defendant is great, the witnesses are great (though Larry gets a little weird), the big plot twist is great, and it might be the funniest case in the series for me.

The section of testimony where you keep pressing Ron about going to the murder scene and he keeps dropping bombshell after bombshell to the point where even the judge is just like "ok hold on a sec here man" destroys me. And then you press one last time to ask him why on earth he stuffed the body in the safe and he replies "because it wouldn't fit in a drawer" is the straw that breaks the camel's back. It's such a fun moment, and is also important, because it makes the decisive point that no one knew he was dressed as DeMasque more apparent, so you can catch Luke's final lie, which is another fantastic moment.

steal

6.1

colliding posted...

Was the best starter case easily until maybe GA-2 (and it's probably still better)

Was the best starter case until the next game came out. And then AAI2.

But it's still 3rd place among starter cases to this day for me!

Cool. Nailed basically all of it. Only part I missed was Miriam just being dumb and misconstruing what time it was.

I didn't mention the bad smell in my predictions, cuz I had no explanation for how that was tied into anything, and yeah. It didn't actually tie to anything. Somehow got that right too I guess?

Ooh, OK, it told Miriam to be quiet, too. I'm guessing there's some latent directory in the constructs to make sure passersby in the hallway aren't too loud. So that Bellwether must've been a construct the whole time. Maybe the illusory disguise just doesn't contact things if the original thing or person doesn't?

Like, say I try to disguise myself as Shaq and then try to walk through a normal sized door without ducking. The disguise would just phase through the top of the frame. But if I try to disguise myself as another 6 foot tall person and walk into a wall, I'd still just run into the wall like normal.

Actually, I think I've got a decent guess at it here. The headmaster killed her during the meeting, and animated the corpse to walk itself to the classroom. On the way, it bumped into Miriam, and that's why she's in a tizzy about how weird their meeting in the hallway, because she probably just, like, brainlessly groaned at her. Because it's being animated, perhaps all decay had stopped and that's why the estimated time of death is over an hour later.

He stole Miriam's sword long ago for the murder in an attempt to frame her because of her family's influence to get him ousted, and planted fake evidence of her cheating to establish a motive. When he went to stash the weapon in her locker, he got the construct to do it. However, the nameplates were switched, so it got planted in with Wallace's stuff instead, since that's where Miriam's nameplate was at the time. Then he gave it a few more orders, but one of them wasn't possible, so that's why it's stuck inactive in the locker room.

Meanwhile, he illusory disguises himself as her to make an appearance to further establish the time of death was later. I still don't know what bumped into Jan because none of the spells I have info on can fully explain what it is. An animated corpse can't speak the "be quiet" it said, and the two illusory spells don't have a physical form. So I'm stuck on that one part, but I'm pretty sure I've nailed most of the rest of it.

I was beginning to worry that this case was going to turn out to be too simple, but the long "interrogation" I had with Miriam was super compelling and has me wondering about a lot of aspects of the case. For the first time, I have to say I have no idea where this game is going. This is exciting!

Easy Vote Form
SNORE
+3 Tinkatink
+2 Dachsbun
+1 Copperajah
-1 Musharna
-2 Nidoran
-3 Sunkern

G-Max Tartness
+3 Skeledirge
+2 Abomasnow
+1 Accelgor
-1 Ferrothorn
-2 Weepinbell
-3 Bonsly

Lugia would've been a +3 in the first group. Huge mismatches here.

And they did it again. Wallace's locker was full of girly stuff, and Miriam's had Wallace's stuff, so it was obvious the contents were switched. But Tyrion recalls that people like to play a prank on Wallace by swapping his nameplate with random students'. I'm actually glad he did that this time, because it's been 2 days since I played and I didn't remember that myself.

Having trial sections last 20 minutes is fucking weird. I did the first part of case 2, and I went from 2.9 hours played to 3.2 hours.

The way this game handles the main character reasoning his way through stuff is really interesting. I talk to Eris (she's got the giggles but is embarrassed and doesn't want us to see) and she tells me about Major Illusion, which creates a facade that can't interact with anything. I immediately recognize that the Bellwether Jan saw couldn't have been this because it knocked over a vase.

If this were Ace Attorney, we would have to wait until trial to point this contradiction out. But instead, Tyrion immediately goes straight for it and knocks it out before we do anything else. I'm kinda surprised, because that feels like it would be a natural progression for the player to make this logical leap instead. I don't know whether this is a good or bad thing, just...... interesting.

Story complete. Not as good as the 2.0 section, but still very solid.

MVP was definitely Aventurine, which I actually can't believe I'm saying. Not so much into his backstory, but just what he's up to in Penacony. That was all really good.

9.8/10

GLaDOS

Hold up, I want Siobhan to be playable. Looooove her design.

Don't know why I didn't mention this last night, but every single time Eris warps someone's statement into something else, I've actually caught what the dialogue was pre-za warudo, so I am acutely aware of what she's doing. And it seems like Celeste is, too, which is really intriguing.

Chrono Trigger

Finished the first investigation phase. The game does a great job integrating the player into the magic it introduces. It feels like Tyrion's thoughts are exactly my thoughts at pretty much all times, way more than any Ace Attorney protagonist you had to play as. It's really refreshing.

Unfortunately, I have COVID, and I feel like I have sort of a brain fog and it makes it really hard to concentrate for long periods of times. I wanna continue, but I'm not sure I can, so I'll be picking this up in chunks over the next few days.