Lurker > transience

I did finish case 5! I liked it.

overall I'd say GAA1 is probably the weakest AA game, a little below AA4 and Investigations 1. but I liked parts of it.

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xyzzy

well, I finished investigation 1 of case 5. I think I'm going to call this topic here - I'm playing this really slowly and I probably will just poke at it on days when I'm bored, and take a break inbetween the two games because I'm just not very interested in it. day 1 investigation was I guess fine but I was yawning the whole time, going through Holmes's diva routine and then this deduction with whoever this guy is. he looks like he fell out of FF8 or something.

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xyzzy

it's weird - they make such a big deal of the victim not being dead and then nothing comes of it! maybe she shows up later. if she doesn't, boy, this game is the ultimate wet fart.

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xyzzy

Case 4, conclusion

I have to say, Joan's conclusion wasn't as good as I had hoped. it was... fine. but I wanted to really dig in the screws. instead, John Garrideb -- who I like a lot! -- shows up to be her witness partner. it seems like both of them are a little more remorseful than I would have expected from the lady who was abusing her husband not two days prior. apparently it's just that kind of relationship?

we prod John, find a piece of a blade and eventually tie it to the weapon. it's pretty much over there. the last piece of evidence - the book in the victim's hand -- didn't even really make sense to me. I got it fairly quickly, because you don't have much evidence, but I didn't really get how that was the big piece of evidence that put the case away. instead of Joan going down with a bang, she... faints, and John catches her, and probably hurts himself more in the process? I don't know. like most things with this game, it's unfulfilling.

we reach the end of the case and take up residence in Sholmes's attic. this is to be our law office, I guess. the game loudly hints at some Bad Stuff coming in the near future, much like it did with Kazuma. case 4 feels more like a case 3, very middle of the road, and it's weird to think that this might be the conclusion.

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xyzzy

Case 4, trial - the Beates

I'm back in on this game! I really, really enjoyed the cross examination of Roly and Pat Beate. all too often, a witness gets up on the stand and you rip out the truth while tearing them apart. that... technically happens here, but in a much more subtle, nuanced way.

when I first started this cross examination, I expected to use the pursue mechanic to divide these two overly sappy lovebirds. Pat does I think the entirety of the testifying in the first section, and is clearly the dominant one in the relationship. Roly sleeps through most of it due to what is apparently nonstop crunch. sucks to be an officer of the Yard back in 1906 or whatever it is here.

their testimony is convincing, and it triggers the jury to all vote me guilty. I audibly groaned here -- how many times can you put me on the brink like this? -- but I actually like what they did here. for the first time in the game, this felt like a true puzzle, dragging out the right dialogue, matching it with another statement and then taking that information to a new person. it wasn't *hard*, but it was fun to puzzle out the right solution. I still think the jury is kind of unnecessary and bogs things down, but it worked well here, mostly because our girl Joan is one of the jurors. it's an interesting wrinkle to have a character in the courtroom who is clearly suspicious, but not be there for witness purposes.

we appeal to the judge to cross examine the clearly suspicious juror, but he denies it. we're stuck with the Beales again. slowly, we bring out more and more evidence, something that's sorely lacking in this case. Roly's handbook, information on each officer's 'beat', and the rose. each piece of evidence drew a good picture of what happened here, and it was satisfying to figure out the major inconsistency in the case: how the body ended up with all the stuff from Joan's house.

it isn't hard to figure out, but like the Ini/Mimi twist, it's a satisfying way to solve a major riddle: Roly moved the body to the other side of the road so he could finally take a goddamn day off to celebrate his anniversary. if he can't get a day off for that, I'd like to know how he got married! but still, I thought it was a nice mini-twist that it isn't the crazy wife that caused the commotion, but the guy who just wanted to make her happy. hell hath no fury like a woman's scorn, and in this case, the dude totally screwed things up by just wanting to appease her.

van Zieks comes to the rational side here, calls out the dude for tampering with a crime scene, and joins me in demanding the maid's testimony. she blurts out that the knife came from her house in a panic. she can't run now! taking this awful domestic abuser down better be as good as mind tells me it is!

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xyzzy

thinking about it a sec -- I can only think of one time where we've had to present a piece of evidence to someone during an investigation and it was the letter from Iris to Gregson. there's probably 1 or 2 more than that, but it's not many!

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xyzzy

sure, but I'm talking about the whole package here - the crime scene, the autopsy report, any case evidence.. I think we walked into the trial with maybe 5 things in our inventory. weird for it to just not matter!

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xyzzy

I see half the topics here are playthrough topics now!

I'm not reading them until I've seen at least the first game through, just in case

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xyzzy

case 4, trial beginning

sorry for the delay, life has been busy. I only played a few minutes today - just Gregson's testimony and the summation that followed.

first of all, can I say how dumb it is that I don't even get to learn who the victim is until they give it to me at the trial? I thought I was in a rough spot when I walked into McGilded's trial empty handed, but in reality, this isn't much different! I don't feel like this game even cares about investigating, it just wants to tell some kind of story. it feels more visual novel than the past games, I guess, because there's no piecing anything together. recent games haven't been much about investigating either, but at least you found out who was killed! (or not killed!)

the jury here seems more contrived than the last one, with my boy Bruce as one of our jurors and GOD DAMMIT JOAN WHAT THE HELL ARE YA DOIN another. these guys need only the slightest of breezes to blow their votes in one direction or another. here the prosecutor says he has witnesses and the jury's like oh that's cool sure would be nice to se--GUILTY. we change their minds over, like, a hole in the ground and a guy who fell on a street. sure, that could be convincing. van Zieks calls them all idiots and I couldn't agree more.

I stopped here, but not before seeing my next set of witnesses - a sleepyhead named Roly and his wife. really not feeling anything going on in this game right now, but I'm sure pushing through will make it interesting by the end of the trial.

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xyzzy

okay, I finished the investigation. there wasn't too much more - I met a couple of oddballs in the street that, given how few actual characters this game has, means they're probably going to be a pretty big deal. we don't have a good suspect yet so I'm glad to at least see another person get into the picture. I also chatted with Natsume and Sholmes a bit and agreed to defend him.

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xyzzy

Case 4, Investigation part 1-2

so, I just played up through the deduction of the Garridebs. boy, was that uncomfortable! here you've got this disabled military man, his wife dressing up to as a maid to keep their status as a middle class household, and a domestic abuse charge that's bad enough that the dude has a handprint across his face from being slapped so hard. I don't know if this was trying to be funny but it really wasn't. this just seemed like a sad story. the maid burns Garrideb anytime he tries to say anything of substance and he just yells JOAN WHAT THE GODDAMN HELL every time. she probably did it like 15 times!

I've decided that I don't much like deductions. there's not a whole lot to them and they play out twice. first you listen to Holmes do his whole shtick and then you have to replay it a second time all the way through. I'm considering just skipping all the dialogue the first time and playing along with it as I go. on top of that, Sholmes has fun calling the wife a beast and suggesting that she's overweight because she's so miserable keeping up the facade/being disappointed that her husband is disabled. this whole thing was gross. maybe I'm taking it too seriously but I don't think I am.

the rest of the investigation thus far has been a whole lot of nothing. remember when AA investigations were about gathering evidence? this game feels like it's more about setting a tone and then figuring it out in court. I haven't really gotten much of anything here, and you don't even get to examine the crime scene much. heck, they bring it right up to you in court!

this victim, whose name we don't even know yet, is probably alive and going to make an appearance at some point. but to not even have a description of what happened besides 'hey a knife'? I dunno. I'm really down on this game right now. it feels like a lot of dialogue padding and not a lot of substance.

there's other things to talk about - like how we go to 221B and meet Iris Wilson. Iris is an interesting name choice! we don't usually get overlap on AA characters, and I know it's like 100 years inbetween this game and the Wright era, but still. Iris is author of all the books and seems to have Sholmes's deduction ability. maybe we can use her for times when Sholmes isn't around. in fact, I would say that half of this investigation was wandering from place to place looking for Sholmes. not a very exciting investigation.

I'm interested in what's going on here, but it feels like we're just wading in the mud until we get to the trial, when it's all going to come out.

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xyzzy

Case 4, Beginning

our trip back to Stronghart goes as expected -- we won a not guilty verdict, that's all that matters, and hey, I'm a lawyer now. Ryunosuke objects about not finding the truth but that's brushed aside. I have a new case that they'd like me to take on immediately.

what wasn't expected -- though it would have been if I thought about it -- is that the person who died in the omnibus was McGilded. what a dead end! at first I didn't believe it, because rich people always have a way to get out of things, and because it's an extremely unsatisfying end for what felt like such a major player only moments ago. but as I went, I realized that this is a very loud way to make a point about our prosecutor, van Zieks.

he's the reaper of the.. whatever the court name/locale's name is, but that doesn't actually mean that he always wins his cases. the game implies that van Zieks is likely behind the omnibus setting on fire. this game has a habit of building something up only to kill it off soon thereafter, often off-screen, and it feels very insincere as a result. I get the feeling this isn't the last we'll hear about this, even if it doesn't relate to our new case.

our new case is about a woman who's been stabbed in the back. our defendant is a japanese man named Natsume who is immediately annoying. he loves to rhyme and yell in obnoxious ways. I don't have any good details about it, but Holmes is the one who identified him as being at the crime soon after the fact, so you know there's going to be some deduction nonsense going on here.

I had to stop here. my thoughts aren't with the new case at all, but rather what happened in the last one. hopefully we don't just have to put those thoughts on hold until the end of this new mystery!

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xyzzy

I keep thinking about how McGilded is this puppet master and how incongruous it is with the rest of the case. near the beginning, he's immediately cast as guilty by all the jurors and it takes some unconventional tactics to keep him from being declared guilty. and yet, throughout all that McGilded doesn't say a word. he hadn't met Ryunosuke before and doesn't even know who is, really. the end result makes him look like this genius, but it's only because we were able to twist the case to a point where any of it mattered.

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xyzzy

as it turns out, he was totally right!

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xyzzy

I love juror #3 in case 3, this total bernie bro who wants to eat the rich. how did ace attorney come to this

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xyzzy

I need to see the next step after case 3 to fully judge it. right now, it feels incomplete. 3-4 is a top 5 case in my book but it might not be top 5 without 3-5. my initial thought is that I don't hate it, and it's an interesting take. it does kinda feel like you've been yanked around by going through all this effort for nothing, but it felt off when you went to talk to Stronghart so I'm not really feeling like I was blindsided here. nothing felt right the whole time here.

I will say though that it's real weird to have this new jury mechanic only for it to ultimately not matter in the first case it was introduced. the judge calls them off like they're optional. I don't *hate* the mechanic like others here seem to, but I don't really see the point. I'd rather they didn't exist but it isn't ruining the game.

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xyzzy

Case 3, trial part 2

I don't really want to talk about the case details. part 2 is all about McGilded. he produces a random girl who just happens to be in the stands, and gives her the perfect alibi: hiding under his butt while he sat on the seat. Van Zieks tries to bring up objections, but it just... doesn't work. it's rare that a prosecutor raises an objection that just kinda goes nowhere, but this does.

as the trial goes on, McGilded gets a little more forceful in his commentary. at first he was happy to have Ryunosuke do the work for him, but as we go, he gets to be more and more of a puppet master, pulling the strings. he gets a couple of new animations as Van Zieks tries to tell me that this isn't right. I go along with his objections and it eventually turns into a total Engarde situation.

when I first showed up at the beginning of case 3, my initial thoughts were how counter to the ace attorney mythos it was that I was defending this random dude. AA games always serve you a good sense of believe in your clients, and here was this rich guy just throwing money at me without knowing a single detail. it was fishy for sure, but this was a new character and a new game, so maybe this just wasn't Phoenix Wright. but no, as the case goes on, you start to really doubt what this dude is all about.

by the end, we're uncovering decisive evidence all over. Ryunosuke is coming up with all the off the wall theories, but there's evidence that just wasn't there before, like the blood on the floor. I noticed this in the moment but thought that maybe you just didn't have the view of the floor to see it. turns out that, nope, all of this stuff is just fabricated. McGilded pulls a slight heel turn at this point and is just laughing maniacally. the case ends in a really strange way - with both the prosecution and the defense objecting to the evidence being used and the judge scolding the prosecution for not securing the evidence properly. in a world where cases don't end until we find out culprit, this one ends on what feels like a technicality.

I'm left unsure of how to feel about this. I like that it's a new angle, I think, and I'm sure we'll get this rich moron later in the game. it was an interesting way to go about it. but it also just felt phony the whole way through? this game is making it hard to feel like it's sincere, first with the cat thing in case 2 and now just throwing a sham trial with a mastermind pulling the strings only when needed. if McGilded is truly a mastermind then I'm in on it, I think. but I need to see more.

the last two scenes sure are something. we are introduced to an as of yet unnamed character, a young girl that's younger than Gina and is apparently the inventor of all her wonderful toys. the last scene is kind of shocking: a massive fire in the courtroom that consumes the omnibus, along with what seems to be a person stuck inside. it's a pretty grim sight, and I would assume the target of my next case.

one last note: I noticed that Susato seemed all too happy to get away with the W, even at the expense of the truth. that's an interesting dynamic. our protagonists have always been pure good, in search of the truth at all costs, but Susato seems to be a little more interested in winning than I'm used to. I wonder if the game explores this more or if it's just my perception.

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xyzzy

well, I finished case 3

that sure was a set of events at the end

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xyzzy

Case 3, rest of trial part 1

things go a little better for us after the summation examination. we slowly chip away at the witnesses - one bloody glove to two bloody gloves to two bloody hands - and eventually suggest that there was a third person in the seat. anyone familiar with ace attorney knows that this couldn't have been the accused because the series lives on these kinds of inconsistencies, whether it's one hand vs. two, left handed vs. right handed, or anything it can grasp onto that's concrete.

we call McGilded to the stand only for him to say that a third person, a girl, was on the omnibus. after he suggests that she might be in the court room, we get SMOKE BOMBED and evacuated from the court room. sure, I guess?

the details aren't what caught my imagination while I was going through this. let's talk about the prosecution. Van Zieks is.. not exactly intimidating. I actually had to look back to find out what his name even was, because he's just that passive. dude hasn't really made his presence known yet at all. some prosecutors, like Blackquill or Nahyuta or whatever, really leave an impression. this guy?

I'm not asking for him to badger the witnesses like von Karma or anything, but at least make your presence known? this case is different in that you're just kinda thrown into it, but when I think back to 5-2 or 6-2, I think of how the prosecutor is the star of the first day of trial. this guy? he was built up strong before we walked in, but boy, he hasn't seemed notable yet. maybe he becomes moreso in part 2, but so far I'm basically running this trial solo.

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xyzzy

Case 3, Trial 1

we meet Van Zieks, our new god of prosecutors, and our new judge that looks like Santa. the whole place looks very stuffy and high class. and here we are, two foreigners who are treated exactly as such.

but that's not the biggest deal. we've got a jury! after 15 years! the jurist system doesn't count! these six dudes look like miis. each one is a caricature of a real person, even more one-note than actual AA characters.

the jury doesn't come into play immediately. first we converse a little with our new co-stars and learn that van zieks hasn't been in front of the court for five years. is that because no one dares face him, or some other reason? we'll find out soon, I suppose. we start our first cross examination with three witnesses who all saw the crime, and as we gather more information, the jury gets more and more convinced that my rich bro is guilty.

the mechanics here are wacky: dudes shooting fire over their heads onto a scale that decides if people are innocent or guilty. I... don't love this, just because I kinda just want to navigate the truth, not massage the feelings of a bunch of randos. but I don't hate it either. eventually all six dudes go guilty and the case is basically over.

except, Susato pulls out an archaic trick: a summation, whereupon the jurors need to give their reasoning. Van Zieks hates this but the judge goes along with it without pause. like the OG Judge, this guy is ancient, and seems to follow tradition. we have the option to pit the arguments against each other, something that feels a little flimsy, but eventually enough guys turn to the point where we have more not guilty votes than guilty. we manage to extract information about the cost of Beppo's omnibus and that there was possibly one missing person, but otherwise it just seems like a waste of time. again I don't hate it, but I don't want to drag trials out any more than they already are.

Van Zieks gets mad and takes off his cape. looks like he's recognized that we might actually be a decent opponent and is ready to respond in kind. I still don't see any evidence at all that suggests we're going to get off here, but I'm sure we'll conjure something out of thin air soon!

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xyzzy

Case 3, Beginning

Ryu and his assistant arrive on the streets of London to a huge culture shock. London's a lot more impressive than what they're used to in Japan, and I'm sure 50 days of living in a room on a boat didn't help matters there, especially when Kazuma's death still hangs heavy. I'm actually surprised that Ryunosuke didn't lose it more. it was all focused on his innocence without much grief.

anyway, we take a carriage over to the justice hall and meet Lord Stronghart. Stronghart is a magnanimous dude, almost Will Powers-y in stature but without any of the sheepishness. this guy looks to be all business and would make a good final boss if that's the direction that the story decides to go. or maybe we'll end up investigating his murder scene. both seem equally possible.

Stronghart doesn't seem evil, but does seem pragmatic. he listens to our plea to take Kazuma's place -- a really pathetic plea, I might add -- and gives us the option to defend a man if we hurry down to the court as a test. I try to accept, but Ryu doesn't go along with it, thinking it to be too cruel to play with the fate of a man as a test. Stronghart half acknowledges this while also saying that we better hurry if we want to help, since the guy has no one. we end up heading down there because our help is better than nothing.

when we arrive, we meet our defendant - a guy named McGilded that looks like he fell out of a Willy Wonka movie or something. we also hear about a 'reaper' of a prosecutor, a guy who terrifying that even a rich guy can't get anyone to defend him. he throws some money at us in desperation to try to get some help, as rich people do, not knowing that we're there to attempt to help him. without knowing a single thing about the case, we walk in to do battle with our new god of prosecutors.

my first reaction here is that it's too bad we're seemingly doing another case without an investigation, but if I'm being honest, after that boat ride I'm really itching to get back to the courtroom. time to see what this prosecutor has to offer. Ryunosuke is still quite the nobody and this is an even more impossible situation than I was in for case 1.

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xyzzy

Mia at least dies because she's working to take down a powerful opponent, and ultimately succeeds. Kazuma just falls over a cat to a harmless runaway ballerina.

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xyzzy

I agree that Sholmes dominated case 2.. but I also didn't find it that entertaining? like, someone mentioned when you're cornered and look over and he's just kind of hanging off the wall. I was like "oh, this guy again, huh?" I just didn't enjoy his antics and felt like he actually overshadowed the case in a negative way. he didn't really make me laugh at all. call me a killjoy, I guess.

at one point I was wondering if he was even real, because he just kind of comes and goes at the plot's whim, almost like ghost Mia in a weird way. I spent some time thinking about if other characters had seen him or if this was all my imagination. I knew he was there in the beginning but the way he ghosts people at his convenience made me wonder.

beyond the antics, I kinda felt like Sholmes was doing the heavy lifting that was more reserved for the protagonist. he often comes up with the ideas and I'm just fixing his nonsense. I like my character to solve the mystery but here he's basically dangling it all in front of me like a quiz. I dunno. he didn't improve case 2 for me.

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xyzzy

Case 2, Part 2 & 3

so, I finished case 2. I have so many thoughts, all of them strong and most of them very negative. I don't think I have it in me to sum it all up tonight, but the mere idea that my best friend was killed by tripping over a cat is just unfathomable. imagine if this were Mia! imagine if, with Maya grieving, Phoenix was out there trying to piece some ink, shoe polish, russian text and jam it all together with an accident involving a cat. it's so dumb!

the only thing keeping me going was the thought that maybe Kazuma wasn't dead, that this whole thing is some elaborate gotcha, but nope, we just kept peeling layers from Pavlova and the russian dude. the pieces actually fit together fairly well given how bland the locked box room was, although some of them fit together a little too well. picking up the bookshelf, the door locking after the button was pressed, the ship's log -- it just felt entirely too clean. but, it was a satisfying conclusion to an awful premise and case.

I will say, though, that case 2's ending serves as one hell of an origin story: Ryunosuke and Susato coming together to be the lawyer that Kazuma was going to be. taking his sword, cramming to be a lawyer, and living for that dude.

I kinda wish that Kazuma had stolen the show a little more in case 1 because it would have made for a big shadow the rest of the game. Ryu was already outperforming Kazuma just on natural ability by the end of case 1 and it almost feels like a faulty premise that we're trying to march on in his legacy. there probably could have been a way to play this where Kazuma is the playable character in case 1, defending his best friend Ryunosuke, only to end up dead to start case 2. and then, at the end of case 2 when you find the killer, the game reveals that Ryu's last name is Naruhodo. hmm. it's never good when you have to theorycraft better fictions to make the stakes feel worth it, but I do think that the origin story did end up feeling pretty strong anyway. while case 2 is probably somewhere around a 2/10 in my eyes, down there with the 4-3's and 2-3's of the world, I can't deny that the ending rescues the case in the last minutes.

okay, maybe I said more than I meant to tonight. did they really tie a snake around strogenov's head as a red herring? kazuma died because of a scared push from a girl that weighs like 72 pounds and a stupid cat? seriously?

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xyzzy

Case 2: The First Deduction

we speak with inspector.. hosonoga or something like that, and he tells us that he was asked to protect Kazuma from assassination by the minister of justice. interesting! I can't see minister of justice without thinking of Inga, but that's neither here nor there. the inspector tells us that he would be happy to help us, which.. doesn't seem like something he would do on a whim after allowing Kazuma to get killed, but hey, maybe the trial convinced him that we're bros. he can't leave the room, but allows us to poke around.

we meet a super stereotypical russian who threatens us before randomly going away. we take the opportunity to move into the adjacent room only to find Sholmes hanging out there. our neighbor screams and we go to barge in and Sholmes really wants to break down the unlocked door, but gets stopped by us. I really enjoyed this for quite some time.

we walk in and find the heavily bearded guy from the newspaper, who tells us to get the heck out. Sholmes starts working his deduction magic, and oh man, he's all over the place. he spins up a crazy story that Ryu now has to fix.

enter the new investigation mechanic of this game: deduction and correction. it feels very similar to logic chess from the second Edgeworth game but a whole lot more longwinded. we're basically switching the main parts of his deduction with other things in the room. by doing this, we discover that this isn't the russian revolutionary but the ballerina on the back of the newspaper.

this is great and all, but it ends up being super unsatisfying thanks to an uncooperative witness. Pavlova doesn't really tell us much of anything. she doesn't seem to trust us, and the bouncing suitcase never gets opened. eventually the guard comes back in and throws us out as she leaves the room. all that deduction got us was a waste of time, at least for now. we hit our first to be continued.

this is a good point to discuss what I've been thinking about this case. this boat feels like an Investigations game. the deductions add to it even more so. how are we going to have a trial here? who are we even arguing against? are we just going to dock and go to court in a random country? I'm stuck thinking more about the structure here than the case itself. setting-wise, it reminds me of the airlines case in AAI1 when Edgeworth is accused, but that gets cleared up fairly quickly. we've spent a segment of the game here and haven't learned a single thing. it's yet more exposition and introduction, this time with Sholmes, and that's all good but I'd sure like to know what's going on with my situation sometime soon.


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xyzzy

Case 2, beginning

aw man. I had this hope that Ryunosuke and Kazuma would part ways, and then meet up at the end to take down whatever villain we're tracking in this game. but instead, Kazuma shows up dead on the ship taking him to London, with... Ryunosuke stowing away, now in handcuffs?

I kind of don't believe it. the relationship between those two was the basis of the game. I guess you could say the same about Mia in AA1 though, and this does have some parallels to that. still, I have a sneaking suspicion, probably just blind hope, that this a red herring, that he's not actually dead. the picture didn't look especially convincing, and the crime really reminded me of Apollo's in 5-1, when he was knocked out by Tonate.

I'm immediately apprehended and given the Susato Takedown by who seems like the new Maya. I like Susato. she doesn't mess around and isn't overly bubbly or silly, which is a first for the series. she's understandably reeling from Kazuma's death here and doesn't come to my defense at all. after talking through how I couldn't have created the locked room scenario, we start to kinda get her on my side and start investigating the room.

in the middle of this, I get to meet Herlock Sholmes. I have to believe that this is a copyright thing and that he's just Holmes in the Japanese version. Sholmes is... oh man. like, I'm not going to say he's Luke Atmey, but if you ran him through a Redd White/Richard Wellington filter? yeah, let's go with that. this guy seems to be clever but with the worst deductions possible. it's kind of entertaining. it's also sorta exhausting. I'm not sure to having a guy like this in an AA game. usually it's just a goof like Gumshoe or a plot device like Ema.

speaking of plot devices, inspector whats-his-name is here too. I'm really hoping that this guy isn't just a receptacle for hidden/stolen evidence at convenient moments! I see his new outfit and call it a night.

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xyzzy

I think I'd give Case 1 a 4/10. it's a really amateur case without much in the ways of deduction but I liked what it offered in terms of character and world building. if I had one complaint, it's that it continues down the path that the 3DS games took where everything is explained so thoroughly at the expense of pacing. sometimes I feel like they could cut half the dialogue and get on with it.

it's better than 5-1 for sure, but probably not quite on 6-1's level. I get the feeling that this case will feel cumbersome on a replay, but it does have a certain appeal as the start to a new story, kind of like what you get with Apollo's first case, but without any grounding in what's happening, what the legal system is really like or what is to come.

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xyzzy

Case 1, Part 3

I expected Susato to become a major part of the case, but she just drops off a piece of evidence and books it on out of there, since apparently we're far enough back that women aren't allowed in the court. I guess that lines up. I'm surprised we even have black and white photographs, but I guess we need evidence.

our case shifts to the poison that may or may not be in the bottle, how it infects people, what it does, etc. it's just longwinded and teased out for maximum effect, right down to Brett drinking and eventually breaking the bottle. she's kind of a boss, huh? this case reminds me of the whole Dahlia arc in a way, from 3-1's charm to 3-4's poison. well, at least up until her death. I really like Brett as a villain, if that is what she is. she's so comically evil for seemingly no reason that I kinda wonder.

we finally get Ryu's first objection, and it's kinda... weak? with that much buildup I think I expected something on Dhurke's level, but it was just a pretty standard, plain objection. it didn't even have much buildup. I thought we were wrapping up the case, but instead we.. see in color?, and then the inspector produces a random piece of steak that's somehow not completely gross. this murder must have been like 2 hours ago.

we search the meat and we find.. a coin?! this was the first time that the case felt unexpected. I like the callback because I had completely forgotten about those two goofballs. now we have four (five?) idiots on the stand and it just looks kind of comical. Brett must be seething to share the stage with these dorks.

this next part is weird. there's no more testimony at all. it feels like a visual novel with a couple of choices being made here and there. we discover that the Sergeant hid the coin, switched the plates and that our inspector friend just steals evidence like he's Money the Monkey. it isn't until we identify the switched plate that Brett starts to get nervous.

it doesn't take too long for her to confess. her breakdown animation is underwhelming -- more goofy than what I wanted. I wanted that hat to go and to see her face. she explains that we were mostly right about the methods, but doesn't really get into why it was done. she's fairly graceful about it all, which I guess makes sense given what's coming.

as we close down the case, it's revealed by the Professor that Brett won't stand trial here and is being shipped off to Shanghai. I'm not sure how we went there and not Britain, but hey. I can see this being really unrewarding for a lot of people, but I'm just happy that we're not done with Brett just yet. there's clearly more to come on this arc, and on the modernization of Japan. it looks like we're in the early twentieth century.

Kazuma has something tell me, which we never hear by the end of case 1. I have some suspicions on where this arc goes and I'm looking forward to seeing him go off to Britain and, presumably, return.

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xyzzy

Case 1, Part 2

I normally dislike witnesses that can't communicate to you in english. Machi in 4-3 is the obvious example. I like what they did with this woman though, who speaks in English to everyone else's Japanese. her character design is pretty fun, though I wish she had more animations. I'm guessing she'll get more as we peel away the layers. that hat is dying to go flying.

my first "oh, I'm an idiot" moment happened while trying to solve the story behind this woman. a photo is produced with a burn mark. for some stupid reason, I thought the arm here was the woman's, and it took me entirely too long to realize that it was actually the victim's. I presented the evidence and walked through the motions, completely confused, until I realized that I'm just a moron.

it was completely obvious that Brett (weird that they call her by her male-sounding last name given how feminine she is, but I guess it fits the japan theme) was going to be able to speak Japanese, but I still loved the way they teased it out. the font for English was fun and I really liked when they dropped "No" out of nowhere. Brett's milkshake clearly brings all the boys to the yard, and they even love it when she mocks their barbarism.

we get a new "pursue" mechanic that seems like it'll be the game's main twist, and suggests that I'm going to have a lot of multiple witness testimonies going forward. not sure how to feel here yet. regardless, this case gets a lot more fun once Brett drops the facade. her "SHUT UP" is amazing and I love her snobbiness. usually these kinds of uppity witnesses are painful but the way she does it kind of exudes style. it helps when the audience is a Payne and my idiot protagonist.

we're just about to lose when we get a new "hold it" voice sample, which as everyone knows is a Big Deal. Susato Mikotoba seems like she'll be important from her first sentence. an immediate "to be continued" only further confirms that point.

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xyzzy

I figure I should probably document my thoughts here given how much I've talked about AA over the years, huh?

first, some housekeeping - I know nothing about this game, didn't watch any playthroughs over the years that it's been around and didn't even really watch the trailers or read any reviews. please don't talk about what's upcoming for me or hint at what might come. I'll probably drop the topic if I feel like I can't get an authentic experience. I likely won't be too quick so I might be well behind some of you who have lots of free time to play games. thanks for understanding, etc.

oh, and spoilers, obviously.

Case 1, Part 1

I won't recap the story beat by beat because that would take entirely too long and I'd probably make a fool of myself by trying to remember what's going on. my first immediate takeaway are the names! our main character is Ryunosuke or something like that. Ryu, I guess, for this topic. Naruhodo, that's at least a name I recognize! we've got a Kazama and a bunch of other names that I couldn't even begin to remember correctly. now, I'm not saying that I'm dying to go back to the Rheel Neemus of the world, but I'm definitely going to struggle with this game being so much more openly japanese. do I miss "japanifornia"? no, not really, but it's really damn convenient to have a memorable name like April May as opposed to these names.

our main character is.. kind of an idiot, even moreso than Phoenix in 1-1. our lawyer best friend is much smoother and feels like what Edgeworth might have been if we didn't get DL-6. he's ready to defend me but some clearly underhanded teacher comes in and suggests that I defend myself. I actually refuse to do this just because this guy is so shady, but the game makes me do it anyway. Kazuma joins me as my assistant, and it's a weird dynamic of being a newb while your partner is so much better than you. it's something like Armando in 3-4 or Gavin in 4-1, and because of the latter, he's immediately sus.

I get excited in a way that I wasn't expecting when I see a Payne. I realize quite quickly that I'm looking for anything that can familiarize myself with this new, foreign world, and I get completely pumped that I get to wreck this guy. "Auchi" is a great name for a Payne, and one of the only ones I've managed to commit to memory. despite that, he's still just Payne to me, and I'm going to destroy him.

I need to spend a minute talking about animations. Ryu's animations are *killing* me. his hand raise is amazing and his eyes shooting everywhere is really good. "Yes!" is... I don't know how we came to this, but it's kind of great. I'm waiting for him to break into an honest objection. that might be really hype as a way to close out the case.

actually, let's tease this out for a minute. Phoenix has been the game's mascot for like 20 years here, 15 years in the states. I've been playing as him for what feels like half my life. it is extremely weird to not be him, and to have this idiot as my player character after all this time! I think I'm on board with it because I get to see him grow. AA1 Phoenix was always good because he grew into himself throughout the course of that game, but basically never changed from AA2 on. having a new face, foreign as it is, is going to make this game stand out, good or bad.

I'm really hoping that we get some kind of character development arc with his animations. maybe his eyes stop going everywhere and he gains some confidence as he does this more. right now I love how green he is, and half the time Kazuma steps in and does the job for me because I'm just so bad at this. it'll be neat if I develop new animations over time as I become more and more competent. I'm going to love it when I get my first objection, assuming we ever progress past "Yes!".

our first witnesses here are a waiter that acts like the opening Gumshoe witness to lay out the case, and then a couple of idiots, a soldier and an old man whose names have totally escaped me already. the multiple character interrogation reminds me of the Layton game, but thankfully is a lot better than that as it's just one testimony and you're never trying to play them off each other. these testimonies make 1-1 look competent as they are hilariously easy to break, but this is a good thing narratively as Ryunosuke's not exactly sharp here.

the first section of this case revolves around a missing person at a restaurant and has obvious parallels to 3-3. I was worried that there might be a double murder event like that case because the crime scene wasn't making any sense. fortunately, as we pull out the dentist visit, the lack of eating and the missing person, we have a case that looks a bit more standard than the recent AA games where everything is extremely convoluted.

we eventually find out that the waiter is an inspector and hid the crime scene at somebody's request. this guy reminds me of Kristoph Gavin with his animations - they feel wholeheartedly ripped from him with the glasses and the way he shakes his head. it's obviously not the only 4-1 parallel here. he doesn't seem villainous though and is a fairly helpful witness. I don't have to break this guy into pieces in order to ascertain the truth, which I appreciate. I think I like this guy, though his character design is not great.

Ryu eventually gets a little more competent by the end of this section, and it seems like he's got a good memory for details and some strong convictions. I like that Kazuma isn't some kind of uber defense attorney here - he's just your BFF doing his best. if he sticks around, that dynamic will be interesting - the guy who knows how to do the job, and the goofy protagonist who sometimes stumbles into the right logic with his natural gifts. it's like they split Phoenix into two characters.

we finally confirm that a young woman was in the restaurant with the victim and break for the midway point.

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xyzzy

yeah play AA6. my sense is that these games aren't part of the continuity so people just aren't as invested, whereas AAI2 clearly is. it's a side story, but it at least involves the right main characters.

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xyzzy

https://www.gamestop.com/video-games/nintendo-switch/games/products/the-great-ace-attorney/11138922.html

$39.99

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xyzzy

Leonhart4 posted...

I've watched LPs of both games already because I didn't think we'd ever get them. I'll just say they feel like Takumi took the foundation he laid with Layton/AA and built on it with these games. I know you don't really count that game with the main series, so who knows!

to be honest, I can't even remember what happens in the Layton game. I don't even remember a single character outside of the main four.

this one probably feels more significant. I guess we can play it and decide in August if it's worth it. our last list happened before AA6 came out too! I would probably need to replay the series, something I know you do all the time, but I'm not in the same boat. I did replay 5 and most of 6 in the past year, though.

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xyzzy

seems like there's some kind of physical version, but not sure if that's just a download code or what

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EzgbCD3VUAION77?format=jpg&name=large


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xyzzy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CUeyoiazDo

PS4/Switch/PC
July 27th

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xyzzy