Board 8 > this grand ace attorney overture music is great (spoilers playthrough)

(+) Yeah! (+)

whoops

aai2 hits different tho
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Unsurprisingly, we pick up the day after the McGilded trial, and we're told that he apparently was the one who perished in the fire. But I'm almost certain that wasn't really him, right? Charred body and all? In any case... we're actually not working that case. (And tbh, I'm kinda glad to be rid of it - it was a cool case, but there was so little evidence for it, and it was an insanely long trial.)

Anyway, it was a nice night at the hotel we finally found, but by god it bled us dry. So again homeless, we visit the Chief Justice of the land, who is evilly impressed by our performance in a case we "couldn't lose." He assigns us a new case, and afterward we chat a bit... we tell him that Asogi wanted to achieve something specific, which amuses Stronghart and apparently shocks Susato. That makes me mildly suspicious of Papa Mikotoba once again - perhaps he gave Susasto some specific instructions?

Stronghart departs and leaves us with Inspector Gregson of Scotland Yard, who by god eats those fish and chips aggressively and who I assume is something of the Lestrade of this? The chips look good, but in that endless quantity... there's a fun gag where Ryunosuke attempts to woo Gregson by asking him about the weather, and Gregson responds that you can't just fix any British conversation by talking about the weather. Susato steps in, and her charisma - even asking about the weather - seems to do the trick.

Gregson is an interesting type of character for AA. He's not suspicious like Badd, playful like Gumshoe, ridiculous like Fulbright, or friendly like Ema. Instead, he's actually mostly professional, and despite working for the cops, only mildly antagonistic toward us - more disdainful, really, but not enough to attack us. But he's got his own angels and demons in his relationship to Holmes and Watson; he enjoys the fame (and royalties) but despises the notoriety and appearance of incompetence. Ah, the issues with unwanted celebrity.

We're filled in on a case that happened on Briar Road. But more eerily, we learn that Van Zieks's notoriety does not come solely from winning cases... but also because even the defendants who get off not guilty wind up meeting their maker soon afterward - and while some meet violent ends, others succumb to disease within the year. Yikes. That's not what I expected about the Reaper of the Bailey - though it seems that it's not defense attorneys who should be as terrified, but rather defendants themselves. Susato gives us an out not to take the case, so when we do, we ask her for her help. "Did you really think you had to ask?" Aw.

Off to the crime scene, where we learn for the first time just how tough it is being a London Bobby, having to march twenty miles a day on foot - this tables Susato's fangirlism regarding wearing the helmet (she "relinquishes that dream" to us). We also see a decrepit house with bricked-up windows and a miserable-looking bike (Ryunosuke needs to go biking sometime!). In the distance is the CRYSTAL TOWER, guaranteed to be the setting of G1-5. Notably, we are not allowed to investigate the actual site of the murder, to see where the body fell, examine bloodstains, and the like.

The defendant, whom we meet at the jail, is Soseki Natsume. The guy is Japanese! A grad student of the English language, though he much prefers English literature. And he's also a classic AA character - a blend of entertaining and exasperating; he's insanely twitchy due to having a rough time being a foreigner, and due to his love of poetry he loves Active! Alliteration! Animatedly! A lot! complete with Ginyu Force poses. (My favorite one is the one where he forms a "7" shape with his arms.) Anyway, his story doesn't seem particularly great in terms of innocence: He was the only dude on the street with the lady (who isn't dead, at least), and then she collapsed and he ran off. He was discovered by HERR LOCK SHOLMES.

Now apprised that Sholmes was involved, we head to his actual address, which Susato of course describes as the most famous address in the world. And we are greeted by the inventor girl from G1-3, who gets a name... Iris Watson. And some sugary-sweet music. Shocker: Japan has turned an old dude with a doctorate of medicine into a ten-year-old girl genius inventor whatever. This is easily my least favorite development of the case so far, though Sholmes's notoriously cluttered office is a ton of fun. My favorite item is the Great Analytiscope, which took a year to develop and then fell by the wayside without ever having been used because hey, what does Sholmes actually need to analyze? The one cool thing is that Iris walks us through a Logic and Reasoning segment where she explains how she guessed Naruhodo and Susato's identities, so that's neat.

The upshot of this is that Iris provides us with a five-pence note to give to Gregson as royalties, and in his absolute worship of Iris (that fivepence pays for a month of fish and chips!), Gregson allows us to head up to to residence of Natsume... which is the condemned-looking brick building.
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We head to the top floor first, to speak to the landlord, Mr. Garrideb, the pun of which I don't understand (another Holmes reference?) We're greeted by a very overbearing maid, which impresses Susato - a real English maid! The living quarters are slightly in disarray, with a SUSPICIOUS SCREEN and some cracked china on a broken-down shelf. Lots of Garrideb's military trophies are on display; he displays some very false humility about them (rude to the general who issued me the uniform/medal not to hang it up proudly!) He seems to have something to hide (beyond his secret interest in Herlock Sholmes stories, which he denies despite the magazine being there), with his maid constantly pouring scalding tea onto his hands to prevent him from saying too much, though they provide each other with bulletproof alibis; he is barely able to walk, and she was tending to him at the time of the stabbing. Anyway, they certainly don't think much of the suspicious, strange foreigner who keeps extremely odd hours (and whose hours the maid seems oddly hyper-attuned to.)

With permission in hand to inspect Soseki's room, we head down into the bricked up windows. It's a horror scene, with a sad lone cat, extremely poor lighting, and stacks of books that threaten to bury anyone there. The most notable item here is the way Sholmes basically tracked Soseki down - a receipt for the used books Soseki bought the day of the attack. I like the pun in Yore Books and recognize the references in two of these titles - but not Meal for Gaboriau.

But then we scroll the screen over, and whaddya know, there's Sholmes chillin there! He explains that the windows being boarded up comes from old English law - a window tax - and that having at least one maid is a sign of being middle class (perhaps like home ownership in the current USA). He's forgotten much of the Speckled Band case - alludes to it as being a case with a snake - which is incredibly on-brand. The guy believes in forgetting what you don't need and specifically cites A Study in Scarlet, where he espouses this philosophy.

Sholmes does remember, however, that we wanted to be a lawyer, and he specifically points out that hey, just because he caught an escapee, doesn't mean he promised the escapee would be the perpetrator of the crime. Sholmes can only name two facts: that Soseki escaped the crime scene, and that there were two witnesses who will attest to this. And as an unrelated point, Sholmes adds that the Garridebs are almost certainly hiding something, whether or not it's related to the case.

Without any other leads, we return to the Garridebs' room. The maid tries hard to eject us, citing dinner. But hey, more Sholmes! And he's prepared to tell us that there was a BEAST in this room that COST A LOT OF MONEY. Hilariously, he thinks that the Garridebs were keeping a pet Indian lion that they reluctantly sold to the circus. The guy really does love his exotic beasts. We instead discover that the maid is John's wife Joan, and that the reason for the mess is actually that she went apeshit after discovering a love note - not addressed to her husband - in a used book. Having exposed this, we decide it's time to get back and wrap things up with Natsume.

On our way out, we encounter two NPCs having a dispute. One of them is dressed like a jester and quotes Shakespeare randomly. He then vanishes into the same house that Soseki lives in, heavily implying he might be related to the case, perhaps on Day 2, though god this Day 1 has been long.

In the end, it's been a tragic experience in London for Soseki. Having seemingly been burned by Chad McGilded, we're hesitant to trust anyone again. But fear not - Sholmes appears at the jail again. And this time, he has some wisdom for us, words that remind us of Kazuma - that while we might not know all the facts when we choose to trust someone, and while that trust can be betrayed... ultimately we have to just trust our own judgment. So believing in someone else is really believing in yourself. Well damn, those words feel like they have a lot more meaning now.

See y'all in court.

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* "I suppose you would have finished whoever it was off with a Susato Takedown, would you?" / "That is neither here nor there, Mr. Naruhodo!" / Brace yourself, Ryunosuke! You've angered her now!

* Susato is such a fangirl of the bobbies she's willing to get arrested with a stone to make it happen.

* Speaking of Susato, she actually seems to respond a lot to our inner monologue, huh.

* Ryunosuke's inner monologue mentions grinning like a Cheshire Cat, which seems kind of a weird cultural reference to make for a Japanese person.

* Sholmes remains the highlight of any investigative segment. "In the jungle of logic and reasoning... I am the king of beasts!"

* "The terrifying truth all too often lies beyond the realms of common sense!" / "But wouldn't it be an idea to consider what lies inside the realms of common sense as well?" Shortly afterward, Sholmes insists that exposed long enough to British people, even a lion would drink tea.

* The overall feeling in Garrideb's place, despite the humor in Garrideb's bluster/false humility, is actually of sadness. This is a proud military man with a wife he loves, who is now confined to a chair. He can't afford to de-brick his windows, and while Ryunosuke disses the broken candelabra, Susato quietly tells us, "They're memories, Mr. Naruhodo... memories."

* Not crazy about the amount of fat-shaming Joan, though I did have a laugh at some of the euphemisms they used to describe her "HORSEPOWER."

* We are literally entering court with three pieces of evidence, one of which is a map that contains no extra info and another of which is an armband that we had before the case began.

Trial later.
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Gregson is an inspector in the stories, too. He's just not as well known as Lestrade. John Garrideb is a Holmes character, too. Also, Soseki Natsume is a real person!

And Japan turned an old man with a doctorate in medicine into the case 1 victim!

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Trial begins, and we have... some familiar faces in the jury - Joan the "maid," notably, and the ex-witness banker Fairplay. Again, we have three pieces of evidence in hand, only one of which was discovered by investigating.

We begin the trial by calling out the lack of motive, like a boss. But with a quick toss of the wine bottle, Van Zieks dismisses our objections and we push forward.

Gregson is first on the stand, and almost immediately we're told about the route that the defendant must have taken to get home. We dispute the bookstore itself, but the jury immediately comes down on Soseki, forcing us into a Summation Examination... We need to tease it out a little, but it turns out there's an alternate route that could have happened - walking around "the long way." Given that an incredibly clumsy man also stumbled that day, we're also able to weasel our way into saying Soseki might have taken the long way round...

... And it's all for nothing, really. There's pretty decisive evidence that Soseki was right at the crime scene; his books are scattered around the victim! In any case, the moment we finish posing this possibility, van Zieks dismisses it with prejudice and brings in the real witnesses. This entire first segment winds up feeling like a mildly interesting battle that achieved absolutely nothing and had essentially no point.

Cop Roly Beate and his wife Pat are on the stand. They're coming off their one-year wedding anniversary, and Roly offers us an up-close look at what it's like to be a London bobby... and it's pretty damn rough. Guy is constantly falling asleep despite that he wants to do the best job he can. Pat is utterly smitten with him, especially (seemingly) his title and it's kind of cute to watch. Anyway, they give some bulletproof testimony that they definitely saw Soseki there. But Patricia is a little too eager to volunteer that there were four books, and we pounce to state that hey, our boy only bought three!...

... but four were indeed at the crime scene. Looks like no, the witness testimony is accurate AF. This quickly results in a second Summation Examination, which is actually one of the more clever that we've seen - it involves a lot of push and pull, but... it's only here that we're able to point out the obvious: that the copy of The Lion's Pride belongs to Garrideb. And we expose Joan's violent tendencies inside with the help of an anecdote about an abusive wife. In other words... Joan could have thrown that knife at her husband and accidentally sent it out the window. And we prove that the window would have been open even in a London winter, because of the smoke.

Before we can bring Joan to the stand, we must KO our officer friend. This time he wakes up and begins his own testimony, and aside from the annoying "SAAAAAAAH!!!!" verbal tic, he's surprisingly competent as a witness. But his first statement almost dooms us: the top-latched window in the Garridebs' home wouldn't allow any objects to cross the street to the other side.

The testimony is actually not that trivial to break. We press, then catch reactions, then press the new statement, catch new reactions, and press some more, until we find out something about a "bouquet." It's actually heartbreaking how much Ryunosuke trashes a single rose being called a bouquet; Roly is obviously quite poor and is doing the best he can for his wife. And indeed she is super-proud of her bouquet, though heartbroken about having dropped it. Yet the bouquet is on the opposite side of the street, toward the Garridebs' place, from the location where the victim was discovered.

In other words, we assert with shockingly little evidence, while Pat was off fetching the other cops... Roly completely moved the crime scene, books and all. And when it comes to motive... it's actually not an obvious one, but due to the paucity of evidence in our coffers... we realize what it is. Despite his love of his job, Roly didn't want his anniversary to be interrupted by investigating a stabbing - so he moved the victim and the rest of the crime scene outside of his jurisdiction.

It's actually quite a saddening scene when he admits it - he cursed God due to how bad the luck was, and finding it out was like realizing a nightmare came true. He works so damn hard as a bobby, and yet his anniversary is interrupted. In the end, the joke is on him, because he forgets the gift he specifically gave to his wife, one that he had scrimped and saved for. Patricia's eyes are watered up the entire time, but she sticks by her husband. It's enormously unethical, but I feel relieved that van Zieks doesn't seem to imply the punishmenet will be that severe.

Speaking of the Reaper of the Bailey, he actually helps us to make our case. Now that we know the real scene of the stabbing was on the other side of Briar Road, that leaves one primary "suspect"... and since she's in the courtroom, Van Zieks helps us to bring her onto the stand. (She apparently has also recovered from the shock of seeing the knife to begin with.)

Joan is prepared to testify, but John refuses to let her testify alone. Extremely gentlemanly, and the dude has a lot of charisma. Both deny that the knife can be linked to them, though they're obviously feeling guilt even at the (almost unknowable) possibility that it really was them. But John is unable to maintain the lie that Joan's rage is entirely with harmless items like cabbages - hell, look at his broken pipe.

In fact, yes, let's look at the broken pipe. The game spoonfeeds it far too hard, but yes, we do find the decisive bit of evidence there. God, talk about some insane luck; I'm not sure if we've ever gotten so straight-up lucky in the courtroom before. More than the unlikely (but sensible!) cases of Acro holding the murder weapon under his chair, or Von Karma having the bullet in his shoulder, this was really just pure chance. But hey - it's pretty decisive.

There's one remaining contradiction in the established facts of the case, though it's been obvious since The Lion's Pride appeared in the victim's hand: how did the knife pierce Olivia Green (???) through the back, if it fell from above?

While it's not that significant, I actually do like this moment - it reminds me a lot of 1-1, where you have to explain why the clock would have been off. The Lion's Pride explains it: she was bent over, picking up this curious projectile that had landed in front of her. And that's when the slightly chipped knife came down.

Soseki - who miraculously didn't appear at all during the trial - is exonerated. The Judge is actually really damn impressed with us. And he should be; there was a moment where Susato got bullied by Van Zieks and we had to stick up for her, because yeesh. But it's one of the cooler Judge moments of the series, as he apologizes in full to Soseki for how poorly his time as a guest of the British Empire has gone.

Another case down, and it's time to go to sleep in... I mean, we could stay in Soseki's old quarters. What it lacks in windows, it more than makes up for with a floor, ceiling, AND walls. But no, we're instead invited to stay in Sholmes's attack and party hard with Soseki before he returns to Japan. Chapter closed.
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* Fun cultural touchstone: streetlamps are appearing for more or less the first time. Naruhodo is fascinated by the bobbies' job to light those.

* Van Zieks approves of the defendant reading. He also offers to "deal with" Sholmes. Would be fascinated to see that showdown...!

* "Could this man BE any more sardonic?" - Chananaruhodo Bingosuke

* Ryunosuke is quick to say that the beef between him and Fairplay is "water under the bridge." Easy for you to say, buddy... easy for you to say.

* "The London bobby is a man of honor." / "... and a man of slumber."

* This case officially exhausted any patience/amusement I had for domestic "humorous" female-on-male domestic violence, between the obviously awful Joan and Pat regularly strangling her husband and the despicable "convincing" argument of Juror #5 getting almost murdered by his wife in a fit of (unreasonable) rage. It's not okay, and it's also not really okay just because they reversed the gender roles. It feels in a way like an erasure of male-on-female domestic violence as well, and turning this into a joke is just... gross. Women in general just come off really terribly in this case, even moreso than in the typical AA case. It's even more of a shame because these are some of the more loving relationships depicted in the series.

* There is one major contradiction that is never quite examined at the end, which is that Pat states she was looking up at the sky and would have seen either a book or a knife come out the window, and that they couldn't have missed it. Well... they did. Without disproving that statement, that piece of testimony feels pointlessly false.

* Also, talk about loose ends. We literally never meet the victim, and the obviously suspicious other tenant... just never appears again? That has to be a setup for a later case, I guess? But what the hell. Valant in 4-3-esque.

* You must "de" very "dusy."

* For a game with a lot of great tracks, the Pursuit theme is pretty lacking. And I guess that makes sense given how unsatisfying it's been to nail everyone.

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All this aside, my closing thoughts on the case aren't really about the lack of murder or how much parts of it felt pointless/uninteresting, or about the cleverness of it... instead my biggest takeaway is about how this might be the most topical and relevant case AA has ever done regarding real-life issues.

There's simply a lot of sadness in this case inherent in the world. I didn't mention it much during the main writeup, but there is persistent xenophobia and racism throughout the case, starting with even the neutral/not-so-unlikable characters, like Gregson, refusing to learn any of the Japanese names. And there are some outright complaints about foreigners. Soseki's experience as a visitor is filled with a great sense of loneliness and despair and alienation. He came here because he loved the literature of the English, yet he couldn't bond with the souls who inspired these works. The happiest part of the ending is that he is going back to Japan to write on his own.

Beyond just the English-Japanese issues, there's a lot of class commentary in this case. Take the bobbies, who face constant overwork. London takes pride in them, yet we see the effect this can have on a person's health and morale and even sanity in the state and actions of Roly Beate. And he's so obviously underpaid - he had to work so hard just to get his wife a rose for her anniversary, and even then he couldn't stay awake for it... and was on call during it.

Then you have the inherent sadness in the Garridebs. I addressed some of it before, but Garrideb's story is actually one of loss as well. Losing his legs, losing his youth, losing his pride... we already know that Garrideb is confined to his apartment pretty much 24/7. Now we realize that he doesn't have running water. And he feels so much pressure to fit in that he can't even let his wife act like his wife around other people; instead class and appearances are so important that she has to pose as a maid. This was a very active person before; we see images of him with much more strength. Now in his frailty, Garrideb reads a lot of novels - not the worst ending for many, but he's only forty-six, and now his favorite novels have been burned in a fire by his abusive wife. We surmise that his pipe is sentimental to him, but we don't know exactly why. And as we learn in the trial, he now spends a lot of time whittling. There's just a lot of sadness and sympathy I feel for this man, who even through the abuse and his own handicaps, attempts to catch Joan when she faints - and is crushed under her.

AA sometimes makes me feel emotions, but often it's the main plot that gets me hyped, or nodding at its cleverness, or rolling with laughter. Here it actually reflects on real life in a meaningful and interesting way, and I'm not sure what to do with these feelings of melancholy! It all makes G1-4 a very uniquely memorable case to me, for reasons outside of the plot almost entirely.
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I didn't take it as Pat strangling Roly. She's just waking him up, albeit rather forcefully. It's actually one long scarf that they're both wearing together. The Beates are awesome. A rare happy couple for the series.

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i mean it seemingly results in strangulation

also investigating naruhodo's office/talking to susato is one of my favorite parts of this game so far. is this the first time we've been offered the chance to present the armband to her?
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It seems to crack his neck more than strangle him based on the sound effects!

But yeah, this is the first chance you've had just to talk to Susato since G1-2.

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also only two months later

rip crystal palace dreams
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Part 1 of G1-5 investigation down and man, we didn't do anything, did we - we didn't even find a defendant.

That said, Sholmes's woe-is-me antics were excellent.
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just finished part 2 of investigation

this game really doesn't care about actual investigation anymore huh
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three investigation segments down and i have yet to investigate the crime scene or really know any details

this game huh
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The second game is better about that for what it's worth

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"and so began an even longer day than the last"

welp

okay then
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buckle up

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i was really hoping we could do this alone, but ugh iris is indeed gonna be our trial buddy
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these jurors are amazing

one past witness, three past jurors, and the russian revolutionary
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he is innocent tourist who wants to wisit Crystal Tower

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why do these witnesses look like this, gross
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wow what a hater of Mario Bros.

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a career in acting, tragically missed
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naruhodo needing iris to point out why gina locked the door has to be the lowest moment of handholding this trial. like jesus.
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can science really show that a gun was fired exactly once?
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It's been a series staple since the first game, although in this case, it seems to be circumstantial evidence more than anything else.

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so summation examinations really bog down the game, interrupt the flow, result in tedious dialogue, and result in the trials becoming more formulaic and predictable

that said, the music is freaking great
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It's so good

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van zieks demanding we identify the accomplice is absurd
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thank god someone is finally calling out the blood analyzer as "evidence"
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SeabassDebeste posted...

van zieks demanding we identify the accomplice is absurd

I mean this is fairly par for the course for the series! You're frequently asked to name accomplices or culprits before you have the evidence to prove their involvement!

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fair enough!

enjoying this trial a lot with all the evidence we're getting our hands on

also the interlude has kazuma flashback musix, pausing to savor it
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Yeah, there are many times I just stop and soak in the music in this game. It's such a good soundtrack.

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i... uh... you need two tones to convey morse code? don't you just need one tone but you vary the length...?
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graydon is such a fantastic classic AA witness. and this trial finally feels rigged against us in a classic AA way, not with the prosecution just dismissing what we say, but with the witness continuing to spew different styles of bullshit, making outlandish claims. his poses are also hilarious.

the overcoat was such a dirty move. loving this act of the trial.
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well i spoke too soon

being literally handed the decisive evidence here is so disappointing
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Did you notice before they gave it to you though?

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in fairness i did not! though i did think there being a peephole into an extremely secure room was dumb from the moment it appeared

finished the case and man, an hour and a half between the last decision made and the end of the credits is... i mean it's MGS3-like, but this ending isn't exactly MGS3. could've watched a feature-length film or four anime episodes in this time.

this clearly is a "cliffhanger season finale." while magnus mcgilded's story was finally inked and dried, there are several open threads for the second game:

- susato's return/papa mikotoba's issues

- the betrayal that van ziek's faced at the hands of a japanese person. i am assuming this is mikotoba, but i guess it could also be this "a shin" character.

- of course, that entire internationally intercepted message has to be decoded. among them is iris's dad - she needs to find out that he died

- and for that matter, we need to find out jezaille brett's motive

- the crystal tower/world fair, where a crime has yet to occur

- mael stronghart has yet to face us as prosecutor or as a murderer, so that has to happen too

- the nature of kazuma's mission - presumably something about righting the wrongs of five years ago

- it feels like sholmes almost has to be a defendant at some point

nonetheless it's the best case in the game. and the game is worthwhile despite its tedium and iffy formulaic choices

also, i don't think there was any real indication of anything other than brotherly/sisterly affection between any of the main characters and their assistants, or any of the shippable couples in previous games... but the way susato has been framed this game actually makes her seem like a romantic interest of naruhodo's. she appears as his guardian angel twice, and the departure has very different tones from when maya leaves phoenix. that said if naruhodo is 23 like kazuma then this is weird, but naruhodo being 18 or 19 would make this make sense (and would also help explain his idolization of kazuma)
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The series will never do clear romantic overtones between the lead and the assistant. It just doesn't happen.

I like G1-5, but it has pacing issues like most of the cases do. I don't know why they were so opposed to having a second day in these cases, because this case could've used one.

Also I think the second game will address a lot of your issues with this one. Just about everyone I've seen so far thinks the second game is noticeably better.

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yeah they'll never explicitly do any sort of romance to keep ship-dreams alive/make it marketable to young kids, but i do think that the overtones felt more direct this time.

the series ever since 5-5 seems to have shifted very hard toward single-day trials and monster-length investigations. i think it's to the detriment of the series. 1-3 and 1-4 remain two of the most enjoyable cases because they have such great pacing by alternating between investigation and trial. it also results in less BS-feeling moments in the trial. like if susato gives us the cat-door-maker in day 2 investigation that makes a lot more sense. i do understand that the writers want to avoid 1-3's example of "we proved the defendant's innocence in day 2" or 2-3's example of "why couldn't we just look at that note in day 1," but the benefit in pacing is still pretty significant IMO.

what were your time stats for g1-1 through g1-5?
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SeabassDebeste posted...

what were your time stats for g1-1 through g1-5?

I haven't done time stats yet. I'm doing line counts first, so I can show you those.

Total lines by case:

6-5 - 6722
G1-5 - 6033
2-4 - 5946
1-5 - 5913
3-5 - 5815
E1-5 - 4831
E2-5 - 4777
4-3 - 4494
3-2 - 4151
3-3 - 4063
6-3 - 3979
E2-3 - 3959
4-4 - 3952
E2-2 - 3936
2-3 - 3884
5-2 - 3750
G1-4 - 3620
5-6 - 3616
4-2 - 3468
1-4 - 3466
5-3 - 3202
6-6 - 3134
2-2 - 3119
6-2 - 2987
E1-4 - 2935
E2-4 - 2868
1-3 - 2741
5-5 - 2550
E1-3 - 2412
G1-2 - 2352
5-4 - 2018
G1-3 - 1998
E1-2 - 1995
G1-1 - 1985
E2-1 - 1923
1-2 - 1773
6-4 - 1650
4-1 - 1421
6-1 - 1362
3-4 - 1225
3-1 - 1167
5-1 - 1102
E1-1 - 1039
2-1 - 899
4-0 - 679
1-1 - 389

Totals lines by game:

SoJ - 19834
AAI2 - 17463
T&T - 16422
DD - 16238
GAA1 - 15988
PW1 - 14282
JFA - 13848
AJ - 13335
AAI1 - 13212

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i'm... pretty surprised that so many of the original 3 games are high up there in line count. i guess this really does confirm our thoughts that the later games just have a ton more reaction shots or stuff between lines, because unless my gauge of time is way off, i can't possibly imagine 6-3 taking less time to play through than 3-3.
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You'd be correct in that regard. 6-3 is about 2.5 hours longer than 3-3, but I think the Takumi games have more back and forth between its characters than the non-Takumi games, which tend to be longer in terms of time but not that much different in terms of line counts. The GAA cases have bigger casts because of stuff like the jury, so it's going to inflate line counts. I don't think G1-5 is going to time out longer than 1-5, 2-4, or 3-5 even though it beat them out in line counts.

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uhhh how do i start game 2

my continue picks up with the last autosave during the japanese morse code area...
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Go back to the title screen and pick "Select Adventure" and you can click over to the second game.

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well here we go then
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well this has to be the hypest opening cutscene ever. the suspense about jezaille brett, the suspense of whose grave it was (my first guesses were mikotoba and wilson), and then finally the reveal that susato is becoming a playable character

my body is ready

(also august 13... aka I KNEW IT, THE CRYSTAL TOWER FAIR IS HAPPENING THIS GAME)
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oh my god this outfit and these purloined animations are incredible

as are the reactions to the wrong answers on the victim's name
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soseki as an extremely puffed up wannabe starlet is great

as is the turtle hat
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ugh, susato asking for forgiveness for doubting rei is so, so bad
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