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earlgraytay · 12 minutes

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So I know what you're thinking. Why is TGAA 2-2 worse than Turnabout Big Top? How can this be possible?

Well, the answer is simple: there's problems with this case that a good editor would have caught right away. The problems with Big Top are ... intentional. Turnabout Big Top is a simple but compelling mystery wrapped up in an overcomplicated and uncomfortable dressing.

.... TGAA 2-2/Memoirs!Kokoro has great dressing. Olive Green is one of my favourite Ace Attorney characters; Shamspeare is wonderfully punchable, it's always great to see Natsume and the Garridebs again, and Lady Quinby is one of my new favourite minor characters; I hope she comes back.

But the mystery is deeply flawed. If you've been reading my liveblog (which you don't have to to understand my point here) you'll know what I'm getting at already- I've been yelling since the first Kokoro case that the solution to What's Up With Natsume is carbon monoxide poisoning. Natsume is forgetful, jittery, and paranoid, and immediately seems to snap out of it after a few months back in Japan. Even on the witness stand, he seems a lot better! He wrote a whole book!

.... the SECOND that the gas pipes were mentioned, I knew that the solution was simple. The victim was poisoned with carbon monoxide, so no strychnine was necessary, so Natsume didn't do it. (Especially since he woke back up!) It's elegant and straightforward.

They then proceed to lampshade this fact throughout the entire case- the meterman and Lady Quinby! The whole subplot about Shamspeare stealing gas! Two people on the jury mention that gas is poisonous repeatedly! Van Zieks makes fun of us by saying we must have breathed some bad air!

-- AND THE GAME, MADDENINGLY, INSISTS THE POISON IS STRYCHNINE. There's no option to bring up that it might be the gas until the very bitter end, and so you feel like you're yelling at a character on a beloved children's TV show. "MR. NOODLE. YOUR HANDS, MR. NOODLE. THAT'S YOUR NOSE, MR. NOODLE. GODDAMMIT, MR. NOODLE."

...and then when they finally let you bring up the gas, when they finally look like they're letting you be Clever and finally FIGURE OUT THE MYSTERY...

there's poison. on the gas pipe.

there's. poison. on the pipe. that's already. full. of poison. that the murderer. was already breathing into. for pre-established convenience reasons.

GODDAMMIT, MR. NOODLE.

Like, Turnabout Big Top is loathesome, but you can follow the chain of cause and effect there, and it doesn't make you feel like Phoenix is stupid. Nobody wants to be here (including the characters!), but nobody is stupid about the events that are happening. In Memoirs of a Clouded Kokoro, it feels like Runo took a hit off the gas pipe and forgot how to lawyer. (And when Phoenix forgot how to lawyer he at least had textual amnesia.)

And the really maddening thing is that these are all problems that could have been fixed if an editor had looked at this and gone "Takumi-san, why do we need three different poisons in this case?" I have no real knowledge of how the dev on TGAA went other than what the devs have chosen to make public. But I know what writing for games is like, and I know Shu Takumi gets ... silly with his substance use when it's time to crunch. This case feels like it was either written under the influence and never edited- or drafted to just be about carbon monoxide poisoning, someone on the production team decided it needed to be more complicated, and the rewrite was never edited.

Because it would be so easy to fix this. You could even keep most of the elements in the canon case(s) -- it's not even like you need to add more assets or anything.

So here's how I'd fix it.

So 99.9999% of TGAA 1-4 /Adventure!Kokoro is fine. The Garridebs, Olive Green's near-death experience, the introduction of Natsume and the building- all just fine! It's fun! It's a lil silly! It's a good breather in between the fucking McGilded cases and the chain of logic works. The events in the chain are silly, yes, but the chain itself is logical. It leaves open a couple of very important hooks- the window tax! the "neighbours" fighting! Why Olive Green was there in the first place! - but it works as a standalone case and it ends satisfactorily enough. Our main concern at the end of the case is that Olive and Natsume are gonna be okay, and we get that resolution!

Untilllllll... we flash back to Memoirs, and after another ~!brilliant!~ deduction by Sholmes, we've put Natsume back in jail. The opening to Memoirs - basically everything until we get into court - is fine! If you cut down on the foreshadowing of the gas- leave one or two mentions maybe, but don't go nearly as hard on it- it works to set everything up.

Day one of the case focuses on proving that the tea couldn't have been poisoned (and therefore that Shamspeare is stealing his gas), and most of the elements of that still work too- there just needs to be a little more textual focus on the fact that step one of any court case is proving the prosecution's opening argument wrong. before we are allowed to prove that something else occurred, we have to prove that things couldn't have gone down the way Van Zieks says they did.

it's once we've done that that everything starts to fall apart in the canon case-- the canon case tries to set up poison on the gas pipes, but we can do better. First rule of mystery writing is don't hang a gun on the wall you don't shoot, right? We've hung so many miles of gas pipe in these walls, it's a crime not to use them.

In the investigation interlude between days 1 and 2, we should get two pieces of information before we go back to the Garridebs:

Natsume explains that he's almost died of carbon monoxide poisoning once, when the pilot light on his stove died. He thinks that this is the curse, of course, but it's obvious that something's wrong with the building.

Olive Green is getting discharged from the hospital, and plans to go home and end her life. We stop her from doing so, but she's too rattled to tell us why.

We then go back to the Garridebs, and pointedly ask Mr. Garrideb about the maintenance and upkeep of the gas; is it really in such good condition that he can use it to spy on people? He's said the pipes are leaky. He bitches, at length, about how he's had to replace most of the piping after a tenant died. We get the story of Duncan Ross (and get it repeated if we investigate Shamspeare's place and show Olive the photograph).

We investigate Shamspeare's place, get the stuff he stashed under the floor, discover that he's been getting really familiar with the wall under the gas pipe (and I would have them make a joke about the Romeo and Juliet showdown being, uh, lewd), and discover the letter Olive sent him. We also get the Selden case file from Gregson.

Day two in court is where things really start to change. In canon, it's a mess of proving that there's poison on the gas pipe- but there's poison in the gas pipes already. It's dumb. You've been listening to me yell about this for several thousand words now. So instead:

Day two is about proving that someone else could have entered the flat. Day three is about proving that something else could have entered the flat.

Day two, we get the results from Scotland Yard that there was no poison in the tea. When we examined Shamspeare's apartment, we found the letter from Olive Green; she's our next lead, and besides, the gang is a little worried about her all things considered. Unfortunately, the only way to check up on her is to accuse her of attempted murder. This is an Ace Attorney case, and we're obligated to be in court today. If we can't go to her, we'll bring her to us. Ryunosuke is pretty sure she didn't try to kill anyone- look at her! She's so wet! - but he is pretty sure she was in the apartment when she shouldn't have been, and if she could have gotten in there, who's to say someone else couldn't have?

So, in an attempt to find the real killer, he accuses Olive. In the cross-examination, it becomes clear that:m

Olive initially thought that her boyfriend was cheating on her with someone in the building- obviously not the elderly maid, she clearly had a thing for the landlord!, but that only left Shamspeare.

(wow, he's bisexual! I didn't know that gif goes here.)

Olive was furious with Shamspeare- especially since her boyfriend was found dead shortly after he moved in. She was convinced that Shamspeare killed him in a crime of passion, and wanted revenge.

Her plan was to use strychnine to poison some food in the apartment. Unfortunately, as we've established previously, there's no food in the apartment.

Furthermore, on her way in, she gets caught by Mrs. Garrideb-- who assumes she's there to see Mr. Garrideb, and who gets Incredibly Jealous. Olive gets turned away, but no matter- she waits til the shouting starts, and sneaks back in. It's easy enough to get into the crappy apartment with the broken locks, and easier still to find Shamspeare's not so secret hiding place.

She goes in and finds nothing to poison, and decides that, while she's here, she's going to try to find some evidence that this man killed her fiance. Or, at the very least, if she can't murder him, she can steal something he values.

She finds nothing linking Shamspeare to Duncan. Instead, she finds information linking Shamspeare to Selden, and she recognizes the name from the papers. She steals the evidence, and decides that Scotland Yard should prbably have this- even if it implicates her in a crime.

(I would probably make Selden a much more notorious criminal for this to work- maybe some serial murders on top of the burglaries, maybe stole something belonging to the Crown.)

On her way out, she turns to go down Briar Road... and is promptly hit on the back by the knife falling from the window above, and rushed to the hospital. No one searches her pockets beyond looking for her name, and she's out of commission for several days.

This is also where she puts together for us that she's had an absolutely rotten several months, she's so depressed that she decided to kill herself, but she has enough of a spine and a conscience to want to see justice for Duncan - one way or another! - before she met her end.

We prove all of this... but that doesn't answer the question of who poisoned Shamspeare. There's a very annoying moment where Van Zieks convinces the jury that Olive is perjuring herself and poisoned something anyway, even though we've proven there wasn't anything to poison- but we talk them around. Thoughtcrimes are not crimes, and while Olive's (probably) going to get tried for theft (haha spoilers), it's clear by the end of the day that this lead is going nowhere.

So if the poison wasn't in the tea and the poison wasn't brought in by someone else, it had to already have been in the apartment. Day three is dedicated to figuring out where it could have come from and what the killer's motive was. And there's one really obvious source...

It's the gas. Instead of bringing back Bruce fucking Fairplay, I'd make the foreman of the jury a doctor. Not a hack surgeon- a Broad Street doctor, comfortably middle-aged and rich and not prone to nonsense. He's well aware of what gas poisoning looks like, and by day three of watching us cross-examine Shamspeare and Natsume, he can't help but step in. Both of these men are clearly suffering from chronic carbon monoxide poisoning.

Van Zieks- to his deep and profound displeasure- can't disagree, and has a frustrated rant about wasting the court's time on an accident. That, of course, he blames us for. Ryunosuke goes, "Ah, but it was no accident", and we call Mr. Garrideb as a witness.

This is fairly short, but Mr. Garrideb just replaced the pipes. (He has reciepts! He bitches about it at length! But not too much length because we have a lot to get through today and Quinby Altamonte threatens him with her umbrella. She's not a maid so he's not interested.)

Speaking of Quinby Altamonte, she contributes information about the process of installing certified Altamonte pipes and meters, and specifically, about how you can blow into a pipe (and turn off all gas flames in the rest of the house) to check the gas flow.

The piece that looks most important right now is that we have Mr. Garrideb's record of payment and the Altamont records of certification- the pipes are less than three months old and have no leaks. .

The workman on the jury corroborates this, as he's worked on the house- and he points out that you have to be exceptionally careful in tenements like this, because the tenants use their gas stoves for heat. You have to leave it on all night, so you don't freeze to death in the cold London winter, and you wouldn't want to risk poisoning someone by blowing out the pilot light on their stove.

We now have all the pieces. Or, almost all. We can prove now that the killer could have blown into the pipes to turn off all the flame in the building. This wouldn't affect the Garridebs upstairs, as they use a fireplace for heat and go to bed early, turning off all their lights... but Natsume stays up all night reading, and has complained that the pilot light on his stove has turned itself off before.

If Shamspeare wanted to kill Natsume, he could have blown out the lights- and gotten a mouthful of gas if he wasn't careful doing it. After all, he isn't a trained technician- he's an out of work actor.

"My learned Japanese friend- SURELY you aren't suggesting that this - ugh- upstanding young actor is the murderer and not the victim."

Yes, Mr. Van Zieks. That's exactly what we're suggesting.

The prosecution pitches a hissy fit, drinks heavily, and insists that we need a motive. We've got most of it, but we need one final piece- it's contained in the evidence against Olive Green, which we had to coax dear Gregsy into giving us before we got to court today.

The law of conservation of characters suggests that if you bring up a master criminal who "died" three months ago, and bring up an out of work actor who appeared from the void ... three months ago... they're the same fucking person. I thought that this was where the case was going, and I thought the writers were so clever for setting this up- obviously the prancing git with exaggerated mannerisms was hiding his true identity! But they made him his cellmate and that's ... workable, I guess, but not as fun.

If I was writing this, Shamspeare is Selden, putting an antic disposition on to cover his tracks while he tries to get his treasure back. He thought it would be easy- move back into his old apartment, no one wants to live there anyway, and it wouldn't be suspicious to have someone come out of nowhere and leave much the same way in a few months. No one lives in the Garridebs' building for long. But noooo, someone had to move into his apartment and someone had no intention of leaving until he was happily married in a few years.

So on top of whatever other crimes Selden- I mean Shamspeare- committed, he had to get the other lodger out of the way. And he figured out how to do it without being detected- using the gas pipe to blow out the pilot light on the stove upstairs. He killed Olive's boyfriend, and planned to swap apartments- but he wasn't allowed to, due to the pipe replacement. In the meantime, Natsume signed a lease, and as soon as work was completed, he moved in.

Shamspeare had to get rid of him, and figured the same trick would work twice. No one noticed the first time. The pipe replacement was a kink in the plans, but you can always blame a tired workman, a faulty installation, or a careless foreigner not understanding how a gas stove works. He's been trying for months, now, but he has to leave the apartment sometimes-- and Natsume, not sleeping at night and getting increasingly paranoid, keeps turning off the gas before he goes to bed.

The asshole just doesn't have the decency to die!

So Natsume has been slowly getting poisoned for weeks, but it's not to the point where it's even remotely lethal- it's just enough to make him incredibly twitchy, paranoid, and depressed. Great! Even better when he gets accused of murdering Olive- and gets taken out of the apartment and thrown in jail for several nights. Shamspeare at first assumes that this is his cue- he's on trial for murder at the Old Bailey against the Reaper! He's not coming back!

But Natsume doesn't have the fucking decency to die! He's acquitted thanks to us-- and Shamspeare decides he's had enough. One way or another, Natsume is going to die the night he comes home.

And then Natsume has the gall to try to be friendly.

Without the treasure that's stashed in Natsume's room, Shamspeare has no money. His plan to invite Natsume over for a meal (to poison him) falls through before it can begin because he can't buy food. Then Natsume brings his own tea- and of course would notice if it tasted wrong; he can't even put soap in it. (If I were writing this, "eating soap" would be a proper running gag, and this would be the ultimate payoff.)

Okay, time for plan B. Exhaust Natsume, make him go home and go to bed, and try the gas thing again. One very interesting literary-themed seduction-slash-argument later, this seems like it's succeeding. Until, when Shamspeare (in his own exhaustion) screws up the routine he's been doing for months and accidentally breathes in a mouthful of gas.

But Shamspeare gets an idea. Natsume's already been accused of murder once. The guy looks shifty as hell. (Mostly because of the gas poisoning, but that's neither here nor there.) If he gets acquitted of a murder and then a day later gets accused of another murder, surely the Reaper will get him this time, right? The Reaper's probably already mad that one of his victims has gone free-- he'll relish the chance to put an end to this properly.

(Van Zieks, in the background, is deeply offended at the idea of being used as a murder weapon.)

So Shamspeare fakes his own murder. He just barely manages to stage the crime scene before he passes out, and figures that either he'll wake up in a few hours (this has happened before while he was figuring this method out), or they'll both fucking die, one way or another.

But thanks to us- and Olive Green's little theft- not only does he get exposed as a murderer, his identity as Selden is also uncovered. He's going to go to trial very shortly, for 1) attempted murder of Soseki Natsume, 2) murder of Duncan Ross, 3) So Much Gas Fraud, 4) perjury, because we feel like it.

Soseki Natsume is NOT GUILTY!

(he's also fed up with England, the English judicial system, English racism, and gas heating. He's going back to Japan, perhaps also to the seaside, for his health.)

Gregson tells us that they're granting Olive clemency because she provided evidence to the Crown. She gets to go free. We have one last conversation with her where we give her the letter we found at Garrideb's place- which got entered into the Court Record. It's a love letter from Duncan. We don't ever actually use it in court- but we use it now. She gets her closure that Duncan wasn't cheating on her - and she's satisfied with Von Zieks taking over her quest for revenge.

She's not sure she has the heart to go back to art school- so many of her happy memories with Duncan are there- but she says she wants to do her best. Susato suggests that with her passion for justice, she'd make an excellent judicial assistant. Perhaps even an attorney in her own right? Are women allowed to do that in England? Well, Olive Green has enough guts and heart to do it even if she isn't technically allowed- it's not like she was allowed to burgle Shamspeare's apartment either.

The case ends with another art student becoming a law student thanks to a doomed lost love! Happy endings all around. Tune in in two to five business years for the spinoff game, Olive Green: Ace Attorney. (She defends a lot of people who are technically guilty of a crime, but not THAT crime, or not under THOSE circumstances, or The Fucker Had It Coming, You See.)

So yeah, that's how I'd rework the case. @raymondshields - eat well.

#tgaa #tgaa2 #tgaac #tgaa2 spoilers #memoirs of a clouded kokoro #well i guess this is a liveblog: tgaa

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melloggd · 10 months

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Review: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies

Capcom • Capcom • 2013 • Nintendo 3DS Read it on Backloggd: (x)

As fans of the series are likely well aware, this fifth game marked the point when a new team took over Shu Takumi's darling mainline series of murder-mystery games. Takumi was preoccupied with Ghost Trick, the Professor Layton crossover game, and later Great Ace Attorney, and the team he previously led for the series' fourth game had kind of just dissolved after finishing up. So, the team behind the spinoff Ace Attorney Investigations duology ended up taking the reigns of the main series. What this boils down to is, that this marked the first time that two different teams were making Ace Attorney games in parallel with one another: The Investigations team now making this game, led by Takeshi Yamazaki, and Takumi's team releasing The Great Ace Attorney just two years later.

The reason for leading with this context, is because I find the contrast between these games to be inherently fascinating. That despite being fundamentally "the same kind of game" they had such different directions as to lead to two wholly different experiences for wholly different players.

Looking at Takumi's games and history in interviews, its clear to me that he values "The Puzzle" above all else (he IS a magician in training, fun fact!). The feeling of working things out in your head, drawing conclusions wholly on your own and submitting your answer to see the game react in amazement at your ability. Ghost Trick and the existence of Herlock Sholmes in general make this the most apparent, but in my eyes "The Puzzle" is only a piece of what makes Ace Attorney what it is, and it is only thanks to Takumi's direction that it has become a focus in his games.

All this build-up, is just to say this: Yes, Dual Destinies easily has the least interesting gameplay in the series. Yes, it will often make it plainly obvious what the solution to a puzzle is, moments before its time to submit the answer. BUT: I believe this is because Yamazaki's priorities were elsewhere in production. In my eyes, Dual Destinies focuses far more on its own narrative, mysteries and character drama than it does puzzle-solving, detective sleuthing and experimenting with game mechanics. This in my eyes is neither "better" nor "worse": Its just the result of a CHANGE in direction. But it IS a change that happens to be to my preference.

For instance: There's no Soseki Natsume-type case here that, as Takumi loves to do, exists SOLELY to be a fun puzzle to unravel. Instead every case feels as if it has more of a point to it narratively, having them all fit together well thematically. Characters return, dynamics are explored, themes reinforced in interesting ways and generally I rarely got the sense that--story-wise-- my time was being wasted with any of the cases I was playing. This was an issue I felt plagued AA3, despite its attempt to be dramatic and conclusive. Its mainly because of this new direction that I feel Case 2 in this game is the worst one: It seems intentionally set up like a "puzzle-box" mystery typical of the most devious puzzles in AA1-3, yet as I've explained that kind of focus is not one Dual Destinies typically wants to have.

Because of the baggage that both the series' prior game and Capcom high-ups gave the team, Dual Destinies' story was almost destined to be one that attempted a lot of things, yet I don't think I could have predicted that it'd pull those things and more off...surprisingly well. I know the whole "Dark Age of the law" setting has been derided by a lot of fans, but what I found especially commendable with this direction was that they used it as a tool to go in and clean up a lot of things that...Apollo Justice just kind of handwaved away. Like...if Phoenix was disbarred and shunned away from the law world for seven years, how was he able to set up all that he does to take down Kristoph in the end of Apollo Justice, including the debut of the wholly untested Jury system? Why was Phoenix so casually doing extremely shady things both in the development of this system and while in court in Case 1? And, of course: Why was a supposedly story about Apollo becoming the new face of Justice instead written to secretly be about Phoenix being this mastermind?

By retroactively framing Apollo Justice as ALSO taking place during this Dark Age, suddenly things begin to click: Apollo defending nothing but criminals in that game becomes more than a neat coincidence, and Case 3 in that game suddenly becomes more about showing that corruption. The grimy world of Apollo Justice aside, I find all the cases in Dual Destinies in some subtle way show how the perception of the law has changed (which is a big part as to why Case 3 is my favorite in the game). The world itself hasn't changed: People's perception of it has. Culprits commit crimes not because they're in a position of power to where they're able to get away with it (AA1) or because they seek revenge (AA2), but simply because they now feel its the easiest way to solve their situation: because the current law system will not catch or punish them. Kristoph in AA4 is an excellent, shining example of this, going to lunatic lengths to commit a crime because he knows that a law world run the way it is in this age will never catch him.

Dual Destinies shows a world where people see little benefit in being truthful, because their "champions of truth" in the most recent times were also the ones who used fake evidence in a murder trial, who defended nothing but criminals for a whole game's time, who deprioritized their duty as a lawyer over playing in a rock band - and one of them was even convicted of murder themselves.

That's a really cool yet understated part of Dual Destinies: Almost every character, new or old, are hiding away the truth or their true selves, not because they have done anything, but because they are afraid of what will happen once that truth is revealed. They're scared of what honesty will do to themselves, their relationships, and their careers, and instead keep it to themselves. Because to them, what happened to Phoenix, their guiding light in an unjust world, seven years ago, was the truth about him coming out, and as soon as it did his career and public perception of the law plummeted. This feeds into Blackquill's backstory as well and how he willingly turned himself in as a murderer, rather than having him be exposed: The moment these guardians of the law world come clean about their honest nature, the world came crumbling down, thus a world of secrecy and distrust was seen as the only way to live.

In terms of playable characters, I feel like the 3DS Home Menu diorama best showcases the game's direction: With Phoenix's story now told (and told again) with AA1-4, and Apollo having been introduced, its his and Athena's story now being told with Phoenix as mentor and motivation. Apollo and Athena are shown fighting in court, with Phoenix at home in the office. This is even reflected in the ending cutscene of the game, with Apollo and Athena being the ones celebrating as Phoenix just watches and smiles. The Dual Destinies the title is referring to is the two young lawyers overcoming their inner doubts and no longer hiding from the truth, no matter how scary it may sound, thanks to the help of their mentor, channeling Mia's positive mentorship.

I've heard people (mainly Athena fans) say the game feels crowded because of the trio-setup, but I find everyone gets a very comfortable slot in to tell the cohesive story. Phoenix is a passive figure as the plot delves into Athena's life alongside Apollo's inner turmoil. Given that AA4 didnt really...establish much of any goal for Apollo beyond meaningless family relations, this game works as a springboard for him, with a character moment so perfectly executed and befitting of him that he shot to the top of character popularity polls after launch. Following AA4 up with another game just starring Phoenix and Apollo and..."exploring" those family relations could've been a safe and easy direction to go in, yet Yamazaki's team committed to an ambitious idea of two kinds of character growth: DUAL DESTINIES, so to speak.

This is why I don’t mind Apollo’s “new backstory” in this game being so brief and, in a sense, discardable. Because the point of the backstory is to drive his actions and growth as a character: Not to give him a goal to pursue. You aren't meant to sympathize with him on a personal, "I-knew-how-good-of-a-guy-your-friend-was" level, because you're just observing the mental effects its having on Apollo, and trying to help him from the perspective of two people who really don't know the pain he's going through. Its what starts his internal turmoil and it does that well.

And putting a bow atop of it all is presentation that feels almost a cut above Ace Attorneys typical stellar pedigree: The composer of AA3 paired with the sound director of AA4 leads to whats pretty easily my favorite sound in the series, narrowly beating Great Ace Attorney purely by the element of variety. One of my biggest issues with AA4 was just how...dislikable a lot of the interacting cast was (again, is retroactively made more interesting with the Dark Age framing), and Dual Destinies remedies this with some absolute top-of-the-line new favorites (Simon + Case 3 my beloved) All the characters animate beautifully, and I admire the restrictions the team placed on themselves regardless: Characters like Filch and Fulbright will still snap to animations to retain the snappy timing of the original games, something I felt The Great Ace Attorney was comparatively lacking in due to reliance of "natural" motion-capture.

But then we come back to that point, that interesting contrast in direction: The Great Ace Attorney’s character models have far more detail and a whole new sense of fluidity, giving it more of a sophisticated feel, wheras Dual Destinies’ more simple designs and harsh cuts lend themselves to a different vibe altogether. The game’s anime cutscenes are a great example of this. The simpler designs lend themselves nicely to the occasional shift, and it does wonders to help drive the story. TGAA gets half as much cutscene runtime and accomplishes precious little with it, mostly just feeling jarring and out of place; Again, different direction.

So let's summarize: A fantastic story that retroactively makes the Ace Attorney game I have the most issues with click better and established three Top-5 favorite characters, paired with the best soundtrack in the series and a really nice visual direction for the mainline AA series. And crucially, while as I explained before the game fumbles in puzzle design, it NEVER shows its hand too early. This is my distinction between “the puzzle” mentioned earlier and "the mystery”, and the mystery is always excellently paced out across each case whilst driving a good story to boot. The points at which the game nudges you toward what to pick aren’t several steps before said event occurs, but rather often right after a major new unveiling has happened within the story. THIS is why the handholdy design doesn’t bother me.

Neither Takumi or Yamazaki had an easy task on their hands. Takumi had to introduce and build a whole new world, knowing full well it and its new characters, story and games would likely always live in the shadow of what would occur in the mainline series. Yamazaki, on the other hand, had to tie together the tangled web that Apollo Justice established, and carry the torch of the mainline series forward with a wholly new team with a distinct new flavor for the series, whilst also making an impactful game in its own right for both new fans and old. The results of both efforts are ones that, in a way falter where the other succeeds. Dual Destinies just so happened to land on the side of the pond that I happen to vibe just a bit more with, with all due respect paid to Takumi’s equally impressive effort.

I feel its best summarized with this: TGAA’s new mechanics like the Jury and Herlock Deductions lead to deviously clever puzzles and fun character interaction. AA5’s Percieve/Mood Matrix are very lacking in substance, yet are both used to pull some of the series’ best storybeats with incredibly satisfying ludonarrative harmony. And just the fact that Dual Destinies even HAS those abilities, on top of it all, to me speaks volumes on how passionate the team was to honor and respect the old, push forward with the new, and give it their all.

[Playtime: 35 hours] [Key Word: Admirable]

#melloggd : reviews #game reviews #game review #video game review #video games #gaming #game writing #phoenix wright #pwaa #aa5 #ace attorney trilogy #dual destinies #ace attorney 5 #apollo justice #apollo justice trilogy #aa4 #aa6 #spirit of justice

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