Jump to content

The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles Discussion


Lightchao42
 Share

Recommended Posts

After six/four years, The Great Ace Attorney games have finally been released outside Japan! You can talk about them here.

Personally I never expected these games to be leave Japan, but fortunately I never spoiled myself on the majority of their plot twists. I'd recommend putting significant information on the cases in spoiler tags for people who want to go in blind.

I myself have finished the first two cases, so here are my thoughts on the two of them.

Case 1:

Spoiler

I like how the case balances Ryunosuke standing on his own and Kazuma helping him, with Ryunosuke becoming more confident as the case goes on. Kazuma carries the trial more in the beginning but still feels present and helpful as it goes on, so he and Ryunosuke feel like a proper team. Kazuma feeling lost and defeated at some points also helps to establish Ryunosuke as a skilled lawyer-to-be by being the one to solve the problem they're in.

Auchi is just as smug and pathetic as you'd expect from a Payne, but this Payne also a Japanese traditionalist. He fawns over Brett just like his descendant Winston did with Dahlia, though in this case it's because she's British.

I've heard people say this trial is too long and I agree to some extent, since it could've ended after it was revealed how Wilson was poisoned. But on the other hand I enjoyed how the end of the case tied into the missing coin from the beginning, and it gives Kazuma more screen time. Brett is a good villain and she basically gets away with murdering Wilson, but we don't get her motive here so she'll probably be back later.

Case 2:

Spoiler

Before playing the case I knew it would take place on a ship, which made me wonder how the trial would be handled. As it turns out there is no trial, and it's the first non-Investigations case with that distinction. I think it was an interesting choice and I prefer it to somehow forcing in a trial segment just because. It seems van Zieks will have to wait for the next case to be introduced.

Oh no, Kazuma got Mia'd! And there isn't even a spirit medium around to bring him back. The previous case emphasized how he has a secret mission, so we'll probably find out about it eventually even if Kazuma himself is gone.

Susato is properly introduced here, and in a twist she's mildly antagonistic toward Ryunosuke at the beginning. She's overall more collected than Maya and Trucy but still has some less serious qualities, like her being a fan of Herlock.

Hosonaga is back, hooray! I was hoping he would be a recurring character after the previous case.

We are also introduced to the man, the myth, the legend himself, Herlock ShoImes. I wasn't too big on the idea of him before the localization was announced, but I've warmed up to him now; it's probably because I like him more as a character inspired by Sherlock Holmes rather than him being Sherlock Holmes. I appreciate that he's eccentric but not dumb, and I like the running gag of him hanging around in weird places just offscreen. Ryunosuke thinking "won't someone please help me?" and Sholmes just hanging around in a corner was great.

Nikolina is one of the more interesting culprits in the series. She's by far the youngest culprit in the series (the next youngest if I recall being Dahlia in 3-4), essentially a child trying to escape a bad situation, and she never acts smug or malicious toward the heroes in a "Mwahaha, you'll never prove that I did it!" way. It also denies Ryunosuke and Susato the satisfaction of catching Kazuma's killer, since it was just a big mess of accidents. Strogenov looking out for her is sweet, even if it involves framing Ryunosuke for Kazuma's death.

Midway through the case I suspected that putting the snake in the intro might be a red herring in regard to Nikolina's pet, and sure enough she has a cat and the snake belongs to Strogenov. I learned later that this case is inspired by the Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Speckled Band, where the "speckled band" actually was a venomous snake, and in hindsight this case is a fun tribute to that story.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 59
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

I was finally getting around to playing the Investigations 2 fan translation before hitting up these games (maybe some day there'll be  a remaster of those two games that can bring Investigations 2 to the west). Now I plan on starting the Great Ace Attorney tonight. So I really can't comment yet. Hope they match the typical standard I expect from the series. Unlike Investigations 2 I've never really heard anyone rave about them despite them having been out for so long (in fact, I don't think I was even aware there was a second game until the release of this remaster).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Spoiler
On 8/2/2021 at 2:06 AM, Lightchao42 said:

he's eccentric but not dumb,

If you actually read Sherlock Holmes, you'll find that that Watson never has to correct any of his deductions, unlike this fruitcake of a fraud.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm actually still playing Spirit of Justice (yes, I know, I'm late), so I've not picked up The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles yet. Definitely planning to buy it and play it, though - I'm grateful it finally got released internationally. Probably next year, we'll see!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

They're great games (sorry). I played the first one and I'm halfway through the second one (liked it so far, really liked some parts of case 2 also).

First game had overall good, concise cases (I absolutely loved case 3, meanwhile case 4 takes the "obligatory annoying filler with annoying characters" case trophy that's a standard for every AA) that didn't drag too long or introduce a lot of characters for you to remember, but it doesn't feel like it closes in a story arc and you need the second game for that. The new prosecutor Estinien is decent but he feels nowhere as personal or threatening as the others, I think. Sholmes feels like an unique take and I love every interaction with him. Ryu isn't that much different from Phoenix, but Susato stands out instead of feeling like a not!Maya.

Unfortunately I did read DGS2 spoilers but they were just related to a single event, at least.

also I asked someone for this spoiler free gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thoughts on case one so far...

The part where you have to give the name of the victim...you'd think the plaintiff would make fun of you for needing to look at the court record, but instead he just says "well at least you can remember XYZ" when you had to have a conversation and presumably open up a file in front of everyone.

My favorite moment is when the old guy is all "oh, we both find ourselves in equally testing predicaments," comparing Ryonosuke's potential guilty verdict to his finding a valued coin.

And of course there's another section of the game with evidence examination where I had trouble...I kept looking at the little folded corner of the medical ID card thinking it would do something if I examined it, and I ultimately had to go to a guide before realizing I could double click it to interact with it instead of needing the examination cursor to light up. Reminded me a little of the big ceramic piece in case 5 from phoenix wright 1.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've just finished the second case.

Spoiler

-Firstly I wonder if the use of English in the first case might have influenced the decision to not localize this game initially. Someone said "this game mixes Japanese text and English, screw figuring a way to localize that!" Seems silly, but I'm still not sure why it wasn't localized to begin with. The method of using overly flowery English script to represent English was a good choice. And in the same vein I like the use of Cyrillic in the second case. Especially the moment where they ask a character how to pronounce a word in Russian, and they just repeat the word in Cyrillic, with the characters mentally facepalming themselves over how pointless a question that was. It's hilarious both because asking someone how to pronounce a foreign language can be a trying thing, but also because the game lacks voice acting just bluntly depicting the word in a manner that most people have absolutely no clue how to even begin pronounce conveys the situation very well and adds a lot of humor that would be lost if the scene was voice acted.

-First impression of the second case "Huh they really did just pull a Mia for the second time. I guess they're going for a new audience." Only what followed seemed much worse than 1-2. Helock Sholmes is an outrageously fun character and I'm already liking him far more than I expected to, but his antics feel entirely out of place here. 1-2 wasn't exactly a dark case as Ace Attorney never really goes dark despite it's subject matter, but it wasn't overly humors as far as cases go. Mia's death had weight and the desperation Phoenix felt throughout the case was palpable. The most memorable funny moment in the case was Phoenix getting punched in the face. This case felt like it was 30% humor and only 3% actually acknowledging that a close friend of the protagonist died.

-This feels even worse when we get to the method of "murder". They were just really committed to that death by kitten narrative (I bet that sounds super weird to anyone ignoring the spoiler who hasn't played the game). Like, sure, it's possible, and they at least acknowledge it's meaningless and all, but just because something like that could happen in real life doesn't mean it makes for a good story. A 40kg teenaged girl assaulted a grown ass man wielding a sword and some how managed to actually kill him by getting supremely lucky, that's what happened and its pretty stupid. The whole case seemed disrespectful to Kazuma who managed to make himself pretty endearing in the first case. It makes me question what the point of his character was at all. Like why not just make Ryunosuke be the lawyer from the start who goes to London on his own merits and just remove this case? How is this going to play into the overall arc of the game? The only thing I can think is if the red herring of a Russian Revolutionary shows up later, but that was such a minor point here it doesn't seem like the existence of this case is justified. It feels like it could easily be removed and all you'd need to do is just rewrite part 1 (because even as it is the whole stowaway aspect is painfully contrived). At least when Mia dies it played into the overall story with Edegworth and Maya and Mia even came back as a ghost, which I doubt they're going to pull  here. Though maybe I'm wrong and all the subtle elements of this case will be super important. It introduced Sholmes at least (even if I found him tonely incompatible with the narrative here) and Kazuma has some nebulous purpose in Britain that will surely come up later. But overall Kazuma's borderline puerile death has left his character feeling rather pointless.

-One a more positive note, a sympathetic killer, that's something that hasn't really been done before in the series. Usually the game holds absolutely no mercy for its killers. The closest we got was Godot, though that was more tragic than sympathetic. I guess the killer in the first Steel Samurai case was kinda sorta sympathetic in that it was self defense, but she was also sort of a yakuza who I think the victim had legitimate grievances with. Aside from that there's the whale guy in the DLC case of Dual Destinies, but that's kind of discounted on the fact that it wasn't really murder in the slightest. Here it is sort of an accident too, but the culprit still pretty clearly is guilty of ending someone else's life even if it can be argued as a crime of passion. She is a killer, and she's also sympathetic, that's not something I think the game has stuck to its guns on.

-It doesn't feel like this game was released before Spirit of Justice, because it just uses the 3D element so much better than that game (side note, Spirit of Justice is fantastic, I'm not dissing it at all). Maybe it's because they felt they had more freedom in an Ace Attorney game that wasn't tied to Phoenix, but this feels like the first Ace Attorney game to actually justify the shift to 3D. I long thought the 2D sprites just looked better for Ace Attorney's style, and to some small extent I still feel that too, but this game is actually using the environment as a 3D. 3D has been justified as a gameplay element and not just a stylistic update when the old style worked perfectly fine.

-So an investigation without a court segment, that's something the series hasn't done before...well unless you count pretty much the entirety of Investigations...the second game of which was the most recent game I played in this series. So eh...yeah I feel the novelty on that one might have been spoiled a bit for me specifically (dang it why didn't they release Investigations 2 like ten years ago when it was meant to be played). Still I'm happy they did it. We've had the occasional court case without an investigation, so having the inverse and everything getting wrapped up without going to court is kind of cool too. Just so long as they don't make too big a habit of it. I feel the lack of court segments made the Edegworth games lack a little bit of the gravitas these games require. Epic court battles are the heart and soul of these games after all.

-How long does it take to steam from Japan to Britain? I can't remember the exact numbers now, but I remember being surprised they were only in Shanghai at the time of this story given what they say about how much time had passed and remained. Considering there were no actual Chinese characters or elements in the case (it's literally just name dropping two locations), I actually think having them be just off shore of the British Raj would have been more thematically appropriate for the game and would make sense timeline wise for the trip to still be far from over, but for enough time to have past for them to be settled in. Maybe I'm just ignorant about 19th century steam ship speeds, but Shanghai isn't all that far away from Japan.

-I'm just going to say it again, Sholmes is a treasure and I love him.

 

On 8/2/2021 at 3:06 AM, Lightchao42 said:

After six/four years, The Great Ace Attorney games have finally been released outside Japan! You can talk about them here.

Personally I never expected these games to be leave Japan, but fortunately I never spoiled myself on the majority of their plot twists. I'd recommend putting significant information on the cases in spoiler tags for people who want to go in blind.

I myself have finished the first two cases, so here are my thoughts on the two of them.

Case 1:

  Hide contents

I like how the case balances Ryunosuke standing on his own and Kazuma helping him, with Ryunosuke becoming more confident as the case goes on. Kazuma carries the trial more in the beginning but still feels present and helpful as it goes on, so he and Ryunosuke feel like a proper team. Kazuma feeling lost and defeated at some points also helps to establish Ryunosuke as a skilled lawyer-to-be by being the one to solve the problem they're in.

Auchi is just as smug and pathetic as you'd expect from a Payne, but this Payne also a Japanese traditionalist. He fawns over Brett just like his descendant Winston did with Dahlia, though in this case it's because she's British.

I've heard people say this trial is too long and I agree to some extent, since it could've ended after it was revealed how Wilson was poisoned. But on the other hand I enjoyed how the end of the case tied into the missing coin from the beginning, and it gives Kazuma more screen time. Brett is a good villain and she basically gets away with murdering Wilson, but we don't get her motive here so she'll probably be back later.

Yeah I kind of felt Case 1 was a bit too long. It feels like they came up with multiple (proverbial) smoking guns for the case but then couldn't decide which one to use, so they just used all of them. The first case in the game is definitely not the case in which the character should feel fatigued playing. I'm not sure which of the elements at play here should have been removed, but I think some of it should have been cut down.

Quote

Case 2:

  Reveal hidden contents

Before playing the case I knew it would take place on a ship, which made me wonder how the trial would be handled. As it turns out there is no trial, and it's the first non-Investigations case with that distinction. I think it was an interesting choice and I prefer it to somehow forcing in a trial segment just because. It seems van Zieks will have to wait for the next case to be introduced.

Oh no, Kazuma got Mia'd! And there isn't even a spirit medium around to bring him back. The previous case emphasized how he has a secret mission, so we'll probably find out about it eventually even if Kazuma himself is gone.

Susato is properly introduced here, and in a twist she's mildly antagonistic toward Ryunosuke at the beginning. She's overall more collected than Maya and Trucy but still has some less serious qualities, like her being a fan of Herlock.

Hosonaga is back, hooray! I was hoping he would be a recurring character after the previous case.

We are also introduced to the man, the myth, the legend himself, Herlock ShoImes. I wasn't too big on the idea of him before the localization was announced, but I've warmed up to him now; it's probably because I like him more as a character inspired by Sherlock Holmes rather than him being Sherlock Holmes. I appreciate that he's eccentric but not dumb, and I like the running gag of him hanging around in weird places just offscreen. Ryunosuke thinking "won't someone please help me?" and Sholmes just hanging around in a corner was great.

Nikolina is one of the more interesting culprits in the series. She's by far the youngest culprit in the series (the next youngest if I recall being Dahlia in 3-4), essentially a child trying to escape a bad situation, and she never acts smug or malicious toward the heroes in a "Mwahaha, you'll never prove that I did it!" way. It also denies Ryunosuke and Susato the satisfaction of catching Kazuma's killer, since it was just a big mess of accidents. Strogenov looking out for her is sweet, even if it involves framing Ryunosuke for Kazuma's death.

Midway through the case I suspected that putting the snake in the intro might be a red herring in regard to Nikolina's pet, and sure enough she has a cat and the snake belongs to Strogenov. I learned later that this case is inspired by the Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Speckled Band, where the "speckled band" actually was a venomous snake, and in hindsight this case is a fun tribute to that story.

 

I've actually read all of the (canon) Sherlock Holmes stories, so I was familiar with the inspiration of the case. But considering they open with some weird sort of cutscene from the Sherlock Holmes book, I kind of expected it to be a subversion.

On 8/3/2021 at 3:50 AM, NinjaMonkey said:
  Reveal hidden contents

If you actually read Sherlock Holmes, you'll find that that Watson never has to correct any of his deductions, unlike this fruitcake of a fraud.

 

This is Holmes without the protection of being a Mary Sue. Not every deduction is a winning stroke, but he is still fairly keyed in and plays a big role in discovering the truth.

Edited by Jotari
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There wouldn't be much of a game if Sholmes was every bit his book counterpart. He's still intelligent, just not smart enough to connect the dots and he suffers a lot from getting distracted by anything that catches his attention (that being almost everything). He's still useful and so are his clues, even though you have to interpret a lot of what's going on because he only perceives what's on face value and correct him.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This game is actually my 2021's discovery, I'm far from being dissapointed. This game has a rly long game duration, the scenarist has a huge imagination to create the cases, in one word, this game is awesome.

Edited by avensis
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, avensis said:

This game is actually my 2021's discovery, I'm far from being dissapointed, this game has a rly long game duration, the scenarist has a huge imagination to create the cases, in one word, this game is awesome.

If by that you mean you haven't played the other Ace Attorney games, then I'd highly recommend them. They range in quality comparison to each other, but overall the standard is very high.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm partially through trial of case five, which I suppose is a good enough time to talk about cases 3 and 4. One thing I'll say is that this game is much more willing to play with the Ace Attorney formula than the main games are. It also feels like a spiritual successor to Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright, but without the Layton.

The Adventure of the Runaway Room:

Spoiler

This case is also trial only; while there's an investigation where you meet Stronghart, you don't get to learn anything about the crime until the trial. That's likely because this case serves as the introduction to the jury system and how it affects the gameplay. We get to investigate the crime scene during the trial which is a clever way to get around the lack of an investigation. Susato demonstrates her chops as a judicial assistant immediately, and she occasionally pushes the trial forward when Ryunosuke is unable to.

Here we meet our prosecutor, Barok van Zieks, another undefeated prosecutor who came out of a five year retirement and is also a vampire. Despite being the CEO of Racism he's pretty fair as a prosecutor, with no updated autopsy reports or such. And, of course, every unsavory thing he says about McGilded is correct.

I like the jury and how it interacts with the case. The jurors aren't particularly deep, but they have fun interactions with each other and the witnesses. The Summation Examinations are a fun new mechanic, the one in this case is mostly just "point out inconsistencies and the two jurors change their vote" but summation examinations get more interesting as the game progresses. I hope the knife guy shows up in the next game.

As the trial progressed I felt that McGilded was unusually good at defending himself in court, relative to most defendants. He advances the case almost as much as Ryunosuke does. He even has his own sidekick to vouch for his innocence. I didn't suspect Gina because I didn't think the game would have a blonde teenage girl as the culprit two cases in a row. When it seemed like Fairplay and Furst were responsible, I was convinced. "Wow, a case with two culprits!" I thought. Of course, that didn't happen.

It turns out there are many shady things happening in the background of the trial, with evidence appearing in the omnibus and things that should be in the omnibus not being present. I assumed I just missed the floor bloodstain the first time, and I only checked the storage after it was changed so I wondered what van Zieks was talking about when he judged Ryunosuke for saying it was empty. This being AA, I took it for granted that McGilded was innocent until van Zieks claimed that the crime scene was tampered with. Juror No. 3 is right, we should never trust the rich!

Ryunosuke gets his Farewell, My Turnabout only three cases in, though it's more nuanced in this case because you don't know if McGilded actually committed the murder or not. You get the option to either say that McGilded is innocent or say that his innocence can't be proven yet, but it makes no difference; McGilded gets a Not Guilty verdict and leaves without punishment... or does he? Regardless, this is an unusual case where you don't definitively find out what happened during the crime or catch the culprit. Who had the blood on their hands? Was McGilded sitting in front of Mason or next to him? Was Gina at the crime scene at all, or did McGilded rope her into helping him afterwards?

The Adventure of the Clouded Kokoro:

Spoiler

This is the first traditional case with a trial and an investigation. We learn that McGilded died in the fire at the end of the previous case, though we don't know who killed him and why yet. The previous case still haunts Ryunosuke and shakes his resolve, and it takes until the end of the investigation for him to get it back. The defendant being Japanese probably helped, and said defendant is a real person who studied in England from 1901 to 1903. He wasn't ever accused of murder however.

The main cast is rounded out by Detective Gregson and Iris. A pink haired ten-year-old with a doctorate in medicine who is also an author and inventor seems a bit too outlandish even by AA standards, but Iris doesn't do much in this case beyond her introduction so I'll see if later cases give a better impression. Gregson seems to be the "standard" AA detective relative to Sholmes, and likewise he mostly does regular detective things in this case, though his feelings on being featured in Sholmes's stories are pretty entertaining.

Miraculously, we have a case that isn't a murder. The victim never shows up however, so it doesn't really make a difference unless Green shows up in the next game. The assault in this case was an accident as with Nikolina and Kazuma, so the lack of death was probably to make things less harsh for the culprit. The knife fell in hard enough to put Green in a coma even after the tip was removed, so just how strong is Joan...?

We spend a whole Dance of Deduction solving a seemingly unrelated mystery, but of course the mystery is related to the case. John Garrideb is a pretty cool guy with a wife who tried to murder him for having a love letter that didn't even have his name on it. He still put out a fire despite that, so good for him. We also have another married couple as witnesses, and Roly tampered with the crime scene just so he could have a day off for heck's sake. Love truly has many forms...

We learn that van Zieks isn't actually undefeated in court, but unfortunate accidents tend to befall the defendants who get a not guilty verdict. We also see in this case that van Zieks's feelings toward the Japanese don't get in the way of his pursuit of the truth, so he isn't a "must get a guilty verdict at all costs" prosecutor like Edgeworth and Franziska initially were.

Fairplay returns from the last case, but the other the jurors are new aside from him and Joan. Two of the other jurors were in the area when the crime occurred, but those are red herrings that have no bearing on the case. I've heard it said that the first summation examination is meaningless because van Zieks disproves your argument immediately but calls in the Beates either way, so couldn't he just do that to begin with? Oh well, gameplay is gameplay.

Lastly, there's this Shakespeare guy who shows up at the end of the investigation who I was sure was the culprit... except he wasn't. It turns out he's just sequel bait for the next game, which is pretty weird.

 

On 8/18/2021 at 4:43 PM, Jotari said:

-Firstly I wonder if the use of English in the first case might have influenced the decision to not localize this game initially. Someone said "this game mixes Japanese text and English, screw figuring a way to localize that!" Seems silly, but I'm still not sure why it wasn't localized to begin with.

I'm guessing the Japan/England setting was difficult to localize (as looking up the localization's history shows) and Capcom didn't think AA was popular enough to be worth the effort at the time. And there's the whole Sherlock Holmes copyright thing. As for the Kazuma thing:

Spoiler
On 8/18/2021 at 4:43 PM, Jotari said:

A 40kg teenaged girl assaulted a grown ass man wielding a sword and some how managed to actually kill him by getting supremely lucky, that's what happened and its pretty stupid.

"Assaulted" seems to be a pretty strong word in this case. Kazuma was caught off guard and was tripped up by Darka (I think) when Nikolina shoved him, and he died when his neck hit a bedpost. That wouldn't happen if the two of them were actually fighting. I'm not far enough to say if Kazuma's death has a bearing on the greater narrative, though he still motivates Ryunosuke's views on being a lawyer. Also, there are more contrived things that happen later in the game.

 

Edited by Lightchao42
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Lightchao42 said:
  Hide contents

"Assaulted" seems to be a pretty strong word in this case. Kazuma was caught off guard and was tripped up by Darka (I think) when Nikolina shoved him, and he died when his neck hit a bedpost. That wouldn't happen if the two of them were actually fighting. I'm not far enough to say if Kazuma's death has a bearing on the greater narrative, though he still motivates Ryunosuke's views on being a lawyer. Also, there are more contrived things that happen later in the game.

 

Spoiler

If there's a more apt word than assaulted then I'm all ears, but to me it seems to match pretty well. It was an accident and she didn't mean to kill him, yet she did still attack him with violent intent and he died. Not because she was in any way capable of killing him though, just because he got super unlucky.

 

Edited by Jotari
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

I'm partially through the second game's second case so I might as well talk about G1-5 and G2-1 now. While the ending to the first game does leave questions for the second game, it didn't end on a complete cliffhanger like I was somewhat expecting it to.

The Adventure of the Unspeakable Story:

Spoiler

Despite being the case's namesake, The Hound of the Baskervilles isn't that relevant outside of getting Gina to the crime scene. Speaking of which, it takes halfway through the investigation for the crime to occur. There's even a Dance of Deduction before the victim dies. This gives an uncommon look at what the characters do when there isn't a murder, and it gives time to develop Gina more before she becomes the defendant. It was a shame when Windibank died, I took a liking to him.

I expected the crime to take place in the pawnbrokery after its established that Sholmes set up cameras in it. It was rather unlucky that the camera took a picture of Gina just as she was waving a gun around, though it's funny that Windibank wasn't very threatened by it.

This case is more or less a sequel to The Adventure of the Roaming Room, conclusively revealing what happened during that crime and why it happened. McGilded was guilty as sin, and he's arguably the main villain of the whole game despite dying in case 3. Resolving those mysteries help make GAA:A feel more fulfilling as its own game despite being a set up for the sequel. "Thrice-Fired" Mason also gets fleshed out, and it's sad how he died because he got involved in things way beyond his scope.

Ashley Graydon is our final villain and the first real villain in the game you "properly" get to defeat. It's funny how "Eggert Benedict" is apparently a ridiculous name even by Ace Attorney standards, and when he was first introduced I thought he might actually be Holmes's nemesis Professor Moriarty, since the password for McGilded's coat was "Professor." While Graydon being the killer isn't too surprising, it's not much of a problem because he's a competent adversary and there are other mysteries around him you get to solve. He isn't mustache-twirlingly evil as he might appear at first, being that he killed McGilded to avenge his father and didn't plan to kill Windibank, so he ends up being unusually deep as far as final villains go.

I was never expecting Vilen Borshevik to show up, especially not as a juror. A character being used as a red herring in one case and then actually appearing three cases later is just hilarious. The fact that he has no relevance to the case, despite being an escaped revolutionary, makes his inexplicable appearance even funnier. Four of the other jurors are also returnees, and Garrideb and the maid happen to be the only ones that don't contribute to the case in some way.

Iris and Gregson get more favorable treatment in this case. Iris is your assistant for much of the investigation and during the trial, and she gets fleshed out as a result. We also learn that she's John Wilson's daughter, though I figured that already. Gregson ends up being surprisingly important to the case's resolution, and I was saddened when he betrayed us for the sake of his mission. Gregson also has an amusing role as the "straight man" to the Skulkin bros, who were fun witnesses to interact with. A Skulkin never skulkin!

It was nice to see Sholmes save the day at the end, though it feels like the end of the case dragged on a bit too long. The cat-flap maker is presented with the aura of "this is the evidence that will finish the game" except it isn't, as you have to prove that Graydon and Gregson colluded with each other afterwards. Like the first case, it feels like there were multiple resolutions to the case in mind and they decided to use all of them.

There are a few mysteries left for the next game to resolve (hence the subtitle): the meaning of the mysterious four names, Kazuma's mission, why van Zieks will never forgive the Japanese and the mysterious deaths of those he prosecutes, The Hound of the Baskervilles and how Susato knew about it, why Brett killed Wilson, and there's that Shakespeare guy. The Chronicles release containing both games makes these loose ends more acceptable, since the games are presented as two halves of one large story.

GAA2 is really the first AA game to benefit from being a sequel; aside from the Fey plotline running in the background of the trilogy, every other game's plot is self-contained to prevent spoiling the previous games. So despite being far from the first sequel, GAA2 feels refreshing in that respect.

The Adventure of the Blossoming Attorney:

Spoiler

In an interesting twist, this game justifies the tutorial by having Susato be the defense attorney, being that Ryunosuke is still in England. I recall learning that Susato would disguise as a male at some point, but I forgot about it until this case happened. She makes for a good playable character and it's a shame her "Ryutaro" outfit isn't selectable outside this case.

This case is just the right length for an introductory case, not being as long as the previous game's first case. As exhibit one of the game being a proper sequel, Jezaille Brett returns as the case's victim. Looks like she couldn't dodge karma forever, huh? To add to the irony of the situation, if Brett hadn't tried to be smug villainess by leaking the existence of the poison, she wouldn't have died, and she was partially killed by a new poison like Wilson was. We still don't learn why she killed Wilson, so it seems that'll be saved for later.

Some of the previous first cases made me paranoid and had me think the game would pull a fast one by having Yujin be the culprit or something, but I also thought Menimemo was too slimy to not be guilty of something. Still, Menimemo gets some sympathy points by virtue of who his victim was (and the crime wasn't premeditated), and he gave us information that will likely be important later. It's also neat how he first appears in Soseki's animations before he's properly introduced.

Due to budget cuts Hosonaga and Soseki make a return in this case. It's nice to see them again, even if Hosonaga doesn't contribute much beyond being the obligatory detective. While I didn't dislike him in the Clouded Kokoro, I appreciated Soseki more now that he's more confident in himself.

As a fun fact, Yujin was originally supposed to be the defendant of this case, but the developers thought it would be weird for the defendant to help their lawyer so much (also, there would be no females besides Susato). Still, Rei is a fine defendant , and it's cool how the case ends with a dual Susato-Rei Takedown! Heck, Menimemo gets bodied by the judge himself too. The judge even gets a name, which means he'll probably be important later.

The case ends with even more mysteries; it seems Yujin covered up Kazuma's death, knows more about it than he lets on about it, and had ulterior motives for calling Susato back to Japan, while Soseki was involved in two murder cases during his time in London. The second case was apparently relevant to why Susato was called back, so it seems the next case will be a flashback to whatever that case was.

 

Edited by Lightchao42
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm quite curious to learn more about how the game is written in Japanese, as they've made the English translation quite dialect heavy. And generally pretty well done, I could tell Magnus McGilded was Irish just from the way he spoke (though there were a few inconsistencies), so I was happy when the game outright acknowledged him as Irish. Though it's somewhat of a lower class dialect which makes for a questionable depiction of a rich Irishman given the historical circumstances, though there probably were people like that, buying London three times over is a bit of an exaggeration to begin with. Anyway, yeah, I wonder if the original game has regional Japanese dialects to denote the class of characters and that it was a case of "we'll substitute it with an English dialect, only this time the choices is obvious because we can make it authentic with the setting", or if anyone just generally spoke the same and relied on Japan's inbuilt formality system to denote the same things.

Edited by Jotari
Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, Jotari said:

I'm quite curious to learn more about how the game is written in Japanese, as they've made the English translation quite dialect heavy. And generally pretty well done, I could tell Magnus McGilded was Irish just from the way he spoke (though there were a few inconsistencies), so I was happy when the game outright acknowledged him as Irish. Though it's somewhat of a lower class dialect which makes for a questionable depiction of a rich Irishman given the historical circumstances, though there probably were people like that, buying London three times over is a bit of an exaggeration to begin with. Anyway, yeah, I wonder if the original game has regional Japanese dialects to denote the class of characters and that it was a case of "we'll substitute it with an English dialect, only this time the choices is obvious because we can make it authentic with the setting", or if anyone just generally spoke the same and relied on Japan's inbuilt formality system to denote the same things.

Maybe Magnus McGilded is a reference to a historical figure...I'm pretty sure the Altamonte oil company is a reference to the (earl?) Altamonte based in County Sligo, which inspired some of Yeats's poetry, including a poem where he dreamed of/mused on living in his "bee loud glade."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, Original Johan Liebert said:

Maybe Magnus McGilded is a reference to a historical figure...I'm pretty sure the Altamonte oil company is a reference to the (earl?) Altamonte based in County Sligo, which inspired some of Yeats's poetry, including a poem where he dreamed of/mused on living in his "bee loud glade."

It's not that there weren't rich people in Ireland, I'm just not sure they would  have spoken like that. It seems more like a lower class accent. Of course that's today, not sure what accents would have been like over a hundred years ago.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 hours ago, Jotari said:

It's not that there weren't rich people in Ireland, I'm just not sure they would  have spoken like that. It seems more like a lower class accent. Of course that's today, not sure what accents would have been like over a hundred years ago.

Maybe he's supposed to contrast with Van Zieks (sp?) and the judge...the judge and van zieks are both acknowledged as lords, and the banker in game 1 case 3 also talks more properly.

GAA 1 case 3, case 5 spoilers.

 

Since he's disreputable, maybe he made his way up from the lower crusts like Graydon did and, unlike Graydon, dealt with mostly the lower classes and never really polished up an upper class demeanor.

Edited by Original Johan Liebert
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ah, how wonderful. I hadn't noticed this thread. I only just now finished case 4 of the first game and I was dying to share this somewhere.

Spoiler

"The entire case was just a crazy accident again?"

3npccy.png?a452976

 

That's all I've got for now, I'm afraid. I wouldn't dare to read much of what's being said here out of fear of stumbling upon spoilers, so I'll be back when I finish the games.

Loving this so far, though. It's been doing some really interesting things I wouldn't have expected from this series. If it keeps this up it might just become my favorite of the bunch. Right now it's Investigations 2, for the record.

Edited by Saint Rubenio
Link to comment
Share on other sites

And that's it. I have finished the first game. Prior to it, I had played the original trilogy, the two Investigations games and Apollo Justice. I must say, in many ways this honestly feels like a step up from... really, all of them so far. Here are my impressions.

Case 1:

Spoiler

Solid introduction to the game. I liked that it wasn't as clear-cut as some of the other first cases in the series. The second Hosonaga showed his face I went "yep, that's guilty all right." Then the case had - gasp! - twists in it and I was like "okay, okay, slow down, game, this is supposed to be the tutorial case!"

Pretty interesting case. I'm still wondering what became of Brett, however. The way they were talking, it seems pretty evident that she got away scot-free. Also, John H. Wilson being the victim. There are far too many loose ends to this case. I have little doubt that they'll go back to it in the second game.

Case 2:

Spoiler

Now this, though. What a case. Having a case that's just entirely an accident with no conspiracies behind it? I love it. closest thing I can think of is the third case of the original Ace Attorney, but even there, there was plenty of drama going on behind the scenes. This was just an accident, plain and simple. Kazuma could've fallen a couple centimeters to the right and absolutely nothing would've happened.

Looking back, it's pretty evident that this case's whole purpose was to remove Kazuma from the equation so Ryunosuke could arrive to Great Britain as the inexperienced fish out of water that he is for a good chunk of the game. But I feel they went about it really well. A regular ol' murder mystery would've felt forced and fillerish, much like Mia's death in the original game. Instead, they made it heartbreaking and one of the most unique cases in the entire series. Kudos to them.

Also, Hosonaga is back. I'm glad, the man grew on me throughout the first game. He didn't ever show up again in this game, which made me a little sad, but I have a feeling I haven't seen the last of him just yet. Coughing blood is a bit of an extreme "quirk", even by Ace Attorney's standards. I'll want an explanation for that, in the second game.

One more note before I move on to case 3. I heard there had been some drama over Sherlock Holmes being changed to Herlock Sholmes, to the point where one of Steam's highlighted guides when you go on the overlay is one explaining how to restore the name to the original. But... honestly, I think it's appropriate. Not just because the "Herr Lock" pun was pretty fun, in my humble opinion, but also because this idiot is in no way comparable to the original. He's kind of a sham, to be honest. The guy gets everything wrong and brags anyway lol. He has his moments, but I feel like a dumb-sounding corruption of the name is a perfect fit for such a blatant parody of the brilliant detective.

Case 3:

Spoiler

I think this one's my favorite so far. McGilded is extremely shady from the get-go, and the only reason one wouldn't suspect him is... Well, he's the defendant! This is Ace Attorney! They're not about to pull an Engarde in case 3, are they? Of course not, that'd be silly.

...Except then the trial goes on, and it turns out you're just kinda there while McGilded pulls all the strings. I like this because it makes Ryunosuke's victory feel much more plausible. The guy has no experience and just arrived to the country literally an hour earlier. He has no idea what he's doing, and Van Zieks is a living legend. But he wins anyway, not because of his own skill, but rather because of his client's schemes.

Wonderful, wonderful case. By the end of it, you're left feeling just like Ryunosuke: Having no idea what to believe anymore. It also serves as an introduction to Van Zieks, who is a fascinating character. I like how he's among the least dirty prosecutors in the series (even if he's a pretty huge dick), and the fact that the game actually acknowledges, for once, that a "perfect record" is utterly ridiculous. Oh, and he's racist. But then again, a lot of people are racist in this game. It's a delicate topic that the game doesn't shy away from, and I feel it handles it rather well. More on that in case 4.

Finally, I'd just like to comment on that final cutscene. Wow, that was amazing. My mouth was left wide open as I watched the events unfold. Turns out the Reaper's curse was real... Or was it?

Case 4:

Spoiler

This one's... weird. Not bad, exactly, but really weird. It's not often that the most interesting thing about an Ace Attorney case is the defendant. Soseki-san embodies the game's theme of racism. His experiences in Britain have been pretty terrible, folks immediately pegged him as a suspicious sort, he was scorned and ridiculed... The poor guy didn't have an easy time. But that made it all the more satisfying when, after all the crap he went through, his innocence was proven and the judge humbly apologized, not just for the fright of standing in court undeservedly, but for the awful experienced he'd had in Britain.

On the other hand, there's the case itself. A crazy accident, again? That's an interesting choice... and this is really the case that feels fillerish. Nothing about it really plays a part in the rest of the game. At least not the first one. I'd love for them to go back to this in the second game, though, and somehow tie it to a greater narrative.

...Which, admittedly, they 100% will do. The game wanted me to forget, but I haven't. The other two tenants in Garrideb's lodgings. They showed up for one minute, they argued a bit and then they disappeared forever. Yeah, right. That's totally not gonna come up in the second game.

Not necessarily a bad case, but definitely my least favorite so far. Also, that bearded old man was so unfit for jury duty, it was hilarious.

(Oh, and the age-old stepladder argument is now a shovel/spade argument. That made me smile.)

Case 5:

Spoiler

"Who called the old man back to the jury!?" was my reaction to seeing him there again. He was just as unreliable, except this time he could actually hear shit. I wonder what's up with that... It never was explained, either. Might be a bit of a stretch to seek a sinister secret there, but... Well, too late, I already suspect him of being the main bad guy of the duology.

Jokes aside, spending two whole parts without a proper case was, once again, a strange decision. The whole game is full of those. I had no idea what to expect anymore at this point. Two accidents, a guilty defendant and a half-solved mess? Anything goes at this point.

Funnily enough, this turned out to be the most "traditional" of this game's cases. It had a proper culprit and all! Incredible! I loved uncovering all the connections to the McGilded case, and retroactively discovering the truth of what had transpired in the omnibus. Plus, an explanation for McGilded's death. It surprised me that Van Zieks wasn't involved in the slightest. Just a man out for revenge... Even though he himself was no angel either.

The trial got so intense that I legitimately thought they'd make me lose at a couple of points. Basically everyone involved bending the laws in some way or another was quite the turn of events, and the Skulking brothers made for a fun couple of secondaries. Oh, and seeing that other side of Gregson was... interesting, to say the least.

All in all, pretty good case to wrap up the first game. And the sequel baits at the end worked wonders. I cannot imagine playing this game when it came out and being left there for two years...

So yeah, all in all, really enjoying this duology so far. I had read as much beforehand, but it really does feel like this is far from over, and the second game will really be like a second part to this. I like that. It gives them far more time to do things slowly and properly than the prior games in the series allowed. There's still plenty of unsolved mysteries to look forward to in this second game!

15 minutes ago, Ghost_06_ said:

Never played Ace Attorney, but it looks interesting. @Saint Rubenio 😉

Thanks

You should consider it. I mean, you know me, I'm not the kind who usually picks up a VN, but these ones are pretty great.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Coughing blood is a bit of an extreme "quirk", even by Ace Attorney's standards.

I don't know the ingame context of this, but are you aware of tuberculosis? Nasty disease. Used to be commonly known as "consumption", and caused a lot of public anxiety in the 1800s to the early 1900s, partly because it was contagious, very deadly, and scarily too common. Sounds like it could suit any Victorian period piece set in Europe or America.

-Not the kind of thing you make a silly haha quirk of though, that's true.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I didn't know McGilded's accent was Irish until Gina identified him as such. It seems I need to educate myself when it comes to English accents. The fan translation didn't give McGilded any accent nor does Gina seem to call him "the Irishman", so him being Irish might be an addition by the localization.

The Memoirs of the Clouded Kokoro:

Spoiler

This case is an immediate followup to G1-4, and as such is a flashback case. It's technically a "filler" case, but it's a fun one and the connection to the previous case enhances both of them. It's also the first two day trial in either of the GAA games.

Soseki is our defendant again, and he's up to his usual antics of getting falsely accused of murder. Garrideb has been very unlucky lately too, hasn't he? First a criminal is hiding out in his home, one of his tenants dies, his wife accidentally stabs someone outside (who was trying to kill another of his tenants) while throwing a knife at him and she gets arrested, the aforementioned other tenant gets poisoned...

The weird Shakespeare guy himself, William Shamspeare, marks an Ace Attorney first: he's not the first victim to survive the crime, but he's the first victim you have to face in court. The victim of the crime trying to blame the defendant is a fun idea and I wonder why it hasn't been done before. The scene where Shamspeare rises from the "dead" was very surprising; he has plenty more funny moments, though his funniest moments are whenever he breaks character ("You did wha-- Sorry-- Thou hast WHAT?! You broke-- I mean-- Thou were in MY ROOM?!") so he's always a joy to interact with. Metermann, the other guy who appeared in G1-4, doesn't do much beyond establishing Shamspeare as a gas thief, which itself mainly establishes the tea sample so we can investigate more. He doesn't appear during the second day, oddly enough.

I said previously that Olive Green surviving her injuries in G1-4 didn't mean much unless she appeared in this game, and here she is! She's the other culprit, and she contrasts Shamspeare by being reserved and gloomy. As a result, their interactions on the stand are quite entertaining. She's also surprisingly good at keeping her composure when put on the spot. Attempting to kill someone based on suspicion of guilt would be rather unsympathetic, but her plan was clever; it only would have worked if Shamspeare was guilty of Ross's death, and he wouldn't be harmed if he was innocent. Green's also been very unlucky lately, and hopefully things will be better for her after she serves her sentence.

By the end of the second investigation I assumed Shamspeare's plan to kill Soseki backfired and he accidentally poisoned himself. I also thought he was Selden himself at first, having faked his death to escape prison, until it's established that Selden's cellmate was the only witness to his death. I thought Green's presence would serve to tie up loose ends from the previous case and she wouldn't be involved in the crime. I might have suspected Garrideb of something if he hadn't appeared in G1-5, which meant he wouldn't be arrested for anything after this case.

We learn that Sholmes and van Zieks have some history together. Could the mysterious Baskervilles case be related to van Zieks in some way...?

It's funny how the case begins with "Hmm... I wonder what was so important about this case that Susato was called back to Japan" and it takes until the last three minutes for the reason to be revealed.

I'll also talk about the (first?) investigation of G2-3 up to the Dance of Deduction, since it's the point where the overarching plot starts becoming prominent.

Spoiler

We learn that Ryunosuke was barred from work after his music box stunt during the Unspeakable Story. Looks like the they got mad at Ryunosuke for leaking government secrets... Fortunately, Stronghart decides to return his lawyering privileges after six months of good behavior. We get the impression that Stronghart knows more about Kazuma's mission than Ryunosuke does, and we get further questions as to what his mission was. Stronghart gets a few funny scenes where he talks apparently forever about forensic science and is eleven hours late to a meeting, which is unexpected considering his demeanor. Also Susato is still in Japan, so Iris becomes our assistant for this investigation.

We meet van Zieks outside court for the first time, and all things considered he's reasonably civil about Ryunosuke and Iris barging into his office, even if Ryunosuke earned his respect by the end of G1-5. Van Zieks has a new masked apprentice whom Ryunosuke finds strangely familiar. Hmm... he must be the long lost third Skulkin brother.

Van Zieks is fine with his "Reaper of the Bailey" reputation because London's crime rate dropped because of it, basically making him the Batman of the legal world. Except all of his "victims" end up dead, so maybe he isn't that much like Batman. He's willing to admit that Gina and Soseki were exceptions to his usual approach of only targeting the truly guilty, which is nice of him to acknowledge. Ryunosuke is a nice enough to be concerned about van Zieks's safety following his attack, and van Zieks is nice enough to ask how Soseki's been doing lately. You big softy, you...

Anyhow, the victim of this case blew up in a teleportation accident, and the defendant is van Zieks's old friend from university. Van Zieks previously failed to convict the victim of this case, so the Reaper's curse strikes again. Could we finally learn the truth of the Reaper in this case?

Gregson was put on probation like Ryunosuke was following his deal in G1-5, but he's been let off the hook by now. Gina has grown into a mostly law-abiding young lady and is now training to become an investigator. So that's why she's named after Sherlock Holmes's usual investigator, G. Lestrade. Gregson's namesake in the Holmes stories was rivals with Lestrade early on but was later eclipsed by him in importance, which Gregson and Gina's mentorship might be a reference to.

We learn that Sholmes has a side job as temporary wax statue. Just when Sholmes gets unusually serious and is about to give us plot important information, we're interrupted by the Great Witch Bez- er, Esmeralda Tusspells (that's a Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright joke). I'm not sure yet how the wax museum relates to the Great Exhibition murder, but I'll see where it goes.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh, I forgot to comment one thing about case 2!

Spoiler

Having read the Sherlock Holmes story that shares its name with this adventure, I appreciated how they dropped clues that the case would be similar to the original story, like the bell cord and the identity of the other room's occupant... and then it all turned out to be a big red herring in itself. They used my knowledge of the original story against me. I liked that. I mean, I was expecting they'd do that, I didn't think they'd be so heavy-handed as to assume nobody playing the game has read the original story, but it was nice to confirm they didn't.

I did find that the deconstruction/nitpicking of the original story that they did at one point was a bit overly pretentious (at one point I felt like I was watching one of those Youtubers who shit on movies for a living... Plus, I'm pretty sure some snakes can climb things), but I still loved the twist that the snake belonged to someone else and was completely unrelated to the incident. It was cool.

 

11 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I don't know the ingame context of this, but are you aware of tuberculosis? Nasty disease. Used to be commonly known as "consumption", and caused a lot of public anxiety in the 1800s to the early 1900s, partly because it was contagious, very deadly, and scarily too common. Sounds like it could suit any Victorian period piece set in Europe or America.

I am aware of the disease, yes. The "contagious" part is a bit terrifying, considering the dude coughs all over the place every five seconds...

11 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

-Not the kind of thing you make a silly haha quirk of though, that's true.

It'd be kind of a bizarre choice to make it just a quirk. Really hope they explain it in some serious way before the end of the duology.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, Lightchao42 said:

I didn't know McGilded's accent was Irish until Gina identified him as such. It seems I need to educate myself when it comes to English accents. The fan translation didn't give McGilded any accent nor does Gina seem to call him "the Irishman", so him being Irish might be an addition by the localization.

I think he's supposed to simbolize a leprechaun, judging from his clothing and how rich he is, and if I recall correctly this is an irish mythology/stereotype so I think the connection is intentional instead of an addition by the localization.

Also, his japanese name was Cosney Megundal. The former is a japanese person trying to guess how an englishman/irishman would be named in the 18th century, like that SNES baseball game where a japanese guy had to name american baseball players and they went with silly ones like "Bob McBurnin", so it is silly. Megundal is a japanese term for greed or greediness as far as I recall. In this, I much prefer the localization's change.

Edited by Rapier
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...