[The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles Discussion]

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.

 

[Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread]

19 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Just in time, too. Technically speaking, I did run into spoilers. At one point I got antsy and decided to veeeeeeery carefully Google on incognito mode. However, despite clearly typing "Great Ace Attorney 1 case 5 trial part 2", fucking Google still led me to a video of the fifth case of the second game. Thankfully, I only caught a glimpse of a face before I noped out of there.

...I mean, I guess that confirms that the particular character survives up to that point, which is a spoiler, but... Fuck it, I still don't know who the main villain was. It is amazing to me that I've gotten this far into an Ace Attorney game without having the shit spoiled outta me. It's never happened before. I must hasten my pace before I have another chance to run into spoilers...

I was spoiled on a few things from before the games' localization was announced, like the culprits/victims of the first two cases and something from the second game's first case. I think some of the remaining spoilers I know are very important but I'm lacking the context behind them, so I still have plenty of things to be surprised by.

I was largely unspoiled for the previous games though; mostly it was just the details of DL-6, Godot's real name, but not anything else about him, and something about Apollo Justice's first case.

21 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

...E... Eerrrrrrgghhh...

.......

Pyra and Mythra's designs... are not abominations.

Good enough, I hope!

I suppose that's the best I can hope for. And I didn't even ask you to say they had good designs.

[Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread]

34 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Well, you were slightly off the mark (it was the third statement, not the second) but that's it.

Fucking Ace Attorney. The autopsy report clearly states the victim died from a bullet to the back, but apparently everyone in the courtroom is too lazy to read up to page two, so they need the photo instead. Fssss...

Thank you so much, Lightchao! A little longer and I would've become desperate enough to look for a walkthrough. And that's just the way to get spoiled.

You're welcome, I don't like being spoiled either. Though if you'd really like to show your appreciation, you can say that Pyra and Mythra have acceptable designs...

31 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I'm aware of this, but it feels like vaporware. They haven't given us anything to chew on all these years, and I want chewing gum (I'd settle with bonjellium flavor). It's the same as how I feel about Atlus's Project Re Fantasy and their promise of an Etrian Odyssey continuation. I need more substance than a mere decree. And I'm sure Bayonetta 3 and MP4 fans feel exactly the same way.

Implying that Xenoblade 2 doesn't have enough content to last for years! At least Metroid fans are getting Dread, which has been a wayward dream for even longer than Prime 4. Bayonetta fans may be out of luck for now, but they've still got it better than F-Zero fans.

34 minutes ago, lightcosmo said:

Xenosaga remasters? Lmao

I hoped for Pyra/Mythra for smash and got my wish, so im still holding out! And i will till it happens!

Unfortunately Namco said they aren't financially viable, so Xenosaga fans will have to settle for KOS-MOS hopefully appearing in Monolith's future projects.

[Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread]

59 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Great. I'm stuck. I correctly deduced what I had to do, I did it, then when it didn't work I was stumped enough to check the spoilerless guide on Steam because I couldn't come up with anything else... And turns out, the guide says to do exactly what I did. It's just not working.

@DodgeDusk @Lightchao42 Are either of you there? Can you help me? I am terrified of going on Youtube to find a walkthrough. I would definitely find spoilers instead.

Ah yes, this is the part I was talking about when I previously said I had trouble during case 5. It's the only place in either of the games (so far) that I got a game over.

Spoiler

I think you have to present the crime scene photo, the one of Windibank's body, on the second statement.

 

11 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I would say the same of Monolith, but they at least had XC1DE in May last year.

Actually we already know Monolith has another game in development, we just don't know what it is yet. It's been in development since Torna released, which was three years ago now so I wouldn't be surprised if we saw it soon.

[Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread]

Metroid Dread releasing in one month reminds me, I only bought four games this year and only one of them was released in 2021 though The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles might qualify as two games. I'll get Dread when it releases and have been planning on getting New Pokémon Snap eventually, but I'll probably save that for Christmas.

7 hours ago, Armagon said:

It's not that hard to believe tbh. Anguirus's name was localized as Angilas in the English dub of Godzilla Raids Again but no, it really is supposed to be Anguirus.

But Godzilla Raids Again came out in 1955 and the standards for a faithful localization were even lower back then, i'd imagine.

I think a better Godzilla example of questionable translation quality would be how Rodan is called "Radon" in the English version of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (amongst other films), even though Rodan's English name had been established for around 40 years at that point. In Anguirus's case it took some time for his official English name to be established, while Rodan's name was the title of his debut movie.

[Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread]

When someone asks you why you think Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is the greatest game ever made

31 minutes ago, lightcosmo said:

Well there was no way to please everyone, not accepting that fact would have been silly. But if people really enjoy the original story... They can play the original? It is a concious choice after all.

27 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

BUT THE ORIGINAL. IS. HIDEOUS!

With a rubbish translation, and gameplay that IMO could use refinement.

In response to these, video game technology advances very quickly, so video games can benefit more from faithful remakes than movies and other forms of media. For example, the Rebuild of Evangelion movies started as a 1:1 remake of Neon Genesis Evangelion with better animation, but diverged significantly by the end of the second. The later movies doing their own thing is more justifiable since the series is still perfectly watchable nowadays. King Kong has been remade twice to take advantage of advances in filmmaking. The 2005 remake is modern enough that it really doesn't need to be remade again, so the following Kong film did something completely new with the concept. With something you 'watch' instead of 'play', in some cases you'd think "Why would I watch this version when the original is perfectly good already?" AKA Disney live action remake syndrome.

Final Fantasy VII, while still playable and enjoyable today, is archaic by modern standards, so it would benefit from a remake that stayed true to the original. It might have been better if FFVIIR was promoted as a reboot sequel sea-boot prequel reimagining that messed with the timeline, but I'm sure the future games will be nothing like FFVII's plot anyway. Aerith probably won't die and maybe Cloud and Sephiroth will become friends by the end.

[Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread]

17 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

There's always Another Eden to try...

Personally, the only thing I know about Another Eden is that Pyra and Mythra's VA is in it, because it has a British dub. I think Metal Face's VA voices a frog too or was that Chrono Trigger?

Also Persona 5 is in it, because Atlus makes Capcom look modest when it comes to crossovers.

[Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread]

2 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Third case, third part. But that's all right, that wasn't too bad. It was a bit wonky that the reaction didn't happen the first time I pressed the statement, but... eh, perhaps I skipped the text too fast. My bad for reading too quickly, I guess.

...The part that really got me sighing was (spoilers ahead for anyone it may concern)

  Reveal hidden contents

When the omnibus's skylight was opened and it turned out to have a huge-ass bloodstain on the side. I clicked on it, but no matter how many times and from how many angles I tried, Ryonosuke and Susato just refused to acknowledge it.

Turns out, after opening the skylight from the outside, I had to go inside the omnibus and click the bloodstain from there, and only then did they finally notice it and the evidence's description changed. Which is rather counter-intuitive, given the thing can only be opened from outside.

That got me game overed, actually. The stain was so obvious that when the game refused to accept it, I thought I had to present the omnibus and then it'd ask me to point out the stain. Instead I got a guilty veredict after a few failed attempts at presenting it, and lost a few minutes of my life wondering what the hell I was doing wrong. Thanks, game.

Still, don't get me wrong, this is the only complaint I got so far. This game is being amazing. The end of case 3 had me shitting my pants, figuratively speaking.

Ah, I see.

Spoiler

I didn't notice the bloodstain until I went inside the omnibus so I didn't have any problems there.

The following cases continue twisting the Ace Attorney formula as far as I've seen. If you're liking GAA1 already, I heard GAA2 is an improvement.

54 minutes ago, DodgeDusk said:

Finished the second case of GAA2. Holy fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

I'm playing that case now. I haven't finished it yet but I probably won't be prepared for what happens.

[Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread]

2 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Son of a gun, seriously? I had to press all the statements, and then go back, press one of them in particular again, and for no reason at all something had changed and then you can use it to pursue. But only if you run through the lines slowly, if you go at full speed the game just skips over it and doesn't show it. Nice, thank you very much.

What part of the game was this again? The only time I had much trouble in GAA1 was during the fifth case so I wonder what you had trouble with.

[The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles Discussion]

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.

 

[Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread]

55 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Oh hey, that's the game I've been eyeing.

...I hope the fact that I have seen images of it in an unrelated forum does not lead the Youtube algorythm to recommend me spoilers. It spoiled every game in the series before I played them. I'd like for the same not to happen here. I already ate a couple of (I'm hoping minor) spoilers before.

Hopefully you won't be spoiled that Herlock Sholmes is the culprit of the final case... just kidding. Well, it might happen, but I wouldn't know since I haven't reached the final case yet.

53 minutes ago, Dayni said:

This Dracula knockoff better break the bottle if he snaps.

He does, other times he throws it into the candles behind him. When he's really annoyed, he tosses his entire wine bottle into the audience.

[Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread]

For whenever you need to call someone a clown, or the entire circus.

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Fanart that suffices for me and my somewhat high standards.

It's not fanart, it's more job recruitment artwork from Monolith's website. I can't wait for this to confirm that Rex and Pyra will be added to Mario Golf: Super Rush.

[Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread]

Personally I think the original Spider-Man movie is the best, because I watched it for my birthday last year and it gave us this: 

My interest in the MCU is nonexistent at this point, but I'll see Home Alone Far From Home because nostalgia and I promised my sister I would. Even if Tobey only has five minutes of screentime, I'm sure they'll fit in at least one joke about his symbiote-fueled antics in SM3 like Into the Spider-Verse did.

If I have to make one complaint about Spider-Verse, they turned Peni from an Evangelion homage to a generic anime reference. Though I suppose having a scene of her doing absolutely nothing for a whole minute would have been excessive...

[Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread]

Thank goodness to the Evangelion manga for giving us more Rei moments.

24 minutes ago, Armagon said:

I started singing this to the tune of the original Spider-Man theme song but it didn't fit 😔.

Maybe you should sing it to the tune of Jet Jaguar's theme.

 

[Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread]

10 minutes ago, DodgeDusk said:

The sad thing about completing the first case of the second Great Ace Attorney game is I'll never voice Auchi again. ]:

Let us have a moment of silence for Auchi's hair...

[Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread]

The PS5 has been vaguely mentioned, now I have an excuse to post this:

 

[Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread]

No Way Home ending dialogue leaked:

Tobey Maguire: "If he's still alive in your universe, Peter, please take care of Uncle Ben."

Tom Holland: "...Who's Uncle Ben?"

1 hour ago, Armagon said:

Can't hear her say funny things if 80% of her lines aren't voiced lol lmao gottem.

Can't hear her say funny things if you can't understand what she's saying haha gottem.

[Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread]

19 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Nep and Atelier are the only games where I actively choose the Japanese voice acting.

Why would you even play Nep if you can't hear Melissa Fahn say funny things? I do not understand...

[Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread]

I don't judge Future Connected too harshly because it's basically a side project to a side project. It mostly exists as a buying incentive for people who already played Xenoblade 1, and Monolith preferred to keep it small so they could focus on the other game they're currently working on. The fact that FC isn't sold separately from the main game like Torna is another reason why Monolith didn't want to devote too much time/work to it.

[Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread]

If I could go back in time and tell my younger self what pre-3H FE DLC to get, I would pick Awakening's Scramble maps, The Future Past, Hidden Truths, Heirs of Fate, and Anna in Fates as the main things.

Looking back I don't know what was up with IS when they made SoV's DLC, even beyond it being more expensive than the game itself and being more expensive than XC2's expansion pass for a fraction of the content. I only got Rise of the Deliverance, but that was $13 for 4 chapters while Heirs of Fate had six chapters for $8. The Cipher characters being $6 for four characters seems reasonable in comparison, even though I never got them.

[The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles Discussion]

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.

 

[Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread]

I never thought I'd live to see the day JoJolion ended. I didn't think Evangelion 3.0+1.0 would be released in English any time soon either, or Metroid Dread for that matter, so this year is certainly full of surprises.

No context Ace Attorney

8 minutes ago, Dayni said:

 Him, Sonic, who else is confirmed at this rate?

If you're talking about guests, there's also Tails and Beat from Jet Set Radio. Hopefully ChuChu Rocket will get representation, come on Sega.

[Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread]

5 hours ago, Dayni said:

So End of Evangelion wasn't the end?

The End of Evangelion was the finale of the original series (or one of the finales at any rate), but the movies I'm talking about are more-or-less a reboot.

[Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread]

Today the very final Evangelion movie was released in English, 14 years after the first one came out in Japan and 9 years after the previous one, but I haven't watched it yet. I wanted to rewatch the previous three movies first but thought it was too much to watch all four in one day, so I'll watch the last after work tomorrow. It's two and a half hours long (making it one of the longest animated films ever) so it better have exposition dumps for three movies' worth of mysteries!

[Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread]

10 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

And so on, basically, haha!
This is only an idea for now, and I have yet to come up with stuff for everyone else, but I will, when you guys give me the okay! ^^
'cuz I imagine this might be a fun run to do!

Are you going to make yourself Neptunemon?

39 minutes ago, Armagon said:

So like, Xenoblade 3 is an inevitability but i'll believe it when i see it.

It seems to me like they're riding the coattails of Jenna Coleman "leaking" a new game, which she's probably just mistaken about.

We've come so far in the past year; we've gone from "Jenna Coleman will never return to Xenoblade" to her "leaking" new games!