janky brilliance made on possibly the worst still-functional engine of all time. many have tried and failed to remake this disasterpiece, and ss14 might get there eventually. ranges between hectic chaos and mundane banality between servers based on their culture or even between rounds, on occasion. much harder to get away with fucking around than it used to be as the culture has shifted towards more active admin styles where the staff adjudicate even minor disagreements or infractions immediately, which has its pros and cons. the code base has split so many times that you may not even know what your character is capable of on a functional level if you're not establishing yourself on a particular server, but these splits have led to a lot of player choice in the kind of game you're playing, as well. the best game you can play with a group of exactly 35 people, and the most fun you can pawsibly have fucking with people in minor ways

banger story that doesn't waste a single beat and makes use of every single character in a refreshing, fulfilling narrative style that took me by surprise. I got stuck in this game way more than I did any other but I also found myself very invested in its characters which the game shows a lot of respect for.

it's a shame that it'll never be localized but I can kinda understand why. at the end of the day, a spin-off such as this is pretty niche but I gotta hand it to the team for dedicating their work towards preservation of what we love about ace attorney over making it more generic and marketable to everyone else. good show!

Ace Attorney Investigations 2 is a legal thriller that goes above and beyond the typical standards of its series to deliver something truly special. Subversive of both its immediate predecessor and the Ace Attorney series as a whole, Investigations 2 weaves an entertaining and memorable cast of characters into an intricate plot which thoroughly develops just about every one of them. With strong themes of family and inheritance, powerful and substantial commentary on the justice system, and some of the most impressively constructed mysteries the series has to offer, AAI2 sits proudly at the peak of both its own series and video games in general.

I knew out-of-print, obscure and/or unlocalized games tended to get hyped up beyond what they deserve and it always leads to disappointment once people actually get their hands on it. I took the things people said about it with a grain of salt and fully expected it to be good, but not the masterpiece people said it was, and even if I did end up liking it a lot, I didn't want to get carried away and end up continuing the cycle of overhype.

It didn't work. Ace Attorney Investigations 2 is my new favorite 2D-era Ace Attorney game.

The first Investigations was the weakest one I've played so far so I didn't really have high expectations for the sequel, but 2 does literally everything better. The addition of Logic Chess adds more variety to the gameplay and helps the game feel more distinct from the mainline series. There's a much greater exploration of who Edgeworth actually is as a character and the path he chooses to walk, and not only are the new characters a lot better, the returning characters from I1 get fleshed out in a great way as well. The cases are a lot stronger overall, they're actually connected to each other in a meaningful and interesting way and build to a much more satisfying climax, and while they're quite long (The Grand Turnabout can easily take an entire day to finish) they use their length much, much better than the first game's attempt at a long, epic case. It feels like what Investigations 1 should have been to begin with. My only real major complaint was with the amount of fanservice- it's not as bad as the first game, since the cases are built around the returning characters a lot better than "oh look! here's the funny character from the original trilogy! laugh!", but it still feels a bit excessive? I know it was released around the 10th anniversary of the original game but especially considering the context of a controversial new cast four years before this game's release it kind of feels desperate.

Either way, this is again my favorite AA game so far- Apollo Justice comes really close, but Turnabout Corner drags it down. There's not a single bad or even mediocre case in this game, and while sad dad Phoenix is still the most interesting character the character stuff in this game is really good as well. It's a real shame this didn't get localized officially- the fan translation is really good and fits in very well with the official team's work, and if there's ever an official localization I hope Capcom is willing to use it as a base, but it's less accessible and less polished than an official release would be.

It is nearly impossible for me to craft with words how necessary Ace Attorney was to me in my life. A dear friend to me in some of my most crucial moments, these games transcend a connection that I don't think most people can understand. I feel at home here, and especially with Miles Edgeworth, whose character was foundational to my growing up and path in life.
I had my doubts about replaying this game. With the original trilogy, I feel as if it has a warm place in my past, but it almost feels wrong to revisit it as an adult. Nonetheless, I decided to experience aai2 again since I barely remembered the contexts of most of the cases, and it was the last one i played before tgaa. I am very, very happy I made this decision. I have not felt like this in so long, so passionate and invested in the power of a story. It is an intense feeling that I remember having as a child too, it was these very games that inspired me to learn several arts that are foundational aspects of me today. I never grew up with a father, and I was very much alone my whole life. I saw and experienced many wrongs committed by people who were supposed to know better than I, and I've never had a voice to object to it. To me, what this game has to say is very important. To choose your own path in life and be able to see the world clearly, this was what I wanted to live by as a child. And though some things could be better, and I have grown more since my first time here, I can not reject the impact this series had on me years ago and even still today.

I feel profound gratitude to the people who translated this game and let me experience it for myself. I still hope for an official translation one day, but the amount of love and care put into making this accessible to the west is really incredible, and I'm just so so happy I got to play it once more. This is a little embarrassing, and I always feel like my words aren't accurate enough, but even if it is hard I just want to share my love for this game and the characters in it. Goodbye, aai2, may we meet again in a few years.

I'm blown away.
I wasn't expecting anything unique of Katana Zero, until I read and heard it's praise in this community. Before that I thought this is just another game with 80's noir aesthetics, just another game with an atmosphere I might like or just another game with cool fighting mechanics that would be fun for a couple of hours or maybe just another try at Hotline Miami. And Katana Zero sure excels in all of that, but ends up being so much more. I can't praise this game enough for the way it's built. The fighting feels absolutely amazing, every ability is fun and feels good. The sound design is impeccable. The music ranges from the expected cool adrenaline-pumping synthwave tracks, to the most beautiful atmospheric soundscapes I've heard in a while. And I've been praising video game soundtracks a lot lately, this is one of my favorites. Every moving part in here is stylishly crafted to a level of perfection I haven't seen in a very long time.
The way it's story is told is also mind blowing to me, because of the way they used narrative and audiovisual tricks to tell it in a non-linear fashion through unexpected twists and turns. I've never would have expected to find any of this in Katana Zero. And maybe that's why it ended up being so impactful for me, because I've never played a "2D fighting game" that had me at the edge of my seat for its entirety, because I wanted to know more about the story and the main character.
I urge you to play this game if any of the info you get on it speaks to you. Whether that may be the aesthetics or the fighting or you now knowing that It's story is great. You won't be disappointed, that's a promise.