very charming game that captures a lot of the magic that ace attorney 1 had. it was refreshing to enter this new world with endearing main characters that felt fleshed out and distinct from other ace attorney offerings. far and away one of the game's strongest features is its animations being a lot crisper and detailed, due to being mo-cap'd. even minor characters had little animations that i found a joy to watch.
biggest flaw with the game, for me, is the unevenness of the narrative. the pacing is very peculiar, with a third case that feels like it belongs in the fourth case's slot due to how heavily referenced it is by the fifth case. and the cast is either incredibly endearing or absolutely repugnant with basically no middleground. i love characters like susato, gina, and even sholmes, but cannot stand characters like von zieks and gregson. also, it seems like this game has a pretty heavy recurring element of racism that doesn't ever get really touched upon in a meaningful way, which is an odd choice imo. it's definitely what i would expect from 1800s britain, but it's just weird to have sooooo many microaggressions (as well as the occasional outright "i hate the japanese" esque comment) and not really make a point of having naruhodo or susato react to them in meaningful ways. in many ways, this is the most divisive cast because the great characters are stellar, while the awful characters are series lowlights.
i'm very interested to see what tgaa2 does considering how heavily this game leans into being a duology. there were a lot of unanswered questions and dangling threads i didn't expect to remain unresolved by the game's conclusion, so i'm hoping that extending them into another game means the payoff will be even better. i've heard a lot of good things in passing about tgaa2, so it'll be hard to not have high expectations. if nothing else, i was pleasantly surprised that this concept that i had next to no interest in was able to deliver a charming experience.
biggest flaw with the game, for me, is the unevenness of the narrative. the pacing is very peculiar, with a third case that feels like it belongs in the fourth case's slot due to how heavily referenced it is by the fifth case. and the cast is either incredibly endearing or absolutely repugnant with basically no middleground. i love characters like susato, gina, and even sholmes, but cannot stand characters like von zieks and gregson. also, it seems like this game has a pretty heavy recurring element of racism that doesn't ever get really touched upon in a meaningful way, which is an odd choice imo. it's definitely what i would expect from 1800s britain, but it's just weird to have sooooo many microaggressions (as well as the occasional outright "i hate the japanese" esque comment) and not really make a point of having naruhodo or susato react to them in meaningful ways. in many ways, this is the most divisive cast because the great characters are stellar, while the awful characters are series lowlights.
i'm very interested to see what tgaa2 does considering how heavily this game leans into being a duology. there were a lot of unanswered questions and dangling threads i didn't expect to remain unresolved by the game's conclusion, so i'm hoping that extending them into another game means the payoff will be even better. i've heard a lot of good things in passing about tgaa2, so it'll be hard to not have high expectations. if nothing else, i was pleasantly surprised that this concept that i had next to no interest in was able to deliver a charming experience.