marluxia
47 reviews liked by marluxia
This game main problem is a lack of identity for being extremely derivative of xenogears and xenosaga, reusing story bits and plot lines of those games but lacking the detail of what made those stories so compelling and not going far enough in certain areas and character writing, gameplay wise the game is both an improvement and recession due to on the good side removing some of xb2 worst mechanics (gacha and field skills) but combat wise the return of cooldowns makes this game combat feel so frustrating at points, still the game still manages to touch on the importance of the time we have and how people should be free using as they see fit
I've been sitting on writing about this for over a week now, struggling to put my thoughts together cohesively, and honestly just dreading elaborating on what is, at the end of the day, a very short and sweet take on this duology, so I'll just say it and not care if I sound mean.
Adventures sucks. It takes until CASE 4 before you have a case with both a trial segment and an investigation segment, and even when you do get to the last two cases, it's only one chunk of each. Unprecedented, and while I guess I can appreciate a different approach, what it means is that the pacing drags for the whole game, not to mention inherently limits the stories of each case. Without multiple days for each case to build in complexity, the characters have to make the necessary revelations in a much more condensed time frame than any other Ace Attorney game has had to deal with, meaning that thing can't go as balls to the wall as its predecessors did, which, needless to say, is really disappointing. I haven't played Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney or... Dino Crisis... but those notwithstanding, this is the weakest game out of everything Shu Takumi's had significant contributions in.
Resolve is much more interesting. It often feels like it's trying a lot harder than the first game did to craft an interesting story. Thankfully the pacing is no longer an issue; every case after the intro has both a trial and an investigation, usually multiple of each. And in general the cases are a clear caliber above the first game, and a lot of the first game is recontextualized to make the story work.
But another issue rears its ugly head in this game: it's so AGONIZINGLY predictable! Every twist falls so flat and this game is never going to surprise you, making it a slog to get through, even though the cases are much more interesting this time around. This is almost worse than Adventures' pacing because all of Shu Takumi's works laugh in the face of predictability.
And most egregious of all, across both games, the characters suck. Ryunosuke is just Phoenix with less snark, no backstory, and the most generic character design I've ever seen. Susato is boring, and the takedown thing she does is obnoxious every time. I have never seen a duo with less chemistry than Ryunosuke and Kazuma, and the relationship they try and paint between these two is embarrassing. There is not a soul in either game who has as much life and personality as the parrot from the first Ace Attorney.
Resolve does a better job in this department. It doesn't have to do the heavy lifting of introducing the main cast, and its side characters are more entertaining. There's a decent selection of nutheads here, like Shamspeare, Harebrayne, Madam Tusspells, and the Redheads (side note I also really like the Eggert guy from the first game). But the best of these games can't come close to the original trilogy's cast in terms of zaniness, personality, or likability.
What's more disappointing is the main characters. The OG trilogy did such a good job of balancing its oddball ensemble with a main cast who were all very layered and developed. In The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, the only character who has any development is Gina. I mean, Van Zieks learns how to not be racist I guess. But everyone else is alarmingly static. I don't dislike these characters, but it's so disappointing that there is not a single identifiable character arc for our MAIN CHARACTERS (that isn't Gina).
That's it. Adventures sucks because of its terrible pacing, Resolve is much better and is definitely a worthwhile time but suffers from predictability, and both games have an underwhelming group of characters. Rapid fire good stuff time:
- Both games work great in 3D. Not sure what DD or SoJ did well since I never played those but 3D looks good in these games at least
- The Summation Examinations and "Herlock Sholmes Deduction Spectaular" sequences are both the best parts of the games. Sholmes brings so much style that is always a blast
- More period pieces in video games that aren't Assassin's Creed, please
- The soundtrack is sadly lacking in classic Ace Attorney energeticness, but makes up for it by making the harpsichord SUPER sexy
- The scope of these two games, building an international conspiracy across TEN cases, is laudable, and in spite of the predictability of its "what," the "how" of the final case is extremely satisfying.
- That final breakdown, wow!
- The whole aesthetic is superb. The courtrooms feel so grand, the watercolor palette is exquisite in every area, I don't like Ryunosuke's basic design but every other character looks great, the game contrasts the look of Japan and Britain so well.
- I like the funny accents everyone talks in.
Adventures sucks. It takes until CASE 4 before you have a case with both a trial segment and an investigation segment, and even when you do get to the last two cases, it's only one chunk of each. Unprecedented, and while I guess I can appreciate a different approach, what it means is that the pacing drags for the whole game, not to mention inherently limits the stories of each case. Without multiple days for each case to build in complexity, the characters have to make the necessary revelations in a much more condensed time frame than any other Ace Attorney game has had to deal with, meaning that thing can't go as balls to the wall as its predecessors did, which, needless to say, is really disappointing. I haven't played Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney or... Dino Crisis... but those notwithstanding, this is the weakest game out of everything Shu Takumi's had significant contributions in.
Resolve is much more interesting. It often feels like it's trying a lot harder than the first game did to craft an interesting story. Thankfully the pacing is no longer an issue; every case after the intro has both a trial and an investigation, usually multiple of each. And in general the cases are a clear caliber above the first game, and a lot of the first game is recontextualized to make the story work.
But another issue rears its ugly head in this game: it's so AGONIZINGLY predictable! Every twist falls so flat and this game is never going to surprise you, making it a slog to get through, even though the cases are much more interesting this time around. This is almost worse than Adventures' pacing because all of Shu Takumi's works laugh in the face of predictability.
And most egregious of all, across both games, the characters suck. Ryunosuke is just Phoenix with less snark, no backstory, and the most generic character design I've ever seen. Susato is boring, and the takedown thing she does is obnoxious every time. I have never seen a duo with less chemistry than Ryunosuke and Kazuma, and the relationship they try and paint between these two is embarrassing. There is not a soul in either game who has as much life and personality as the parrot from the first Ace Attorney.
Resolve does a better job in this department. It doesn't have to do the heavy lifting of introducing the main cast, and its side characters are more entertaining. There's a decent selection of nutheads here, like Shamspeare, Harebrayne, Madam Tusspells, and the Redheads (side note I also really like the Eggert guy from the first game). But the best of these games can't come close to the original trilogy's cast in terms of zaniness, personality, or likability.
What's more disappointing is the main characters. The OG trilogy did such a good job of balancing its oddball ensemble with a main cast who were all very layered and developed. In The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, the only character who has any development is Gina. I mean, Van Zieks learns how to not be racist I guess. But everyone else is alarmingly static. I don't dislike these characters, but it's so disappointing that there is not a single identifiable character arc for our MAIN CHARACTERS (that isn't Gina).
That's it. Adventures sucks because of its terrible pacing, Resolve is much better and is definitely a worthwhile time but suffers from predictability, and both games have an underwhelming group of characters. Rapid fire good stuff time:
- Both games work great in 3D. Not sure what DD or SoJ did well since I never played those but 3D looks good in these games at least
- The Summation Examinations and "Herlock Sholmes Deduction Spectaular" sequences are both the best parts of the games. Sholmes brings so much style that is always a blast
- More period pieces in video games that aren't Assassin's Creed, please
- The soundtrack is sadly lacking in classic Ace Attorney energeticness, but makes up for it by making the harpsichord SUPER sexy
- The scope of these two games, building an international conspiracy across TEN cases, is laudable, and in spite of the predictability of its "what," the "how" of the final case is extremely satisfying.
- That final breakdown, wow!
- The whole aesthetic is superb. The courtrooms feel so grand, the watercolor palette is exquisite in every area, I don't like Ryunosuke's basic design but every other character looks great, the game contrasts the look of Japan and Britain so well.
- I like the funny accents everyone talks in.
This review contains spoilers
copying this from my tumblr blog rant perhaps i will clean it up but this is my thoughts on it for the most part... I really dont understand this website(tumblr)'s thing for dgs like was it a fun game i mean... parts of it but it frankly drags a LOT. I would say there are 3 cases that are worth playing and all of them are in the second game which you CANNOT play without the context of the first. (2-1 (second best tutorial in the series) (i love lesbianism), 2-4, and 2-5; also its worth mentioning that 2-4 and 2-5 are.. the same case) some of the characters (herlock) are (is) interesting and fun but the game feels too stretched thin to give them proper time. like, you do need both susato and iris for the plot, but the way they both fill the assistant role makes both of them feel somewhat lacking because they're just.. not consistently there. and dont get me started on kazuma. probably the most disappointing character in a takumi-led ace attorney. man. like. i cant even articulate my disappointment with him. he kind of just flopped really hard. he literally barely left an impression on me, despite me really liking 2-4&5! i will say that the overarching plot was very good and the intrigue was built well, but like.. if it wasnt there i would not have finished the games, and no other good ace attorney game has really needed that. But I mean, if i hadnt decided to play All the ace attorney games, i wouldnt have finished them. i played dual destinies im not gonna wimp out on a fucking takumi game, but god is it kind of tedious. and, while the homoeroticism was there, it was just a little uninspired and it was made in what. 2017? they couldve made kazuma canonically gay. for some reason that was my takeaway from the homoerotic subtext like this just couldve been text idk
idk i love prosecutors I'll go to places i wouldnt go with a gun defending known controversial prosecutor and possible misogynist diego "godot" armando, im married to miles edgeworth despite him being gay and me being a lesbian, klavier gavin is one of my favorite characters of all time, and what can i even BEGIN to say about franziska, my beautiful perfect angel. and then you have TWO...!! entire prosecutors in a game and i straight up dislike one and feel neutral to negative about the other? how can you even do that? how can it get that bad..
idk i love prosecutors I'll go to places i wouldnt go with a gun defending known controversial prosecutor and possible misogynist diego "godot" armando, im married to miles edgeworth despite him being gay and me being a lesbian, klavier gavin is one of my favorite characters of all time, and what can i even BEGIN to say about franziska, my beautiful perfect angel. and then you have TWO...!! entire prosecutors in a game and i straight up dislike one and feel neutral to negative about the other? how can you even do that? how can it get that bad..
This review contains spoilers
Tatarigoroshi is the bleakest Higurashi chapter and its most effective tragedy. It’s driven by intense anger at institutional failures and the resulting inability to solve problems that nobody should have to take care of on their own. It’s driven by the fear that there is nothing you can do to resolve someone’s suffering. The argument between Keiichi, Mion and Rena in the classroom is surely one of Higurashi’s most painful scenes because it shows the breakdown of friendship in terms that are all too real. This scene is especially awful because none of the characters are outright wrong. Mion and Rena are right to argue that this isn’t a burden that should be placed on the responsibility of some teenagers, but Keiichi is also right to resist the idea that the only option is to wait and hope things should get better. The characters hurt each other, not over murderous plots or potential demonic possessions, but because they are in a situation that none of them can emotionally handle. Satoko’s characterisation is excellently written as well - while this is a story written from an outsider’s perspective of abuse, it’s one where the victim is written with an extensive amount of interiority, helped by her being a character who we already know. Ryukishi writes in a difficult zone where Satoko is an ‘imperfect’ victim who makes major mistakes without falling into the trap of victim blaming - instead he shows that victims’ relationship to their abusers is motivated by a lot of complex psychological factors which cannot be quickly resolved. Once again he allows you to understand why characters make the decisions they do, even if they’re the ‘wrong’ ones.
The most interesting characterisation in the chapter is of Keiichi, who becomes a more interesting protagonist with each arc. We have another synthesis of the loving Keiichi with the paranoid, murderous Keiichi. I think this episode is one of the most interesting to look at how love in Higurashi is portrayed. Keiichi’s tragedy in this episode is that he is driven by love for Satoko but he fails to actually understand her. Part of his motive for murdering Teppei is that he believes things can immediately go back to the way they were. This is a case where his innocence fails him - he has very little idea about the reality of trauma and PTSD and how Satoko is not going to instantly revert back to how she was before Teppei returned. Again, this is another case in Higurashi of the ‘wrong’ thoughts and decisions being understandable ones in the context of Keiichi being a dumb kid. He is generally very misguided and never really takes into account what Satoko is actually feeling. So when I say Keiichi fails to empathise with the other characters in this episode it’s not about him being malicious or without love, but more that he is limited by his own point of view. I think the turmoil of experiencing love without a true understanding of the other is one of the strongest themes across Ryukishi’s entire work (particularly Umineko) and this chapter is where it’s most apparent in Higurashi.
One of my favourite parts of the chapter is the murder scene, and I want to take note of how this part in particular is given a strong advantage by being in a visual novel. It’s undeniable that Ryukishi stretches things out - the average scenes in Higurashi and Umineko tend to be at least 10 minutes long and often even longer (especially depending on your reading speed). Bad news when you’re reading an Angel Mort scene or when the narration repeats things that have already been explained, but some of the best scenes in his work benefit from the stretching of time. The murder scene is perhaps the one that benefits most from this. Its effectiveness is lost in the anime and manga adaptations where the scene goes by pretty quickly. Not much actually happens in the scene, and these adaptations convey all the essential information, but the more important thing is how slow and stretched out the murder is - the feeling that you’re actually in there with Keiichi. The extended process of waiting out for Teppei, actually committing the murder and trying desperately to bury the body is all written with painful detail, and the scene’s length feels as if it corresponds to how long this process actually takes. The scene after with Keiichi encountering Takano is even better, and probably my pick for the single most tense scene in Higurashi. It nails the feeling of accidentally stumbling on something you really shouldn’t have, and its circumstances being seemingly disconnected from the rest of the chapter make it feel even more unsettling.
The rest of the chapter is more divisive and for fair reason. Tatarigoroshi starts off as the most grounded and least mystery-driven chapter, then it suddenly pivots into being the most bizarre and unexplainable one. I think it works because it maintains the emotional core of the chapter, which is the feeling of absolute helplessness. Here, it seems as if the world itself has completely turned on Keiichi, denying him any agency or for his previous actions to genuinely stick. This section in particular makes me excited for Ryukishi’s work on Silent Hill, as I think this sense of one’s internal fears being externalised through an intensely hostile environment is absolutely nailed here. I enjoyed theorising for this chapter the most because it’s the one with the most room for supernatural explanations. The first two chapters have the issue that the supernatural explanations make everything too clear for it to be an actual mystery, so the question of whether things are supernatural or real is an unbalanced one. There are a few elements of the chapter that I don’t like as much are the introduction of Irie, who has the unfortunate case of being a character who COULD have been great if Ryukishi didn’t feel the need to bring in his perverted comedy. Unfortunately nearly every chapter of Higurashi has at least one scene which is actually painful to get through. The other part I’m not too keen on is the Great Hinamizawa Disaster, which is another swerve that suffers a bit from its lack of connection to the chapter’s thematic core. The finale is undeniably exciting and has a lot of “what the fuck is happening NOW?” value but this chapter would have ended on a much more poignant note if it finished with Satoko running away from Keiichi on the bridge. I don’t mind some contrivances but Keiichi’s survival is also a bit much even by the series’ standards. I will note that there is a reason why this event has to happen in this chapter, so I understand its presence in the context of the story as a whole. I still take issue with the event in general, but that’s to be elaborated upon later.
The most interesting characterisation in the chapter is of Keiichi, who becomes a more interesting protagonist with each arc. We have another synthesis of the loving Keiichi with the paranoid, murderous Keiichi. I think this episode is one of the most interesting to look at how love in Higurashi is portrayed. Keiichi’s tragedy in this episode is that he is driven by love for Satoko but he fails to actually understand her. Part of his motive for murdering Teppei is that he believes things can immediately go back to the way they were. This is a case where his innocence fails him - he has very little idea about the reality of trauma and PTSD and how Satoko is not going to instantly revert back to how she was before Teppei returned. Again, this is another case in Higurashi of the ‘wrong’ thoughts and decisions being understandable ones in the context of Keiichi being a dumb kid. He is generally very misguided and never really takes into account what Satoko is actually feeling. So when I say Keiichi fails to empathise with the other characters in this episode it’s not about him being malicious or without love, but more that he is limited by his own point of view. I think the turmoil of experiencing love without a true understanding of the other is one of the strongest themes across Ryukishi’s entire work (particularly Umineko) and this chapter is where it’s most apparent in Higurashi.
One of my favourite parts of the chapter is the murder scene, and I want to take note of how this part in particular is given a strong advantage by being in a visual novel. It’s undeniable that Ryukishi stretches things out - the average scenes in Higurashi and Umineko tend to be at least 10 minutes long and often even longer (especially depending on your reading speed). Bad news when you’re reading an Angel Mort scene or when the narration repeats things that have already been explained, but some of the best scenes in his work benefit from the stretching of time. The murder scene is perhaps the one that benefits most from this. Its effectiveness is lost in the anime and manga adaptations where the scene goes by pretty quickly. Not much actually happens in the scene, and these adaptations convey all the essential information, but the more important thing is how slow and stretched out the murder is - the feeling that you’re actually in there with Keiichi. The extended process of waiting out for Teppei, actually committing the murder and trying desperately to bury the body is all written with painful detail, and the scene’s length feels as if it corresponds to how long this process actually takes. The scene after with Keiichi encountering Takano is even better, and probably my pick for the single most tense scene in Higurashi. It nails the feeling of accidentally stumbling on something you really shouldn’t have, and its circumstances being seemingly disconnected from the rest of the chapter make it feel even more unsettling.
The rest of the chapter is more divisive and for fair reason. Tatarigoroshi starts off as the most grounded and least mystery-driven chapter, then it suddenly pivots into being the most bizarre and unexplainable one. I think it works because it maintains the emotional core of the chapter, which is the feeling of absolute helplessness. Here, it seems as if the world itself has completely turned on Keiichi, denying him any agency or for his previous actions to genuinely stick. This section in particular makes me excited for Ryukishi’s work on Silent Hill, as I think this sense of one’s internal fears being externalised through an intensely hostile environment is absolutely nailed here. I enjoyed theorising for this chapter the most because it’s the one with the most room for supernatural explanations. The first two chapters have the issue that the supernatural explanations make everything too clear for it to be an actual mystery, so the question of whether things are supernatural or real is an unbalanced one. There are a few elements of the chapter that I don’t like as much are the introduction of Irie, who has the unfortunate case of being a character who COULD have been great if Ryukishi didn’t feel the need to bring in his perverted comedy. Unfortunately nearly every chapter of Higurashi has at least one scene which is actually painful to get through. The other part I’m not too keen on is the Great Hinamizawa Disaster, which is another swerve that suffers a bit from its lack of connection to the chapter’s thematic core. The finale is undeniably exciting and has a lot of “what the fuck is happening NOW?” value but this chapter would have ended on a much more poignant note if it finished with Satoko running away from Keiichi on the bridge. I don’t mind some contrivances but Keiichi’s survival is also a bit much even by the series’ standards. I will note that there is a reason why this event has to happen in this chapter, so I understand its presence in the context of the story as a whole. I still take issue with the event in general, but that’s to be elaborated upon later.
This review contains spoilers
Resolve is a pretty significant upgrade to its predecessor. With vastly faster pacing, better character moments, and more interesting murder mysteries, it’s an improvement all across the board from the miserable first game. I wish I could sing it endless praises, but it still stumbles enough to be just another good but flawed entry in the series. In an (admirable) effort to be more fun than GAA1 and skip to the good parts, Resolve suffers from wasted potential from several of its more interesting characters and ideas, rushed developments, annoying telegraphed twists that you could see coming hours ago, and some bizarre character directions which in some ways feel like they are directly betraying the tone and character development the first game set up for so long.
There is a fight between the serious and the goofy in this duology which is painful to watch. For every character that suffers through a long life of misery and betrayal to get out of poverty we get one that turns from a thief with no future to a promising police detective overnight. For every well realized twist and grounded explanation making use of its Victorian setting we get fucking holograms in court. The goofy tone and characters of the series is at complete odds with any of the serious content GAA attempts to tackle. And attempt is a good choice of words, because most concepts and themes here are explored in a surface level that crumble as soon as you give them some thought, or at least, just go absolutely nowhere. Racism, imperialism, classicism, sexism… they are all ideas GAA touches, but never meaningfully explores in a way that makes them more than tiny footnotes to the individual cases, if it doesn’t fumble them completely (looking at you, Van Zikes). I would argue the only concept GAA manages to successfully integrate into the overall story is corruption, something we have seen over and over in this series.
The pretenses of Ace Attorney being a game series instead of a novel are completely gone in Resolve: no new gameplay elements, the same contradictions we have seen time and time again, sudden removal of key mechanics… Little would be lost if this duology was a kinetic VN, and ideally a shorter and more concise one. More disappointing is the reuse of so many assets, most notably the soundtrack, which is even more tonally dissonant this time around. This series always had a strong musical identity in each entry, and it was a massive pity seeing that aspect thrown out the window here. Especially because the soundtrack of Adventures was one of my least favorites. Kitagawa knows how to nail the most bombastic moments in and outside the courtroom, but the music between those moments left me cold. The heavy string usage and serious melodies don’t mesh with the shenanigans of Ace Attorney.
My biggest issue with GAA as a whole is that it tries to reframe this wacky series about wacky murders with wacky characters into this serious and mature legal drama that is hardly as satisfying as the dumb or personal fun cases the series excelled at for the longest time. The long-winded boring setup only hurts the narrative when the payoff is as weak and contrived as it currently is. The story of Resolve ends up focusing on bringing down an important political figure from his seat of power, but the only reason Ryuunosuke is given that chance in the first place is by that same political figure gifting him the opportunity in a silver platter. Kazuma’s “revival”, and especially his admission as a prosecutor by Stronghart borders on the absurdity by the final case. The sheer premise of this story is questionable, why was Stronghart so selective on the people he needed to silence when so many other individuals were in the know about the conspiracy and actively posed a threat to it? Did he realize by hiring assassins he was involving even more people into it? And one of these assassins had extremely personal ties to the conspiracy he was trying to hide in the first place? Come on. I just don’t think even the basic concepts that tie this duology together click well. Games in this series that took themselves far less seriously could push these narratives as cockiness or exaggerated personality traits to great effect, but here it just came across as downright nonsense. These types of writing contrivances pile up by the end of the experience, and make a potentially fascinating story into a confused mess. It is a fun mess, though. At least in Resolve.
The ending was absolutely terrible. I can’t believe I am suggesting a Persona tier sequence for Ace Attorney, but I think it would have been a much better conclusion If Stronghart’s downfall relied on the will of the people rather than on an arbitrarily higher political power settling the score. Let me change the ending a little bit. Without the use of holograms, Sholmes could have easily co-organized many of the people we had helped on this adventure to publicly testify against Stronghart’s crimes. Soseki as a currently renowed author, writing about his negative experiences with the British legal system, Gina and part of the Scotland Yard force talking about the corruption in the police as retaliation for the loss of their most loved member and their treatment as expendable pawns, Scythe and Jigoku confessing their full involvement in the government conspiracy inspired by their close ones (Gorey and Mikotoba) rebelling against the corrupt system... All leading to the inevitable conclusion that Stronghart’s reign of absolute legal power and control was over before it even started. You could even have Ryunosuke convince the people of the judiciary with a Summation Examination. I thought they were going to do something important and grand with this gimmick when the jury was first introduced, but then they completely dropped the mechanic altogether, making me question why it even was there! I think that type of ending would tie the themes and cases of the games a lot better, and deservedly prop up Ryunosuke’s involvement in Stronghart’s downfall. As it currently stands, the spotlight is completely stolen by Sholmes at the last second, while he deus ex machina the hardest I have ever seen in these games. What a waste of one of the best Pursuit themes in the entire series.
Anyway, Resolve is another fun legal adventure attached to a 30-hour game of boring setup for a payoff other AA games managed to do on their own. I can’t stretch enough how much better Resolve is compared to Adventures, but everything I hated about the first one returns in some way or another, dragging the whole experience down. I wasn’t emotionally invested with the story or the the main characters, the railroaded gameplay constantly disappointed me, the payoff was really messy, and above all, the direction it took with the series is one I do not enjoy. I just wish that I had a better opinion of this experience as a whole, because it had the potential to be something amazing, and it never quite got there for me.
Case Ranking
----------------------
Fantastic:
Case 4
Great:
Case 2
Very Good:
Case 3 and Case 5
Good:
Case 1
There is a fight between the serious and the goofy in this duology which is painful to watch. For every character that suffers through a long life of misery and betrayal to get out of poverty we get one that turns from a thief with no future to a promising police detective overnight. For every well realized twist and grounded explanation making use of its Victorian setting we get fucking holograms in court. The goofy tone and characters of the series is at complete odds with any of the serious content GAA attempts to tackle. And attempt is a good choice of words, because most concepts and themes here are explored in a surface level that crumble as soon as you give them some thought, or at least, just go absolutely nowhere. Racism, imperialism, classicism, sexism… they are all ideas GAA touches, but never meaningfully explores in a way that makes them more than tiny footnotes to the individual cases, if it doesn’t fumble them completely (looking at you, Van Zikes). I would argue the only concept GAA manages to successfully integrate into the overall story is corruption, something we have seen over and over in this series.
The pretenses of Ace Attorney being a game series instead of a novel are completely gone in Resolve: no new gameplay elements, the same contradictions we have seen time and time again, sudden removal of key mechanics… Little would be lost if this duology was a kinetic VN, and ideally a shorter and more concise one. More disappointing is the reuse of so many assets, most notably the soundtrack, which is even more tonally dissonant this time around. This series always had a strong musical identity in each entry, and it was a massive pity seeing that aspect thrown out the window here. Especially because the soundtrack of Adventures was one of my least favorites. Kitagawa knows how to nail the most bombastic moments in and outside the courtroom, but the music between those moments left me cold. The heavy string usage and serious melodies don’t mesh with the shenanigans of Ace Attorney.
My biggest issue with GAA as a whole is that it tries to reframe this wacky series about wacky murders with wacky characters into this serious and mature legal drama that is hardly as satisfying as the dumb or personal fun cases the series excelled at for the longest time. The long-winded boring setup only hurts the narrative when the payoff is as weak and contrived as it currently is. The story of Resolve ends up focusing on bringing down an important political figure from his seat of power, but the only reason Ryuunosuke is given that chance in the first place is by that same political figure gifting him the opportunity in a silver platter. Kazuma’s “revival”, and especially his admission as a prosecutor by Stronghart borders on the absurdity by the final case. The sheer premise of this story is questionable, why was Stronghart so selective on the people he needed to silence when so many other individuals were in the know about the conspiracy and actively posed a threat to it? Did he realize by hiring assassins he was involving even more people into it? And one of these assassins had extremely personal ties to the conspiracy he was trying to hide in the first place? Come on. I just don’t think even the basic concepts that tie this duology together click well. Games in this series that took themselves far less seriously could push these narratives as cockiness or exaggerated personality traits to great effect, but here it just came across as downright nonsense. These types of writing contrivances pile up by the end of the experience, and make a potentially fascinating story into a confused mess. It is a fun mess, though. At least in Resolve.
The ending was absolutely terrible. I can’t believe I am suggesting a Persona tier sequence for Ace Attorney, but I think it would have been a much better conclusion If Stronghart’s downfall relied on the will of the people rather than on an arbitrarily higher political power settling the score. Let me change the ending a little bit. Without the use of holograms, Sholmes could have easily co-organized many of the people we had helped on this adventure to publicly testify against Stronghart’s crimes. Soseki as a currently renowed author, writing about his negative experiences with the British legal system, Gina and part of the Scotland Yard force talking about the corruption in the police as retaliation for the loss of their most loved member and their treatment as expendable pawns, Scythe and Jigoku confessing their full involvement in the government conspiracy inspired by their close ones (Gorey and Mikotoba) rebelling against the corrupt system... All leading to the inevitable conclusion that Stronghart’s reign of absolute legal power and control was over before it even started. You could even have Ryunosuke convince the people of the judiciary with a Summation Examination. I thought they were going to do something important and grand with this gimmick when the jury was first introduced, but then they completely dropped the mechanic altogether, making me question why it even was there! I think that type of ending would tie the themes and cases of the games a lot better, and deservedly prop up Ryunosuke’s involvement in Stronghart’s downfall. As it currently stands, the spotlight is completely stolen by Sholmes at the last second, while he deus ex machina the hardest I have ever seen in these games. What a waste of one of the best Pursuit themes in the entire series.
Anyway, Resolve is another fun legal adventure attached to a 30-hour game of boring setup for a payoff other AA games managed to do on their own. I can’t stretch enough how much better Resolve is compared to Adventures, but everything I hated about the first one returns in some way or another, dragging the whole experience down. I wasn’t emotionally invested with the story or the the main characters, the railroaded gameplay constantly disappointed me, the payoff was really messy, and above all, the direction it took with the series is one I do not enjoy. I just wish that I had a better opinion of this experience as a whole, because it had the potential to be something amazing, and it never quite got there for me.
Case Ranking
----------------------
Fantastic:
Case 4
Great:
Case 2
Very Good:
Case 3 and Case 5
Good:
Case 1
Xenosaga I & II
2006
This game is a much more tightly paced retelling and demake of the first two episodes of the Xenosaga trilogy which falls short in a few particular areas, but overall is a very fun way to re-experience the first two episodes of Xenosaga.
I've never really revisited Xenosaga's story before. It's fun experiencing Xenosaga in such an unorthodox way, albeit it's not quite as grandiose as the PS2 cutscenes. Xenosaga 1 honestly felt like it went by incredibly fast, and I mean that in a good way. Most scenes felt like they got to the point quickly, though some segments did drag on a little bit. Xenosaga 2 had three chapters with absolutely 0 gameplay and I can't think of anything more accurate to Xenosaga 2. The new story elements/changes are pretty neat, if not all that significant overall. A few new characters here and there which don't really come back for Xenosaga Episode III, among certain character's roles becoming more significant in specific scenarios. Extra backstory for some characters, etc. There is a very nice new scene in the ending of Episode II. The game also has more references to Pied Piper both in main story cutscenes and NPC dialogue, which is INCREDIBLY nice to see.
That said, I feel the pacing was ultimately dragged down by the substory segments which mostly offer flashback sequences to explain part of the backstory of certain characters, or to show events from a different perspective. Almost all of these were portrayed during the main story of the PS2 versions, however; some of these originally featured gameplay segments, while the DS substories do not.
For instance, when Ziggy goes to save M.O.M.O. at the very beginning of Episode I, you play through a dungeon in the PS2 version, while the DS version presents it purely as a flashback and dialogue only. I don't mind these gameplay segments being cut since it lends itself to a much more tightly-paced game overall, however I do take issue with how frequent substories are and how intrusive they can feel to the overall experience.
You often get prompted to view a side story after a story cutscene in which it unlocks. These also offer bonus items as you finish reading them. The issue comes with how frequent these can be at times, and intrusive they can be to the pacing of the game. They are strictly visual novel segments, and even if I'm reading at half speed in Japanese they are LONG. It plays so much like a visual novel that I end up wishing for an option to save during cutscenes, this game really needed it.
That said, they ARE all technically optional, and can be read from the menu later on at any point throughout the game. I just felt reading them as they came up was the most natural way to consume them, since they give you a prompt to read them immediately upon unlock.
There are some story segments where you have a main story scene, a substory, followed by more main story and then ANOTHER substory, with no break or way to save in between. Many of these substories are often longer than the main story segments that precede and succeed them, making them incredibly worth the read but kinda out of place in a way. The substories are certainly substantial in terms of length but viewed in the context of when the game prompts you to view them, they feel like they only serve to break the pace rather than give you insight into a new perspective or character's backstory.
The writing in this version of the story is significantly less messy than the PS2 versions, and honestly I appreciate the overall story of the trilogy a whole lot more after playing this. Like, it's a lot of info but Jesus Christ (literally) I've never appreciated Xenosaga as much as this before. It's an incredible story and I've honestly enjoyed re-experiencing this story. Everything feels interconnected, somehow incredibly naturally despite the nature of the story. Incredibly glad I experienced this story a second time with the DS version of these games.
Visually, you can tell this game was fairly cheaply-made with a lot of effects looking laughably like mid-2000s meme effects, character animation being almost nonexistent and reusing assets from the PS2 games... but honestly I found this added a lot of charm to the experience. There are a number of times the game just features short FMVs of the PS2 version's cutscenes, which made me laugh every time I saw one. A few voice lines are reused from the Japanese versions of these games as well, although they are incredibly compressed in this game. You can tell where they cut corners, but I found it so charming in a way that I didn't mind one bit.
This game has a completely unique soundtrack to the PS2 versions of these games by Kosuke Yamashita, which is VERY good. I mainly know Kosuke Yamashita for his work on the Nintendo Switch Presentation Trailer music for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which is oddly specific I know, but I was pretty impressed by his work on this DS game. There are no real rearrangements of the PS2 music done for the game, so with me being a Xeno series music nerd, it's a nice feeling to discover new Xeno music for the first time. A personal highlight track for me would be the E.S. Battle Theme. It is very nice to play Episode I with any background music at all. The new music all feels very fitting for Xenosaga's overall tone, albeit I do admit it does get repetitive after a while given how often tracks are reused, and that you'll be listening to most of them for quite a while during the visual novel-like cutscenes. The music implementation could have been improved as well, as there are many moments where tracks only play for 5-10 seconds before getting cut off to play another song (this happens particularly often during PS2 cutscene FMVs). But overall, I do quite like this soundtrack and feels like it deserves its place as a Xenosaga soundtrack.
As for the gameplay, I honestly think it might be the snappiest battle system in the series. It plays mostly as you'd expect if you've played any other Xenosaga game—the turn-roulette with Crit/Boost/+Point turns, combos and deathblows tied to the order you input the buttons, etc. Everything is here, and everything feels right, however; this game features battles over a 5x3 grid (5x10 including the enemy field), with front-middle-back rows for attack and defence as you'd expect.
This grid-like system is used in a number of ways. For instance, attacks that begin with the X button can ONLY be performed with any enemy directly in front of you, while attacks that begin with the Y button can attack anywhere on the field (you can target enemies with the L button). On top of this, you gradually unlock different Formations, which are specific positions for the active characters which give your party buffs and debuffs at the start of your next turn. Most of these Formations have some sort of trade-off, for example placing three characters in the centre three tiles of the front row will increase the STR stat by 30%, but lower your defence by 10%. Formations also remove any status effects inflicted upon your party, both positive and negative. So the trade-off for using a formation is that you can't buff your own stats during fights.
It makes for a relatively unique battle system within the series which, honestly, was incredibly fun to play with for the first time. Animations feel fast, flashy and satisfying to pull off. Formations have a neat trade-off mechanic which makes positioning feel incredibly important, on top of enemies potentially dealing knockback to you to knock you out of those formations and ruin your buffs.
The only, criticism (?) I'd say is that it is very easy to break this game early on. Once you obtain the skill to have +1 AP at the start of every turn, you can spam deathblows as much as you'd like. This also trivialises E.S. fights in the last quarter of the game. Later on, some formations flat out have no downside. There is one Formation which heals 20% of your HP at the start of every turn, which is as broken as it sounds. You cam effectively use the Healing Formation for every single boss fight without any punishment for it, it effectively lets you win without any challenge whatsoever. That said, I don't mind an easy game. I just feel like there was potential for a lot of strategy with this foundation of a battle system that went untapped.
Otherwise, the menu UI is ass. There is absolutely 0 space but a thin light blue line between columns with NUMBERS in them sometimes, and against the dark blue background it makes it look like two columns are one since you can barely see the separation between them. This is especially a problem when both columns are displaying numbers, like when levelling up skills and deathblows. Glad to see Monolith has always had troubles with UI.
I'll admit, I wrote down many of these thoughts ahead of time as I was playing through the game, since most of my thoughts on this game were already fairly consolidated early on. The later parts of the game didn't really change my opinion on this game very much, it is VERY consistent, and I think that's a very good thing.
All in all, I think this is a funny little game. I think it's a really neat demake of the PS2 versions, and arguably more tightly-paced than Episode I and II are individually. Would absolutely recommend to anyone who can read Japanese, considering the current lack of any official or fan-made translations for the game. I'm looking forward to eventually playing Xenosaga Freaks!
I've never really revisited Xenosaga's story before. It's fun experiencing Xenosaga in such an unorthodox way, albeit it's not quite as grandiose as the PS2 cutscenes. Xenosaga 1 honestly felt like it went by incredibly fast, and I mean that in a good way. Most scenes felt like they got to the point quickly, though some segments did drag on a little bit. Xenosaga 2 had three chapters with absolutely 0 gameplay and I can't think of anything more accurate to Xenosaga 2. The new story elements/changes are pretty neat, if not all that significant overall. A few new characters here and there which don't really come back for Xenosaga Episode III, among certain character's roles becoming more significant in specific scenarios. Extra backstory for some characters, etc. There is a very nice new scene in the ending of Episode II. The game also has more references to Pied Piper both in main story cutscenes and NPC dialogue, which is INCREDIBLY nice to see.
That said, I feel the pacing was ultimately dragged down by the substory segments which mostly offer flashback sequences to explain part of the backstory of certain characters, or to show events from a different perspective. Almost all of these were portrayed during the main story of the PS2 versions, however; some of these originally featured gameplay segments, while the DS substories do not.
For instance, when Ziggy goes to save M.O.M.O. at the very beginning of Episode I, you play through a dungeon in the PS2 version, while the DS version presents it purely as a flashback and dialogue only. I don't mind these gameplay segments being cut since it lends itself to a much more tightly-paced game overall, however I do take issue with how frequent substories are and how intrusive they can feel to the overall experience.
You often get prompted to view a side story after a story cutscene in which it unlocks. These also offer bonus items as you finish reading them. The issue comes with how frequent these can be at times, and intrusive they can be to the pacing of the game. They are strictly visual novel segments, and even if I'm reading at half speed in Japanese they are LONG. It plays so much like a visual novel that I end up wishing for an option to save during cutscenes, this game really needed it.
That said, they ARE all technically optional, and can be read from the menu later on at any point throughout the game. I just felt reading them as they came up was the most natural way to consume them, since they give you a prompt to read them immediately upon unlock.
There are some story segments where you have a main story scene, a substory, followed by more main story and then ANOTHER substory, with no break or way to save in between. Many of these substories are often longer than the main story segments that precede and succeed them, making them incredibly worth the read but kinda out of place in a way. The substories are certainly substantial in terms of length but viewed in the context of when the game prompts you to view them, they feel like they only serve to break the pace rather than give you insight into a new perspective or character's backstory.
The writing in this version of the story is significantly less messy than the PS2 versions, and honestly I appreciate the overall story of the trilogy a whole lot more after playing this. Like, it's a lot of info but Jesus Christ (literally) I've never appreciated Xenosaga as much as this before. It's an incredible story and I've honestly enjoyed re-experiencing this story. Everything feels interconnected, somehow incredibly naturally despite the nature of the story. Incredibly glad I experienced this story a second time with the DS version of these games.
Visually, you can tell this game was fairly cheaply-made with a lot of effects looking laughably like mid-2000s meme effects, character animation being almost nonexistent and reusing assets from the PS2 games... but honestly I found this added a lot of charm to the experience. There are a number of times the game just features short FMVs of the PS2 version's cutscenes, which made me laugh every time I saw one. A few voice lines are reused from the Japanese versions of these games as well, although they are incredibly compressed in this game. You can tell where they cut corners, but I found it so charming in a way that I didn't mind one bit.
This game has a completely unique soundtrack to the PS2 versions of these games by Kosuke Yamashita, which is VERY good. I mainly know Kosuke Yamashita for his work on the Nintendo Switch Presentation Trailer music for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which is oddly specific I know, but I was pretty impressed by his work on this DS game. There are no real rearrangements of the PS2 music done for the game, so with me being a Xeno series music nerd, it's a nice feeling to discover new Xeno music for the first time. A personal highlight track for me would be the E.S. Battle Theme. It is very nice to play Episode I with any background music at all. The new music all feels very fitting for Xenosaga's overall tone, albeit I do admit it does get repetitive after a while given how often tracks are reused, and that you'll be listening to most of them for quite a while during the visual novel-like cutscenes. The music implementation could have been improved as well, as there are many moments where tracks only play for 5-10 seconds before getting cut off to play another song (this happens particularly often during PS2 cutscene FMVs). But overall, I do quite like this soundtrack and feels like it deserves its place as a Xenosaga soundtrack.
As for the gameplay, I honestly think it might be the snappiest battle system in the series. It plays mostly as you'd expect if you've played any other Xenosaga game—the turn-roulette with Crit/Boost/+Point turns, combos and deathblows tied to the order you input the buttons, etc. Everything is here, and everything feels right, however; this game features battles over a 5x3 grid (5x10 including the enemy field), with front-middle-back rows for attack and defence as you'd expect.
This grid-like system is used in a number of ways. For instance, attacks that begin with the X button can ONLY be performed with any enemy directly in front of you, while attacks that begin with the Y button can attack anywhere on the field (you can target enemies with the L button). On top of this, you gradually unlock different Formations, which are specific positions for the active characters which give your party buffs and debuffs at the start of your next turn. Most of these Formations have some sort of trade-off, for example placing three characters in the centre three tiles of the front row will increase the STR stat by 30%, but lower your defence by 10%. Formations also remove any status effects inflicted upon your party, both positive and negative. So the trade-off for using a formation is that you can't buff your own stats during fights.
It makes for a relatively unique battle system within the series which, honestly, was incredibly fun to play with for the first time. Animations feel fast, flashy and satisfying to pull off. Formations have a neat trade-off mechanic which makes positioning feel incredibly important, on top of enemies potentially dealing knockback to you to knock you out of those formations and ruin your buffs.
The only, criticism (?) I'd say is that it is very easy to break this game early on. Once you obtain the skill to have +1 AP at the start of every turn, you can spam deathblows as much as you'd like. This also trivialises E.S. fights in the last quarter of the game. Later on, some formations flat out have no downside. There is one Formation which heals 20% of your HP at the start of every turn, which is as broken as it sounds. You cam effectively use the Healing Formation for every single boss fight without any punishment for it, it effectively lets you win without any challenge whatsoever. That said, I don't mind an easy game. I just feel like there was potential for a lot of strategy with this foundation of a battle system that went untapped.
Otherwise, the menu UI is ass. There is absolutely 0 space but a thin light blue line between columns with NUMBERS in them sometimes, and against the dark blue background it makes it look like two columns are one since you can barely see the separation between them. This is especially a problem when both columns are displaying numbers, like when levelling up skills and deathblows. Glad to see Monolith has always had troubles with UI.
I'll admit, I wrote down many of these thoughts ahead of time as I was playing through the game, since most of my thoughts on this game were already fairly consolidated early on. The later parts of the game didn't really change my opinion on this game very much, it is VERY consistent, and I think that's a very good thing.
All in all, I think this is a funny little game. I think it's a really neat demake of the PS2 versions, and arguably more tightly-paced than Episode I and II are individually. Would absolutely recommend to anyone who can read Japanese, considering the current lack of any official or fan-made translations for the game. I'm looking forward to eventually playing Xenosaga Freaks!
This review contains spoilers
The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles is a massive leap in the right direction. One of the biggest problems with the Ace Attorney franchise is its lack of proper entry points in the series. This is a series that has 6 main games that should be played in chronological order. Despite this, Capcom has required a “no spoiler rule” of sorts for recent entries that completely stops the franchise from achieving any proper continuity or overarching story. TGAAC does its best to circumvent this.
Having next to no formal relation with the main series is one of the duology’s biggest strengths. It allows the new characters to have their proper moment in the spotlight and the world doesn’t have to bend to the realities of the main series.
Gameplay mechanics are at their peak in these titles. The examination of evidence as 3D models has finally been fully realized and allows players to discover clues on their own. Having multiple witnesses feels natural. Summation examinations are very fun pace breakers. None of these mechanics feel gimmicky or require any sort of suspension of disbelief, like previous gimmicks such as psyche locks. Investigation sections also get their own new minigame in the form of course corrections. The streamlining to the Ace Attorney formula works very well here and I have no problems with any of it.
Unfortunately, I found the soundtrack to be kinda mid. The pursuit and summation exam themes were cool, I guess, but I found overall way less tracks that I held onto. In this regard, Apollo Justice set a precedent that the rest of the series has yet to reach again. I think I was Stockholm syndromed into liking the TGAA cross examination themes, but they feel so silly and out of place. Like even during the final chapter, when the topic of conversation was super intense, you were hearing this clockwork-sounding march.
Because TGAAC could make great use out of its status as a standalone duology, it has a fresh story on its bones. There’s a lot to enjoy, but I do have a fair amount of complaints.
1-1: The Adventure of the Great Departure
This case was fine, it just felt way too long. If I’m not mistaken, I believe it’s the longest opening case in the series? It took way too long to get to the point. I didn’t find the mystery too interesting at all. I do like how Jezaille Brett was portrayed. The fonts when she spoke were especially creative and it’s disappointing that they never returned in that way.
1-2: The Adventure of the Unbreakable Speckled Band
I think some of the worst content in the duology is when the writers desperately try to link events of the game to real Sherlock Holmes mysteries. Not only are these chapter’s events incredibly stupid but the chapter is incomplete, containing no trial. The investigation isn’t sufficient on it’s own either. At the very least, this chapter could have used some rebuttals like in the Investigations games. When you find out that Sholmes faked the events of this chapter in the second game, it felt even weaker. And the excuse he gave about Nikolina Pavlova was cheap.
1-3: The Adventure of the Runaway Room
At first, I was lukewarm to this chapter due to there being no formal investigation section. I mean, we’re halfway through the game’s chapters and we still haven’t gotten the full experience yet? But I have grown on this case a ton. Examination of evidence is a big part of the mystery, as the evidence literally changes halfway through the trial. It’s the first time you go up against van Zieks and McGilded was a very cool villain. Definitely left a strong impression.
1-4: The Adventure of the Clouded Kokoro
Similarly to how I think that some of the worst content is when too much effort is made to include Sherlock Holmes material, the same applies to real life people. Soseki Natsume is a real human being, and the excessive effort to tell a story of a character that is restrained to his personality in real life makes the overall experience suffer. This is also the least relevant case in the duology. The method ofmurder assault is too silly. For being the first fully complete case, it feels like it shouldn’t need to exist. Also the fact that Natsume survived the Reaper makes the entire Reaper plotline feel less powerful. At the time, you think McGilded was killed by the Reaper as well so this outcome kinda lessens that impact.
1-5: The Adventure of the Unspeakable Story
This is my favorite case in the entire duology. It brings back and develops my favorite character in the whole story, Gina Lestrade. Pop Windibank gets a good amount of screentime before he dies, too. What I love about this case is that it is the culmination of all of the features in the game. Examining evidence has never been more important. There’s an underlying secret to the evidence that will prove Gina’s innocence. There are multiple summation examinations as well. In terms of the message of this case, I think it’s very well done, especially in contrast to 2-5. Gina Lestrade is a poor orphan diver, who was caught up as an accomplice for McGilded. She feared for her life, and likewise couldn’t resist the threats made against her. When McGilded died, Gina went to claim his items but was thwarted by the culprit, Ashley Graydon. He wanted a certain metal disk, but Inspector Gregson took it from him. Gina returns to the pawnbrokery at night in order to check if Iris’ story regarding the Professor case was still there, but was unfortunately implicated for Windibank’s murder in the process. Using the investigative powers at our disposal, we determine that Graydon was present at the scene, and he was after a second disk and music box in order to decipher a morse code message containing government secrets. He did, in fact, obtain the disk that night. It turns out that Inspector Gregson was covering for Graydon the whole time, so he could get the disk in exchange for information that could fake Graydon’s alibi. In what is one of the most genius application of the game’s mechanics ever, Ryunosuke not only spots Graydon and Gregson conspiring on the witness stand, but notices when Gregson plants the disk on one of the Skulkin brothers right before he consents to a body search. This is an incredibly creative way to apply the game’s mechanics and the outcome is fruitful. With both discs finally in hand, Ryunosuke threatens to play the music box out loud for everyone in the court in order to make Gregson confess that he was in cahoots with the real culprit. When the message starts playing, Gregson confesses to what he did in a panic. A high ranking police officer was completely prepared to throw an impoverished teenage girl under the bus to protect his own skin. It’s an unfortunate truth about corrupt policing and I think the commentary was very well done here. You don’t know this at the time, but van Zieks helps you because he is suspicious of Gregson being a part of the Reaper conspiracy (and he is correct). You also find out in the second game that the actual contents of the disk detail the assassin exchange between Britain and Japan. It’s a case that gets even better with age for those reasons. The only other case in Ace Attorney that redefines the parameters of what the player needs to do in a final showdown are in Justice For All’s final case (and debatably Turnabout Succession). Rather than just pointing out the bad guy, you need to come up with a way to end de Killer’s contract. In this case, you need to make Gregson tell the truth by outwardly threatening his status as the Reaper (which you aren’t aware of at the time). It’s a satisfying way to take out a villain in a position of power. Gina’s character is excellent in this case and it’s super vindicating to point out how she was treated like a scapegoat, just as Ryunosuke was in his first case against Brett. More final cases need to redefine the methods/reasoning for taking down a bad guy like this case (and Farewell, My Turnabout) does.
2-1: The Adventure of the Blossoming Attorney
This case has way less narrative significance than 1-1, but I still think it’s better. I like that we get some time to play as Susato and see more of Yujin. The actual details of the case are way more interesting than the steak dinner in the first game. It also really benefits from a shorter runtime. That being said, a random journalist killing Brett didn’t feel as connected to the story as it should be. Menimemo knew Jigoku, or at least somebody in the government, was conspiring to protect Brett…but that’s about it. He was just an outsider looking in and Rei Membami was arrested simply because he couldn’t own up to what he did. In 1-1, Jigoku knew the entire truth behind the murder because it was part of the assassin exchange that he co-opted. Ryunosuke was an intentional scapegoat. Membami served no such relevance (and her huge place on the game’s boxart plus her name made me think she would be way more relevant then she was!). Brett dying doesn’t have any impact on the story given that she already had killed John Wilson at that point. That being said, it still felt more enjoyable to play.
2-2: The Memoirs of the Clouded Kokoro
In my opinion, this case is marginally better than 1-4. I would still argue that it doesn’t leave filler territory, as the Baskerville collar was the only item of plot relevance and we basically just saw one model of it. The collar never actually appeared in the final chapter nor did it end up being a key piece of evidence like I suspected. Collar aside, this case did feel more satisfying and interesting to play. Shamspeare was the victim, but also the villain, in a way. Olive Green was genuinely a great surprise culprit and her plan to put poison on the gas pipe was pretty genius. The amount of Natsume content we’re getting feels way excessive given how unimportant he is, but whatever. The tea coins were also a really cool aspect of the case.
2-3: The Return of the Great Departed Soul
For all of the love that I see this case getting, it kinda underwhelmed me. It felt extremely bloated and felt like (maybe is) the longest case in the game. Harebrayne was legit one of the most annoying defendants in the entire series. And yes, he apologizes at the end, but that doesn't change the fact that he fought against you in court and had an extreme lack of sympathy. For all of the hate that Max Galactica gets, at least he never downright sabotages you during a trial. The other aspects of the trial, I’m more mixed on. I think there was a lot of info dumped in this case that contributed to the overwhelming feelings of the whole thing. The wax sculptor had a model of The Professor and Drebber stole it to get revenge on the victim, who ruined his life through a newspaper by publicizing the fact that Drebber was the grave digger who saw Genshin Asogi crawl out of his grave before getting shot. Drebber threatened the coroner by using the waxwork of Genshin because he knew she faked his report. The big twist at the end was that the coroner also had her own motives to kill the victim (a case of extortion that was so out of the blue and irrelevant) and that she was actually the killer despite being thought to be an accomplice. The investigation section in Drebber’s hideout was really cool but otherwise this was kind of a drag. Kazuma’s reveal at the end was kinda crazy but nothing we didn’t expect from earlier. The whole teleportation mechanism was dumb because you knew it was a sham from the start and whenever you actually tried to uncover what actually happened, your defendant got upset at you. Oh well, at least the little German boy crying was really funny.
2-4: Twisted Karma and His Last Bow
Okay side note but I audibly cheered when I found out Gregson died LMAO. Anyways, I feel like this mystery itself was very well paced and I think this portion of the case has very little wrong with it. Uncovering the revelation that Gregson was a hand of the Reaper is an interesting twist within itself. Most of my problems with my case are when things escalate in the final chapter. Seeing all of the connections unravel with Daley, the coroner, and Iris is presented very well. And there’s a great dance of deduction. I don’t like that Stronghart took the stand as the judge this early. And I especially don’t like that the core mechanic of the jury was completely removed from the last 2 chapters. And the fact that Jigoku isn’t exposed as the killer in this chapter but the final one. Now that I think about it, I really just like this case on principle. Kazuma being the final prosecutor is a great sight to see, and discovering that he was the assassin to kill Gregson was cool. It’s just that these facts are intrinsically linked with everything I don’t like from the final chapter.
2-5: The Resolve of Ryunosuke Naruhodo
Let me quickly list off the things I like about this chapter. Gina, like always, is great. Her outburst was very heartfelt and the desperation she showed before finally facing the truth was heavy. I like the final dance of deduction. I think having a judge being revealed as the killer was cool, albeit kinda obvious (I suspected him as soon as they gave him a name, and I was basically certain once the group photo was added to the court record). I was suspicious of Gregson since the beginning, and seeing his truth finally being aired out was satisfying and affirming for me. The best twist here was finding out that Klint was the Professor and Iris’ father.
Now let me get to the things I don’t like. Obviously, like I mentioned before, I don’t like that this chapter was split in two. In fact, I’m not even sure why they did it. I’m okay with the writers being more flexible with how they assemble and fill Ace Attorney episodes – it’s just that this game didn’t do a good job with this. And I say that both in reference to 2-4/2-5, and 1-2. It was odd just switching out of the blue to this last chapter and I fail to see why it couldn’t be just one big 2-4. I think hiding the key piece of evidence in the sword was a little lame. A huge gripe that ties in with the ending is that multiple agents of change are completely faceless and only appear for convenience. Queen Victoria and members of the judiciary in the gallery that chant “Testify! Testify!” are never actually shown or established in the story in any major way. Stronghart being the final villain was so painfully obvious and they didn’t even try to hide it. This was hinted to several times before multiple chapters prior. Having an obvious villain isn’t necessarily a bad thing. This chapter shares many similarities with 4-4, but I will go to bat for that chapter, and I have in my Apollo Justice review. But 2-5 isn’t sequel setup, unlike 4-4. Wright big braining the entire case has implications for his character that suggest he is more morally ambiguous than what the player thought. This was hinted at throughout the game, when he forged the bloody ace, and spoke to Apollo about how the current justice system was unable to punish criminals without hard evidence. Sholmes fills a similar role in this case. He miraculously, along with Yujin Mikotoba, gathers every key witness in the lobby so Stronghart doesn’t stop the trial. He has a holographic device (that was never shown before this) that he presents at the very end to announce that Queen Victoria saw the entire thing (we have also never seen Queen Victoria). I’ve seen discussion as to whether this (and the jurist system reveal at the end of 4-4) fit the Deus Ex Machina literary trope. My personal take is that it doesn’t matter whether they fit this distinction or not. See, Stronghart essentially orchestrated every single major act of large scale injustice in London for the past 10 years. He blackmailed Klint, used Barok, and took advantage of his position of power to create the Reaper. The assassin exchange he orchestrated was done to cover up any final traces of blood on his hands from the Professor murders, and Jigoku was forced into it through foreign policy pressures. So when Sholmes announces that a person in an even higher position of power witnesses the entire thing, and that’s the person who exacts punishment, it’s lame. Deus Ex Machina or not, I don’t care. It’s fucking lame and the narrative takeaway is incredibly weak as a result. Compare the moral takeaways from 1-5 and 2-5. Like I mentioned in that recap, 1-5 has you defending a poor urchin, one who covered up a previous murder, because you have faith in your client and her innocence. You won’t stop at anything to do what’s right and defend her, even if that means exposing government secrets. The police force (basically just Gregson lol) is exposed for using a poor girl as a scapegoat for what we later learn to be messages about the assassin exchange. It’s about defending people who are helpless. Gameplay wise, it also makes great use of the mechanics. There are two high stakes summation examinations, and multiple points where witness behavior during testimonies is relevant to the case. 2-5 completely takes away these new mechanics. The big bad can be traced back to one single person in a position of power. To take him out, what do you do…find a loophole?...vigilante justice?...authority from the people in the gallery? Nah, we’ll just have someone in a higher position of power who we’ve never seen before do the hard part for us! One of Kazuma’s biggest goals coming to London was to reform the British legal system. Yet the only change made here was to take out one man in power who conveniently was the source of every problem. Having the solution to the problem being another figure of power undermines the themes of corrupt authority that are present, and it’s why I believe 1-5 deals with these themes in a much better way.
Regarding some other thoughts I had: one of the most infuriating plot points was Ryunosuke’s and Susato’s reluctance to talk about Jezaille Brett. I was practically screaming Brett’s name at the screen every single time they had a conversation with Iris. This plot point was sat on for literally the entire game and I think it’s annoying as hell when protagonists wilfully withhold information that would progress the story. A similar example would be in Justice For All when Phoenix refused to talk about Edgeworth for a majority of the game, leaving the player in the dark.
Sholmes and Iris felt shallow to me. Both characters were primarily comic relief that had moments of profundity to make them seem significant. Sholmes has many similarities with Beanix in the fact that they both masterminded the defeat of a final villain. Like I mentioned earlier, Sholmes doesn’t have the same background reputation, moral greyness, or sequel potential that Phoenix has. Neither Sholmes nor Iris have actual arcs (you could argue Iris does regarding her family but all of the characters refuse to tell her that Klint is her dad so it remains unsatisfying in the end). They were by no means unenjoyable to have around, but they fell flat as dynamic characters.
Susato also felt like untapped potential. It was nice that she was more mature and that her actual job was a judicial assistant. I liked her connection as a Mikotoba and she was fun to play as in 2-1. But she also felt incomplete. 1-5 had her running away after secretly using the cat flap machine, because she kept it a secret and felt unworthy and useless. First of all, this is the exact same character writing that Maya got in Turnabout Goodbyes. Second of all, just like Maya, this was never expanded upon in the sequel!
Kazuma was cool, but it felt weird how he was super intense when he was brought back in the second game. And Ryunosuke and Susato pointed this out, but it never felt like he truly changed back to the kind person he was. For the rest of the game, he seemed kinda edgy and scary, and distanced himself from his friends despite having no reason to. After all, Ryunosuke wasn’t connected to the greater story/Professor case in literally any way. If there was anyone that Kazuma could act normal around, it would be him.
I loved Gina Lestrade and I thought Ryunosuke was a good protagonist.
I would like to make a point about how racism is portrayed in this game. I’m a white guy, so keep that in mind, but I just want to make my stance known whether it matters or not. I saw a couple videos on YouTube recently, one titled “Racism In The Great Ace Attorney” and the other titled “Now people are offended by Ace Attorney lol”. Both videos attack a certain strawman argument that people are upset that racism is portrayed in TGAAC. Let me just be clear that I think it’s incredibly important that racism was portrayed in these games. Xenophobia in Britain is still extremely prevalent nowadays (see Brexit), so you can only imagine how bad it was during the late 1800s/early 1900s when the game takes place. It’s imperative that the struggles of foreigners and POC are not erased and I would never be upset at its inclusion. These videos are specifically attacking the viewpoint that “woke people” don’t like seeing racism in these games because it makes them upset. The second video I mentioned cited a tweet which cited a Wikipedia article which cited two reviews that supposedly had this viewpoint: a Kotaku review and a ”First Post” article. I didn’t read either of these - I would rather watch paint dry than read a Kotaku article and I don’t even know what First Post is. (Edit: I later found out that this channel, Hero Hei, basically makes his entire career out of low effort “anti-woke” content. As soon as a single person expresses their opinion, he victimizes his own viewpoints in his videos and his fanbase overwhelmingly agrees with what he says, which is ironic.) The problem with racism in TGAAC is not that it exists ingame, but how it’s portrayed. More specifically, how the main characters don’t react to it. There are several characters who engage in casual racism towards the player and Susato. Van Zieks has it as a part of his arc and I don’t have that much to say about his writing, but when he or a juror engages in blatantly racist remarks towards the player and Ryunosuke doesn’t even react…yeah, it feels a bit weird. Soseki Natsume was actually written the best in this regard. The othering of him as a Japanese person was one of the reasons he hated his time in London and went back home. It’s just a shame that Natsume was poorly written into the story and he remains largely irrelevant to the plot at large. He was deeply affected by his poor treatment in London, so it’s all the more odd that Ryunosuke and Susato have practically nothing to say about this. The British justice system from the start was prejudiced against Japanese people. Many jurors along with the prosecutor were quick to display their prejudices. I noted before that Kazuma’s wish to change the justice system never really followed through, with the story instead opting to pin all of its problems on a single person. I think that plot failure reflects in the lackluster amount of attention that racism in the justice system got. It’s important, but was still treated as irrelevant.
Anyways…The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles gives me new hope for the franchise. Having it be an independent set of stories was one of the best directions for the series to go in. I don’t want a TGAA3, I think it can be put to rest and we can move on to another cool new concept. It has some major problems that I won’t overlook, but it provides one of the most interconnected overarching plots along with the most refined gameplay the series has to offer. I highly recommend it.
Having next to no formal relation with the main series is one of the duology’s biggest strengths. It allows the new characters to have their proper moment in the spotlight and the world doesn’t have to bend to the realities of the main series.
Gameplay mechanics are at their peak in these titles. The examination of evidence as 3D models has finally been fully realized and allows players to discover clues on their own. Having multiple witnesses feels natural. Summation examinations are very fun pace breakers. None of these mechanics feel gimmicky or require any sort of suspension of disbelief, like previous gimmicks such as psyche locks. Investigation sections also get their own new minigame in the form of course corrections. The streamlining to the Ace Attorney formula works very well here and I have no problems with any of it.
Unfortunately, I found the soundtrack to be kinda mid. The pursuit and summation exam themes were cool, I guess, but I found overall way less tracks that I held onto. In this regard, Apollo Justice set a precedent that the rest of the series has yet to reach again. I think I was Stockholm syndromed into liking the TGAA cross examination themes, but they feel so silly and out of place. Like even during the final chapter, when the topic of conversation was super intense, you were hearing this clockwork-sounding march.
Because TGAAC could make great use out of its status as a standalone duology, it has a fresh story on its bones. There’s a lot to enjoy, but I do have a fair amount of complaints.
1-1: The Adventure of the Great Departure
This case was fine, it just felt way too long. If I’m not mistaken, I believe it’s the longest opening case in the series? It took way too long to get to the point. I didn’t find the mystery too interesting at all. I do like how Jezaille Brett was portrayed. The fonts when she spoke were especially creative and it’s disappointing that they never returned in that way.
1-2: The Adventure of the Unbreakable Speckled Band
I think some of the worst content in the duology is when the writers desperately try to link events of the game to real Sherlock Holmes mysteries. Not only are these chapter’s events incredibly stupid but the chapter is incomplete, containing no trial. The investigation isn’t sufficient on it’s own either. At the very least, this chapter could have used some rebuttals like in the Investigations games. When you find out that Sholmes faked the events of this chapter in the second game, it felt even weaker. And the excuse he gave about Nikolina Pavlova was cheap.
1-3: The Adventure of the Runaway Room
At first, I was lukewarm to this chapter due to there being no formal investigation section. I mean, we’re halfway through the game’s chapters and we still haven’t gotten the full experience yet? But I have grown on this case a ton. Examination of evidence is a big part of the mystery, as the evidence literally changes halfway through the trial. It’s the first time you go up against van Zieks and McGilded was a very cool villain. Definitely left a strong impression.
1-4: The Adventure of the Clouded Kokoro
Similarly to how I think that some of the worst content is when too much effort is made to include Sherlock Holmes material, the same applies to real life people. Soseki Natsume is a real human being, and the excessive effort to tell a story of a character that is restrained to his personality in real life makes the overall experience suffer. This is also the least relevant case in the duology. The method of
1-5: The Adventure of the Unspeakable Story
This is my favorite case in the entire duology. It brings back and develops my favorite character in the whole story, Gina Lestrade. Pop Windibank gets a good amount of screentime before he dies, too. What I love about this case is that it is the culmination of all of the features in the game. Examining evidence has never been more important. There’s an underlying secret to the evidence that will prove Gina’s innocence. There are multiple summation examinations as well. In terms of the message of this case, I think it’s very well done, especially in contrast to 2-5. Gina Lestrade is a poor orphan diver, who was caught up as an accomplice for McGilded. She feared for her life, and likewise couldn’t resist the threats made against her. When McGilded died, Gina went to claim his items but was thwarted by the culprit, Ashley Graydon. He wanted a certain metal disk, but Inspector Gregson took it from him. Gina returns to the pawnbrokery at night in order to check if Iris’ story regarding the Professor case was still there, but was unfortunately implicated for Windibank’s murder in the process. Using the investigative powers at our disposal, we determine that Graydon was present at the scene, and he was after a second disk and music box in order to decipher a morse code message containing government secrets. He did, in fact, obtain the disk that night. It turns out that Inspector Gregson was covering for Graydon the whole time, so he could get the disk in exchange for information that could fake Graydon’s alibi. In what is one of the most genius application of the game’s mechanics ever, Ryunosuke not only spots Graydon and Gregson conspiring on the witness stand, but notices when Gregson plants the disk on one of the Skulkin brothers right before he consents to a body search. This is an incredibly creative way to apply the game’s mechanics and the outcome is fruitful. With both discs finally in hand, Ryunosuke threatens to play the music box out loud for everyone in the court in order to make Gregson confess that he was in cahoots with the real culprit. When the message starts playing, Gregson confesses to what he did in a panic. A high ranking police officer was completely prepared to throw an impoverished teenage girl under the bus to protect his own skin. It’s an unfortunate truth about corrupt policing and I think the commentary was very well done here. You don’t know this at the time, but van Zieks helps you because he is suspicious of Gregson being a part of the Reaper conspiracy (and he is correct). You also find out in the second game that the actual contents of the disk detail the assassin exchange between Britain and Japan. It’s a case that gets even better with age for those reasons. The only other case in Ace Attorney that redefines the parameters of what the player needs to do in a final showdown are in Justice For All’s final case (and debatably Turnabout Succession). Rather than just pointing out the bad guy, you need to come up with a way to end de Killer’s contract. In this case, you need to make Gregson tell the truth by outwardly threatening his status as the Reaper (which you aren’t aware of at the time). It’s a satisfying way to take out a villain in a position of power. Gina’s character is excellent in this case and it’s super vindicating to point out how she was treated like a scapegoat, just as Ryunosuke was in his first case against Brett. More final cases need to redefine the methods/reasoning for taking down a bad guy like this case (and Farewell, My Turnabout) does.
2-1: The Adventure of the Blossoming Attorney
This case has way less narrative significance than 1-1, but I still think it’s better. I like that we get some time to play as Susato and see more of Yujin. The actual details of the case are way more interesting than the steak dinner in the first game. It also really benefits from a shorter runtime. That being said, a random journalist killing Brett didn’t feel as connected to the story as it should be. Menimemo knew Jigoku, or at least somebody in the government, was conspiring to protect Brett…but that’s about it. He was just an outsider looking in and Rei Membami was arrested simply because he couldn’t own up to what he did. In 1-1, Jigoku knew the entire truth behind the murder because it was part of the assassin exchange that he co-opted. Ryunosuke was an intentional scapegoat. Membami served no such relevance (and her huge place on the game’s boxart plus her name made me think she would be way more relevant then she was!). Brett dying doesn’t have any impact on the story given that she already had killed John Wilson at that point. That being said, it still felt more enjoyable to play.
2-2: The Memoirs of the Clouded Kokoro
In my opinion, this case is marginally better than 1-4. I would still argue that it doesn’t leave filler territory, as the Baskerville collar was the only item of plot relevance and we basically just saw one model of it. The collar never actually appeared in the final chapter nor did it end up being a key piece of evidence like I suspected. Collar aside, this case did feel more satisfying and interesting to play. Shamspeare was the victim, but also the villain, in a way. Olive Green was genuinely a great surprise culprit and her plan to put poison on the gas pipe was pretty genius. The amount of Natsume content we’re getting feels way excessive given how unimportant he is, but whatever. The tea coins were also a really cool aspect of the case.
2-3: The Return of the Great Departed Soul
For all of the love that I see this case getting, it kinda underwhelmed me. It felt extremely bloated and felt like (maybe is) the longest case in the game. Harebrayne was legit one of the most annoying defendants in the entire series. And yes, he apologizes at the end, but that doesn't change the fact that he fought against you in court and had an extreme lack of sympathy. For all of the hate that Max Galactica gets, at least he never downright sabotages you during a trial. The other aspects of the trial, I’m more mixed on. I think there was a lot of info dumped in this case that contributed to the overwhelming feelings of the whole thing. The wax sculptor had a model of The Professor and Drebber stole it to get revenge on the victim, who ruined his life through a newspaper by publicizing the fact that Drebber was the grave digger who saw Genshin Asogi crawl out of his grave before getting shot. Drebber threatened the coroner by using the waxwork of Genshin because he knew she faked his report. The big twist at the end was that the coroner also had her own motives to kill the victim (a case of extortion that was so out of the blue and irrelevant) and that she was actually the killer despite being thought to be an accomplice. The investigation section in Drebber’s hideout was really cool but otherwise this was kind of a drag. Kazuma’s reveal at the end was kinda crazy but nothing we didn’t expect from earlier. The whole teleportation mechanism was dumb because you knew it was a sham from the start and whenever you actually tried to uncover what actually happened, your defendant got upset at you. Oh well, at least the little German boy crying was really funny.
2-4: Twisted Karma and His Last Bow
Okay side note but I audibly cheered when I found out Gregson died LMAO. Anyways, I feel like this mystery itself was very well paced and I think this portion of the case has very little wrong with it. Uncovering the revelation that Gregson was a hand of the Reaper is an interesting twist within itself. Most of my problems with my case are when things escalate in the final chapter. Seeing all of the connections unravel with Daley, the coroner, and Iris is presented very well. And there’s a great dance of deduction. I don’t like that Stronghart took the stand as the judge this early. And I especially don’t like that the core mechanic of the jury was completely removed from the last 2 chapters. And the fact that Jigoku isn’t exposed as the killer in this chapter but the final one. Now that I think about it, I really just like this case on principle. Kazuma being the final prosecutor is a great sight to see, and discovering that he was the assassin to kill Gregson was cool. It’s just that these facts are intrinsically linked with everything I don’t like from the final chapter.
2-5: The Resolve of Ryunosuke Naruhodo
Let me quickly list off the things I like about this chapter. Gina, like always, is great. Her outburst was very heartfelt and the desperation she showed before finally facing the truth was heavy. I like the final dance of deduction. I think having a judge being revealed as the killer was cool, albeit kinda obvious (I suspected him as soon as they gave him a name, and I was basically certain once the group photo was added to the court record). I was suspicious of Gregson since the beginning, and seeing his truth finally being aired out was satisfying and affirming for me. The best twist here was finding out that Klint was the Professor and Iris’ father.
Now let me get to the things I don’t like. Obviously, like I mentioned before, I don’t like that this chapter was split in two. In fact, I’m not even sure why they did it. I’m okay with the writers being more flexible with how they assemble and fill Ace Attorney episodes – it’s just that this game didn’t do a good job with this. And I say that both in reference to 2-4/2-5, and 1-2. It was odd just switching out of the blue to this last chapter and I fail to see why it couldn’t be just one big 2-4. I think hiding the key piece of evidence in the sword was a little lame. A huge gripe that ties in with the ending is that multiple agents of change are completely faceless and only appear for convenience. Queen Victoria and members of the judiciary in the gallery that chant “Testify! Testify!” are never actually shown or established in the story in any major way. Stronghart being the final villain was so painfully obvious and they didn’t even try to hide it. This was hinted to several times before multiple chapters prior. Having an obvious villain isn’t necessarily a bad thing. This chapter shares many similarities with 4-4, but I will go to bat for that chapter, and I have in my Apollo Justice review. But 2-5 isn’t sequel setup, unlike 4-4. Wright big braining the entire case has implications for his character that suggest he is more morally ambiguous than what the player thought. This was hinted at throughout the game, when he forged the bloody ace, and spoke to Apollo about how the current justice system was unable to punish criminals without hard evidence. Sholmes fills a similar role in this case. He miraculously, along with Yujin Mikotoba, gathers every key witness in the lobby so Stronghart doesn’t stop the trial. He has a holographic device (that was never shown before this) that he presents at the very end to announce that Queen Victoria saw the entire thing (we have also never seen Queen Victoria). I’ve seen discussion as to whether this (and the jurist system reveal at the end of 4-4) fit the Deus Ex Machina literary trope. My personal take is that it doesn’t matter whether they fit this distinction or not. See, Stronghart essentially orchestrated every single major act of large scale injustice in London for the past 10 years. He blackmailed Klint, used Barok, and took advantage of his position of power to create the Reaper. The assassin exchange he orchestrated was done to cover up any final traces of blood on his hands from the Professor murders, and Jigoku was forced into it through foreign policy pressures. So when Sholmes announces that a person in an even higher position of power witnesses the entire thing, and that’s the person who exacts punishment, it’s lame. Deus Ex Machina or not, I don’t care. It’s fucking lame and the narrative takeaway is incredibly weak as a result. Compare the moral takeaways from 1-5 and 2-5. Like I mentioned in that recap, 1-5 has you defending a poor urchin, one who covered up a previous murder, because you have faith in your client and her innocence. You won’t stop at anything to do what’s right and defend her, even if that means exposing government secrets. The police force (basically just Gregson lol) is exposed for using a poor girl as a scapegoat for what we later learn to be messages about the assassin exchange. It’s about defending people who are helpless. Gameplay wise, it also makes great use of the mechanics. There are two high stakes summation examinations, and multiple points where witness behavior during testimonies is relevant to the case. 2-5 completely takes away these new mechanics. The big bad can be traced back to one single person in a position of power. To take him out, what do you do…find a loophole?...vigilante justice?...authority from the people in the gallery? Nah, we’ll just have someone in a higher position of power who we’ve never seen before do the hard part for us! One of Kazuma’s biggest goals coming to London was to reform the British legal system. Yet the only change made here was to take out one man in power who conveniently was the source of every problem. Having the solution to the problem being another figure of power undermines the themes of corrupt authority that are present, and it’s why I believe 1-5 deals with these themes in a much better way.
Regarding some other thoughts I had: one of the most infuriating plot points was Ryunosuke’s and Susato’s reluctance to talk about Jezaille Brett. I was practically screaming Brett’s name at the screen every single time they had a conversation with Iris. This plot point was sat on for literally the entire game and I think it’s annoying as hell when protagonists wilfully withhold information that would progress the story. A similar example would be in Justice For All when Phoenix refused to talk about Edgeworth for a majority of the game, leaving the player in the dark.
Sholmes and Iris felt shallow to me. Both characters were primarily comic relief that had moments of profundity to make them seem significant. Sholmes has many similarities with Beanix in the fact that they both masterminded the defeat of a final villain. Like I mentioned earlier, Sholmes doesn’t have the same background reputation, moral greyness, or sequel potential that Phoenix has. Neither Sholmes nor Iris have actual arcs (you could argue Iris does regarding her family but all of the characters refuse to tell her that Klint is her dad so it remains unsatisfying in the end). They were by no means unenjoyable to have around, but they fell flat as dynamic characters.
Susato also felt like untapped potential. It was nice that she was more mature and that her actual job was a judicial assistant. I liked her connection as a Mikotoba and she was fun to play as in 2-1. But she also felt incomplete. 1-5 had her running away after secretly using the cat flap machine, because she kept it a secret and felt unworthy and useless. First of all, this is the exact same character writing that Maya got in Turnabout Goodbyes. Second of all, just like Maya, this was never expanded upon in the sequel!
Kazuma was cool, but it felt weird how he was super intense when he was brought back in the second game. And Ryunosuke and Susato pointed this out, but it never felt like he truly changed back to the kind person he was. For the rest of the game, he seemed kinda edgy and scary, and distanced himself from his friends despite having no reason to. After all, Ryunosuke wasn’t connected to the greater story/Professor case in literally any way. If there was anyone that Kazuma could act normal around, it would be him.
I loved Gina Lestrade and I thought Ryunosuke was a good protagonist.
I would like to make a point about how racism is portrayed in this game. I’m a white guy, so keep that in mind, but I just want to make my stance known whether it matters or not. I saw a couple videos on YouTube recently, one titled “Racism In The Great Ace Attorney” and the other titled “Now people are offended by Ace Attorney lol”. Both videos attack a certain strawman argument that people are upset that racism is portrayed in TGAAC. Let me just be clear that I think it’s incredibly important that racism was portrayed in these games. Xenophobia in Britain is still extremely prevalent nowadays (see Brexit), so you can only imagine how bad it was during the late 1800s/early 1900s when the game takes place. It’s imperative that the struggles of foreigners and POC are not erased and I would never be upset at its inclusion. These videos are specifically attacking the viewpoint that “woke people” don’t like seeing racism in these games because it makes them upset. The second video I mentioned cited a tweet which cited a Wikipedia article which cited two reviews that supposedly had this viewpoint: a Kotaku review and a ”First Post” article. I didn’t read either of these - I would rather watch paint dry than read a Kotaku article and I don’t even know what First Post is. (Edit: I later found out that this channel, Hero Hei, basically makes his entire career out of low effort “anti-woke” content. As soon as a single person expresses their opinion, he victimizes his own viewpoints in his videos and his fanbase overwhelmingly agrees with what he says, which is ironic.) The problem with racism in TGAAC is not that it exists ingame, but how it’s portrayed. More specifically, how the main characters don’t react to it. There are several characters who engage in casual racism towards the player and Susato. Van Zieks has it as a part of his arc and I don’t have that much to say about his writing, but when he or a juror engages in blatantly racist remarks towards the player and Ryunosuke doesn’t even react…yeah, it feels a bit weird. Soseki Natsume was actually written the best in this regard. The othering of him as a Japanese person was one of the reasons he hated his time in London and went back home. It’s just a shame that Natsume was poorly written into the story and he remains largely irrelevant to the plot at large. He was deeply affected by his poor treatment in London, so it’s all the more odd that Ryunosuke and Susato have practically nothing to say about this. The British justice system from the start was prejudiced against Japanese people. Many jurors along with the prosecutor were quick to display their prejudices. I noted before that Kazuma’s wish to change the justice system never really followed through, with the story instead opting to pin all of its problems on a single person. I think that plot failure reflects in the lackluster amount of attention that racism in the justice system got. It’s important, but was still treated as irrelevant.
Anyways…The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles gives me new hope for the franchise. Having it be an independent set of stories was one of the best directions for the series to go in. I don’t want a TGAA3, I think it can be put to rest and we can move on to another cool new concept. It has some major problems that I won’t overlook, but it provides one of the most interconnected overarching plots along with the most refined gameplay the series has to offer. I highly recommend it.
Splatoon 3
2022
when you release a sequel to a game on the same console, my general rule is that it needs to justify its existence. well past this games launch the additions feel sparse at best and the longer it goes without substantial additions the more it feels like they should’ve just given splat 2 more dlc.
Imma be real with you chief no matter how good this was going to be there's not really much one can really do to salvage the fragmented and confused plot that is the base XB3 game so I'm glad that they kinda did their own thing here. I do think that a main selling point of the base game was its connection to the first two games, so I think putting most of that stuff in the DLC is a little lame. That being said, the plot and cast of characters were solid, the music goes hard, and they turned the whole thing into a mfin collectathon so that's pretty cool. Basically proves that a solid and satisfying xenoblade game can be made without it having to be 50+ hours.
is it kino? nah. But still solid enough and worth checking out if you already own the base game methinks
is it kino? nah. But still solid enough and worth checking out if you already own the base game methinks
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 had potential to be the greatest game of all time.
Quite literally. It was built and designed to be a conclusion to the Xenoblade series, which has been host to some of the best writing in a video game. Some of the beloved characters; most emotional moments of all time, and readily regarded as a masterclass in video game music. Greatness is Xenoblade. I'm not one to set expectations for games, but I anticipated something of similar quality with Xenoblade 3. And then I played it. And what I got was sloppy. Sloppy sloppy sloppy. Sloppy execution all around. Everywhere I looked, I would find design elements that needed further polishing. It felt like the game was never play tested beyond a pure technological level. I could barely believe it. The worst part of it all, is that the potential is so present that it's almost funny if it wasn't so sad. The actual story, what the game tries to say with regards to the value of life, and its potential is genuinely beautiful. However, it's how it goes about spreading its message that ruins it. And even beyond its story, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 seemingly goes out of its way to do everything in the most confusing and obtuse way possible. Disappointment does not begin to cut it.
I'll start with the worst part, the story. The actual story in theory is phenomenal. Two nations being led to continuously fight each other for the benefit of an elite class, Moebius, then rebelling against the said elite class only to find out that the enemies are former friends, lovers and alternative versions of themselves? The twists, turns, revelations and themes are fantastic. As an anticapitalist and socialist, I eat that stuff up! At least, I would if Xenoblade 3 was not dedicated to having some of the worst pacing I have ever experienced in a video game. It's (at best) a 70 hour campaign that could have been told in 40. The game will have you play for 10 hours, freeing colony after colony, exploring massive landscapes and constantly fight battles where nothing plot relevant happens. When you finally reach a destination, you'll get bombarded with a massive 2 hour long exposition dump of a cutscene. And it would be insane shocking revelation after shocking revelation after shocking revelation back to back to back. The sensory overload would be so much that I would need to pause the game just to process it all. Also, to reflect on what just happened cause the game has this weird habit of not explaining itself clearly. After all that, you would think that the gameplay would escalate similarly to the plot, but instead it would be yet another 10 hour drought of collecting special metals and fighting yodeling Estefano; until the next big plot dump. This happens all throughout the game, from the very beginning all the way to the very end. It's annoying, frustrating and drains the enjoyment out of every other aspect of the game. I don't want to fight monsters because I want to get to the plot as soon as possible. I don't want to do the admittedly good side quests because I want to get to the plot as soon as possible. I don't want to get to know all the NPC's in a colony because I don't want to add more time to the plot drought. To make matters even worse, the game does not move beyond its initial premise for like 30 hours. You learn that Agnus and Keves don't actually need to fight each other, and that Moebius is manipulating them both in around the first 2 hours. The plot does not move much beyond that until you hit Keves castle. Then you get the massive plot dump, and the pattern starts proper. Simply put, the pacing ruins the game experience.
Despite all this, I would say the game is good and worth playing. And that is because Xenoblade 3 has some of the best character writing I have ever seen. The main cast of Noah, Mio, Lanz, Sena, Taion, and Eunie are one of the most likeable and well-developed I have ever played with. Everyone is multifaceted and multidimensional. You feel like you know these characters, and then the game throws another side to them. The main campaign dedicates time to every single character and gives them occasions to be fleshed out. Noah with his relationship with Crys, N and M, Mio with her relationship with M and Miyabi, Lanz's relationship with Joren and coming to terms with his trauma, Sena's relationship with Shania and becoming her own person, Taion's relationship with Isurd, and Eunie's relationship with her past. Every character gets the spotlight during the main campaign, and it really solidified them as complete people. Beyond major cutscenes, the game is filled with little moments of character banter that truly elevates my appreciation for them. The little campfire scene of Noah and Mio playing together, or Sena doing all the girl's hair is so cute. Even Riku and Manana are fantastic despite being Nopons, a race that has been characteristically pegged as mostly jokes without much nuance. The scene when the cast finds out about babies, falling in love, and growing old in the City was one of the most powerfully resonant moments I have ever seen in a game. It's so foreign, but also natural to them, as even if they only get to live 10 years in endless war, they are still human. When that scene played, I couldn't help but cry. And now rewatching it on YouTube, the tears were swelling in my eyes again. The fact that I'm sitting here talking about how much a scene made me cry speaks to the strength of the character writing. It also extends past the main cast; the antagonists are fantastic as well. At first, I was a little annoyed by how cartoony and childish Moebius seemed, but it made perfect sense upon reflecting as they are literally children being manipulated by some higher force. N and M also continue the Xenoblade tradition of making incredibly compelling antagonists with completely understandable motivations. I wish the game was more character moments and less exposition dumps.
I've talked about the best and worst part about the game, here's a part that varies wildly, the quest design. I would say that as a whole the quests are quite good, but you really don't know what you'll get upon playing them. Quests come in 2 flavors, standard side quests and hero/ascension quests, which are related to important NPCs. The standard side quests are generally not important and don't add much to the game experience. It's usually some flavor of "this colony needs supplies" or " can you fight this thing for me". I did a fair amount of them but ultimately gave up on them due to them not being very interesting, and the previously aforementioned pacing. Hero/Ascension quests, however, were a different story. These involve an important side character and its usually tied to some aspect of the main cast. Mio's old mentor, Taion's old commander, Lanz's hero figure, stuff like that. These are much better designed and add to the previously mentioned excellent character writing. They're usually voiced cutscenes and by the end of the quests, it feels like the main cast grew and actually learned something about themselves and the world. Some of them are so good that they actually should have been part of the main campaign. Beyond standard and hero quests, there also personal side quests for every character. Again, these add an extra dimension to the cast and provides the spotlight on them. This is another instance of content that you should have been part of the main campaign because it is so essential to the game experience. With the exception of Sena's and Eunie's personal side quests which were fairly lackluster. My biggest complaint about side quests as a whole, is that no matter what the narrative justification is, in gameplay you'll be doing the same thing over and over. It's either collecting items, talking to NPCs or fighting monsters. And since that's all you do in the main campaign as well, the repetitiveness of it all can become really annoying.
Speaking of repetitive, the gameplay. If I were to describe the gameplay it would be "automated". Gameplay generally consists of exploring massive areas, fighting enemies over and over, collecting items, and hearing wacky British banter until you reach a cutscene of some sort. Something I've noticed pretty early on is just how dense the enemy population is in XB3. You will be fighting enemies literally every 3-8 minutes with little breaks. And these fights take a long time as enemies generally are HP bloats. That would be forgiven if the combat was really good, and it is, but unfortunately it is incredibly repetitive. Every monster, boss and important encounter in the game is defeated with the same strategy. Break, topple, daze; break topple, launch; chain attack, and interlink. Every single fight in the game with no exception can be defeated with this strategy. Once you realize that, the game quickly becomes boring. It's a game with 1000 fights that all go about in the same fashion. I was so done with fighting that I turned on auto battle at the 20-hour mark and never looked back. Thankfully auto battle does a reasonable job at clearing the countless random mobs that stand in your way. In fact, the game is so good at playing itself that I did my recertification for ACLS while auto battling. The overpowering nature of the break/topple strategy extends to all the little subsystems in XB3. I'm not going to go into the execution of the arts, accessories, skills, interlinks, and gems because they don't matter. I had the game auto select all of that stuff and didn't affect my experience at all. In fact, I would say that it probably elevated it since I didn't have to waste time pretending that I have agency over the gameplay. I could have equipped and done anything (or nothing) with the subsystems, and I highly doubt it would have affected my engagement. One aspect of the gameplay that did lower my estimation was the class system. I was super excited to explore and experiment with all the different classes and see what kind of crazy shenanigans I can come up with. I'm a huge sucker for class/job systems so I was all in on this new feature. But just like everything else, it was inconsequential. It didn't matter what class you played or what composition your party had; all battles played out the same way. Break, topple, launch and chain attack; repeat until dead. As long as you had access to break/topple/launch/daze, healing, buffs, and aggro management, it is impossible for you to lose.
Lastly some miscellaneous thoughts that I could not fit in the other paragraphs, starting with the world building. Similar to character writing, its excellent. Every colony looks the same and act the same from a distance, but once you get to know its people you understand that each colony has little bits of culture that sets them apart. Some colonies plant flowers for every person that has died, some bury them in the ground, some play songs for their dead. Some colonies are all in on battle, others are more defensive. One colony will thrive on everyone being friends, another thrives on competing over who's the best fighter. All the cat people have the same accent, all the bird people of the same accent different from the cat one. Agnus generally has eastern names, Keves is usually western instead. It's little details like this that really makes the world of XB3 feel lived in. If you've played XB1 and 2, you'll notice that the world of XB3 consists of mangled distorted versions of classic locations from those games, which is a really nice touch for old fans. I just wish there was more visual differences between the different colonies, as I got tired of seeing the same steel and dirt brown imagery all the time. Lastly, the music, it's mid. I know I'm probably in the minority in this, but I simply could not resonate with the music the way I have with previous games. I would say the Moebius battle theme, The Weight of Life, and Lost Days of Warmth are the standout tracks for me. If I have to hear the chain attack theme again, I think I'll go insane.
Now having some time separated from the game, I can't help but reminisce on the game fondly. I love its characters very much and the journey they go through is truly beautiful. There are so many amazing scenes in this game that I can't bring myself to dislike it. But despite all that, the actual experience of playing Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is a test in patience and in frustration. I just wish the characters got a better game.
Quite literally. It was built and designed to be a conclusion to the Xenoblade series, which has been host to some of the best writing in a video game. Some of the beloved characters; most emotional moments of all time, and readily regarded as a masterclass in video game music. Greatness is Xenoblade. I'm not one to set expectations for games, but I anticipated something of similar quality with Xenoblade 3. And then I played it. And what I got was sloppy. Sloppy sloppy sloppy. Sloppy execution all around. Everywhere I looked, I would find design elements that needed further polishing. It felt like the game was never play tested beyond a pure technological level. I could barely believe it. The worst part of it all, is that the potential is so present that it's almost funny if it wasn't so sad. The actual story, what the game tries to say with regards to the value of life, and its potential is genuinely beautiful. However, it's how it goes about spreading its message that ruins it. And even beyond its story, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 seemingly goes out of its way to do everything in the most confusing and obtuse way possible. Disappointment does not begin to cut it.
I'll start with the worst part, the story. The actual story in theory is phenomenal. Two nations being led to continuously fight each other for the benefit of an elite class, Moebius, then rebelling against the said elite class only to find out that the enemies are former friends, lovers and alternative versions of themselves? The twists, turns, revelations and themes are fantastic. As an anticapitalist and socialist, I eat that stuff up! At least, I would if Xenoblade 3 was not dedicated to having some of the worst pacing I have ever experienced in a video game. It's (at best) a 70 hour campaign that could have been told in 40. The game will have you play for 10 hours, freeing colony after colony, exploring massive landscapes and constantly fight battles where nothing plot relevant happens. When you finally reach a destination, you'll get bombarded with a massive 2 hour long exposition dump of a cutscene. And it would be insane shocking revelation after shocking revelation after shocking revelation back to back to back. The sensory overload would be so much that I would need to pause the game just to process it all. Also, to reflect on what just happened cause the game has this weird habit of not explaining itself clearly. After all that, you would think that the gameplay would escalate similarly to the plot, but instead it would be yet another 10 hour drought of collecting special metals and fighting yodeling Estefano; until the next big plot dump. This happens all throughout the game, from the very beginning all the way to the very end. It's annoying, frustrating and drains the enjoyment out of every other aspect of the game. I don't want to fight monsters because I want to get to the plot as soon as possible. I don't want to do the admittedly good side quests because I want to get to the plot as soon as possible. I don't want to get to know all the NPC's in a colony because I don't want to add more time to the plot drought. To make matters even worse, the game does not move beyond its initial premise for like 30 hours. You learn that Agnus and Keves don't actually need to fight each other, and that Moebius is manipulating them both in around the first 2 hours. The plot does not move much beyond that until you hit Keves castle. Then you get the massive plot dump, and the pattern starts proper. Simply put, the pacing ruins the game experience.
Despite all this, I would say the game is good and worth playing. And that is because Xenoblade 3 has some of the best character writing I have ever seen. The main cast of Noah, Mio, Lanz, Sena, Taion, and Eunie are one of the most likeable and well-developed I have ever played with. Everyone is multifaceted and multidimensional. You feel like you know these characters, and then the game throws another side to them. The main campaign dedicates time to every single character and gives them occasions to be fleshed out. Noah with his relationship with Crys, N and M, Mio with her relationship with M and Miyabi, Lanz's relationship with Joren and coming to terms with his trauma, Sena's relationship with Shania and becoming her own person, Taion's relationship with Isurd, and Eunie's relationship with her past. Every character gets the spotlight during the main campaign, and it really solidified them as complete people. Beyond major cutscenes, the game is filled with little moments of character banter that truly elevates my appreciation for them. The little campfire scene of Noah and Mio playing together, or Sena doing all the girl's hair is so cute. Even Riku and Manana are fantastic despite being Nopons, a race that has been characteristically pegged as mostly jokes without much nuance. The scene when the cast finds out about babies, falling in love, and growing old in the City was one of the most powerfully resonant moments I have ever seen in a game. It's so foreign, but also natural to them, as even if they only get to live 10 years in endless war, they are still human. When that scene played, I couldn't help but cry. And now rewatching it on YouTube, the tears were swelling in my eyes again. The fact that I'm sitting here talking about how much a scene made me cry speaks to the strength of the character writing. It also extends past the main cast; the antagonists are fantastic as well. At first, I was a little annoyed by how cartoony and childish Moebius seemed, but it made perfect sense upon reflecting as they are literally children being manipulated by some higher force. N and M also continue the Xenoblade tradition of making incredibly compelling antagonists with completely understandable motivations. I wish the game was more character moments and less exposition dumps.
I've talked about the best and worst part about the game, here's a part that varies wildly, the quest design. I would say that as a whole the quests are quite good, but you really don't know what you'll get upon playing them. Quests come in 2 flavors, standard side quests and hero/ascension quests, which are related to important NPCs. The standard side quests are generally not important and don't add much to the game experience. It's usually some flavor of "this colony needs supplies" or " can you fight this thing for me". I did a fair amount of them but ultimately gave up on them due to them not being very interesting, and the previously aforementioned pacing. Hero/Ascension quests, however, were a different story. These involve an important side character and its usually tied to some aspect of the main cast. Mio's old mentor, Taion's old commander, Lanz's hero figure, stuff like that. These are much better designed and add to the previously mentioned excellent character writing. They're usually voiced cutscenes and by the end of the quests, it feels like the main cast grew and actually learned something about themselves and the world. Some of them are so good that they actually should have been part of the main campaign. Beyond standard and hero quests, there also personal side quests for every character. Again, these add an extra dimension to the cast and provides the spotlight on them. This is another instance of content that you should have been part of the main campaign because it is so essential to the game experience. With the exception of Sena's and Eunie's personal side quests which were fairly lackluster. My biggest complaint about side quests as a whole, is that no matter what the narrative justification is, in gameplay you'll be doing the same thing over and over. It's either collecting items, talking to NPCs or fighting monsters. And since that's all you do in the main campaign as well, the repetitiveness of it all can become really annoying.
Speaking of repetitive, the gameplay. If I were to describe the gameplay it would be "automated". Gameplay generally consists of exploring massive areas, fighting enemies over and over, collecting items, and hearing wacky British banter until you reach a cutscene of some sort. Something I've noticed pretty early on is just how dense the enemy population is in XB3. You will be fighting enemies literally every 3-8 minutes with little breaks. And these fights take a long time as enemies generally are HP bloats. That would be forgiven if the combat was really good, and it is, but unfortunately it is incredibly repetitive. Every monster, boss and important encounter in the game is defeated with the same strategy. Break, topple, daze; break topple, launch; chain attack, and interlink. Every single fight in the game with no exception can be defeated with this strategy. Once you realize that, the game quickly becomes boring. It's a game with 1000 fights that all go about in the same fashion. I was so done with fighting that I turned on auto battle at the 20-hour mark and never looked back. Thankfully auto battle does a reasonable job at clearing the countless random mobs that stand in your way. In fact, the game is so good at playing itself that I did my recertification for ACLS while auto battling. The overpowering nature of the break/topple strategy extends to all the little subsystems in XB3. I'm not going to go into the execution of the arts, accessories, skills, interlinks, and gems because they don't matter. I had the game auto select all of that stuff and didn't affect my experience at all. In fact, I would say that it probably elevated it since I didn't have to waste time pretending that I have agency over the gameplay. I could have equipped and done anything (or nothing) with the subsystems, and I highly doubt it would have affected my engagement. One aspect of the gameplay that did lower my estimation was the class system. I was super excited to explore and experiment with all the different classes and see what kind of crazy shenanigans I can come up with. I'm a huge sucker for class/job systems so I was all in on this new feature. But just like everything else, it was inconsequential. It didn't matter what class you played or what composition your party had; all battles played out the same way. Break, topple, launch and chain attack; repeat until dead. As long as you had access to break/topple/launch/daze, healing, buffs, and aggro management, it is impossible for you to lose.
Lastly some miscellaneous thoughts that I could not fit in the other paragraphs, starting with the world building. Similar to character writing, its excellent. Every colony looks the same and act the same from a distance, but once you get to know its people you understand that each colony has little bits of culture that sets them apart. Some colonies plant flowers for every person that has died, some bury them in the ground, some play songs for their dead. Some colonies are all in on battle, others are more defensive. One colony will thrive on everyone being friends, another thrives on competing over who's the best fighter. All the cat people have the same accent, all the bird people of the same accent different from the cat one. Agnus generally has eastern names, Keves is usually western instead. It's little details like this that really makes the world of XB3 feel lived in. If you've played XB1 and 2, you'll notice that the world of XB3 consists of mangled distorted versions of classic locations from those games, which is a really nice touch for old fans. I just wish there was more visual differences between the different colonies, as I got tired of seeing the same steel and dirt brown imagery all the time. Lastly, the music, it's mid. I know I'm probably in the minority in this, but I simply could not resonate with the music the way I have with previous games. I would say the Moebius battle theme, The Weight of Life, and Lost Days of Warmth are the standout tracks for me. If I have to hear the chain attack theme again, I think I'll go insane.
Now having some time separated from the game, I can't help but reminisce on the game fondly. I love its characters very much and the journey they go through is truly beautiful. There are so many amazing scenes in this game that I can't bring myself to dislike it. But despite all that, the actual experience of playing Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is a test in patience and in frustration. I just wish the characters got a better game.
