I played a little bit of this and, what a weird game. First person mind control adventure whose reputation for wonky voice acting is perhaps only partly deserved. Some of the voice actors are doing fine and some have clearly been given no direction. Definitely ambitious for the time in its delivery of cutscenes and dialogue. The actual gameplay is very odd, and the difficulty seems to waver wildly; an optional boss I elected to fight was a pushover, while the main story has some much more difficult parts.

There’s also a body-swapping mechanic, “brainjacking,” which while poorly explained initially in-game, robs the people you take over of their “psi,” putting them in a vegetative state whilst outside of your control. One early point sees you deciding whether to accept a mission given to you by a character, and if you accept they offer for you to use their body to do so, knowing full well that it robs them of life. If you don’t accept, they just sort of stand there awkwardly, and it seems that you can either decide to kill them and take their body anyway (which the character you’re sharing a mind with chastises you for) or possibly walk away (I only just thought of that possibility, the game doesn’t make the next objective clear in that case, might have to see what happens there…)

Your first opportunity to brainjack as the player is presented as the only obvious means of progression, but it appears that none of them are actually mandatory, and the character you get there as might in fact be a better choice for the next few missions?

The actual combat is kind of neat, you have a lock on, which makes the single-stick controls vaguely workable. I’d have appreciated a quick 180º turn button, but no such thing is present. Most enemies will take critical damage from behind, so if your character can jump high enough, you can leap over them and attack from there. Once you’re in the rhythm of this it’s pretty fun. Some enemies know what you’re up to and will spin around quickly. There’re also some enemies whose pattern I’ve yet to work out, they attack twice in a row, which your block can’t handle, and they’re very difficult to hit without a ranged attack otherwise. There’s a trick I’m missing there for sure.

Anyway, it’s interesting, and I seem to be doing okay so far. I’m curious where it’s going.

The production quality here is really impressive, especially now that there's full voice acting. The game itself is enjoyable enough--the way you can nudge Jenny's personality through dialog options that are more about selecting a mood than a specific phrase is a good system, but the writing and characterization isn't quite strong enough to bear up under that system. The mainline puzzles are generally a little more straightforward than I'd like, although that's more than made up for by the obtuseness of the optional puzzles.

As much as I appreciate the optional puzzles in the game, they hinge so much on finding particular objects and areas in the game that you'll almost certainly have to backtrack to find something you missed. And the game's frequent unskippable cutscenes, puzzles, and dialog moments--while fun the first time through--make it extremely frustrating to go back to a specific nook and grab a stray postcard piece or whatever.

Strong 3.5, just was a bit lacking in the actual photography department for me. Small diorama areas mean it’s usually impossible to get interesting wide shots. I kept wishing I could swap lenses too. However, the quests and puzzle-tasks were overall a good mix, and the writing was genuinely quite funny overall. Also very very cute art, although the texture resolution on the Switch was kind of disappointing for what seems like it should be quite a visually undemanding game. Overall very well worth a play and I’m very interested in what the folks behind it do next.

Saccharine, endearing and endlessly surprising. That kind of thing is par for Shu Takumi but this game really doubles down on what works about Ace Attorney and finds room for a great deal more sustained character work and sentimentality than the Ace Attorney games typically go for. The structure of the game leaves the first two cases feeling a bit too much like tutorials, and as a result the exciting parts of the game feel pretty backloaded, but when they kick in the game hits its stride.

There is a concerted (and applaudable!) attempt here to reckon with English racism and xenophobia but its simplicity and ham-handedness maybe starts to strain the limits of credulity towards the end, and the absence of any similar scrutiny towards the Empire of Japan left me wanting the game to deliver a more comprehensive politic, particularly as the latter part of the game leans hard into international intrigue and global relations. Clearly Takumi had these things firmly in mind, so here’s hoping that’s in the second one!

I sorta mourn this translation only coming on modern platforms, as this game is absolutely gorgeous and I wish it were possible to see these assets on that lovely 3DS display, but that’s obviously not the game’s fault. I’d say this ranks third among the Gyakutens Saiban, after 1) Apollo Justice and 2) Ace Attorney.