I don’t know why this case took me actual years to finish, but I suspect it had something to do with the gameplay design. From a writing standpoint, I think it was pretty good! As far as I remember, anyway, given the literal years it took to finish this thing. The characters were charming, the case hit some good emotional beats, and the scenario and concepts were fun and creative. Cross examining an animal in an Ace Attorney game is always a good time.

The problem, I think, is that there were numerous points where I could tell what the answer to a particular line of questioning was, but not where they wanted me to present the evidence in question. I mean, Ace Attorney does this pretty often? But I think it was especially bad here. A particularly egregious example was a bit towards the end where they have you examine a piece of evidence to find out it’s got marks on it, but instead of connecting that to another piece of evidence when you find the marks, you have to present that evidence to the first statement in the testimony. For... some friggin’ reason. I definitely remember savescumming a few times outside of that, which makes me think it was a pretty consistent problem rather than a one-off issue.

So yeah, definitely a fun time, but it was a little unnecessarily frustrating a few too many times on the game front. I probably would’ve enjoyed watching somebody else play through it more than I enjoyed playing it myself.