Extremely fun game with a cool super hero/sentai aesthetic. The drawing mechanic is really unique, although it takes a little while to get the hang of how to draw each shape. I heard it was like a spiritual successor to Viewtiful Joe, but it's really a completely different game, and I ended up liking it way more than I thought I would.

I gotta say though, Kamiya was wild for this one. Dude added like multiple shoot em up levels ON TOP of the obligatory Space Harrier level. He just went crazy when making this game.

I think it's interesting how this game basically lets you figure out everything on your own. Usually in detective games it gives you a bunch of possible answers and you kind of have to solve it the way they want you to. In Obra Dinn, you can pretty much go anywhere you want and solve each death in any order. The only downside to this approach is that there are a few crew members who seemingly don't stand out at all and only appear in a few scenes. I pretty much had to guess who was who in that case, since there didn't seem to be any concrete way to discern what their names were. Finding out the identity of every other crew member fortunately isn't all that hard as long as you pay attention to the scenes, especially the early ones where you can see some of them doing their jobs. It helps that the artstyle allows for super detailed faces, so all of the characters are pretty easy to recognize even if you don't know their name.

It's kind of like sudoku, except instead of numbers it's people, and instead of columns and boxes, it's finding their cause of death. Actually that's not a very good analogy now that I think about it. Anyway, there's not much replay value for obvious reasons but the game is still pretty fun.

Pretty neat spinoff to the Ace Attorney series. It leans more on the side of point and click adventure game compared to the main games which are more VN-like. The cases are ok, the last one goes on for a little too long but it was still a cool mystery. I actually kind of like how every case follows a central narrative, instead of the somewhat disconnected court cases of the main series. Though I don't think either style is any better or worse, it's just cool to see something a little different. Not much to say about this game other than Shi-Long Lang is a CHAD.

This is actually kino compared to the first Investigations game. The first two cases are alright but it really picks up around the 3rd case. The story overall gives some great development to Edgeworth's character, as well as Kay and Lang from the first game. The new characters in this one are also great. Raymond has an interesting connection to Edgeworth's dad (who we also learn a little bit more about in this game), and Sebastian starts out as a funny joke character but ends up having a whole character arc by the end.

In terms of mechanics it's pretty much the same as Investigations 1, but the new Logic Chess minigame is stupid fun. I have no idea why I enjoy that minigame as much as I do it's just great.

Sad that this never got an official localization but the fan translation is pretty good.

Investigations 3 when :(

This game is just super disappointing honestly. Coming right after Apollo Justice chronologically, Apollo as a character gets completely shafted while they introduce somebody completely new. Athena and Blackquill are cool characters but half the cases are just kinda boring. The solutions to the mysteries feel more obvious than in previous games (though maybe that's just because I played this 7 years ago and still remember a little bit), but the final case and the ending are actually pretty good. The whole overarching story is OK overall, probably could have been delivered better.

The presentation of this game is actually pretty good though, especially the new 3D graphics. Most of the character models look great, and it's neat how they can do more creative camera angles in a 3D space like panning across the courtroom. Obviously there are things you can do in 2D that don't work in 3D and vice versa but I think they still pulled off the style of animation they'd been using in the older games pretty well in this one. I really enjoyed the soundtrack as well, especially the remixes of Phoenix and Apollo's themes. There are a lot more little aspects that I enjoyed, but overall this one was just OK.

Also they finally added a log so you can scroll up and see old text. Took them seven games to do that somehow.

This game is like actually true kino. I feel like I said that about Investigations 2 already but I'm saying it again for this one.

I thought Dual Destinies looked nice visually, but DGS really blows it out of the water. This definitely feels like a much more high budget game in comparison with how much effort they put into the presentation. The models look great, and the animations are a step above AA5. They're much more fluid in comparison, whereas AA5 was trying to go for a more limited kind of animation that was in the older games. The artstyle is also great, and I appreciate the whole Victorian-style aesthetic they were going for with the designs and background art. Of course the soundtrack is really good as well as it usually is in these games, but the orchestral style really does a lot to distinguish this from the main series, as well as compliment the game's setting.

In terms of story I actually don't have that much to talk about. I enjoyed all of the cases pretty much, and the main cast is really charming. Van Zieks is probably one of the most intimidating prosecutors in the series. It really feels like you're fucked when you start your first trial in London against him. Sadly he feels a little underdeveloped compared to Edgeworth or some of the other ones, but his deal will probably get expanded on in the sequel.

Only reason this gets a 4.5 is because most of the story just feels like setup, but I wasn't bored or pissed off by it at all. Guessing there will be more pay off in Dai Gyakuten Saiban 2, whenever that gets translated 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Also they removed the log button which they finally added in AA5, what the fuck Capcom?

Spirit of Justice was actually so much better than Dual Destinies on almost every level. For one, half the cases aren't boring as fuck this time. There are actually some interesting mysteries and fun characters in this one, and the new Insight mechanic is pretty neat.

The overarching story is where this game really shines though. The premise sounds stupid at first; Phoenix travels to a country where lawyers are literally illegal, but somehow they managed to make it interesting. The Kingdom of Khura'in is pretty well fleshed out, and the trials that take place there are differentiated by the Seances that show the victim's last memories before they died. Above all else, SoJ finally gives REAL development to Apollo, something DD seriously failed to deliver on.

Overall, maybe not the best game in the series, but surprisingly pretty good. One of the more plot heavy and unique entries for sure.