It's Takumi iterating on the same ideas with another crossover with a British character and setting. Not surprised if it is basically the same team except they had to build two games instead of a half of one.
It's Takumi iterating on the same ideas with another crossover with a British character and setting. Not surprised if it is basically the same team except they had to build two games instead of a half of one.
I remember when I played the first game I got through it and into the 5th case, which if I remember was added after the whole trilogy had been concluded on the GBA.
So when I encountered Mike Meekins, it was a shock after such reasonably grounded character designs up to that point. I've never liked the ugly cartoony characters ever since. I prefer it more grounded wherever possible, but especially think the mix of realistic and cartoony people is a dumb decision. You're going along with all these nice looking characters and suddenly run into a literal muppet that feels completely out of place.
Was there anyone else non-anime looking in the Apollo games? None are springing to mind. Mike Meekins may have been a one-off abomination.
Well I could go into a whole character art critique of the series... :P I mean, it's going to be subjective and just based on my own feelings anyway, which I'm sure plenty of people won't agree with. But every game after the first one has put some weirdos in.
I would try not to just say "any annoying character is a muppet" but it feels like they give any character with a...let's say big personality, that kind of design.
But for example this guy is weird:
But his face is still believable as a real person, in line with the design of everyone else. There are a lot of characters with larger-than-life design elements that bug me a bit but at least they still read as human alongside the other humans. But some are just way off the design path of everyone else.
AA2 muppets:
AA3 muppets:
DD muppets:
In this game it feels like every other character is a muppet.
To be nit-picky, all of the mutants you posted look like reasonable (if weird) offshoots of the traditional anime style. The faces still mostly look like they could occur in nature, the eyes aren't buttons. None of them look Layton-y. The one you posted from the GAA games definitely does.
I remember when I played the first game I got through it and into the 5th case, which if I remember was added after the whole trilogy had been concluded on the GBA.
So when I encountered Mike Meekins, it was a shock after such reasonably grounded character designs up to that point. I've never liked the ugly cartoony characters ever since. I prefer it more grounded wherever possible, but especially think the mix of realistic and cartoony people is a dumb decision. You're going along with all these nice looking characters and suddenly run into a literal muppet that feels completely out of place.
Consistent and believable:
Dumb:
Uh... I don't know if I'd call the one next to Phoenix anything but dumb. :P
Uh... I don't know if I'd call the one next to Phoenix anything but dumb. :P
A dumb character isn't the same as unfitting artwork. Sal absolutely looks like a real person alongside the rest. If he'd been a part of games from AA3 onward I have no doubt he'd be a bulbous weirdo like other characters of his type.
I can reiterate what I said earlier about character design being impacted by the jury system. It feels clear that they have only so much...design bandwidth for creating new characters, and they have to spend it on jurors so you get fewer normal trial participants, and thus fewer potential suspects.
This might be ok if the jurors felt just as relevant as actual witnesses, but they don't. Summation examinations feel like they're about correcting others' misconceptions about the trial rather than making any real forward progress. They are opportunities to put forward new theories without necessarily needing hard evidence, but...I don't know, it's like, wheel spinning.
Some jurors occasionally serve the role of expert witnesses, like a street worker would tell you what their job entails which is mysteriously relevant. But even so, I'd rather just have expert witnesses!
It also really feels like they ran out of money, or the first game didn't perform well enough to justify spending money on it. In the first game they kept reusing jurors repeatedly, and in the second game I was shocked to see a trial with literally one new character I had never seen before, one new juror, out of ALL the participants of the trial. (Ok, this is perhaps a bit unfair, since several characters only amounted to a cameo in the first game, but still...they were completed at that time and thus reused here.)
Further evidence they ran out of money: the first game had anime cutscenes, but the second only has "animated storybook" Sholmes bits, and in-engine segments with voice over at the beginning and end of trials.
Also, I know these games were made to be a pair, but I am really disappointed that the second game has all the same music as the first. I know the series has traditionally reused a lot of music, but at the very least they always had new courtroom, cross-examine, objection, and victory themes. Here's it's all been the same.
Still like the game. Case 3 feels like it's ramping up to interesting events.
Andy JoeWe claim the land for the highlord!The AdirondacksRegistered Userregular
GAA 2-1
Every time Soseki alluded to being involved in a second case where there was poison I thought maybe they were referencing an Escapade or something, but no, it looks like we're having a flashback episode next.
At this point I have two small complaints after the first case:
1) The only options for text speed are the default and "enable skip", the latter of which requires me to double-tap the advance button for every text box and occasionally leads me to blowing past a dialog box when it ends sooner than expected.
2) There's been plenty of the sort of leading circumlocution typical of more recent Ace Attorney games, where they're like "But there's decisive evidence that proves my point." "What? I don't believe you." "It does exist, and I can prove it!" "(Judge) Very well. If this decisive evidence exists, you will present it to the court." "Of course I will! This is the decisive evidence that proves my point!" And all of that could basically be compressed into the first text box.
My favorite musical instrument is the air-raid siren.
+1
Andy JoeWe claim the land for the highlord!The AdirondacksRegistered Userregular
GAA 2-2
Yeah, that was real good. The moment where you have to name the culprit and you go from "I have no idea" to "Wait, it couldn't possibly-" to "Holy crap, it all makes sense!" over the course of a few seconds is a series highlight for me.
Andy JoeWe claim the land for the highlord!The AdirondacksRegistered Userregular
GAA 2-3
I was about to say that Van Zieks survived the assault unscathed because his assailants' bullets weren't made out of silver and/or blessed by a priest...but going by his hooded apprentice it now seems more likely he deflected them with the power of the Dark Side.
Andy JoeWe claim the land for the highlord!The AdirondacksRegistered Userregular
GAA 2-3
So many culprits before have put a lot of thought and effort into staging crime scenes to disguise their actions...blackmailing the crime scene investigator seems like cheating.
Absolutely crazy how many dangling plot threads were left at the end of the first game to be wrapped up in the second (or will they?). They even had a very quick cameo of two of the figures that show up in 2-3.
Was it like this in the original release, or was this added/reworked for the collection? I'm thinking not; there's just so many lingering mysteries.
So, this is weird to say in a series where it's mostly murder cases, but (as of 1-4's first court scene) Great Ace Attorney has definitely felt to me like it has a more somber tone than usual.
So far, we've had:
A case where we found the killer, but she gets to be tried in another country, and we don't expect to ever know if she faced justice.
A tragic accident born of severe miscommunication and paranoia, with no satisfyingly evil villain; just someone who let fear make the worst out of her.
A total miscarriage of justice, with a guilty-as-sin client who doesn't even get convicted in the end like Engarde. He dies in the end, but him getting it due to vigilante justice isn't the way we usually take down the villains.
And following that, an investigation day where the events of the prior case has strongly effected our protagonist, such that he doesn't know if trusting his client is the moral thing to do. Phoenix had to deal with defending a guilty client a few times, but it never shook his conviction quite so hard.
Between that and the running themes of racism and social inequality, there's definitely a darker tone to this, even with characters like 10-year-old steampunk Watson running around. Naruhodo's been dealing with a lot heavier ideas than Phoenix usually does.
Absolutely crazy how many dangling plot threads were left at the end of the first game to be wrapped up in the second (or will they?). They even had a very quick cameo of two of the figures that show up in 2-3.
Was it like this in the original release, or was this added/reworked for the collection? I'm thinking not; there's just so many lingering mysteries.
The 3DS fan translation of the first game didn't explain that much, so I doubt it. The amount of work involved adjusting it for this release would be massive anyway, don't see the point.
Absolutely crazy how many dangling plot threads were left at the end of the first game to be wrapped up in the second (or will they?). They even had a very quick cameo of two of the figures that show up in 2-3.
Was it like this in the original release, or was this added/reworked for the collection? I'm thinking not; there's just so many lingering mysteries.
From what I understand, the duology is basically just one game-story broken up into two games.
Absolutely crazy how many dangling plot threads were left at the end of the first game to be wrapped up in the second (or will they?). They even had a very quick cameo of two of the figures that show up in 2-3.
Was it like this in the original release, or was this added/reworked for the collection? I'm thinking not; there's just so many lingering mysteries.
Yes it was. The first game was set up as more or less a prologue to the second game. It’s why I think GAA is one of the weakest AA games, and why Im glad it was released in the west the way it was.
Absolutely crazy how many dangling plot threads were left at the end of the first game to be wrapped up in the second (or will they?). They even had a very quick cameo of two of the figures that show up in 2-3.
Was it like this in the original release, or was this added/reworked for the collection? I'm thinking not; there's just so many lingering mysteries.
Yes it was. The first game was set up as more or less a prologue to the second game. It’s why I think GAA is one of the weakest AA games, and why Im glad it was released in the west the way it was.
Kind of amazing Capcom did it that way, then -- established game companies don't usually allow for that many dangling plot threads between games. But I guess the games were cheap enough to make and the fanbase reliable enough that they figured what the hell.
But yeah, it's probably better both games came out at the same time. I'm a fan of the original Holmes stories, and I would have been annoyed as hell to not get an answer to why
Watson Wilson was killed.
Switch: 3947-4890-9293
0
Andy JoeWe claim the land for the highlord!The AdirondacksRegistered Userregular
GAA 2-5
I imagine that combination lock puzzle was a bit easier when you could just flip the 3DS upside-down.
Andy JoeWe claim the land for the highlord!The AdirondacksRegistered Userregular
GAA 2-5
Unless my memory fails me that has to be the most dramatic culprit breakdown in the series.
Overall this was a very satisfying experience. The only thing that feels like it was missing was a case with Sholmes as the defendant (the final Escapade notwithstanding), but they've got to save something for GAA 3, after all.
On the one hand, yes. On the other hand, I sure do empathize with Naruhodo's journey as that happens to him. These ambiguous and unsatisfying endings to cases feel like something that's happening for the story they're going for, rather than due to bad writing
Unless my memory fails me that has to be the most dramatic culprit breakdown in the series.
Overall this was a very satisfying experience. The only thing that feels like it was missing was a case with Sholmes as the defendant (the final Escapade notwithstanding), but they've got to save something for GAA 3, after all.
They went pretty old-school with some of their inspirations.
I do feel like most of everything before 2-4/5 dragged a little. There was a lot of hyping up this case, excessively so. Yeah it was really, really good, but you probably could have just made the rest of your game a little better instead of constantly alluding to this one.
Might have just been that the humor/zaniness felt pretty reigned in during the fluff episodes. It felt a bit lacking on zany characters outside of Sholmes and Souseki, especially with how reserved Susato is compared to Maya or Trucy or even Kay.
The jury also felt like mostly a miss given the amount of resources dumped into it. They just exist to butt in and try to end a trial prematurely. Otherwise you are mostly trying to prove innocence to the judge whose opinion really should not be the focus in that system. It felt weird when you were in some kind of catch-22 when you couldn't quite get the culprit to fully confess when being silent and looking guilty as hell is all you need to lose a jury.
Oh also nice to see the series uphold the tradition of crap liar parenting! But I thought the fakeout about Wilson was pretty clever for a series that usually likes being super obvious.
0
cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Credit given where due, Iris is the first kid character in a long time that hasn't been cringe-inducing on sight, she's genuinely cool.
+1
cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Ryunosuke has his moments, I'll give him that.
(Case 1-4)
I took a long break from this game due to being distracted by various other things, which was probably ill-advised since now I'm on the cusp of being distracted by Metroid, but whatever.
I came back to GAA 2-3.
I have some thoughts about some things that are definitely going to come up as climactic cases at the end. I realize that all of 3 people might ever read this, but I wanted to post this for posterity, just my thought process guessing at where things are going.
So I'm like 3/4ths of the way through GAA 2-3 and specifically thinking about the story of Van Zieks and his past, and things surrounding that. I just met Enoch Drebber.
Where I'm at:
- Kazuma is probably not dead and is secretly Van Zieks' prosecution apprentice
- We still don't know what Kazuma's mission was in coming to London in the first place
- If I remember right, Susato's father and the Japanese judge are on their way to London for an unknown reason
- Van Zieks' brother was killed by a man named the Professor, who had killed several nobles and royalty before being caught
- The Professor's trial was secret and no one from the public knows what he looks like
- The Professor was put to death and buried, but Enoch Drebber swore he saw him rise from the dead and it turned his hair white
- The police say no he's dead, we checked and he's still buried there
- Madame Tusspells has a waxworks re-creation of Drebber seeing the Professor rising from his grave, but Drebber stole the head
- The head is covered with a locked iron mask no one can open
- Drebber was saying he was going to keep the head on his person for protection, because "after all..." and then he was interrupted
- Now I have to go to court and use Drebber's testimony to prove who really killed Asman, in a case that seems mostly unrelated but intended to help set things up for the finale cases
So the main thing is, the Professor is very important. The game is conspicuously hiding his face from the player because clearly he looks like someone we know and it's supposed to be a shocking revelation.
There are plenty of possibilities. Professor calls to mind Professor Moriarty, which ties him to Sholmes, but if Moriarty is a random guy then there'd be no need to hide his face. So it could be Professor Mycroft, Sholmes' brother who looks a lot like him, who put his logical mind to bad use in murdering London elites. Kind of a twist on the usual Mycroft. Drama comes from how it affects Sholmes and those who know him.
The Professor could be Lord Stronghart, who has always been intense and imposing. He was killing nobility and royalty in a misguided effort to clean up London, he perceived all his victims as criminals in some way. The trial was secret because he's always been an important man in the government, and they couldn't really put him to death because they needed his talents too badly, or he had some ace up his sleeve. Someone helped him "resurrect" (coroner Sithe, who knows him well?) and he's been playing it straight carefully ever since. He realized he couldn't target people in power anymore, and needed to start his cleanup with the lowest of the low, who wouldn't be missed...hence acting as the Reaper. As the chief justice, he has all the information regarding the outcomes of trials and those who weasel their way out of justice, so it'd be easy for him to act as Van Zieks' cleanup crew. Of course even if he's not the Professor, some of this could still apply to him.
But I lean a little away from this idea just because Ace Attorney has done the broad strokes of this character before in the first game, and I don't know if they would have the audacity to just do it again. It feels right that maybe Stronghart looks a little evil as a red herring to the player. The alternative is kind of boring.
Both of those possibilities don't tie up everything, though.
First likely hypothesis: the Professor is Van Zieks' brother.
He wasn't killed by the Professor, he WAS the Professor, and being a murderer essentially "killed" him in his brother's eyes. Having a criminal for a brother was devastating to Van Zieks, which led him to prosecution and his harsh demeanor, he feels like he needs to make up for the sins of his family. The trial was secret just because the Van Zieks were a powerful family, and it was a high profile case involving a lot of nobility. Van Zieks hates Japanese people because Susato's father and the Japanese judge were instrumental in finding his brother guilty and/or bungled things up in some way; an irrational hate because it was the right thing to do/their hearts were in the right place, but it still caused his family ruin. Meanwhile, somehow his brother avoided death (again, possibly through Sithe's help) and ever since has been walking in Van Zieks' shadow, killing everyone who slips through his fingers, in a misguided attempt at redeeming himself in his brother's eyes. Drebber wanted to keep the waxworks head with him, because he knows some amount of this, and thinks it's blackmail that will protect him from the Reaper.
Second likely hypothesis: the Professor is a Japanese man...possibly the judge.
This is a good reason to hide his identity from as many people as possible. The trial was secret because it would've caused an international incident...and it also nicely mirrors the events of the cases in Japan, where you're also trying to avoid an international incident with the cultural roles reversed. It's also a good reason for Van Zieks to hate Japanese people. Early 1900s racism is slightly more forgivable when one of the only Japanese people you've ever known murdered your brother. And somehow he rose from the dead and fled back to Japan.
The only reason I suspect the judge is because I could see them making that decision from a storytelling perspective: "we've had guilty law enforcement, a prosecutor, is there any way we can make a judge the murderer? Oh I know how, we'll have two different judges!" Of course, that could still happen from an entirely different angle once he arrives in London, he wouldn't HAVE to be the Professor to be a murderer.
Anyway...my gut tells me something along the lines of the first hypothesis is closer. I just strongly suspect Van Zieks' brother would be "helping" him from the shadows, killing the people his brother can't...and Van Zieks doesn't know anything about it, which will cause Drama when it's revealed.
Regardless of who the Professor is, I don't know how in the world the government would allow Madame Tusspells to blatantly display his identity in her museum, if the trial had needed to be kept secret. You wouldn't want people knowing he's Stronghart, or Van Zieks, or a Japanese guy. That makes me think he would have to be some nobody...like Sholmes's brother.
I have no idea how Jezaille Brett (I forget her other name) figures into any of this. She's too young to have been somebody's lover 10 years ago getting revenge on Wilson for proving her lover was killing people with a hound. Maybe it was her father? No idea.
EDIT: Other thoughts, which could be things falling into place...
The Professor could be Wilson, but I wanted to dismiss the thought because it's way too much to make Iris's father a murderer and also murdered.
But maybe he wasn't the murderer, and it just looked like it was him. The real murderer was Van Zieks' brother, who faked his death to pin it on Wilson (and now he goes on secretly murdering in his brother's name). Sholmes knew Wilson wouldn't have done anything like that, so he helped him fake his death, and Susato's father and the judge helped him escape to Japan. Perhaps Van Zieks knows about this somehow, and he hates Japanese people because he suspects they helped his brother's murderer escape.
This explains motive for someone going to Japan to kill him for revenge -- Jezaille was an associate of Van Zieks' brother who needed to tie up loose ends and make sure nobody put it all together. This also explains why it would be ok to reveal his "nobody" face in Tusspells' waxworks, and Sholmes' interest in the waxworks. Also explains Sholmes' protectiveness of the details of the case, and what feels like a guarded sadness over the whole affair.
Kazuma was sent to London as a lawyer with new evidence to help clear Wilson's name and reveal the true culprit (in light of what they learned from/about Jezaille). With his "death" it's up to Susato's father and the judge to do this instead.
I took a long break from this game due to being distracted by various other things, which was probably ill-advised since now I'm on the cusp of being distracted by Metroid, but whatever.
I came back to GAA 2-3.
I have some thoughts about some things that are definitely going to come up as climactic cases at the end. I realize that all of 3 people might ever read this, but I wanted to post this for posterity, just my thought process guessing at where things are going.
So I'm like 3/4ths of the way through GAA 2-3 and specifically thinking about the story of Van Zieks and his past, and things surrounding that. I just met Enoch Drebber.
Where I'm at:
- Kazuma is probably not dead and is secretly Van Zieks' prosecution apprentice
- We still don't know what Kazuma's mission was in coming to London in the first place
- If I remember right, Susato's father and the Japanese judge are on their way to London for an unknown reason
- Van Zieks' brother was killed by a man named the Professor, who had killed several nobles and royalty before being caught
- The Professor's trial was secret and no one from the public knows what he looks like
- The Professor was put to death and buried, but Enoch Drebber swore he saw him rise from the dead and it turned his hair white
- The police say no he's dead, we checked and he's still buried there
- Madame Tusspells has a waxworks re-creation of Drebber seeing the Professor rising from his grave, but Drebber stole the head
- The head is covered with a locked iron mask no one can open
- Drebber was saying he was going to keep the head on his person for protection, because "after all..." and then he was interrupted
- Now I have to go to court and use Drebber's testimony to prove who really killed Asman, in a case that seems mostly unrelated but intended to help set things up for the finale cases
So the main thing is, the Professor is very important. The game is conspicuously hiding his face from the player because clearly he looks like someone we know and it's supposed to be a shocking revelation.
There are plenty of possibilities. Professor calls to mind Professor Moriarty, which ties him to Sholmes, but if Moriarty is a random guy then there'd be no need to hide his face. So it could be Professor Mycroft, Sholmes' brother who looks a lot like him, who put his logical mind to bad use in murdering London elites. Kind of a twist on the usual Mycroft. Drama comes from how it affects Sholmes and those who know him.
The Professor could be Lord Stronghart, who has always been intense and imposing. He was killing nobility and royalty in a misguided effort to clean up London, he perceived all his victims as criminals in some way. The trial was secret because he's always been an important man in the government, and they couldn't really put him to death because they needed his talents too badly, or he had some ace up his sleeve. Someone helped him "resurrect" (coroner Sithe, who knows him well?) and he's been playing it straight carefully ever since. He realized he couldn't target people in power anymore, and needed to start his cleanup with the lowest of the low, who wouldn't be missed...hence acting as the Reaper. As the chief justice, he has all the information regarding the outcomes of trials and those who weasel their way out of justice, so it'd be easy for him to act as Van Zieks' cleanup crew. Of course even if he's not the Professor, some of this could still apply to him.
But I lean a little away from this idea just because Ace Attorney has done the broad strokes of this character before in the first game, and I don't know if they would have the audacity to just do it again. It feels right that maybe Stronghart looks a little evil as a red herring to the player. The alternative is kind of boring.
Both of those possibilities don't tie up everything, though.
First likely hypothesis: the Professor is Van Zieks' brother.
He wasn't killed by the Professor, he WAS the Professor, and being a murderer essentially "killed" him in his brother's eyes. Having a criminal for a brother was devastating to Van Zieks, which led him to prosecution and his harsh demeanor, he feels like he needs to make up for the sins of his family. The trial was secret just because the Van Zieks were a powerful family, and it was a high profile case involving a lot of nobility. Van Zieks hates Japanese people because Susato's father and the Japanese judge were instrumental in finding his brother guilty and/or bungled things up in some way; an irrational hate because it was the right thing to do/their hearts were in the right place, but it still caused his family ruin. Meanwhile, somehow his brother avoided death (again, possibly through Sithe's help) and ever since has been walking in Van Zieks' shadow, killing everyone who slips through his fingers, in a misguided attempt at redeeming himself in his brother's eyes. Drebber wanted to keep the waxworks head with him, because he knows some amount of this, and thinks it's blackmail that will protect him from the Reaper.
Second likely hypothesis: the Professor is a Japanese man...possibly the judge.
This is a good reason to hide his identity from as many people as possible. The trial was secret because it would've caused an international incident...and it also nicely mirrors the events of the cases in Japan, where you're also trying to avoid an international incident with the cultural roles reversed. It's also a good reason for Van Zieks to hate Japanese people. Early 1900s racism is slightly more forgivable when one of the only Japanese people you've ever known murdered your brother. And somehow he rose from the dead and fled back to Japan.
The only reason I suspect the judge is because I could see them making that decision from a storytelling perspective: "we've had guilty law enforcement, a prosecutor, is there any way we can make a judge the murderer? Oh I know how, we'll have two different judges!" Of course, that could still happen from an entirely different angle once he arrives in London, he wouldn't HAVE to be the Professor to be a murderer.
Anyway...my gut tells me something along the lines of the first hypothesis is closer. I just strongly suspect Van Zieks' brother would be "helping" him from the shadows, killing the people his brother can't...and Van Zieks doesn't know anything about it, which will cause Drama when it's revealed.
Regardless of who the Professor is, I don't know how in the world the government would allow Madame Tusspells to blatantly display his identity in her museum, if the trial had needed to be kept secret. You wouldn't want people knowing he's Stronghart, or Van Zieks, or a Japanese guy. That makes me think he would have to be some nobody...like Sholmes's brother.
I have no idea how Jezaille Brett (I forget her other name) figures into any of this. She's too young to have been somebody's lover 10 years ago getting revenge on Watson for proving her lover was killing people with a hound. Maybe it was her father? No idea.
Your reasoning, based on the facts currently available to you, is sound.
Posts
Apparently Capcom did all the LvsW character designs and had to do some trial and error to mesh the styles, so yeah, that probably trained them to get cartoonier. Which has been totally working so far.
So when I encountered Mike Meekins, it was a shock after such reasonably grounded character designs up to that point. I've never liked the ugly cartoony characters ever since. I prefer it more grounded wherever possible, but especially think the mix of realistic and cartoony people is a dumb decision. You're going along with all these nice looking characters and suddenly run into a literal muppet that feels completely out of place.
Consistent and believable:
Dumb:
Well I could go into a whole character art critique of the series... :P I mean, it's going to be subjective and just based on my own feelings anyway, which I'm sure plenty of people won't agree with. But every game after the first one has put some weirdos in.
I would try not to just say "any annoying character is a muppet" but it feels like they give any character with a...let's say big personality, that kind of design.
But for example this guy is weird:
But his face is still believable as a real person, in line with the design of everyone else. There are a lot of characters with larger-than-life design elements that bug me a bit but at least they still read as human alongside the other humans. But some are just way off the design path of everyone else.
AA2 muppets:
AA3 muppets:
DD muppets:
In this game it feels like every other character is a muppet.
Uh... I don't know if I'd call the one next to Phoenix anything but dumb. :P
A dumb character isn't the same as unfitting artwork. Sal absolutely looks like a real person alongside the rest. If he'd been a part of games from AA3 onward I have no doubt he'd be a bulbous weirdo like other characters of his type.
Mm...don't care for that. Not one bit.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
I can reiterate what I said earlier about character design being impacted by the jury system. It feels clear that they have only so much...design bandwidth for creating new characters, and they have to spend it on jurors so you get fewer normal trial participants, and thus fewer potential suspects.
This might be ok if the jurors felt just as relevant as actual witnesses, but they don't. Summation examinations feel like they're about correcting others' misconceptions about the trial rather than making any real forward progress. They are opportunities to put forward new theories without necessarily needing hard evidence, but...I don't know, it's like, wheel spinning.
Some jurors occasionally serve the role of expert witnesses, like a street worker would tell you what their job entails which is mysteriously relevant. But even so, I'd rather just have expert witnesses!
It also really feels like they ran out of money, or the first game didn't perform well enough to justify spending money on it. In the first game they kept reusing jurors repeatedly, and in the second game I was shocked to see a trial with literally one new character I had never seen before, one new juror, out of ALL the participants of the trial. (Ok, this is perhaps a bit unfair, since several characters only amounted to a cameo in the first game, but still...they were completed at that time and thus reused here.)
Further evidence they ran out of money: the first game had anime cutscenes, but the second only has "animated storybook" Sholmes bits, and in-engine segments with voice over at the beginning and end of trials.
Also, I know these games were made to be a pair, but I am really disappointed that the second game has all the same music as the first. I know the series has traditionally reused a lot of music, but at the very least they always had new courtroom, cross-examine, objection, and victory themes. Here's it's all been the same.
Still like the game. Case 3 feels like it's ramping up to interesting events.
1) The only options for text speed are the default and "enable skip", the latter of which requires me to double-tap the advance button for every text box and occasionally leads me to blowing past a dialog box when it ends sooner than expected.
2) There's been plenty of the sort of leading circumlocution typical of more recent Ace Attorney games, where they're like "But there's decisive evidence that proves my point." "What? I don't believe you." "It does exist, and I can prove it!" "(Judge) Very well. If this decisive evidence exists, you will present it to the court." "Of course I will! This is the decisive evidence that proves my point!" And all of that could basically be compressed into the first text box.
I figured out how 1-2 was going to play out
"Well, guess we have to have the most likeable character die, break out the randomness!
That said, 1-3 is a lot of fun so far.
Was it like this in the original release, or was this added/reworked for the collection? I'm thinking not; there's just so many lingering mysteries.
A case where we found the killer, but she gets to be tried in another country, and we don't expect to ever know if she faced justice.
A tragic accident born of severe miscommunication and paranoia, with no satisfyingly evil villain; just someone who let fear make the worst out of her.
A total miscarriage of justice, with a guilty-as-sin client who doesn't even get convicted in the end like Engarde. He dies in the end, but him getting it due to vigilante justice isn't the way we usually take down the villains.
And following that, an investigation day where the events of the prior case has strongly effected our protagonist, such that he doesn't know if trusting his client is the moral thing to do. Phoenix had to deal with defending a guilty client a few times, but it never shook his conviction quite so hard.
Between that and the running themes of racism and social inequality, there's definitely a darker tone to this, even with characters like 10-year-old steampunk Watson running around. Naruhodo's been dealing with a lot heavier ideas than Phoenix usually does.
It's an interesting contrast.
The 3DS fan translation of the first game didn't explain that much, so I doubt it. The amount of work involved adjusting it for this release would be massive anyway, don't see the point.
From what I understand, the duology is basically just one game-story broken up into two games.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
Yes it was. The first game was set up as more or less a prologue to the second game. It’s why I think GAA is one of the weakest AA games, and why Im glad it was released in the west the way it was.
Steam: pazython
Kind of amazing Capcom did it that way, then -- established game companies don't usually allow for that many dangling plot threads between games. But I guess the games were cheap enough to make and the fanbase reliable enough that they figured what the hell.
But yeah, it's probably better both games came out at the same time. I'm a fan of the original Holmes stories, and I would have been annoyed as hell to not get an answer to why
Overall this was a very satisfying experience. The only thing that feels like it was missing was a case with Sholmes as the defendant (the final Escapade notwithstanding), but they've got to save something for GAA 3, after all.
Steam: pazython
They went pretty old-school with some of their inspirations.
I do feel like most of everything before 2-4/5 dragged a little. There was a lot of hyping up this case, excessively so. Yeah it was really, really good, but you probably could have just made the rest of your game a little better instead of constantly alluding to this one.
Might have just been that the humor/zaniness felt pretty reigned in during the fluff episodes. It felt a bit lacking on zany characters outside of Sholmes and Souseki, especially with how reserved Susato is compared to Maya or Trucy or even Kay.
The jury also felt like mostly a miss given the amount of resources dumped into it. They just exist to butt in and try to end a trial prematurely. Otherwise you are mostly trying to prove innocence to the judge whose opinion really should not be the focus in that system. It felt weird when you were in some kind of catch-22 when you couldn't quite get the culprit to fully confess when being silent and looking guilty as hell is all you need to lose a jury.
Oh also nice to see the series uphold the tradition of crap liar parenting! But I thought the fakeout about Wilson was pretty clever for a series that usually likes being super obvious.
(Case 1-4)
I came back to GAA 2-3.
I have some thoughts about some things that are definitely going to come up as climactic cases at the end. I realize that all of 3 people might ever read this, but I wanted to post this for posterity, just my thought process guessing at where things are going.
So I'm like 3/4ths of the way through GAA 2-3 and specifically thinking about the story of Van Zieks and his past, and things surrounding that. I just met Enoch Drebber.
- Kazuma is probably not dead and is secretly Van Zieks' prosecution apprentice
- We still don't know what Kazuma's mission was in coming to London in the first place
- If I remember right, Susato's father and the Japanese judge are on their way to London for an unknown reason
- Van Zieks' brother was killed by a man named the Professor, who had killed several nobles and royalty before being caught
- The Professor's trial was secret and no one from the public knows what he looks like
- The Professor was put to death and buried, but Enoch Drebber swore he saw him rise from the dead and it turned his hair white
- The police say no he's dead, we checked and he's still buried there
- Madame Tusspells has a waxworks re-creation of Drebber seeing the Professor rising from his grave, but Drebber stole the head
- The head is covered with a locked iron mask no one can open
- Drebber was saying he was going to keep the head on his person for protection, because "after all..." and then he was interrupted
- Now I have to go to court and use Drebber's testimony to prove who really killed Asman, in a case that seems mostly unrelated but intended to help set things up for the finale cases
So the main thing is, the Professor is very important. The game is conspicuously hiding his face from the player because clearly he looks like someone we know and it's supposed to be a shocking revelation.
There are plenty of possibilities. Professor calls to mind Professor Moriarty, which ties him to Sholmes, but if Moriarty is a random guy then there'd be no need to hide his face. So it could be Professor Mycroft, Sholmes' brother who looks a lot like him, who put his logical mind to bad use in murdering London elites. Kind of a twist on the usual Mycroft. Drama comes from how it affects Sholmes and those who know him.
The Professor could be Lord Stronghart, who has always been intense and imposing. He was killing nobility and royalty in a misguided effort to clean up London, he perceived all his victims as criminals in some way. The trial was secret because he's always been an important man in the government, and they couldn't really put him to death because they needed his talents too badly, or he had some ace up his sleeve. Someone helped him "resurrect" (coroner Sithe, who knows him well?) and he's been playing it straight carefully ever since. He realized he couldn't target people in power anymore, and needed to start his cleanup with the lowest of the low, who wouldn't be missed...hence acting as the Reaper. As the chief justice, he has all the information regarding the outcomes of trials and those who weasel their way out of justice, so it'd be easy for him to act as Van Zieks' cleanup crew. Of course even if he's not the Professor, some of this could still apply to him.
But I lean a little away from this idea just because Ace Attorney has done the broad strokes of this character before in the first game, and I don't know if they would have the audacity to just do it again. It feels right that maybe Stronghart looks a little evil as a red herring to the player. The alternative is kind of boring.
Both of those possibilities don't tie up everything, though.
First likely hypothesis: the Professor is Van Zieks' brother.
He wasn't killed by the Professor, he WAS the Professor, and being a murderer essentially "killed" him in his brother's eyes. Having a criminal for a brother was devastating to Van Zieks, which led him to prosecution and his harsh demeanor, he feels like he needs to make up for the sins of his family. The trial was secret just because the Van Zieks were a powerful family, and it was a high profile case involving a lot of nobility. Van Zieks hates Japanese people because Susato's father and the Japanese judge were instrumental in finding his brother guilty and/or bungled things up in some way; an irrational hate because it was the right thing to do/their hearts were in the right place, but it still caused his family ruin. Meanwhile, somehow his brother avoided death (again, possibly through Sithe's help) and ever since has been walking in Van Zieks' shadow, killing everyone who slips through his fingers, in a misguided attempt at redeeming himself in his brother's eyes. Drebber wanted to keep the waxworks head with him, because he knows some amount of this, and thinks it's blackmail that will protect him from the Reaper.
Second likely hypothesis: the Professor is a Japanese man...possibly the judge.
This is a good reason to hide his identity from as many people as possible. The trial was secret because it would've caused an international incident...and it also nicely mirrors the events of the cases in Japan, where you're also trying to avoid an international incident with the cultural roles reversed. It's also a good reason for Van Zieks to hate Japanese people. Early 1900s racism is slightly more forgivable when one of the only Japanese people you've ever known murdered your brother. And somehow he rose from the dead and fled back to Japan.
The only reason I suspect the judge is because I could see them making that decision from a storytelling perspective: "we've had guilty law enforcement, a prosecutor, is there any way we can make a judge the murderer? Oh I know how, we'll have two different judges!" Of course, that could still happen from an entirely different angle once he arrives in London, he wouldn't HAVE to be the Professor to be a murderer.
Anyway...my gut tells me something along the lines of the first hypothesis is closer. I just strongly suspect Van Zieks' brother would be "helping" him from the shadows, killing the people his brother can't...and Van Zieks doesn't know anything about it, which will cause Drama when it's revealed.
Regardless of who the Professor is, I don't know how in the world the government would allow Madame Tusspells to blatantly display his identity in her museum, if the trial had needed to be kept secret. You wouldn't want people knowing he's Stronghart, or Van Zieks, or a Japanese guy. That makes me think he would have to be some nobody...like Sholmes's brother.
I have no idea how Jezaille Brett (I forget her other name) figures into any of this. She's too young to have been somebody's lover 10 years ago getting revenge on Wilson for proving her lover was killing people with a hound. Maybe it was her father? No idea.
EDIT: Other thoughts, which could be things falling into place...
The Professor could be Wilson, but I wanted to dismiss the thought because it's way too much to make Iris's father a murderer and also murdered.
But maybe he wasn't the murderer, and it just looked like it was him. The real murderer was Van Zieks' brother, who faked his death to pin it on Wilson (and now he goes on secretly murdering in his brother's name). Sholmes knew Wilson wouldn't have done anything like that, so he helped him fake his death, and Susato's father and the judge helped him escape to Japan. Perhaps Van Zieks knows about this somehow, and he hates Japanese people because he suspects they helped his brother's murderer escape.
This explains motive for someone going to Japan to kill him for revenge -- Jezaille was an associate of Van Zieks' brother who needed to tie up loose ends and make sure nobody put it all together. This also explains why it would be ok to reveal his "nobody" face in Tusspells' waxworks, and Sholmes' interest in the waxworks. Also explains Sholmes' protectiveness of the details of the case, and what feels like a guarded sadness over the whole affair.
Kazuma was sent to London as a lawyer with new evidence to help clear Wilson's name and reveal the true culprit (in light of what they learned from/about Jezaille). With his "death" it's up to Susato's father and the judge to do this instead.
Your reasoning, based on the facts currently available to you, is sound.