I love that all three of those hypotheses "the Professor is Stronghart, the Professor is Van Ziek's brother, and the Professor is a Japanese guy" are all in a sense correct :P
I think 2-3 is one of the best cases in the series, the subject matter, the way it brings together past and present with multiple mysteries. The extended discussion and scene at the end. It feels like what would've been a climactic final case in other games.
Assessment of earlier thoughts:
Sort of close but no cigar! Just didn't think about how Kazuma would have to be tied in pretty tightly as well. A little bit left field. Thoughts about it being a Japanese man and mirroring the international incident from earlier turned out true. But when you're scattershot suspecting basically everyone, you're bound to come up with something close to the answer. :P
So my current best guess changes to the Wilson theory, substituting Wilson for Kazuma's father. He wasn't really the murderer, and Kazuma trained as a defense attorney and wanted to go to London to clear his name. Real murderer is Van Zieks' brother who faked his death to point fingers at Kazuma's father, and since then he's kept killing to advance his brother's career/prestige. Wilson needed to die because he was one of the few people who knew about the hound case and could bring the truth to light. Sholmes and the Japanese legal guys are therefore all also targets.
Now I'm picturing a moment bringing our heroes to their lowest point where someone burns down Sholmes' building to try to kill him, destroying Naruhodo's attic room too, and at the end they find the Daruma doll survived the fire with its other eye filled in by soot. A real long shot but you have to call this stuff as you think of it because wouldn't that be wild if it actually happened. :P
The intro to 2-4 was way too happy and friendly. I bet the judge is going to die and they'll blame Susato's father. I don't want them to kill Susato's father and have it be the other way around but I guess it's possible because he's been doing his end-of-life confessions saying he's been a terrible father and leaving with something he wanted to tell me that was unsaid.
I had suspected that they might want a judge murderer since it's something they haven't done before, but they also haven't done a judge who was murdered either. As far as I can remember. I didn't play Spirit of Justice.
Regarding Stronghart. Sithe being villainous and a close associate of his, and the fact that he tried to keep her out of court, could point to him being a bad dude. However he's also high up in the government and just as beholden to protecting government secrets as anyone. My thought earlier was that they'd already done the broad strokes of this type of character in the first game and it'd be boring to do it again, but the difference here is that they've built him up over the course of two games instead of one single trial, so you really "know" him and it's a more interesting twist. I'm not confident that he won't turn out to be evil, but I kind of hope he doesn't, because again with his demeanor it feels too obvious.
Another one not to read until you've beaten GAA 2-5:
This may be giving them too much credit, but I wonder if making Stronghart more or less a rehash of Gant was intentional as a way to throw us off early on thinking they wouldn't do the same thing again. Of course, it was plainly obvious what they were doing as soon as he showed up as judge.
I do like the idea, though, that Stronghart is an intentional mirror to Gant as a way of kind of tying Naruhodo's journey back to Phoenix's; they both directly tackled the corrupt men in charge of their times.
oh and
mentioning that the intro to 2-4 is too friendly is kind of hilarious thinking back on what you find out about that moment later, which was honestly extremely dark for an Ace Attorney game
Another one not to read until you've beaten GAA 2-5:
This may be giving them too much credit, but I wonder if making Stronghart more or less a rehash of Gant was intentional as a way to throw us off early on thinking they wouldn't do the same thing again. Of course, it was plainly obvious what they were doing as soon as he showed up as judge.
I do like the idea, though, that Stronghart is an intentional mirror to Gant as a way of kind of tying Naruhodo's journey back to Phoenix's; they both directly tackled the corrupt men in charge of their times.
I think the better question is what *isn't* an intentional rehash.
Ryuunouske is obviously related to Phoenix.
Susato has a 180 personality from Maya but copies her mannerisms and penchant for out-of-place robes.
Van Zieks is the dark, brooding, rich and well-dressed prosecutor with some penchant for "the truth", who you end up defending to release from the darkness of his boss.
Payne is still Payne.
Obviously there are new archetypes like Sherlock+Iris, Kazuma, etc, and the old stuff has significant twists and variance to make its own thing. But it definitely feels like starting out with a similar template and adjusting it for the new setting and Sherlock.
Before I get too far, another thing I forgot to mention earlier that I was thinking about. Still end of 2-3.
2-3 was the case that humanized the prosecutor, so being an Ace Attorney veteran this means we can't possibly go up against him again, we understand each other too well. So I assume that means something happens to or with Van Zieks, and the new prosecutor will be Kazuma, which causes Drama because how can I fight my best friend?!
Ok, finished 2-4. Pretty sure I see how things are going to end up by now? But that doesn't feel like a feat at this point, they've dropped a whole bunch of hints. It feels like all that's left are the details of who explicitly did what, and the types of evidence that will come out to prove it.
First, kinda disappointed that this game is only going to be 4 cases. I was looking forward to wrapping up case 4, proving Van Zieks was innocent but perhaps not yet knowing who the Reaper was, and then bringing everything together for a final case. These games are known for having super long, indulgent final cases, and it feels like for this one they just put a random break in at the halfway point, so they could show on the main menu that there are 5 cases so people wouldn't be disappointed with 4 after so many other games with 5 cases.
I see I was right about what to expect from the prosecution after 2-3.
So my earlier thoughts about Klint not actually being dead but instead working as the Reaper had a main flaw, which I had thought about but neglected to mention: if Klint is evil that puts Barok in a bad place and you can't leave him with a happy ending. Finding out your brother wasn't dead, but even worse than that, he was a murderer...that makes for an interesting story and twist, but not a happy one.
Also, every Japanese person has to remain blameless by the end, because otherwise you can't properly end Van Zieks' racism.
At this point Stronghart has had his fingers in too many pies, telling people how he wants the trial to go, saying certain witnesses can't be called, leaving info out of documents, that he has to be the final guy. Which, again, I find a little disappointing because we've already had Damon Gant who even looked more or less the same as him. Like I said, kinda suspected him from the beginning but hoped they wouldn't retread that ground, but whatever. He's been talking about utterly crushing the criminal element, achieving justice by any means necessary, he was even the first guy to tell us that the Professor murders were semi-justified and made society better. Plus they want it to be satisfying to take down the highest untouchable guys in government...diplomats and such...
Also the ironic poetry of Van Zieks' office being dark with bats and Stronghart's office being bright with doves.
Here's what I think:
10 years ago, Stronghart felt as strongly about justice as he does now. His associates at the time were Gregson, Shinn, and Sithe. He or his associates killed some nobles who were terrible people. Klint found out about this, and was such an unwavering boy scout that he wasn't going to let it go unpunished, so they were forced to dispose of him and set up Asogi for the blame. Afterward they realized they had to be more careful and stuck to killing people who were obviously guilty but slipped through their grasp in court.
While Klint may have found out about the murders by accident, I also think it's possible that they openly tried to recruit him, due to the "poetry" of having cooperation at every level: chief justice, prosecutor, forensics, police (maybe), and an assassin. They wouldn't repeat the same mistake with Barok, but he was ruthless enough and willing to shoulder the role of Reaper for them anyway. Every level being compromised also justifies Barok's mistrust of literally everyone.
I'm still thinking Gregson had never been a bad guy and the noticeboard proves he was just independently on the same investigation trail Van Zieks was, and was close to figuring out Stronghart was behind everything, which was why he had to die. Normally I would take Van Zieks at his word if he says Gregson was compromised, but I hope he's wrong. As for why Gregson needed alibis from Daly Vigil, you need just as much an alibi to throw Stronghart off your trail as you would if you were out murdering. After all, Shinn was the assassin, not Gregson. And why would it be relevant that he was going to France, and taking Gina with him, if he was a bad dude all along? Who is there to kill/investigate in France? No, he knew the noose was tightening around him.
Gregson had pushed hard for an autopsy of Klint (or was ordered to push for the autopsy) so that they could plant evidence in his stomach that would point toward Asogi (poison tea?). But someone present at the autopsy wasn't in on the conspiracy, and they needed him dead, too. Through Iris and her stories, they came to believe that man was John H. Wilson, which is why Shinn went to Japan to kill him. In actual fact, it was Susato's father who penned the autopsy report, whose life is now still in danger, and is probably the most recent name in Gregson's notebook that Gina found. He might yet die or be injured, but at this point I don't think the game wants to end with an international incident that threatens British/Japanese harmony.
I'm thinking Susato's father was the one who nailed Asogi into the coffin to help him escape, since he would've had the opportunity. This is probably why the conspirators killed Wilson, they had been looking for the medical man who tried to help Asogi escape. But in any case, Stronghart found out about the escape attempt and finished the job just as Asogi was crawling out. Stronghart has to have shot him for Reasons of Pathos in court when Kazuma gets to confront his father's real killer.
When Genshin Asogi said he "took someone's life" I believe that he just holds himself responsible for not doing more to stop someone else from dying. This is probably Klint. Or he's obliquely referring to having some role in ruining Barok's life.
When Kazuma showed up in London with amnesia, Stronghart placed him in Van Zieks' care to torture both of them and set them against each other, maybe even in preparation for just such an occasion as this case.
At the end everybody on every level of law enforcement who was bad gets excised, no Japanese people were killers, Van Zieks feels like the corruption is gone for once in his life, he becomes the new chief justice with Kazuma as his head prosecutor. Naruhodo goes back to Japan to be the country's top defense attorney with Susato as his assistant, Sholmes and Iris also go to Japan because Iris is probably Susato's half-sister or something.
Past games are starting to mislead you though. Most killers in this game tend towards the more tragic and sympathetic, and that continues right up to the end. Makes a more interesting moral texture than we've typically seen from the series.
I was pretty wrong about lots of things overall but it was still fun to speculate. I think I did pretty good putting together a framework in 2-3 before a lot of things were hinted at, though thrown off by not knowing yet that the Professor had been shot dead.
I love that all three of those hypotheses "the Professor is Stronghart, the Professor is Van Ziek's brother, and the Professor is a Japanese guy" are all in a sense correct :P
Here's the thing though,
it turns out when everyone is culpable for something, it's very easy to guess kind of right on some things. It felt like, uh, a certain famous Agatha Christie mystery,
Murder on the Orient Express.
Though a few of my guesses were based on what the series could logically do different/new from other games, and they just liked the idea of a bad judge so much they did it twice.
My biggest mistake was assuming there were generally one or two people responsible for the majority of the incidents. I kept expecting the Reaper to have been the Professor who realized he needed to make his methods more subtle. Even if it's technically true, it didn't quite work out that way.
Disappointments:
I can say this openly, all the bonus episodes are worthless and completely forgettable. I thought they would be mini-trials where you actually get to think and present evidence. Instead, nothing happens.
Too often the game seemed to handwave away its own central conceit of taking place in the late 1800s, and just made whatever they wanted to exist suddenly magically exist in an early form right now. I was going to mention this earlier, and I was going to joke about something that turns out actually happens. And I know this series is known for spirit medium magical bullshit that somehow makes its way into court, but it feels worse when the same thing happens with technology.
Feels especially wrong when 2-3 is all about disproving hairbrained science, c'mon you can't do magic. Until 2-5, which almost duplicates the functionality of 2-3's technology in some ways?! Why teleport somewhere when you can just BE there.
I was really disappointed that the final thing to present was just a gimmick and not a brilliant final piece of evidence. I guess they figured they couldn't outdo themselves with Karuma, but even so. And then it's just vague Sholmes techno-magic as a cop out deus ex machina to solve every problem. I don't mind having my friends help me out sometimes, like getting my final piece of evidence as a late delivery from Gumshoe but then I have to figure out what it means. What I don't like is having them finish the trial for me.
I was also really disappointed that when finally covering a hostile judge who is guilty, they didn't really do much with that premise, as far as having to dance around the subject and pin him with evidence cleverly. It felt like over time he got bored with trying to obstruct the trial and just decided to start admitting to everything for no reason. One of my favorite cases in all the games was the last case of AA Investigations, I'll never forget the twists and turns of unraveling that guy's powers, and I was hoping for something similar.
I'll echo what I said earlier about feeling shortchanged by the structure of both games. A recap:
1-1: trial with recess. Good strong opening.
1-2: investigation only. Short and falls flat.
1-3: trial with recess. Pretty good but also unsatisfying and still short.
1-4: brief investigation, then trial. The filler episode. Still missing the investigate - trial - investigate -trial pattern.
1-5: long investigation, long trial. Very good overall.
2-1: trial with recess. A good opening.
2-2: investigation, trial, investigation, trial. Oh my god they finally did it. But it's just filler...
2-3: investigation, trial, investigation, trial. One of the best cases in the series. Fun things happen during investigation, great reveals and an extended ending.
2-4: investigation, trial with recess, investigation...oh it's just half a case?
2-5: long trial interrupted by a short fun investigation. Good, brings everything together, and a nice long denouement. But...still half a case.
It just didn't feel like what I'd come to expect from the series. As I said earlier I feel like they were hampered in a number of ways, partly due to the decision to go with a jury that doubled the character design/animation workload for not much practical payoff.
Also I think it's a mistake to voice all the characters 10 seconds at a time over the course of 2 games, and then end everything with like 20 minutes of voice acting. That's exactly backwards. We need long stretches of time early on with voice acting so we can establish what these characters sound like in our heads, and then you can lay off for a while. I don't feel like I got enough, so the end feels weird when everyone's talking and it doesn't sound like I imagined them at all. Sholmes in particular sounds nothing like he looks.
Appreciation and a thought on Sholmes:
I really liked when he was working with Mikotoba and the dance of deduction was immediate, no bullshit solving the case. I know there was supposedly little time so they had to work fast, but man I wish most of the game had that pace.
This was not necessarily implied by the game, but I like the head-canon that all of Sholmes' ridiculous deductions with Ryunosuke are purposefully ridiculous in order for Ryunosuke to correct them, and in that way teach him about the art of deduction. His dance with Mikotoba showed he doesn't have to make bad deductions, and his competence throughout the entire rest of the story showed that he's nowhere near as dumb or even forgetful as he may have pretended to be.
A fun thing I noticed that I said here back in July:
I see an avenue for [Kazuma] to have faked his death due to needing to do some super secret lawyer spy stuff. We never got a good look at the body, and there's no outward indication of injury. I could see Sholmes being in on it, and part of the whole point was to gently push Ryunosuke into becoming a lawyer (that was all initiated by Sholmes' insistence). However if this is the case then they were torturing a 15 year old girl with the thought that she had killed someone, and I don't want that to be the case either.
Felt good to see Sholmes' insistence acknowledged. But also they acknowledged that we tortured a 15 year old girl and just handwaved it away saying "nah she's fine."
I love that all three of those hypotheses "the Professor is Stronghart, the Professor is Van Ziek's brother, and the Professor is a Japanese guy" are all in a sense correct :P
Here's the thing though,
it turns out when everyone is culpable for something, it's very easy to guess kind of right on some things. It felt like, uh, a certain famous Agatha Christie mystery,
Murder on the Orient Express.
Though a few of my guesses were based on what the series could logically do different/new from other games, and they just liked the idea of a bad judge so much they did it twice.
My biggest mistake was assuming there were generally one or two people responsible for the majority of the incidents. I kept expecting the Reaper to have been the Professor who realized he needed to make his methods more subtle. Even if it's technically true, it didn't quite work out that way.
The story as a whole is kind of a weird stickler about perpetrators maintaining a consistent modus operandi, to the point where the fact that Klint was not killed by a dog turned out to be an important early hint that his killer was not the Professor, even though it might be completely logical for such a criminal to change his methods as you hypothesized.
Oh yeah, also, spoilers for something I wish they would've touched on in some way with Van Zieks:
I wanted to know a little about his hallowed chalices and wines! Why is he always breaking them and throwing them around? Is there any significance to it all? Even if the answer is just "I really like a good wine." Or "this is what remains of my brother's family vintage and I enjoy it in his name."
I wanted him to offer some to Ryunosuke! Or bring a bottle to the party at the end!
There's nothing too deep about it. If you poked around the prosecutor's office the two times you get to visit, you can glean a little. Basically he's obsessed with personally curating his wines and treasures his glasses, and you just piss him off that much that he's constantly wrecking them.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Can use a pointer on case 1-5:
I've explored this pawn shop and the back room inside and out and have no idea how to advance the plot. Found both photos and the two blood types.
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Andy JoeWe claim the land for the highlord!The AdirondacksRegistered Userregular
I've explored this pawn shop and the back room inside and out and have no idea how to advance the plot. Found both photos and the two blood types.
Make sure you examine all your 3D object inventory items.
Check one of the photos for a bloodstain, then present it to Iris. You'll get a third blood type.
Thanks, I explored that stupid picture dozens of times, I didn't know I had to literally check that exact blood stain.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
I'm at case 3 in GAA-2, and overall, I'm pretty disappointed in the game(s). Maybe I've just gotten tired of the AA formula, but it's all feeling very predictable and formulaic, especially forced DRAMA moments when, oh no, the entire jury declares guilty because of one testimony without letting the attorney get a word in edgewise? WTF?
The game really needs some shaking up, like more grey area trials where your client isn't fully innocent either(the third case in game one was close to this), or better yet, getting to represent someone you know is guilty but you try to get them a lesser sentence, like, more mundane trials.
For example, (GAA-2 #2),
Olive Green's going to get her own trial, right? Who better to represent her than Naruhodo?
Things like that would make for more interesting, unique narratives. As it is, the series feels very stale, and I despise Holmes on many, many levels. Iris makes up for it, but only just barely.
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Andy JoeWe claim the land for the highlord!The AdirondacksRegistered Userregular
Apollo Justice trilogy coming to consoles and PC next year:
Ghost Trick looks great, and I'm happy that Apollo trilogy is getting released so I can hold onto those too, but what really surprised me is they acknowledged that Breath of Fire existed as a Capcom IP people cared about in their post-show Survey.
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Andy JoeWe claim the land for the highlord!The AdirondacksRegistered Userregular
Posts
I think 2-3 is one of the best cases in the series, the subject matter, the way it brings together past and present with multiple mysteries. The extended discussion and scene at the end. It feels like what would've been a climactic final case in other games.
Assessment of earlier thoughts:
So my current best guess changes to the Wilson theory, substituting Wilson for Kazuma's father. He wasn't really the murderer, and Kazuma trained as a defense attorney and wanted to go to London to clear his name. Real murderer is Van Zieks' brother who faked his death to point fingers at Kazuma's father, and since then he's kept killing to advance his brother's career/prestige. Wilson needed to die because he was one of the few people who knew about the hound case and could bring the truth to light. Sholmes and the Japanese legal guys are therefore all also targets.
Now I'm picturing a moment bringing our heroes to their lowest point where someone burns down Sholmes' building to try to kill him, destroying Naruhodo's attic room too, and at the end they find the Daruma doll survived the fire with its other eye filled in by soot. A real long shot but you have to call this stuff as you think of it because wouldn't that be wild if it actually happened. :P
The intro to 2-4 was way too happy and friendly. I bet the judge is going to die and they'll blame Susato's father. I don't want them to kill Susato's father and have it be the other way around
I had suspected that they might want a judge murderer since it's something they haven't done before, but they also haven't done a judge who was murdered either. As far as I can remember. I didn't play Spirit of Justice.
Regarding Stronghart. Sithe being villainous and a close associate of his, and the fact that he tried to keep her out of court, could point to him being a bad dude. However he's also high up in the government and just as beholden to protecting government secrets as anyone. My thought earlier was that they'd already done the broad strokes of this type of character in the first game and it'd be boring to do it again, but the difference here is that they've built him up over the course of two games instead of one single trial, so you really "know" him and it's a more interesting twist. I'm not confident that he won't turn out to be evil, but I kind of hope he doesn't, because again with his demeanor it feels too obvious.
I do like the idea, though, that Stronghart is an intentional mirror to Gant as a way of kind of tying Naruhodo's journey back to Phoenix's; they both directly tackled the corrupt men in charge of their times.
oh and
Ryuunouske is obviously related to Phoenix.
Susato has a 180 personality from Maya but copies her mannerisms and penchant for out-of-place robes.
Van Zieks is the dark, brooding, rich and well-dressed prosecutor with some penchant for "the truth", who you end up defending to release from the darkness of his boss.
Payne is still Payne.
Obviously there are new archetypes like Sherlock+Iris, Kazuma, etc, and the old stuff has significant twists and variance to make its own thing. But it definitely feels like starting out with a similar template and adjusting it for the new setting and Sherlock.
I see I was right about what to expect from the prosecution after 2-3.
So my earlier thoughts about Klint not actually being dead but instead working as the Reaper had a main flaw, which I had thought about but neglected to mention: if Klint is evil that puts Barok in a bad place and you can't leave him with a happy ending. Finding out your brother wasn't dead, but even worse than that, he was a murderer...that makes for an interesting story and twist, but not a happy one.
Also, every Japanese person has to remain blameless by the end, because otherwise you can't properly end Van Zieks' racism.
At this point Stronghart has had his fingers in too many pies, telling people how he wants the trial to go, saying certain witnesses can't be called, leaving info out of documents, that he has to be the final guy. Which, again, I find a little disappointing because we've already had Damon Gant who even looked more or less the same as him. Like I said, kinda suspected him from the beginning but hoped they wouldn't retread that ground, but whatever. He's been talking about utterly crushing the criminal element, achieving justice by any means necessary, he was even the first guy to tell us that the Professor murders were semi-justified and made society better. Plus they want it to be satisfying to take down the highest untouchable guys in government...diplomats and such...
Also the ironic poetry of Van Zieks' office being dark with bats and Stronghart's office being bright with doves.
Here's what I think:
10 years ago, Stronghart felt as strongly about justice as he does now. His associates at the time were Gregson, Shinn, and Sithe. He or his associates killed some nobles who were terrible people. Klint found out about this, and was such an unwavering boy scout that he wasn't going to let it go unpunished, so they were forced to dispose of him and set up Asogi for the blame. Afterward they realized they had to be more careful and stuck to killing people who were obviously guilty but slipped through their grasp in court.
While Klint may have found out about the murders by accident, I also think it's possible that they openly tried to recruit him, due to the "poetry" of having cooperation at every level: chief justice, prosecutor, forensics, police (maybe), and an assassin. They wouldn't repeat the same mistake with Barok, but he was ruthless enough and willing to shoulder the role of Reaper for them anyway. Every level being compromised also justifies Barok's mistrust of literally everyone.
I'm still thinking Gregson had never been a bad guy and the noticeboard proves he was just independently on the same investigation trail Van Zieks was, and was close to figuring out Stronghart was behind everything, which was why he had to die. Normally I would take Van Zieks at his word if he says Gregson was compromised, but I hope he's wrong. As for why Gregson needed alibis from Daly Vigil, you need just as much an alibi to throw Stronghart off your trail as you would if you were out murdering. After all, Shinn was the assassin, not Gregson. And why would it be relevant that he was going to France, and taking Gina with him, if he was a bad dude all along? Who is there to kill/investigate in France? No, he knew the noose was tightening around him.
Gregson had pushed hard for an autopsy of Klint (or was ordered to push for the autopsy) so that they could plant evidence in his stomach that would point toward Asogi (poison tea?). But someone present at the autopsy wasn't in on the conspiracy, and they needed him dead, too. Through Iris and her stories, they came to believe that man was John H. Wilson, which is why Shinn went to Japan to kill him. In actual fact, it was Susato's father who penned the autopsy report, whose life is now still in danger, and is probably the most recent name in Gregson's notebook that Gina found. He might yet die or be injured, but at this point I don't think the game wants to end with an international incident that threatens British/Japanese harmony.
I'm thinking Susato's father was the one who nailed Asogi into the coffin to help him escape, since he would've had the opportunity. This is probably why the conspirators killed Wilson, they had been looking for the medical man who tried to help Asogi escape. But in any case, Stronghart found out about the escape attempt and finished the job just as Asogi was crawling out. Stronghart has to have shot him for Reasons of Pathos in court when Kazuma gets to confront his father's real killer.
When Genshin Asogi said he "took someone's life" I believe that he just holds himself responsible for not doing more to stop someone else from dying. This is probably Klint. Or he's obliquely referring to having some role in ruining Barok's life.
When Kazuma showed up in London with amnesia, Stronghart placed him in Van Zieks' care to torture both of them and set them against each other, maybe even in preparation for just such an occasion as this case.
At the end everybody on every level of law enforcement who was bad gets excised, no Japanese people were killers, Van Zieks feels like the corruption is gone for once in his life, he becomes the new chief justice with Kazuma as his head prosecutor. Naruhodo goes back to Japan to be the country's top defense attorney with Susato as his assistant, Sholmes and Iris also go to Japan because Iris is probably Susato's half-sister or something.
Barok says maybe the ghost of his brother was doing the killings...
And Stronghart BECOMES THE JUDGE so maybe the series DOES get an evil judge...!
Past games are starting to mislead you though. Most killers in this game tend towards the more tragic and sympathetic, and that continues right up to the end. Makes a more interesting moral texture than we've typically seen from the series.
I was pretty wrong about lots of things overall but it was still fun to speculate. I think I did pretty good putting together a framework in 2-3 before a lot of things were hinted at, though thrown off by not knowing yet that the Professor had been shot dead.
Here's the thing though,
Though a few of my guesses were based on what the series could logically do different/new from other games, and they just liked the idea of a bad judge so much they did it twice.
My biggest mistake was assuming there were generally one or two people responsible for the majority of the incidents. I kept expecting the Reaper to have been the Professor who realized he needed to make his methods more subtle. Even if it's technically true, it didn't quite work out that way.
Disappointments:
I can say this openly, all the bonus episodes are worthless and completely forgettable. I thought they would be mini-trials where you actually get to think and present evidence. Instead, nothing happens.
Too often the game seemed to handwave away its own central conceit of taking place in the late 1800s, and just made whatever they wanted to exist suddenly magically exist in an early form right now. I was going to mention this earlier, and I was going to joke about something that turns out actually happens. And I know this series is known for spirit medium magical bullshit that somehow makes its way into court, but it feels worse when the same thing happens with technology.
I was really disappointed that the final thing to present was just a gimmick and not a brilliant final piece of evidence. I guess they figured they couldn't outdo themselves with Karuma, but even so. And then it's just vague Sholmes techno-magic as a cop out deus ex machina to solve every problem. I don't mind having my friends help me out sometimes, like getting my final piece of evidence as a late delivery from Gumshoe but then I have to figure out what it means. What I don't like is having them finish the trial for me.
I was also really disappointed that when finally covering a hostile judge who is guilty, they didn't really do much with that premise, as far as having to dance around the subject and pin him with evidence cleverly. It felt like over time he got bored with trying to obstruct the trial and just decided to start admitting to everything for no reason. One of my favorite cases in all the games was the last case of AA Investigations, I'll never forget the twists and turns of unraveling that guy's powers, and I was hoping for something similar.
I'll echo what I said earlier about feeling shortchanged by the structure of both games. A recap:
1-1: trial with recess. Good strong opening.
1-2: investigation only. Short and falls flat.
1-3: trial with recess. Pretty good but also unsatisfying and still short.
1-4: brief investigation, then trial. The filler episode. Still missing the investigate - trial - investigate -trial pattern.
1-5: long investigation, long trial. Very good overall.
2-1: trial with recess. A good opening.
2-2: investigation, trial, investigation, trial. Oh my god they finally did it. But it's just filler...
2-3: investigation, trial, investigation, trial. One of the best cases in the series. Fun things happen during investigation, great reveals and an extended ending.
2-4: investigation, trial with recess, investigation...oh it's just half a case?
2-5: long trial interrupted by a short fun investigation. Good, brings everything together, and a nice long denouement. But...still half a case.
It just didn't feel like what I'd come to expect from the series. As I said earlier I feel like they were hampered in a number of ways, partly due to the decision to go with a jury that doubled the character design/animation workload for not much practical payoff.
Also I think it's a mistake to voice all the characters 10 seconds at a time over the course of 2 games, and then end everything with like 20 minutes of voice acting. That's exactly backwards. We need long stretches of time early on with voice acting so we can establish what these characters sound like in our heads, and then you can lay off for a while. I don't feel like I got enough, so the end feels weird when everyone's talking and it doesn't sound like I imagined them at all. Sholmes in particular sounds nothing like he looks.
Appreciation and a thought on Sholmes:
This was not necessarily implied by the game, but I like the head-canon that all of Sholmes' ridiculous deductions with Ryunosuke are purposefully ridiculous in order for Ryunosuke to correct them, and in that way teach him about the art of deduction. His dance with Mikotoba showed he doesn't have to make bad deductions, and his competence throughout the entire rest of the story showed that he's nowhere near as dumb or even forgetful as he may have pretended to be.
A fun thing I noticed that I said here back in July:
I wanted him to offer some to Ryunosuke! Or bring a bottle to the party at the end!
Make sure you examine all your 3D object inventory items.
The game really needs some shaking up, like more grey area trials where your client isn't fully innocent either(the third case in game one was close to this), or better yet, getting to represent someone you know is guilty but you try to get them a lesser sentence, like, more mundane trials.
For example, (GAA-2 #2),
Things like that would make for more interesting, unique narratives. As it is, the series feels very stale, and I despise Holmes on many, many levels. Iris makes up for it, but only just barely.
Now port the Edgeworth games!
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At least they were at deep discount.
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3DS Friend Code: 2165-6448-8348 www.Twitch.TV/cooljammer00
Battle.Net: JohnDarc#1203 Origin/UPlay: CoolJammer00