onsdag 3 maj 2023

The Great Ace Attorney 1: Adventures (Switch)

 

Well, another murder mystery visual novel played and what better than Ace Attorney, set sometime around the beginning of the 20th century as the young... well, Naruhodo. Bit more problematic to remember for me than Phoenix. First case is Naruhodo representing himself in court for acusation of killing a foreign professor in medicine, a John H. Wilson... it's supposed to be Watson, but due to draconic copyright protectors in the Doyle estate they decided to change it to get it released at all since I think I actually hear the real name of Sherlock Holmes in the trailers for the japanese original releases. Yes, Sherlock Holmes have a prominent presence in the game. Back to the trial, Naruhodo have only his friend the law student Asogi beside him (who feels a bit like Simon Blackquil from the last games), but after interference from another professor Naruhodo have to defend himself so that a failure to protect Naruhodo would lead to Asogi to not cancel the planned trip to Great Britain for an exchange student program between the empires of Great Britain and Japan. 

It turns out that Watson was poisoned by some new poison from South America that paralysed him by a student from Great Britain, but she had some diplomatic immunity that forced the Japanese to give her to the British consul in Shanghai. But Naruhodo is proclaimed free. So Asogi invites him as a stowaway on the trip to England, which starts with the death of Asogi and Naruhodo is once again blamed for the crime, until the detective Herlock Sholmes.... I'm gonna say Sherlock Holmes onward, even though the running gag of the german Herr Lock Sholmes is kinda funny and his judicial assistant Susato. So Naruhodo takes Asogi's place and the first trial they have to endure in London is protecting this rich Irishmen that been charged with murder and to top it all off is being prosecuted by the Repear of the Baily, the Lord of Darkness, Barok van Zieks.

Wer verbreitet Angst und Schrecken,
Wer vernichtet was er will,
Jeder sucht sich zu verstecken
Vor dem Hund von Baskerville.

Every defendant that faces the Grim Reaper ends up dead, even if they are cleared of all charges. Which is silly superstitious. Well, you get your client McGuilder off the hooks after some evidence have been made light... which of course is strange since it's a bit convenient, especially when the witness Gina Lestrade shows up with her pickpocket skills. Well, case closed and everyones happy. 10 minutes later the scene of the crime (an omnibus) is set a flame with McGuilder inside, too late to save. Damn.

Another case is clearing another japanese fellow who is apparently one of the most famous Japanese writer to have ever lived that lived in England for three years before returning home to Japan somewhere around 1907 or so, which gets strange since the game clearly puts him to be there only a year. Here Sherlock comes back and you are introduced to his assistant Iris Watson that writes the stories that are published in the magazines. Iris being the daughter of John Watson, the same Watson killed in the first case? Well, the author is cleared of charges after it turns out it was a domestic dispute that got out of hand and a knife accidentally fell into the back of an innocent victim. Which turns out to be the first victim to survive an Ace Attorney case I believe. 

The last case concerns defending Gina after being accused of killing a pawnbroker. Turns out it's a tale of governmental secrets, cold blooded revenge when it turns out the reason is that a perpetrator wanted a couple of discs for a music box encoded with logs of secret information in morse code. Information the perpetrator was supposed to sell to McGuilder through his father, but McGuilder killed him which was the first case and then faced revenge by being burned. After the trail Susato leaves back to Japan since her father have fallen ill, the same professor that interfered in the beginning of the game. Meanwhile they solve the morse code and the names Asogi and Watson turns up and here the game ends.

It was a fun game. They changed it up a bit with trying to solve Sherlock's flawed leaps of logic to make less courtroom cases. They also references a lot of Holmes adventure so I checked them up in a compilation of the greatest Holmes Adventure I have in my book shelf. The Speckled Band being the most fun since they poke fun of inconsistencies of the story, such as that the snake listened to whistling and was trained with milk or was incapable of climbing the wall. One problem though, as is it's clearly not a complete game. The murderer in the first game gets away, the message at the end of the last case is unsolved. A character appears in episode 3, but isn't referenced again (if I didn't miss something). Loved van Ziek, but his enigma in being gone for 5 years and suddenly appearing and taking these paltry cases Naruhodo is involved makes no sense. 

There's a sequel and luckily it's on the game. One problem though it's a bit often the game case is a locked room mystery and I find it a bit repeating. The several witnesses are fun and was used in the Layton and Phoenix crossover game earlier, which I played 7 years ago. Must be easier since I didn't look up any hints (or maybe save scumming helped with that). Also, the jury feels like a counter argument from Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney where we needed to use a jury to convict the main bad guy, but here the jury is more of an hindrance since they interrupt all the time and is swayed by every little bit of change in the story. Interesting how the story also shows racism, arrogance of the great powers and how they bend the will of weaker nations around them.

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