I didn't mean to take another month between posts, but as I alluded to in January I'm having life issues that has made regularly posting difficult and I'll make a post about it eventually, probably after my very short anime of 2024 post. The only reason these 2024 wrap-ups even exist is because I worked on them throughout last year so I did not have to spend much time writing or editing them to post now.
That said, on to what I'd written prior to all my issues:
Having not completed a single RPG in the past two years, it felt like 2024 was the year to remedy that.
I usually designate these great games as my Top 3 picks each year by marking them with an asterisk (*) and these are the 12 games I liked the most out of the ones I finished in 2024, in the order I played them. If the game is available on multiple platforms, the one I played on is listed first. Usually I try to complete at least one game a month, but because of said issues I fell short this year.
Undernauts: Labyrinth of Yomi (Switch, PS4, XB1, Windows)
I was pleasantly surprised by how much I got into Undernauts with its alt-1970s Japan setting and truly inspired character designs. It's a first person dungeon crawler, but with modern day quality of life auto-mapping and easier than average difficulty for a game of its type. The story is more nuanced than you'd expect for the genre and made me want to get to the bottom of what really happened. The only thing I'd fault it for is that the post-credits scene makes it clear the story isn't over, and the only way to see the story through in its entirety is to complete the punishing post-game.
Unpacking (Switch, PS4, PS5, XB1, Windows, iOS, Android)
Unpacking was a media darling when it first came out. The premise is simple. You unpack the belongings of an unseen girl/young woman as she moves from place to place over the course of her life. From what she carries with her, how she chooses to augment her belongings, and where you are allowed to place things, you learn a surprisingly large amount of what kind of person she is and what has happened in her life. I thought it was an interesting concept, but was less enamored by the actual gameplay.
Process of Elimination (Switch, PS4) *
If you need to fill the Danganronpa (or Ace Attorney) shaped hole in your gaming needs, Process of Elimination is likely to do the job. It doesn't feel as polished as the more established names, but if you want to be trapped in a murder mystery with a bunch of colorful characters who gradually get picked off one by one, it's a solid pick. Evidence collection deviates from the point and click methods of its predecessors, going for an isometric map over which you can direct a team of detectives. It's nice to see a fresh take, but the implementation feels a little clunky. I really liked that the deduction portion of the game involves putting all clues together in context, and rarely involves waving around contradicting evidence, so I really felt smart when solving a murder. Would buy a sequel in a heartbeat.
Collar x Malice Unlimited (Switch)
The fandisc to Collar x Malice. I was going to play this back when it first released, but that ended up happening shortly before I had surgery for my first cancer, and it fell off my radar. By the time I remembered I still had it in my closet a lot had changed in the otome gaming landscape so it kept getting deprioritized in favor of non-sequels. That said, it's a little hit or miss for me. The characters I liked least had the best After Stories and the ones I looked forward to the most had the weakest. The extras were just okay and the Adonis route less exciting than expected.
The Centennial Case : A Shijima Story (Switch, PS5, PS4, Windows, iOS, Android) *
Mystery novelist Haruka is asked by a friend if she would look into a hundred year mystery involving his family and a skeleton they found buried behind their cherry tree. Has a very different feel from most games being primarily told through live action segments and the player being asked to assemble hypotheses from clues obtained during those scenes rather than being in direct control over an investigation. I found the story extremely gripping even if the actual game mechanics were a bit clunky. Having the same group of actors play different roles in different time periods was a nice touch, and also made it easier to keep characters straight since there wasn't a constant parade of new faces.
Emio - The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club (Switch)
Third entry in the Famicom Detective Club series. It manages to modernize the gameplay from the NES remakes, keeping the unusual dialogue system for pulling out clues, while getting rid of the less sensical logic jumps occasionally experienced in the older games. The investigation part of the game is deep and a constant source of tension, but the story wraps up in a mediocre fashion that is both unsatisfying and a post-credits info dump.
Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth (Switch, PS4, XB1, Windows, DS) *
I played the remaster as part of the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection, having played the original on DS when it came out years ago. It's still a fun ride as tightly laced straight man Miles Edgeworth as he investigates crimes filled with a cast of wacky characters with a stubborn sense of logic. I don't think he needed to be saddled with a teenage sidekick, as Kay didn't feel as natural a partner as Maya did for Phoenix in the original three Ace Attorney games, but I suppose the design team felt a need to parallel the earlier games.
Ace Attorney Investigations 2 : Prosecutor's Gambit (Switch, PS4, XB1, Windows)
After many years this is finally available in English in the first time! Though I think the overall throughline of the story could have been smoother and Kay felt more stapled on than the first game, it was still a very good run with a lot of returning cameos (some of them very deep cuts!) without feeling like it was wallowing too heavily in fan service. I was particularly happy with what they did with an "annoying" character to both give him his comeuppance and then turn him around into being someone we could be sympathetic towards.
9 R.I.P. (Switch)
Misa Issihiki is spirited away as part of a supernatural plan to help her deal with her inability to stand up to her mother regarding her plans for college. Romance involving ghosts and yokai, so there's nearly always an element of separation involved in the endings, but some of them wrap up satisfactorily for all involved.
Digimon Survive (Switch, PS4, XB1, Windows)
Strategy/visual novel hybrid that leans heavily into nostalgia. Unlike most Digimon games it takes inspiration from the anime and features a number of human characters with partner digimon rather than a single human player character who raises and collects hundreds of them. Though collecting can still be done, this is a much more narratively focused game with an emphasis on human and digimon partners. There is also a fairly strong plot emphasis on the "survive" in the title, though I feel like it hits harder in the early game than the late.
even if Tempest: Dawning Connections (Switch)
The fan disk to even if Tempest. To be honest, the fandisk was a mixed bag for me, and since it's tonally different from the original game, being more focused on romantic relationships than the drama of trying to survive, it doesn't feel as exciting as the first game. To be fair, most routes employ a non-romantic plotline to try and retain some of the tension and drama, but they don't always work the best. My favorite routes were Zenn's and the non-romantic The Fellowship due to the additional worldbuilding.
Showing posts with label ace attorney. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ace attorney. Show all posts
Monday, February 17, 2025
Monday, January 3, 2022
My Favorite Games of 2021
In 2021 I played a lot more visual novels than I normally would due to so much of my time being spent either in cancer treatment or recovering from cancer treatment. I had neuropathy issues following surgery that largely prevented me from using my left hand for gaming (even typing was hard!), which was a definite factor in what I could play. Fortunately visual novels are easy to play one-handed.
These are the 12 games I liked the most out of the ones I finished in 2021, in the order I played them. If the game is available on multiple platforms, the one I played on is listed first. My top three picks of the year are marked with an asterisk (*).
Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Switch) *
I rushed to finish this one before surgery because I didn't want to lose interest or forget too much while hospitalized, and it turned out to be a good thing given my post-surgery neuropathy. Three Houses manages to refresh the franchise after Fates tried to retread too much of what made Awakening popular. The focus this time is on houses representing the continent's three countries at a military academy, and how they end up careening towards war. I think the first part of the game where everyone is playing school is overly long (if I want Persona I'll go play Persona), but the story is compelling and I like all the shades of morally gray.
Gnosia (Switch) *
Can you build a visual novel out of the Werewolf/Mafia party games? Why yes, you can! Gnosia's premise is that you're on a starship and one or more of the crew has been infected with Gnosia, which causes them to eliminate one other member of the crew every time they enter warp. You play every round of "Werewolf" in an attempt to cold sleep the Gnosia before they equal the number of the crew, in which case they win! But sometimes, you might be Gnosia. There's a time loop component where your protagonist is trying to put together the reason behind their looping and why Gnosia is on board to begin with.
Raging Loop (Switch, PS4, Windows, Android)
The other Werewolf/Mafia-inspired visual novel with a time loop. This is the one to play if you want a modern day horror bent, foul language, and a crass protagonist. Or, if you don't want to get into the weeds of playing an actual game of Werewolf and prefer the narrative work it into the story with the protagonist making most plays without the player's input. I enjoyed this one a lot too, and the story is stronger, since it's not reliant on rng or the player figuring out a particular mechanic. If you want a more traditional visual novel, this is the one to pick.
Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk (PSVita, Windows)
Partner game to Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly. There are a few easter eggs, but nothing that requires playing the first game. Though I like Jed a lot more as a protagonist than Beniyuri, I didn't like Ashen Hawk as much since the gothic mystery setting was swapped for a low fantasy Renaissance town. There are still mystery elements, like why nobody comes to or leaves town anymore, but they're side details that most characters don't worry about. Most of the game is taken up by the ongoing rivalry between the Hawk and the Wolf clans.
My Vow to My Liege (Windows)
Otome visual novel set in the Spring and Autumn Period of Chinese history by an indie Chinese developer. Tengyu takes on the persona of her deceased brother Fuchai in order to provide her country with a king and break the Sacred Vow her ancestors made with the deceitful Dragon God. Though this is a romance game, there is a lot of war and military action that will occasionally take primary focus, making this the most gritty otome I've played, above Hakuoki, which also took place during a war. Tengyu/Fuchai herself is quite proactive and fully capable of throwing her weight around as king, making her a refreshing change from most commercial otome heroines I've played.
Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir (Switch) *
Remake of an old NES adventure game! A teen detective is hired by the butler of the wealthy Ayashiro family to investigate the death of the family matriarch. The artwork is now modern day visual novel gorgeous with minor animations for some scenes. All dialogue is voice acted, including the protagonist and his inner thoughts. However, the gameplay has not been updated so if you remember those times in 80s adventure games when you had to do nonsensical things or talk to someone multiple times to progress the game, that's all still there. The story itself has aged gracefully though, and remains compelling throughout.
Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind (Switch)
Remake of The Missing Heir's prequel. Though this is probably better put together from a gameplay perspective, having been developed later, I'm not sure I liked it as much. Notably there's a very suspicious area that you're oddly never allowed to investigate that bothered me the entire game. The ending was a surprise I didn't see coming, though it felt karmically appropriate. Given the urban legend that's part of the story, this is definitely the creepier of the two Famicom Detective Club games.
Steam Prison (Switch, Windows)
Romance game following Cyrus, a young woman from the Heights, who is framed for the murder of her parents and sent down to the penal colony in the Depths as a convicted prisoner. I feel like this is a case of the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, as there's a lot about this game that doesn't feel fully thought out (despite the fact the writer clearly loves worldbuilding), and yet I had a good time with it. Most of the issue stems from fact that Cyrus's parents got murdered, yet we're trying to have a love story at the same time, and the game is usually not good about resolving both the romance and the murder plotlines.
The Great Ace Attorney: Chronicles (Switch, PS4, Windows)
This is actually a combination of Great Ace Attorney: Adventures and Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve, which I covered separately on my blog since they originally released as two individual games, but they're really a two-parter and the only way to buy them in English is as a bundle. Series creator Shu Takumi returns to write and direct the world-spanning story of Ryunosuke Naruhodo as he tackles cases in both Japan and Britain. Not as laugh-out-loud funny as the mainline Ace Attorney games, but if you want a little more drama in the usual formula, these games got you covered. Ryunosuke does all right as the new protagonist and Susato is now my favorite of the series' assistants.
Animal Restaurant (iOS, Android)
I'm not big on mobile games, but the simply named Animal Restaurant scratches my itch for building things while also being ideal for short play periods. You basically manage a restaurant run by cats for various forest animals (and as you progress, for city animals and even a few non-animals). While you can and are encouraged to participate in a variety of activities, the bulk of your earnings for upgrades, new recipes, etc. happen while you're away. You can't permanently buy your way out of ads unfortunately, but they're fairly unobtrusive and the game is set up in a way that you can choose whether or not you want to view any video ones. It's just you progress a lot slower if you don't.
Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse (3DS)
Pseudo-sequel to Shin Megami Tensei IV initially following the neutral route and then branching off to its own thing. Features a new protagonist, though the old one is still a part of the story. Apocalypse has a number of quality of life improvements, though gameplay is otherwise very close to its predecessor. The story makes it pretty clear what it's like living in a crapsack world where various deities and demons fight to decide the fate of humanity and expect humanity to simply obey them. The cast skews unusually young even by JRPG standards (half the party is fifteen or younger), but they talk a lot, making this one of the livelier mainline games.
Rose in the Embers (iOS, Android)
Period romance in Taisho Japan. Part of the Love 365 library app. Each route in this otome can be purchased separately, though I played all the main ones. (Side stories and sequel stories cost extra. It's mobile. Everything is piecemeal.) I'm not usually a fan of cross-class romance, especially the maid and master thing RitE has going on in a couple of its routes, but I love early 20th century stuff and this turned out better than expected. It helps that only one of the men is the super rich guy flinging around more money than he could ever spend. The others are decently off, but feel more middle or upper middle class.
These are the 12 games I liked the most out of the ones I finished in 2021, in the order I played them. If the game is available on multiple platforms, the one I played on is listed first. My top three picks of the year are marked with an asterisk (*).
Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Switch) *
I rushed to finish this one before surgery because I didn't want to lose interest or forget too much while hospitalized, and it turned out to be a good thing given my post-surgery neuropathy. Three Houses manages to refresh the franchise after Fates tried to retread too much of what made Awakening popular. The focus this time is on houses representing the continent's three countries at a military academy, and how they end up careening towards war. I think the first part of the game where everyone is playing school is overly long (if I want Persona I'll go play Persona), but the story is compelling and I like all the shades of morally gray.
Gnosia (Switch) *
Can you build a visual novel out of the Werewolf/Mafia party games? Why yes, you can! Gnosia's premise is that you're on a starship and one or more of the crew has been infected with Gnosia, which causes them to eliminate one other member of the crew every time they enter warp. You play every round of "Werewolf" in an attempt to cold sleep the Gnosia before they equal the number of the crew, in which case they win! But sometimes, you might be Gnosia. There's a time loop component where your protagonist is trying to put together the reason behind their looping and why Gnosia is on board to begin with.
Raging Loop (Switch, PS4, Windows, Android)
The other Werewolf/Mafia-inspired visual novel with a time loop. This is the one to play if you want a modern day horror bent, foul language, and a crass protagonist. Or, if you don't want to get into the weeds of playing an actual game of Werewolf and prefer the narrative work it into the story with the protagonist making most plays without the player's input. I enjoyed this one a lot too, and the story is stronger, since it's not reliant on rng or the player figuring out a particular mechanic. If you want a more traditional visual novel, this is the one to pick.
Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk (PSVita, Windows)
Partner game to Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly. There are a few easter eggs, but nothing that requires playing the first game. Though I like Jed a lot more as a protagonist than Beniyuri, I didn't like Ashen Hawk as much since the gothic mystery setting was swapped for a low fantasy Renaissance town. There are still mystery elements, like why nobody comes to or leaves town anymore, but they're side details that most characters don't worry about. Most of the game is taken up by the ongoing rivalry between the Hawk and the Wolf clans.
My Vow to My Liege (Windows)
Otome visual novel set in the Spring and Autumn Period of Chinese history by an indie Chinese developer. Tengyu takes on the persona of her deceased brother Fuchai in order to provide her country with a king and break the Sacred Vow her ancestors made with the deceitful Dragon God. Though this is a romance game, there is a lot of war and military action that will occasionally take primary focus, making this the most gritty otome I've played, above Hakuoki, which also took place during a war. Tengyu/Fuchai herself is quite proactive and fully capable of throwing her weight around as king, making her a refreshing change from most commercial otome heroines I've played.
Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir (Switch) *
Remake of an old NES adventure game! A teen detective is hired by the butler of the wealthy Ayashiro family to investigate the death of the family matriarch. The artwork is now modern day visual novel gorgeous with minor animations for some scenes. All dialogue is voice acted, including the protagonist and his inner thoughts. However, the gameplay has not been updated so if you remember those times in 80s adventure games when you had to do nonsensical things or talk to someone multiple times to progress the game, that's all still there. The story itself has aged gracefully though, and remains compelling throughout.
Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind (Switch)
Remake of The Missing Heir's prequel. Though this is probably better put together from a gameplay perspective, having been developed later, I'm not sure I liked it as much. Notably there's a very suspicious area that you're oddly never allowed to investigate that bothered me the entire game. The ending was a surprise I didn't see coming, though it felt karmically appropriate. Given the urban legend that's part of the story, this is definitely the creepier of the two Famicom Detective Club games.
Steam Prison (Switch, Windows)
Romance game following Cyrus, a young woman from the Heights, who is framed for the murder of her parents and sent down to the penal colony in the Depths as a convicted prisoner. I feel like this is a case of the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, as there's a lot about this game that doesn't feel fully thought out (despite the fact the writer clearly loves worldbuilding), and yet I had a good time with it. Most of the issue stems from fact that Cyrus's parents got murdered, yet we're trying to have a love story at the same time, and the game is usually not good about resolving both the romance and the murder plotlines.
The Great Ace Attorney: Chronicles (Switch, PS4, Windows)
This is actually a combination of Great Ace Attorney: Adventures and Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve, which I covered separately on my blog since they originally released as two individual games, but they're really a two-parter and the only way to buy them in English is as a bundle. Series creator Shu Takumi returns to write and direct the world-spanning story of Ryunosuke Naruhodo as he tackles cases in both Japan and Britain. Not as laugh-out-loud funny as the mainline Ace Attorney games, but if you want a little more drama in the usual formula, these games got you covered. Ryunosuke does all right as the new protagonist and Susato is now my favorite of the series' assistants.
Animal Restaurant (iOS, Android)
I'm not big on mobile games, but the simply named Animal Restaurant scratches my itch for building things while also being ideal for short play periods. You basically manage a restaurant run by cats for various forest animals (and as you progress, for city animals and even a few non-animals). While you can and are encouraged to participate in a variety of activities, the bulk of your earnings for upgrades, new recipes, etc. happen while you're away. You can't permanently buy your way out of ads unfortunately, but they're fairly unobtrusive and the game is set up in a way that you can choose whether or not you want to view any video ones. It's just you progress a lot slower if you don't.
Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse (3DS)
Pseudo-sequel to Shin Megami Tensei IV initially following the neutral route and then branching off to its own thing. Features a new protagonist, though the old one is still a part of the story. Apocalypse has a number of quality of life improvements, though gameplay is otherwise very close to its predecessor. The story makes it pretty clear what it's like living in a crapsack world where various deities and demons fight to decide the fate of humanity and expect humanity to simply obey them. The cast skews unusually young even by JRPG standards (half the party is fifteen or younger), but they talk a lot, making this one of the livelier mainline games.
Rose in the Embers (iOS, Android)
Period romance in Taisho Japan. Part of the Love 365 library app. Each route in this otome can be purchased separately, though I played all the main ones. (Side stories and sequel stories cost extra. It's mobile. Everything is piecemeal.) I'm not usually a fan of cross-class romance, especially the maid and master thing RitE has going on in a couple of its routes, but I love early 20th century stuff and this turned out better than expected. It helps that only one of the men is the super rich guy flinging around more money than he could ever spend. The others are decently off, but feel more middle or upper middle class.
Monday, December 20, 2021
VN Talk: The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve
Platform: Switch (also on PS4 and Windows)
Release: 2021
The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve is the second of the two games included in Capcom's The Great Ace Attorney: Chronicles collection, making its English language debut after originally appearing on the 3DS. I was originally thinking of saving this one for a rainy day since I don't know when we'll ever see another Ace Attorney game again, but the two-part nature of Adventures and Resolve left me wanting to know how the rest of the story plays out, so I played them back to back.
Since this game came out within the past year, this is your obligatory spoiler warning that I'll be covering most of the game including the ending and there will be spoilers for Adventures as well since it's impossible to talk about the second game without discussing the first!
The most pressing question I had when I started the game was: Does Resolve answer everything I was left wondering about in Adventures? And the answer is yes, it does. It doesn't always do it well, but it does. And for that, I'd like to give credit where credit is due, because I honestly thought they weren't going to get around to it with the plot thread pile-up they were having as even more story material is introduced in the second game!
Monday, December 13, 2021
VN Talk: The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures
Platform: Switch (also on PS4 and Windows)
Release: 2021
The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures is making its English language debut fairly late compared to its mainline cousins, being a port of the original 3DS and only as part of the The Great Ace Attorney: Chronicles collection, but that's not so bad because the GAA games are a paired set and an incomplete experience without each other. It's nice not to have to wait a couple years for the next installment.
On the other hand, because you have to play the sequel to see the resolution to questions brought up throughout Adventures, it can be disappointing to play as a stand alone experience. While the Ace Attorney games are a series, this is the first installment that requires you to play a sequel to complete the story.
Since this game came out within the past year, this is your obligatory spoiler warning that I'll be covering most of the game including the ending and the unresolved plot threads! I wrote this prior to playing Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve so everything brought up here are issues that a player might have when they have only experienced the first game.
Monday, February 13, 2017
VN Talk: Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice
Ace Attorney has always revolved around crazy cases, outlandish witnesses, and other things that would never stand up in a real court where often the player protagonist comes off as the only sane person in an insane asylum. Spirit of Justice continues this irreverence as the sixth entry in the main series, but it took me a while to get into it.
Usually the Ace Attorney games are structured so there is an intro case (short, one trial session, no investigation segment), somewhere in the middle there is a throw-away case that has little to do with the main storyline, and then the remaining cases build on each other so the finale is a culmination of everything that led up to this point.
Spirit of Justice actually has two throwaway cases that are largely skippable except for minor details that could have been introduced at another point in story. It's not that they aren't fun. I loved the magic show trial, and the rakugo trial was fascinating since it covers an art form we don't have in the west, while still making it easy to understand.
But they have no context in the greater story. Their only contribution is the introduction of Nahyuta Sahdmadhi as the prosecutor for the magic show trial and we don't know why he's really suddenly back in the US (story-wise) for the rakugo trial since he just finished the previous trial with Phoenix back in Khura'in. It's a lot of jet-setting and while I know the LA of Ace Attorney is now short on prosecutors thanks to the events of the last game, it seems strange for the characters to not at least comment on that.
The result is that the storytelling feels uneven. I'm used to having one breather case, but two was a bit much (and the rakugo one didn't even have an investigation phase).
Part of the problem is the Ace Attorney series' burgeoning cast. Capcom put Phoenix back in the saddle with the start of Dual Destinies, resulting in at least two active lawyer protagonists, since Apollo Justice had taken the protagonist's seat in the fourth game while Phoenix was disbarred.
But Dual Destinies also added Athena Cykes, who is a fantastic character, but brings the number of lawyers at the agency up to three. It worked in Dual Destinies because the central story that ran through all cases encompassed Athena and Apollo's personal stakes in different ways as well as integrating how Phoenix became a lawyer again with the meta-plot.
Spirit of Justice doesn't have that, but it still (by narrative necessity) has these three protagonists that it has to deal with. The player base isn't going to be happy if the three don't get a turn at the wheel, and the result is that Phoenix gets two cases, Apollo gets two, and Athena gets one.
Unsurprisingly, being the junior lawyers at the agency, Apollo and Athena get the two standalones that don't have much context.
And given the number of game installments, there are so many beloved characters that the plot bends over backwards to accommodate them. Though Maya returns in a way that completely makes sense, Edgeworth feels shoehorned in because the player base would be hugely disappointed without him. Dual Destinies' antihero Simon Blackquill makes a guest appearance as well, and while I really like the character, he's in Athena's throwaway case that has no bearing on the rest of the story.
Spirit of Justice unfolds with Phoenix meeting his friend Maya Fey in the fictional country of Khura'in, which has a screwed up legal system which makes the lawyers share the fates of their clients, which means that if the client is guilty, the lawyer is as well. This is naturally a deterrent since failing to prove an accused murderer not guilty means that the lawyer may also be executed. Thus, the country is largely devote of defense attorneys.
Phoenix, being who he is, can't let someone face a trial undefended, and jumps in protect those he believes in. But because Phoenix's trip was intended as a visit, Apollo and Athena aren't with him, and half the game takes place in the US with the two of them holding down the fort while the boss is gone. I assume this was done because there's no reason for all three of them to go to Khura'in (until the last case makes it so) since their relationship is a professional one. People don't usually go on vacation with their boss and coworkers after all.
It would have been fantastic if somehow the cases in the US turned out to be connected to the cases in Khu'rain but with the exception of the two-part final case Turnabout Revolution they're not.
Fortunately, Spirit of Justice ends on a high note, with what is probably the longest case I've ever seen in an Ace Attorney game, and I can only assume that the rakugo case Turnabout Storyteller was intentionally so short because of all the effort being piled into Turnabout Revolution.
There is still that unevenness over the game as a whole though, because Turnabout Revolution makes it clear that Spirit of Justice is really Apollo's story, not Phoenix's. Yes, even though the game starts with Phoenix and even brings back fan favorite Maya Fey, they aren't the ones who have the greatest reason to fight. In a way, Spirit of Justice is the culmination of all the character growth Apollo has had since his debut in the fourth game.
I actually didn't like Apollo very much when he was introduced, because I had come off the first three games wanting more Phoenix, and not only did I have to deal with a time skip that made Phoenix look like a wino, but I had this new guy who was wound up way too tight and he just didn't feel as compelling to me.
But Dual Destinies gave Apollo's personality some meat, and he had a few badass moments that built out his backstory, which was further elaborated on in Spirit of Justice (to the point I think he now has the most detailed and convoluted past out of the entire cast). Phoenix doesn't have a personal story arc in Spirit of Justice, but Apollo does, so I was really glad when he's the one who takes the reins in the final case.
It's a pretty heady one that brings the legal system of Khura'in crashing down and beginning a revolution while also solving a twenty-three year old assassination attempt (only in Ace Attorney would that happen through a court trial). And it worked, because not only was it pretty convoluted, building on the prior cases in Khura'in, but it integrated Apollo's personal story into the revolution. He's not defending his client just because it's his job or he's a nice guy, but because the outcome has a personal meaning for him as well.
I can't help wondering if the game's staff is aware of the too many protagonists problem though, because the ending features Apollo choosing to remain in Khura'in to help rebuild the legal system (now that he's the only practicing lawyer in a country that had just about eliminated them). For future games it'll make it easier to find things to do for the lawyers of the Wright Anything Agency if designers only have to worry about two of them instead of three.
But I feel bad about losing Apollo now that he's finally come into his own.
The final scene does tease that he'll come back again though, in an exchange between Phoenix and an off-screen speaker who is his mother. The only known part of Apollo's past that hasn't been brought to light at this point is a leftover plot thread from Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice.
Tangential to the final AA:AJ case, it's revealed to the player (but not to Apollo) that Thalassa Gramarye is his mother, which makes Apollo the half-brother of Phoenix's adopted daughter Trucy. This doesn't come up in Dual Destinies and the two of them are still clueless in Spirit of Justice, which we know because when Dhurke teases Apollo about Trucy being wife material neither of them react with disgust.
At this point, since they've gone on two games without knowing better, I imagine that it'll only come up in a court trial, and it would have to be a plot point.
The exchange between Phoenix and Thalassa make it sound like she's finally ready to reveal her existence to both her children, since Trucy thinks she's dead and Apollo just doesn't know who she is, and I'd really like that. Spirit of Justice brought his family into the picture in a big way with both the his biological father and his adoptive father, so it would be an easy segway into him wanting to discover the fate of his mother.
As for Phoenix, he's considered the main character of the series since he was the protagonist of the first three games, and since they brought him back for the fifth it seems impossible to lose him now. I just hope the next time around they give him his own plot.
It doesn't have to deal with his past since he's older now and I think those depths have been plumbed, but he can still have personal stakes through the people he knows and what compromises he is willing or unwilling to make for the sake of a trial. That would bring the focus back on him.
Usually the Ace Attorney games are structured so there is an intro case (short, one trial session, no investigation segment), somewhere in the middle there is a throw-away case that has little to do with the main storyline, and then the remaining cases build on each other so the finale is a culmination of everything that led up to this point.
Spirit of Justice actually has two throwaway cases that are largely skippable except for minor details that could have been introduced at another point in story. It's not that they aren't fun. I loved the magic show trial, and the rakugo trial was fascinating since it covers an art form we don't have in the west, while still making it easy to understand.
But they have no context in the greater story. Their only contribution is the introduction of Nahyuta Sahdmadhi as the prosecutor for the magic show trial and we don't know why he's really suddenly back in the US (story-wise) for the rakugo trial since he just finished the previous trial with Phoenix back in Khura'in. It's a lot of jet-setting and while I know the LA of Ace Attorney is now short on prosecutors thanks to the events of the last game, it seems strange for the characters to not at least comment on that.
The result is that the storytelling feels uneven. I'm used to having one breather case, but two was a bit much (and the rakugo one didn't even have an investigation phase).
Part of the problem is the Ace Attorney series' burgeoning cast. Capcom put Phoenix back in the saddle with the start of Dual Destinies, resulting in at least two active lawyer protagonists, since Apollo Justice had taken the protagonist's seat in the fourth game while Phoenix was disbarred.
But Dual Destinies also added Athena Cykes, who is a fantastic character, but brings the number of lawyers at the agency up to three. It worked in Dual Destinies because the central story that ran through all cases encompassed Athena and Apollo's personal stakes in different ways as well as integrating how Phoenix became a lawyer again with the meta-plot.
Spirit of Justice doesn't have that, but it still (by narrative necessity) has these three protagonists that it has to deal with. The player base isn't going to be happy if the three don't get a turn at the wheel, and the result is that Phoenix gets two cases, Apollo gets two, and Athena gets one.
Unsurprisingly, being the junior lawyers at the agency, Apollo and Athena get the two standalones that don't have much context.
And given the number of game installments, there are so many beloved characters that the plot bends over backwards to accommodate them. Though Maya returns in a way that completely makes sense, Edgeworth feels shoehorned in because the player base would be hugely disappointed without him. Dual Destinies' antihero Simon Blackquill makes a guest appearance as well, and while I really like the character, he's in Athena's throwaway case that has no bearing on the rest of the story.
Spirit of Justice unfolds with Phoenix meeting his friend Maya Fey in the fictional country of Khura'in, which has a screwed up legal system which makes the lawyers share the fates of their clients, which means that if the client is guilty, the lawyer is as well. This is naturally a deterrent since failing to prove an accused murderer not guilty means that the lawyer may also be executed. Thus, the country is largely devote of defense attorneys.
Phoenix, being who he is, can't let someone face a trial undefended, and jumps in protect those he believes in. But because Phoenix's trip was intended as a visit, Apollo and Athena aren't with him, and half the game takes place in the US with the two of them holding down the fort while the boss is gone. I assume this was done because there's no reason for all three of them to go to Khura'in (until the last case makes it so) since their relationship is a professional one. People don't usually go on vacation with their boss and coworkers after all.
It would have been fantastic if somehow the cases in the US turned out to be connected to the cases in Khu'rain but with the exception of the two-part final case Turnabout Revolution they're not.
Fortunately, Spirit of Justice ends on a high note, with what is probably the longest case I've ever seen in an Ace Attorney game, and I can only assume that the rakugo case Turnabout Storyteller was intentionally so short because of all the effort being piled into Turnabout Revolution.
There is still that unevenness over the game as a whole though, because Turnabout Revolution makes it clear that Spirit of Justice is really Apollo's story, not Phoenix's. Yes, even though the game starts with Phoenix and even brings back fan favorite Maya Fey, they aren't the ones who have the greatest reason to fight. In a way, Spirit of Justice is the culmination of all the character growth Apollo has had since his debut in the fourth game.
I actually didn't like Apollo very much when he was introduced, because I had come off the first three games wanting more Phoenix, and not only did I have to deal with a time skip that made Phoenix look like a wino, but I had this new guy who was wound up way too tight and he just didn't feel as compelling to me.
But Dual Destinies gave Apollo's personality some meat, and he had a few badass moments that built out his backstory, which was further elaborated on in Spirit of Justice (to the point I think he now has the most detailed and convoluted past out of the entire cast). Phoenix doesn't have a personal story arc in Spirit of Justice, but Apollo does, so I was really glad when he's the one who takes the reins in the final case.
It's a pretty heady one that brings the legal system of Khura'in crashing down and beginning a revolution while also solving a twenty-three year old assassination attempt (only in Ace Attorney would that happen through a court trial). And it worked, because not only was it pretty convoluted, building on the prior cases in Khura'in, but it integrated Apollo's personal story into the revolution. He's not defending his client just because it's his job or he's a nice guy, but because the outcome has a personal meaning for him as well.
I can't help wondering if the game's staff is aware of the too many protagonists problem though, because the ending features Apollo choosing to remain in Khura'in to help rebuild the legal system (now that he's the only practicing lawyer in a country that had just about eliminated them). For future games it'll make it easier to find things to do for the lawyers of the Wright Anything Agency if designers only have to worry about two of them instead of three.
But I feel bad about losing Apollo now that he's finally come into his own.
The final scene does tease that he'll come back again though, in an exchange between Phoenix and an off-screen speaker who is his mother. The only known part of Apollo's past that hasn't been brought to light at this point is a leftover plot thread from Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice.
Tangential to the final AA:AJ case, it's revealed to the player (but not to Apollo) that Thalassa Gramarye is his mother, which makes Apollo the half-brother of Phoenix's adopted daughter Trucy. This doesn't come up in Dual Destinies and the two of them are still clueless in Spirit of Justice, which we know because when Dhurke teases Apollo about Trucy being wife material neither of them react with disgust.
At this point, since they've gone on two games without knowing better, I imagine that it'll only come up in a court trial, and it would have to be a plot point.
The exchange between Phoenix and Thalassa make it sound like she's finally ready to reveal her existence to both her children, since Trucy thinks she's dead and Apollo just doesn't know who she is, and I'd really like that. Spirit of Justice brought his family into the picture in a big way with both the his biological father and his adoptive father, so it would be an easy segway into him wanting to discover the fate of his mother.
As for Phoenix, he's considered the main character of the series since he was the protagonist of the first three games, and since they brought him back for the fifth it seems impossible to lose him now. I just hope the next time around they give him his own plot.
It doesn't have to deal with his past since he's older now and I think those depths have been plumbed, but he can still have personal stakes through the people he knows and what compromises he is willing or unwilling to make for the sake of a trial. That would bring the focus back on him.
Monday, January 16, 2017
My Favorite Games of 2016
My gaming backlog is something impressive, as I typically buy a few more than I can play in any given year, and then those extras build up. The result is that I rarely play any game in its year of release unless it's a part of a favorite series, and even then, depending on how busy I am, a much anticipated game might get postponed.
But I'm not adverse to playing older games. As long as the gameplay is still there I generally don't care. Maybe that's the same for you?
These are the nine games I liked enough to finish for the first time in 2016, in the order I played them.
Virtue's Last Reward *
I enjoyed 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors for the Nintendo DS, so I intended to pick up the sequel, but took a while due to a bugged 3DS version (now patched) and not having a Vita at the time.
Virtue's Last Reward is quite simply the strongest entry in the Zero Escape series. Science, pseudo-science, multiple universes, time travel, non-linear gameplay, and an incredible cast of characters made this a joy to play. I was up at 3am with tears in my eyes (on a work night!) because I had to see a particularly bittersweet sequence through. Fair warning there is a lot of reading, and the gameplay is all making choices and escape room mechanics, but if that's even remotely your bag it's worth playing.
It'll mean more if you play 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors first, but the good news is that both games are coming to Steam in a remastered edition.
Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest
I was looking forward to Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest, and despite the child problems I blogged about, I enjoyed it. It was refreshing to have a game so focused on family and divided loyalties. I really liked the moral gray area that Corrin and her siblings occupied and as mentioned in my RPG Talk entry, I like that the final confrontation features Corrin standing together with her siblings rather than Corrin plus love interest and motley band of heroes. Familial relationships are usually set behind the romantic ones in games, so having family placed before everything else makes this unique.
Zero Time Dilemma
Zero Time Dilemma had a hell of a lot of hype to live up to, and at the end of the day I don't think it's going to be anyone's favorite out of the Zero Escape series, but it's still an enjoyable game. It keeps a lot of the same mechanics from Virtue's Last Reward, but suffers from a less satisfying mastermind than the other two. There's also a plot twist that people tend to either love or hate. But that said, it does a decent job of wrapping up the series, the escape rooms are still fun, and offers a lot of emotional rewards for fans of the previous two.
Code Realize: Guardian of Rebirth
This is the best otome game I've played to date. I would have liked to include it in my top three games of the year, and it was a narrow miss. Otome games are usually given lackluster, passive protagonists to serve as the female player insert, but not Cardia. That girl is amazing, whether she's piloting an airship, busting herself out of confinement, or being a supportive girlfriend, because why can't one person do all of that. The boyfriends are more interesting than average, with only one route that really bored me. If there's any fault to this game I'd say it's locking Lupin's route behind everyone else's and making it so clearly the "real" route.
Danganronpa: Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls
Ultra Despair Girls is a little strange in that I don't think it's a particular good game, though I still finished it. It's a third person shooter, which is a strange genre jump for what had been a visual novel series. I only played it when I did because the Danganronpa 3 anime had Monaca, who originated in this game. The story isn't bad, it asks good questions and even clears up some others (like where did Junko Enoshima get all those crazy robots), but I'm not a shooter fan and I can't imagine the overlap between visual novels, shooters, and Danganronpa is enough to justify this game's existence. If you suck at shooters though, there's no story penalty for playing on easy. You can still see the whole thing.
Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice
I still haven't posted my VN Talk for this, but the sixth entry in the Ace Attorney series was a bumpy ride. It was good, but it wasn't great, and I think this is mostly due to character bloat. Dual Destinies had three lawyer protagonists so by golly Spirit of Justice has to too, even when the game can't quite figure out what to do with them. Unlike Dual Destinies, where the story honestly belongs to all of them, when it comes down to it, Spirit of Justice is really about Apollo, but the writing tries to showcase everyone, including several supporting characters, which results in a lack of focus. But if you like Apollo, this is the game to play as he has his best moments.
This War of Mine *
I waffled a lot on whether to buy This War of Mine because the vertical cut-away view of the buildings made me think of old platformers I was terrible at, but This War of Mine needs very little in the way of reflexes. I bought it for the for miserable experience of surviving as a civilian in an urban warzone and I was not disappointed. There's no tutorial, but the basics can be picked up by point and click, which feels oddly immersive, as the characters you're tasked with caring for have no idea how they're going to make ends meet either.
Chances are, a first playthrough is going to be unsuccessful. People will die along the way, and you'll feel awful, which is the point. You get to put down the game and go home whereas the people who really lived this life could not. It was a sobering realization. (This War of Mine was inspired by the real world Siege of Sarajevo.)
The Room
This was a purchase based on a friend's recommendation because we both like escape rooms. While you're not escaping anything in The Room, the type of puzzle solving is familiar to anyone who has done escape rooms, and it's a affordable fix that can be done in an afternoon or two. The story is minimal and the atmosphere creepy, though it's manageable for those who scare easily (with one possible exception during the ending, but you've solved everything by then). I'm skipping the sequel because I react poorly to jump scares, even the ones that are so mild that most people wouldn't even consider them jump scares.
Civilization V *
When Civilization VI came out, I realized I wanted to play a Civ game again, but rather than getting the latest and greatest at full price, I decided to pick up Civilization V during a Steam sale, which netted me the base game and all the expansions and DLC for under $14. This turned out to be $14 well spent as I've now logged an embarrassing amount of hours on it. It's a lot of strategy and management to bring my chosen civilization to victory, but fun since the AI leaders of other civilizations have their own personalities. I had a really good tussle with Caesar in my Carthage campaign, which felt appropriate.
My only complaint is that Europe feels over-represented in the number of civilizations available. There are multiple options for a continent like Africa, with Carthage, Morocco, Ethiopia, Egypt, Songhai, and Zulu available, which show that the game designers did put effort into avoiding a Eurocentric world, but it feels like it's not enough when 15 of the 43 civilizations are European (17 if one counts Byzantium and Ottoman, which I'm not since they're partially in the mideast), making them slightly more than a third of what's available.
As I did with my book roundup, the three games I tagged with an asterisk (*) were my favorites of the year and definitely worth playing.
I'd also like to mention the four games I replayed this year since it's rare that I replay anything, and four is unprecedented.
Fire Emblem: Awakening (second time)
Dragon Age II (third time)
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (third time)
Danganronpa 2: Good-bye Despair (second time)
The Danganronpa games were mostly because of the anime and wanting to relive the experience, but Fire Emblem: Awakening and Dragon Age II were purely unprompted, with the former having happened before the release of Fire Emblem Fates.
But I'm not adverse to playing older games. As long as the gameplay is still there I generally don't care. Maybe that's the same for you?
These are the nine games I liked enough to finish for the first time in 2016, in the order I played them.
Virtue's Last Reward *
I enjoyed 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors for the Nintendo DS, so I intended to pick up the sequel, but took a while due to a bugged 3DS version (now patched) and not having a Vita at the time.
Virtue's Last Reward is quite simply the strongest entry in the Zero Escape series. Science, pseudo-science, multiple universes, time travel, non-linear gameplay, and an incredible cast of characters made this a joy to play. I was up at 3am with tears in my eyes (on a work night!) because I had to see a particularly bittersweet sequence through. Fair warning there is a lot of reading, and the gameplay is all making choices and escape room mechanics, but if that's even remotely your bag it's worth playing.
It'll mean more if you play 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors first, but the good news is that both games are coming to Steam in a remastered edition.
Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest
I was looking forward to Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest, and despite the child problems I blogged about, I enjoyed it. It was refreshing to have a game so focused on family and divided loyalties. I really liked the moral gray area that Corrin and her siblings occupied and as mentioned in my RPG Talk entry, I like that the final confrontation features Corrin standing together with her siblings rather than Corrin plus love interest and motley band of heroes. Familial relationships are usually set behind the romantic ones in games, so having family placed before everything else makes this unique.
Zero Time Dilemma
Zero Time Dilemma had a hell of a lot of hype to live up to, and at the end of the day I don't think it's going to be anyone's favorite out of the Zero Escape series, but it's still an enjoyable game. It keeps a lot of the same mechanics from Virtue's Last Reward, but suffers from a less satisfying mastermind than the other two. There's also a plot twist that people tend to either love or hate. But that said, it does a decent job of wrapping up the series, the escape rooms are still fun, and offers a lot of emotional rewards for fans of the previous two.
Code Realize: Guardian of Rebirth
This is the best otome game I've played to date. I would have liked to include it in my top three games of the year, and it was a narrow miss. Otome games are usually given lackluster, passive protagonists to serve as the female player insert, but not Cardia. That girl is amazing, whether she's piloting an airship, busting herself out of confinement, or being a supportive girlfriend, because why can't one person do all of that. The boyfriends are more interesting than average, with only one route that really bored me. If there's any fault to this game I'd say it's locking Lupin's route behind everyone else's and making it so clearly the "real" route.
Danganronpa: Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls
Ultra Despair Girls is a little strange in that I don't think it's a particular good game, though I still finished it. It's a third person shooter, which is a strange genre jump for what had been a visual novel series. I only played it when I did because the Danganronpa 3 anime had Monaca, who originated in this game. The story isn't bad, it asks good questions and even clears up some others (like where did Junko Enoshima get all those crazy robots), but I'm not a shooter fan and I can't imagine the overlap between visual novels, shooters, and Danganronpa is enough to justify this game's existence. If you suck at shooters though, there's no story penalty for playing on easy. You can still see the whole thing.
Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice
I still haven't posted my VN Talk for this, but the sixth entry in the Ace Attorney series was a bumpy ride. It was good, but it wasn't great, and I think this is mostly due to character bloat. Dual Destinies had three lawyer protagonists so by golly Spirit of Justice has to too, even when the game can't quite figure out what to do with them. Unlike Dual Destinies, where the story honestly belongs to all of them, when it comes down to it, Spirit of Justice is really about Apollo, but the writing tries to showcase everyone, including several supporting characters, which results in a lack of focus. But if you like Apollo, this is the game to play as he has his best moments.
This War of Mine *
I waffled a lot on whether to buy This War of Mine because the vertical cut-away view of the buildings made me think of old platformers I was terrible at, but This War of Mine needs very little in the way of reflexes. I bought it for the for miserable experience of surviving as a civilian in an urban warzone and I was not disappointed. There's no tutorial, but the basics can be picked up by point and click, which feels oddly immersive, as the characters you're tasked with caring for have no idea how they're going to make ends meet either.
Chances are, a first playthrough is going to be unsuccessful. People will die along the way, and you'll feel awful, which is the point. You get to put down the game and go home whereas the people who really lived this life could not. It was a sobering realization. (This War of Mine was inspired by the real world Siege of Sarajevo.)
The Room
This was a purchase based on a friend's recommendation because we both like escape rooms. While you're not escaping anything in The Room, the type of puzzle solving is familiar to anyone who has done escape rooms, and it's a affordable fix that can be done in an afternoon or two. The story is minimal and the atmosphere creepy, though it's manageable for those who scare easily (with one possible exception during the ending, but you've solved everything by then). I'm skipping the sequel because I react poorly to jump scares, even the ones that are so mild that most people wouldn't even consider them jump scares.
Civilization V *
When Civilization VI came out, I realized I wanted to play a Civ game again, but rather than getting the latest and greatest at full price, I decided to pick up Civilization V during a Steam sale, which netted me the base game and all the expansions and DLC for under $14. This turned out to be $14 well spent as I've now logged an embarrassing amount of hours on it. It's a lot of strategy and management to bring my chosen civilization to victory, but fun since the AI leaders of other civilizations have their own personalities. I had a really good tussle with Caesar in my Carthage campaign, which felt appropriate.
My only complaint is that Europe feels over-represented in the number of civilizations available. There are multiple options for a continent like Africa, with Carthage, Morocco, Ethiopia, Egypt, Songhai, and Zulu available, which show that the game designers did put effort into avoiding a Eurocentric world, but it feels like it's not enough when 15 of the 43 civilizations are European (17 if one counts Byzantium and Ottoman, which I'm not since they're partially in the mideast), making them slightly more than a third of what's available.
As I did with my book roundup, the three games I tagged with an asterisk (*) were my favorites of the year and definitely worth playing.
I'd also like to mention the four games I replayed this year since it's rare that I replay anything, and four is unprecedented.
Fire Emblem: Awakening (second time)
Dragon Age II (third time)
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (third time)
Danganronpa 2: Good-bye Despair (second time)
The Danganronpa games were mostly because of the anime and wanting to relive the experience, but Fire Emblem: Awakening and Dragon Age II were purely unprompted, with the former having happened before the release of Fire Emblem Fates.
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