The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles
I finally finished The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles. That was quite the marathon. It was very long. Technically two games. The first being The Great Ace Attorney Adventures and the second being The Great Ace Attorney: Resolve. But both are connected to each other. One long ongoing complete story. So, this series is set maybe over 200 years in the past, and features a young budding lawyer named Ryunosuke Naruhodo. Of course he doesn't start off that way. Unforeseen circumstances have him fall into that role.
It starts out in Japan, but then Naruhodo joins his close lawyer friend Kazuma with his judicial assistant Susato on a journey to England, where the games mainly take place. Something happens, but I won't say what, but Ryunosuke takes Kazuma's place, and quickly has to learn how to be a lawyer before they land in England. That is if he can escape a couple murder accusations against him. OK, to be fair the first accusation happened back in Japan, but this is something that happened to Phoenix too. It's funny, some of the characters are obviously similar to characters from Phoenix Wright. Runo (another character's nickname for him), is quite like Phoenix in personality except obviously he's new to the lawyer game. Susato is kind of similar to Maya, although probably a little more mature. And then you have the rival prosecutor, known as the Reaper of the Bailey: Barok Van Zieks, who is obviously like a bit of a Miles Edgeworth clone. However, unlike the Phoenix Wright series, Runo was not a friend of his because he's English. That friendship make take more time to develop.
Then of course there are many other characters from Great Britain whom you meet such as Iris, Gina, and Inspector Gregson, but the biggest one by far who's constantly following you around, is the famous Detective Herlock Sholmes. I really had to laugh at that. I had a certain expectation of this character based on his name and in the beginning I found him to be a little annoying, but then he really really grew on me as the story went on, and I just love him. He really is a great character.
But thinking of Sholmes, I'll get into the gameplay mechanics now because it's relevant. The game plays similar to the other games in the series. You have the investigation aspect and then you have the trial aspect. I think there's a little less investigation in this series compared to the others, but there's still quite enough of it to be satisfying for me. And as always it's crucial to go over the evidence in the Court Record in detail. Trials work the same way. You cross-examine the witnesses and look for contradictions. And make sure you don't make a mistake. I would always save before making my move. And reload if I messed up. There is something new about the trials though because in the UK they involve a jury unlike Japan. And so I was a little nervous about how this new feature would work out. It was fine though. You have two chances each trial to try to get the jurors to change their minds after they decided the verdict should be guilty to weigh the scales of justice more in your favor. Imagine if it worked this way in real life lol. It was similar to the cross-examination process. You pit the jurors against each other to find those contradictions. BTW all the different cases would reuse the same jurors, and uh … the amount of times I wanted to declare each trial a mistrial for this very reason … lol. A lot of jurors really shouldn't have been there because they were connected to the case. This is even lampshaded by Naruhodo a couple times, so it didn't go unnoticed. Looking back though at how the story ultimately concluded, it all makes sense.
But getting back to Sholmes, the second gameplay mechanic that was new to me, is his “Deductive Reasoning Spectacular” mini game. I don't know if that's the correct title for it, but close enough. Basically at certain points during the game, something will have happened in a room and Sholmes makes some deductions about what occurred, however they tend to be very off and it's your job to correct Sholmes's deductions. He can be so off the wall, that I found myself wondering if he actually is this dumb or just playing dumb on purpose because he wants Naruhodo to actually figure it out on his own. His name would suggest he's actually that dense (basically the antithesis of Sherlock Holmes), however as I got further into the game I got the impression that he is pretending to be that way on purpose because Herlock has actually proven himself to be quite clever just like his namesake. Anyway, this particular gameplay mechanic was a lot of fun, and now thinking about it, the scrutinizing of the scenes does kind of remind me of Frogware's Sherlock Holmes games. It is possible to make mistakes and get penalized for them like during court, so I saved like a demon. Although I don't know what actually happens if you actually fail here. I know you get a verdict of guilty if you fail in court, but what happens when you let Sholmes down? Does he look on you in shame? Might have to see if anyone uploaded something like that on YouTube. But yeah, fun.
Some other elements I'd like to go over. What blew me away off the bat here was the animation. Or the very presence of animated characters to be specific. Very cool to see Naruhodo walking around, even if briefly. The first game also has anime intros for each case, which I really liked and the characters are voiced. I'm not sure the voices entirely fit. Susato definitely sounded Japanese mixed with an English accent. Same with Naruhodo, but more English, and Kazuma sounded entirely English, but I'm no expert. Other characters were English, but they were supposed to be. It's kind of weird when you have a certain voice in your head, but it's not quite right when you finally hear it, like Kazuma for me lol. He had a deeper voice than I imagined. I did miss the anime intros in Resolve, but it also had some voice acting too. Obviously they couldn't do the whole game voiced because holy hell, that would be a lot of hours of voice recording, but it was nice what we got, especially since it was a surprise to me to hear any voices at all.
As for the difficulty level of the game, I actually think I found it a bit easier to get through than Phoenix Wright. The hints seemed a bit more obvious to me. Usually I knew what evidence to present on which statement. But I won't deny it made me feel smarter when I figured things out on my own lol. The story does get more and more complicated as it goes on, and there I was consulting a walkthrough more often because what??? Runo found himself tangled up in a really complicated web of corruption that he's trying to untangle. Everybody seems to be related to be everybody too. I'm kind of on the fence about my feelings when stories do that *cough * Star Wars. Random, but there was one character dressed as a witch in this game, and considering I was playing it during October, it fit so well with Halloween.
I really did love this game. It was so long. I could have played a bunch of other games in the time I played these two games, but I think it was worth it. The characters are great, the story was well written, the dialog was characteristically witty. It's the ridiculousness that draws me into this series. I loved the homages to Sherlock Holmes. Naruhodo's thought processes mirror my own often hehe. Same with Phoenix. They had some fun theme music. If I had one criticism, I'd say there was definitely not enough save slots. Twenty slots was not nearly enough for such a long game, so I had to save over twelve extra slots. The game definitely left room open for a sequel. Runo and Susato went back to Japan, but Herlock is sure to follow them there. Here is a screenshot. Herlock and Ryunosuke are doing their deductive reasoning. I honestly don't remember them dressed like this though.
Phew, as much as I thought this game was fantastic, I'm so ready to move on and play something else. And that will be a new entry into the Life is Strange universe called Life is Strange: True Colors plus the DLC I think. I'm not sure how it's going to run on my computer, but I've been able to play the other games with minor problems, so if there hasn't been a graphics update, it should run OK. We'll see. I haven't actually tested it out yet. Worst comes to worst, I'll just have to play something else. All I know about this one is I think it's about a young woman with the power to feel people's emotions. So, like an empath I guess? Keeping with the paranormal theme. Will be looking out for references to the other games though if there are any. I don't know anything else about the game, but looking forward to it and most likely expect deep drama again.
It starts out in Japan, but then Naruhodo joins his close lawyer friend Kazuma with his judicial assistant Susato on a journey to England, where the games mainly take place. Something happens, but I won't say what, but Ryunosuke takes Kazuma's place, and quickly has to learn how to be a lawyer before they land in England. That is if he can escape a couple murder accusations against him. OK, to be fair the first accusation happened back in Japan, but this is something that happened to Phoenix too. It's funny, some of the characters are obviously similar to characters from Phoenix Wright. Runo (another character's nickname for him), is quite like Phoenix in personality except obviously he's new to the lawyer game. Susato is kind of similar to Maya, although probably a little more mature. And then you have the rival prosecutor, known as the Reaper of the Bailey: Barok Van Zieks, who is obviously like a bit of a Miles Edgeworth clone. However, unlike the Phoenix Wright series, Runo was not a friend of his because he's English. That friendship make take more time to develop.
Then of course there are many other characters from Great Britain whom you meet such as Iris, Gina, and Inspector Gregson, but the biggest one by far who's constantly following you around, is the famous Detective Herlock Sholmes. I really had to laugh at that. I had a certain expectation of this character based on his name and in the beginning I found him to be a little annoying, but then he really really grew on me as the story went on, and I just love him. He really is a great character.
But thinking of Sholmes, I'll get into the gameplay mechanics now because it's relevant. The game plays similar to the other games in the series. You have the investigation aspect and then you have the trial aspect. I think there's a little less investigation in this series compared to the others, but there's still quite enough of it to be satisfying for me. And as always it's crucial to go over the evidence in the Court Record in detail. Trials work the same way. You cross-examine the witnesses and look for contradictions. And make sure you don't make a mistake. I would always save before making my move. And reload if I messed up. There is something new about the trials though because in the UK they involve a jury unlike Japan. And so I was a little nervous about how this new feature would work out. It was fine though. You have two chances each trial to try to get the jurors to change their minds after they decided the verdict should be guilty to weigh the scales of justice more in your favor. Imagine if it worked this way in real life lol. It was similar to the cross-examination process. You pit the jurors against each other to find those contradictions. BTW all the different cases would reuse the same jurors, and uh … the amount of times I wanted to declare each trial a mistrial for this very reason … lol. A lot of jurors really shouldn't have been there because they were connected to the case. This is even lampshaded by Naruhodo a couple times, so it didn't go unnoticed. Looking back though at how the story ultimately concluded, it all makes sense.
But getting back to Sholmes, the second gameplay mechanic that was new to me, is his “Deductive Reasoning Spectacular” mini game. I don't know if that's the correct title for it, but close enough. Basically at certain points during the game, something will have happened in a room and Sholmes makes some deductions about what occurred, however they tend to be very off and it's your job to correct Sholmes's deductions. He can be so off the wall, that I found myself wondering if he actually is this dumb or just playing dumb on purpose because he wants Naruhodo to actually figure it out on his own. His name would suggest he's actually that dense (basically the antithesis of Sherlock Holmes), however as I got further into the game I got the impression that he is pretending to be that way on purpose because Herlock has actually proven himself to be quite clever just like his namesake. Anyway, this particular gameplay mechanic was a lot of fun, and now thinking about it, the scrutinizing of the scenes does kind of remind me of Frogware's Sherlock Holmes games. It is possible to make mistakes and get penalized for them like during court, so I saved like a demon. Although I don't know what actually happens if you actually fail here. I know you get a verdict of guilty if you fail in court, but what happens when you let Sholmes down? Does he look on you in shame? Might have to see if anyone uploaded something like that on YouTube. But yeah, fun.
Some other elements I'd like to go over. What blew me away off the bat here was the animation. Or the very presence of animated characters to be specific. Very cool to see Naruhodo walking around, even if briefly. The first game also has anime intros for each case, which I really liked and the characters are voiced. I'm not sure the voices entirely fit. Susato definitely sounded Japanese mixed with an English accent. Same with Naruhodo, but more English, and Kazuma sounded entirely English, but I'm no expert. Other characters were English, but they were supposed to be. It's kind of weird when you have a certain voice in your head, but it's not quite right when you finally hear it, like Kazuma for me lol. He had a deeper voice than I imagined. I did miss the anime intros in Resolve, but it also had some voice acting too. Obviously they couldn't do the whole game voiced because holy hell, that would be a lot of hours of voice recording, but it was nice what we got, especially since it was a surprise to me to hear any voices at all.
As for the difficulty level of the game, I actually think I found it a bit easier to get through than Phoenix Wright. The hints seemed a bit more obvious to me. Usually I knew what evidence to present on which statement. But I won't deny it made me feel smarter when I figured things out on my own lol. The story does get more and more complicated as it goes on, and there I was consulting a walkthrough more often because what??? Runo found himself tangled up in a really complicated web of corruption that he's trying to untangle. Everybody seems to be related to be everybody too. I'm kind of on the fence about my feelings when stories do that *cough * Star Wars. Random, but there was one character dressed as a witch in this game, and considering I was playing it during October, it fit so well with Halloween.
I really did love this game. It was so long. I could have played a bunch of other games in the time I played these two games, but I think it was worth it. The characters are great, the story was well written, the dialog was characteristically witty. It's the ridiculousness that draws me into this series. I loved the homages to Sherlock Holmes. Naruhodo's thought processes mirror my own often hehe. Same with Phoenix. They had some fun theme music. If I had one criticism, I'd say there was definitely not enough save slots. Twenty slots was not nearly enough for such a long game, so I had to save over twelve extra slots. The game definitely left room open for a sequel. Runo and Susato went back to Japan, but Herlock is sure to follow them there. Here is a screenshot. Herlock and Ryunosuke are doing their deductive reasoning. I honestly don't remember them dressed like this though.
Phew, as much as I thought this game was fantastic, I'm so ready to move on and play something else. And that will be a new entry into the Life is Strange universe called Life is Strange: True Colors plus the DLC I think. I'm not sure how it's going to run on my computer, but I've been able to play the other games with minor problems, so if there hasn't been a graphics update, it should run OK. We'll see. I haven't actually tested it out yet. Worst comes to worst, I'll just have to play something else. All I know about this one is I think it's about a young woman with the power to feel people's emotions. So, like an empath I guess? Keeping with the paranormal theme. Will be looking out for references to the other games though if there are any. I don't know anything else about the game, but looking forward to it and most likely expect deep drama again.