Try A Thing/Recordkeeping: Aviary Attorney completed
Honestly, it's a bit of a surprise that courtroom games don't make a bigger showing than they do. Sure, you have the Ace Attorney series, but aside from that and (through a mirror, darkly) the Dangan Ronpa games, there's... not really a huge market for "punch this narrative straight in the logic". Unsurprising, then, that Aviary Attorney showed up on my wishlist, and, eventually, into my Steam Library.
Bearing a very distinctive pen-drawn art style, a cast of (mostly but not entirely) birds, and a soundtrack public domained straight out of Carnival of the Animals (literally; the game repeatedly credits Camille Saint-Saens for the music), Aviary Attorney tells the story of a Holmes-and-Watsonesque pair of lawyer-birds (Falcon and Sparrowson) living in France in late 1847 and early 1848...
Wait, what was that you said?
Oh. Oh.
To say anything more would be spoilers, but I will suffice to say that it does an interestingly thorough job of sticking to historical bullet points. As far as gameplay goes, it flows relatively similarly to the Ace Attorney games, jumping from acquisition of defense-client to investigation to trial, and in addition, it's not simply "you versus the prosecutor/judge", but rather, you have to make your case convincingly to a jury. Press the wrong things or mess up your case and they'll think less of you and your defense, so you can still reach a "guilty" verdict if you messed up too much on connecting the bulet points together. Notably unlike those games, though, you can absolutely fail to find evidence you need to clear the case, and failure is not an instant loss condition. You can bumble around and get everybody you try to defend killed and are no worse for wear for it. Well, maybe a little worse for wear. You can't just fail at your life's calling and not have it affect the plot, though the major branches are relatively late-on.
The writing is snappy and amusing, though from a furry standpoint it does kind of lean hard on the whole carnivores-as-murderers furry speciesism, even if it swerves here and there on that.
All in all, a nice little game about France and people dying horribly. Plus, you get to learn what they call pains du chocolat in everywhere that isn't France. (It's not a Royale with Cheese.)
Crossposted from Dreamwidth. Original at https://swordianmaster.dreamwidth.org/115339.html
Bearing a very distinctive pen-drawn art style, a cast of (mostly but not entirely) birds, and a soundtrack public domained straight out of Carnival of the Animals (literally; the game repeatedly credits Camille Saint-Saens for the music), Aviary Attorney tells the story of a Holmes-and-Watsonesque pair of lawyer-birds (Falcon and Sparrowson) living in France in late 1847 and early 1848...
Wait, what was that you said?
Oh. Oh.
To say anything more would be spoilers, but I will suffice to say that it does an interestingly thorough job of sticking to historical bullet points. As far as gameplay goes, it flows relatively similarly to the Ace Attorney games, jumping from acquisition of defense-client to investigation to trial, and in addition, it's not simply "you versus the prosecutor/judge", but rather, you have to make your case convincingly to a jury. Press the wrong things or mess up your case and they'll think less of you and your defense, so you can still reach a "guilty" verdict if you messed up too much on connecting the bulet points together. Notably unlike those games, though, you can absolutely fail to find evidence you need to clear the case, and failure is not an instant loss condition. You can bumble around and get everybody you try to defend killed and are no worse for wear for it. Well, maybe a little worse for wear. You can't just fail at your life's calling and not have it affect the plot, though the major branches are relatively late-on.
The writing is snappy and amusing, though from a furry standpoint it does kind of lean hard on the whole carnivores-as-murderers furry speciesism, even if it swerves here and there on that.
All in all, a nice little game about France and people dying horribly. Plus, you get to learn what they call pains du chocolat in everywhere that isn't France. (It's not a Royale with Cheese.)
Crossposted from Dreamwidth. Original at https://swordianmaster.dreamwidth.org/115339.html