Doesn't scream into DS microphones.
Gender: Male
Rank: Decisive Witness
Joined: Wed Oct 10, 2012 12:23 am
Posts: 281
So I'm sure just about everyone has seen
this video before. If you somehow haven't...give it a watch (one NSFW word).
Funny, right? Probably because it resonates with any longtime Ace Attorney player. We've all gotten to some point in nearly every game where we just can't figure out what the contradiction is. Or, even more frustratingly, there will be a point where we spot another contradiction, and it simply isn't the one the game wanted us to point out. We end up losing a big portion of our penalty bar on a single question, and, well, that basically forces us to get every single question for the rest of the case right on the first try or have to reload a save. And while reloading a save isn't too bad for most games, it's just annoying with Ace Attorney. There's no additional challenge or sense of accomplishment of getting a question right after missed guesses in the same way that there's a sense of accomplishment from beating, say, a difficult boss after a lot of deaths. There's a limited number of answers; you'll have to get it right eventually. Simultaneously, losing 40-60% of your penalty bar on a single question/testimony can be quite demoralizing because it means you have to play almost absolutely perfectly to avoid resorting to the unsatisfying save/reloading. In other words,
we need a system that allows for a player to get stuck for a bit on any single question/testimony without ultimately sentencing them to the reload save screen.So here's the broad proposal that I would like to see happen in the fantasy world where I'm somehow the director of Ace Attorney.
For every cross examination that the player performs perfectly (i.e. only pressing what needs to be pressed and only presenting what needs to be presented), the player will receive 20% of the penalty bar or one of the five exclamation points/whatever's being substituted for exclamation points back.
If anyone's still with me and wants to hear the full explanation, here it is. I believe that the difficulty of Ace Attorney games should be balanced so that the average longtime player can beat most cases without having to reset the game, since there's no satisfaction gained from simply guessing until one finds the right answer. Dual Destinies was the first game where that was really the case, but it largely accomplished that by giving some pretty heavy handed hints, which diminishes the sense of accomplishment. SoJ was nowhere near as over the top with the hints, but simultaneously suffered from a few frustrating questions itself. The last four cases all had some questions where I felt that I was penalized somewhat unfairly; either for a question that could have a number of different answers or for some answer that really took a leap in logic to get. This is, unfortunately, the reality with logic based games. Some answers that seem obvious to developers won't be for some players, regardless of how experienced they are. And that kinda sucks, because it means that most players will inevitably get stuck on one question, lose a lot of their health bar, and then essentially be forced to save scum in order to get through the rest of the case.
In other words, we need a system that allows for a player to get stuck on any single question/testimony for a bit without ultimately sentencing them to the reload save screen. Simultaneously, though, I don't think giving someone a point back simply for answering a question right is particularly good design either, largely because that would be incredibly broken, but beyond that it's not a reward for doing anything spectacular. It's simply doing what you're supposed to do; answer the question correctly. This method rewards the players who figure things out immediately instead of needing additional information, or, in the case of testimonies that require some pressing, rewards the players who know where to ask.
This also introduces an element of risk and reward into the game as well; you could just press everything in a testimony to get more information, or you could take a chance on a question to try and get some more breathing room. It could lead for some interesting strategic moves as well; perhaps someone is moderately certain they've got the right evidence with 2 exclamation points left, but isn't entirely sure and has to decide whether to take a chance on something they're only fairly certain about or press to try and get more info while giving up the chance to get more life back. Could make for some interesting strategic choices on the player's side.
The final benefit is that I think it reflects what the penalty bar is actually supposed to represent; the judge's confidence or patience. It makes no sense for an attorney to make some mistakes at the start, and then proceed to argue things perfectly for the rest of the case, and have the judge be just as short on patience then as he was at the start. Pointing out contradictions without mindlessly questioning everything would, realistically, increase someone's confidence in the attorney, and while Ace Attorney's court system has certainly never been realistic, I feel that the ability to lean a bit more towards realism in one of the more annoying aspects of cases would be a positive.
"I can't go to hell, little weirdo. I'm all out of vacation days."