Gender: Male
Rank: Ace Attorney
Joined: Fri Jan 31, 2014 8:13 pm
Posts: 1546
fwiw Pierre, Juanli was my favorite character personality-wise. I agree it was nice when she had moments that weren't all about Sunny, but it was also reasonable that that would be her only priority. Still, I think Suyin/Juanli should’ve been combined into one character. They both work separately, but they're also the two characters that I find have the most tenuous connections to the cast. So in this version Mao would be raising Sunny as the son he never had, with Suyli being his partner in crime though more motivated to be able to be a mother/raise this child as her own. In the current version it felt a little weird that Suyin was pretty much in the dark on Mao even though she was about as bad as he was, or at least comparable. But I guess there needed to be 12 characters so here we are.
Anyway here is my review/scattered and disorganized thoughts of the game. I want to echo that I loved the game that’s why I am including critiques in the review as if this were a ‘proper’ game. This was my favorite NG so if it sounds like parts are negative it’s just because those are the parts I haven’t focused on mentioning yet (on discord) and I hope it's seen as respect for the quality of the game rather than trying to tear it down :p
First of all, Mao. He was a weird character to play at first, but I ended up enjoying it. I more or less tried to portray him as pure evil, racist, etc but a competent general. So that’s what I ran with—if anybody didn’t like Mao because he’s too evil, I get it. I just don’t want him misinterpreted, so I wanted it clear that I never intended for him to be sympathetic in any way even in the times he was 'nicer'. He’s more or less a psychopath.
But yeah, early on he was awkward to play because of this. I felt I was making him a little too goofy at times, but once I had him live a little more in his inner monologue things became easier. The one good thing I allowed Mao to do while playing him was sparing Taikong/Mei in their ending. I don’t even really know why he did it so I doubly enjoyed it for that.
RP-wise my main concern was that I was overstepping “player authority”, which is a weird line to walk as a villain character. My intention was mostly trying to get people involved in fun scenarios, but I can see how the fight scenes or handcuffing someone to you can seem like a lot. I thought things ended up being cool and I usually did anything it was with PB insider info of who was expected to win/lose the fight and such. But yea if anything was not cool you can mention it.
I think a lot of the twists I saw coming, but I don’t consider that a knock on the game (only bringing this point up cause PB and I talked about it). There was never something I predicted in its entirety, and things always happened a little differently than expected. Plus being able to predict things is also a sign that the story is coherent (also everyone is just NG-trope savvy at this point).
The Monk/Fujisaki conversation in the Fujisaki end for example. I kinda predicted all the little parts of what happened, but for some reason it never clicked in my head together. So to see how everything in the war started truly from Isuzu’s death and Fujisaki's want for revenge was very satisfying. Same with the Benedict Clarkson reveal. I kinda knew that Monk would be him, but didn't really put together the full implications that he would feel responsible for starting the war because of it.
I also think in the rewrite that the gun from the “Who killed Amethyst?” lock should be the one behind the [12] door. I initially thought that this was the case and thought this tiny set-up was one of the most satisfying “twists” in the game, if not the most. I was theorizing at that point that the killer HAD to be someone on the outside who killed everyone to get 12 CDP. And then it ended up just being some gun.
My least favorite timeline and ending was the Mao/Suyin end. It felt like the Midge end equivalent from NG7—I almost felt that Mao didn’t really need an ending since you learn so much about him in other timelines, and it didn’t feel like much new was learnt about Suyin. The timeline itself was also the one I found the most boring, in which Fujisaki was just soloing everyone and we were in this awkward dynamic of waiting for him to post, and not really being able to participate in the action much since we can’t kill him until a designated time. I don't agree with the sentiment that the game was the "perfect length", it was one timeline too long imo and this is the easiest cut.
Don’t get me wrong, for personal character reasons I liked the “screentime” from the ending. I liked the reveal of what was behind the [12] door, the quote reveal, and that Mao still found a way out despite the odds. But considering the insignificance of the gun mentioned above, it didn’t feel like this ending or timeline added much of anything to the actual story that could've been put elsewhere.
I also didn’t enjoy the true ending timeline too much. It wasn’t too long so there’s nothing to really dislike, but I guess I was expecting more answers even though there weren’t really any questions left. Like the X reveal felt more like a standard ending reveal than a final TRUE ending reveal. Snake “living" felt a little weird too, like everything was resolved in a neat little bow. I still don't really get the point of the game or how it stopped the war (like if all they needed was to blackmail Mao they had the information from the beginning). But it’s still better than most endings to these games so maybe it’s for the best it didn’t go crazy.
My favorite ending was probably the Taikong/Mei one and my favorite timeline was probably that one too or the Monk one. I thought it was a lot of fun to be the aggressor as Mao, and I think even the lead-up with all the specter syndrome reveals and Snake’s “death” was the most ZE this game felt. My favorite “scene” in the game was the fight between Monk and Mao (which was weird because I thought Monk was going to win it). It just felt very epic to participate in, Penumbra is an awesome piece of OST from Judgement, and it just felt like a good climax from the rising tension of the whole trial.
Anyway everyone did a great job and especially PB for being able to map all the timelines and events out. It definitely felt like the reveals were carefully thought out in a way where our timeline order wouldn’t really have “spoiled” anything in most circumstances. The branching choices were also very natural so it's all wicked cool. This review is only really mostly complaining because these are like the only complaints I have and this might be official one day, but I do wanna reiterate this is my favorite NG.
Also I was very impressed by Nanjo’s “performance” for such a hard character and uh I don’t really know what else to say but you all did a great job just not as good as PB.