I just wanna hear some non-spoiler thoughts about the game. How does the game rank among others in the series? How do Susato and Barok rank against other assistants and prosecutors? How is Phoenix's ancestor as a protagonist? Is he just a Phoenix clone? Stuff like that

You can be as objective or subjective as you want

I don't speak Japanese, and I haven't been able to play the game, but I've been able to follow Bolt's streams (at least the subsequent videos) and from what I've seen in-game and from what I've gathered from the promos and the recollections from the users who have played it, Baroque is absoutely fantastic in my opinion. The premise behind the prosecutor, his presentation, his attitude, they are sufficient reasons to say he's the best rival there's been in a while.

If it ever gets translated or someone does an annotation-translated playthrough, I'll be really happy to experience going up against him.

The six characters who were openly discussed before the game: *I disliked none of them*

Ryuu: if characters are omnibuses cars, then Ryuu handles more like Apollo than Phoenix in how he progresses through cases. There is much less bluffing, more showing-alternate-possibilities-are-reasonable-while-Barok-shoots-them-down-thus-making-incremental-progress-until-the-correct-one-sticks. This covers only the trial portions. Outside of trials personality-wise, he is a nice neutral hero trying to find his way. A few things set him apart from the other three attorneys (Phoenix, Apollo, Athena). He rattles much more easily than the other three. He has some pretty extreme damage animations to match, but he picks himself up just as quickly. He draws a lot of strength from the people around him (like Susato, Iris, Sherlock, Asougi), more so than the other attorneys. He has his descendent's headsnarking habit.

Asougi: He's pretty much everything you want out of a mentor assistant. What is a nice touch is that he doesn't bail you out all the time like Mia did, there are times when you need to step to the plate when he has struck out.

Susato: Best assistant in the series so far hands down. Better than Maya with a more 3-dimensional personality. While there are several things that excite her, she is calm and reasonable and thus lacks that childishly overdone nature that Maya has which is sometimes more eye-rolling annoying than endearing. The one thing that differentiates Susato from the other cute-girl assistants is her reliability and cunning. She will defuse situations for you and generally assist with more than just advice. Gameplay-wise, it was hard for me to tell how useful her advice is because I cannot read Japanese.

Sherlock: Sherlock's personality strongly deviates from canon Sherlock. Holmes has become a big, excitable, outgoing dork. His deductions are definitely wacky. If you have read any of Detective Conan, he deduces more like the Detective Boys, a gang of three seven year olds, than an adult. While this would initially seem off-putting, it's well done in the context of how he and Ryuu work together as a team. One finds the stuff, the other explains the stuff, and they each acknowledge each others' skill without jealousy. Sherlock does seem to have a sense for knowing when he is needed and he does have an uncanny ability to set up a line of theories that will help you find the truth when you pick them apart. Sherlock also seems to know how to provide direction to investigations that you might not be able to piece together yourself that easily. Sherlock is absolutely hilarious. The playthrough chat would bust out laughing every time he appeared because he was always up to something.

Iris: A child prodigy. She is a bit hyper and excitable as expected of a 10 year old. Despite this she is the "straight-man" counterpoint to Sherlock: Team Mom if you will. I don't have any really strong opinions on her. I cannot explain a lot about her without spoiling. Her story is set up to be pretty intriguing and emotional. She strikes me as a very traditional AA character - like a Rise from the Ashes Ema and Pearl in one. We will see.

Barok van Zieks: Very strong as a prosecutor, probably the best one since Edgeworth (making him second best). I find him a bit too quirky for my tastes, but his personality is good enough to override any hesitation about his occasional odd behavior at the bench. Barok is the type of Prosecutor interested in the truth rather than a win record, but he shows Ryuu absolutely zero sympathy even though they share ideals. His strategy is to never relent, never give Ryuu the benefit of the doubt or any kind of slack (like Blackquill and Klavier frequently did) even when the witnesses are clearly lying and Ryuu needs some room to press hard. His philosophy seems to be to systematically destroy the defense and if they manage to eek out an innocent verdict, oh well, that's life. He is a little competitive, dresses up a mountain of rude in polite language (well except when he doesn't), is very condescending, takes strong exception to illegal shenanigans in his court, and hates Japanese more than a little. He can and does tell your assistants to shut it instead of ignoring their pep talks or pretending like they don't exist. He also does not damage easily. It takes a lot to rattle him; usually you are well into a trial before he starts getting upset his witnesses' lies are wrecking his case.

This game's plot is set up very differently from other AA titles. It is obviously meant to be part 1 of a longer series. There are many open questions at the end of the game and many character developments left unresolved. The main characters have only just gotten settled in by the time case 5 roles around. As long as you play it knowing it is Dai Gyakuten Saiban Part 1 of ?, I think you will appreciate it more. The characters are all designed with more complex personalities and backstories in anticipation of having the luxury of slower reveals and many more cases than 5 for them to express themselves in. As a result everything about the characters and plot is set up to be much stronger than the main trilogy.
For all the reasons I mentioned above, it is really hard to rank DGS1 against the other titles because it has such a different setup. On its own, DGS1 feels a little incomplete because there is so much you want to know that hasn't been touched on (or outright teased) at the end of the game, but when the DGS series is all said and done I think it will surpass the main trilogy because the story and characters will be less one-off and isolated.

Case 3 stands out as particularly outstanding. It really sets the tone for the game. Case 1 and maybe 4 are really the only cases which are formulaic AA.

I don't like ranking games in general, but if I would, I'd place it among the top three of my favorites. The open-ended mysteries are actually a selling point for me, and the humor in the game feels a lot closer to classic AA rather than how it was presented in PLvsAA. The investigation parts are actually the highlight of the game for me, all thanks to Holmes and his silly tales. Regarding the 3D application, DGS has DD beat by far. DD was already impressive enough to allow roaming camera work on the crime scenes and locations of interest, but almost all the locations in DGS are much larger and expandable than locations presented previously. You actually get the feeling that you're looking around in a place, rather than simply looking at the whole from afar.

Chekhov above provided an excellent breakdown of the main cast. I can add that some of the jurists are rather likeable as well just because they have a lot more personality than they seem. They may have been designed to look like Layton characters, but it doesn't mean they're nearly as shallow, even if some of them are basically model copies of each other. The AA series has always been strong with its character depth.

Last but not least, the humor is wonderful. Even those who doesn't understand Japanese will be able to enjoy it because Holmes is just that quirky. As a hint, expect to find him in places where people usually don't stand. He never says anything he doesn't mean, but he also says a lot he isn't sure he does mean. As for Susato, her best moments are her interactions with Ryu, especially the patented "Susato Throw". Compared to Phoenix, Ryu takes a lot more physical abuse (though he never did get wine to the face). And of course, much of Iris' charm comes with... Detective Gregson. She's almost as adorable as Pearl, is quite innocent herself, and knows how to shut people down. Even Prosecutor Vampy has his moments too, especially when he's pissed. Apparently, every time he tosses away a glass or bottle of paint wine, he gives a quick prayer.

I could go on, but the play experience is worth seeing for yourself.

Edit: Oh, and how could I possibly forget the music? My goodness, Kitagawa has outdone himself. I've only seen a bit of the DLC, but he even left some notes about his tracks and some of his outtakes.

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To give this thread a bit of a jolt (and because I still haven't had a chance to write a full review/impressions): case rankings go!

3 > 2 > 5 > 1 = 4 (roughly)

Episode three introduces new characters and mechanics to the game, and gives the story a major kick in the pants. Without going into detail because of spoilers, I'd say it does the best job story-wise of shaking up AA tradition, and it's definitely a case where you could tell Takumi was letting himself branch out with the structure. Plus, it's got a solid mystery at its center. You can see my full post about it here.

Episode two, a bit like three, plays with the expectations for an AA story - here, the whole situation, from start to finish, feels very much like a Holmes story rather than an AA one. But more interestingly it plays with the expectations for AA gameplay - Joint Reasoning gets its first showcase here, and it's more fun than it has any right to be - I mean, at the end of the day, it's still just presenting evidence/pointing things out, just with an emphasis on 3D examination. But it's so well presented and so alternately hilarious and vital for moving the case forward that it just works. The overall plot of the episode is fairly strong as well, with a good emotional core. My one critique here is that it sags a little bit in the middle stage, but that may be unavoidable given its structure. (I imagine the emotional beats will also just barely miss for some people once more folks get a chance to play it.)

Episode five is... like I said above, I'm of the opinion that in some parallel world there is a DGS where a slimmed-down episode five is episode four instead and it fits in perfectly. Instead, we've got this world, and in this world episode five is strong but not quite strong enough. The crime is deceptively simple but still manages to work in one of the most punch-the-air in-court revelations I've seen, and the focus on the main characters brings their best to the forefront (save a few who get a bit sidelined.) But the culprit is definitely in the lower tier of AA final bosses (I'd rate them above AAI and AA5, but that's not saying much) and the trial itself drags on too long without enough progress. It's a particular shame because the way you take down the culprit is one of the most satisfying court moments in the series, but you take such a long road to get there. And finally, as mentioned before in the thread, the episode raises more questions than it answers. Maybe just a few more answers would have helped tip the balance, but as it stands it feels too much like setup for DGS2 to really shine.

Episode one is a fairly standard kickoff, and to be honest it's a pretty strong case. Seeing Ryuunosuke in court for the first time is particularly enjoyable, as he's the most rookie of all the protagonists - he goes through a lot more visible growth in his first trial than any of the others, and it brings a sense that you're seeing a personal turnabout for him and not just one in the trial. But the pacing of the episode kills it - one particularly large chunk of the episode is spent figuring out a trick the culprit used that is then immediately forgotten for the rest of the trial due to circumstances. Trimmed down a bit, it would be a stellar episode one - instead it's just a strong one.

Episode four is strange. The main thing is it's definitely a filler case, and we've trained ourselves as AA fans to expect something more as the finale nears, so you've got to shake yourself out of that mindset. Once you do, you get... a fairly standard filler case. The ultimate solution to the mystery is a nice twist on the usual proceedings, but the path you take to get there just wanders for a while. (It doesn't help that the crime itself is particularly simple for AA. Nor does it help that this is the case with the most "press everything to proceed" testimonies.) Some of the characters, like Souseki, are charming, but others wind up dragging without a ton of depth. And while the case is funny, it does rely on a certain trope (the henpecked husband) a little too much.

Still, all the cases were pretty strong. The ones that worked best were the ones that took risks with the formula that paid off. The ones that worked worst were the ones that let themselves get carried away without providing enough payoff.

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I disagree, I think DGS Sherlock is very much similar to canon Sherlock, personality-wise. Canon Holmes is very much a dork too, he gets excited whenever he found something interesting. He's very curious, he'd go to great lengths to investigate a case, not unlike DGS Holmes who crawls in places with his magnifier. On days where his spirit is low, he'd become lethargic and moody, similar to DGS Holmes.

This post lists SH references in DGS and explains the similarities between DGS and canon Holmes better than I do (heavy spoilers though).

Personally, I think it's wonderful how much influence the novels and short stories had on DGS. I love that even though the cases are based on the novels, DGS still manage to present them in a unique and unexpected way. It diverts player's assumptions about how the case will turn out, much like how it diverts our AA-stereotypes-based predictions. I'm aware that there are references to classic Japanese literature too, for example the 4th case, but I don't know much about them.

No full review because I haven't played it, I just want to add to that particular subject.

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I wasn't really, really excited about it until I saw Barok. I like most AA prosecutors and I'd like to see Barok's backstory revealed. His theme sounds tragic at some point, maybe it has to do with his development as a character. And why was he absent for five years?
Anyway, the new prosecutor made me "investigate" more and now I'm definitely looking forward to it. It looks so awesome, the story will be probably really good and the soundtrack is beautiful.

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A bit later than usual*, because of an excellently timed labor strike delaying the delivery of my copy, but I just posted a review of the game on my blog (which is on mystery fiction, so it focuses on that aspect of the game). (As far as I know, I've only mentioned elements also shown in the marketing campaign).

* For Layton VS GS and GS5, I somehow managed to post reviews within two days after the release.

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