Finished the game and the bonus episodes this morning, but I noticed there was no general impressions thread yet like with the previous games, so here it is!

I wrote a (spoiler-free) longer review on the game this morning for my blog, but that's focused on mystery fiction, so perhaps not exactly what people here are looking for.

My bullet point thoughts on the game are:
- We all knew already, but the two DGS games are essentially one long story that was simply too long for one game. I don't think it was really meant to be multiple games though; it's just that Takumi wrote an overall story that was too great in scale, and each individual episode was too long too. There were several instances where I thought that some seperate episodes in the two games were originally conceived as one.
- Which also meant that this second game started to build towards the ending fairly soon. It felt really weird to be honest.
- Playtime-wise though, the two games are about the same. I clocked in a bit over 24 hours for this one, which is basically the same I had for the first one.
- Clewing/foreshadowing was also not as effective because of the split over two games, which is a pity.
- While I like the cases on their own and the way in which they fit the turn-of-the-century setting, I have to admit that this time the core mystery plots were way too obviously borrowed from reasonably known mystery stories. I can name specific titles that use the exact same trick for the first few cases, while the last is better in the sense that it's only inspired by the style of another famous mystery writer, but still obviously so.
- I thought the overall story, while a bit predictable (which is something Takumi does love, the 'classic' story), enjoyable enough. It has some parallels with earlier Ace Attorney stories, but works well on its own. And there are also places where Takumi obviously tries to stray away from the series rules.
- There are probably plenty of Holmes fans who still don't like the Holmes from this game, but I really like the way Takumi played with the concept of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in this game.
- It's a shame there are so few new assets, but man, I love me that new prelude to the pursuit theme in the courtroom!
- That one Joint Deduction scene in the third episode was AWESOME.
- It's overall a fun game, and works great together with the first game to bring an incredibly fresh experience for AA fans, but you can't really seperate the two games. They are one story, that due to circumstances were cut in two in a rather clumsy way.
- The two bonus episodes are both hilarious. The Japan one's the best.

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From what I've heard there's no new pursuit theme in this game which is a bummer, but I really like the new objection theme for Susa- I mean Ryutarou.

Not really that far in the game, only the second testimony of case 1 :(

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There's a new pursuit, but it doesn't play until later in the game.

Hit me with those stories you think Takumi borrowed from, Ash - I definitely had moments of "this mystery/solution feels familiar" but I'm curious if I was just being genre savvy there or if I was half-remembering something I'd read a long time ago.

I've been holding off on posting impressions because I'd like to write a full review like I did for DGS1, but some bullet points:

• My top-line take on the game is that DGS2 has better mysteries and overall plotting than DGS1, but I feel like DGS1 was more consistent tonally and had better character writing. In particular I felt like you could really feel Ryuunosuke and Susato develop throughout DGS1, but they felt strangely static in DGS2. There's one major plot beat that I expected to really impact their characters, and instead they sort of shrug and move on immediately.
• I didn't mind the reused assets as much as some people, but it is definitely disappointing we didn't get a new set of court themes. The pursuit prelude is super good, though, especially when it plays for the first time.
• Like DGS1, the pacing of the story felt a little strange, but in a different way. DGS1 felt like it would take too long on certain plot points, but here it felt like there was just too much going on at any given time. And like Ash says, the game starts building to its ending relatively early, which feels very weird.
• I really liked the new characters! I just wish they'd had more time to be developed. I think Dr. Sithe gets hit with this the worst.
• I also appreciated how the game expanded on some DGS1 characters I didn't really care for or who didn't have much screentime. I think Gregson and Yuujin are the biggest winners here.
• Joint Reasoning was great! The one in case 3 you mention is probably the best overall in terms of advancing the plot and strong presentation, but I'm partial to the one in case 4 just because it's so end-to-end hilarious.
• I wish the jury was more involved. Their role is definitely smaller than in DGS1 and I really enjoyed the jury battles.
• Maybe it's my imagination, but I feel like the testimonies in this game had a lot of "press a statement, statement updated, present evidence to new statement". This has always been a thing of course but it feels like that was a majority of testimonies this time, while past games shook it up a bit more. Could just be me, though. And hey, it's better than "press every statement to advance"!
• I feel like Takumi played around a lot with the major plot points, in that some were so obvious even the characters picked up on it straight away, some were reasonable twists, and some snuck up on you and hit you hard. I liked it.
• I also like that Takumi broke the mold a bit on the final villain. Obviously no details/spoilers here, but there was an "easy" way out I was expecting that had been used in several past AA games and he pointedly avoided it.
• Despite the criticisms above, I really liked DGS2, and I'm thankful we got to see this story wrap up. I really love the cast of characters and setting, and I would probably rather have DGS3 over AA7 at this point, lol.

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I'm curious as to what this "easy way out is", if I'd hazard a guess, it's:

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That said, speaking of mold-breaking and freshness, DGS1 definitely felt more unique structurally. DGS2 does some good stuff within the traditional framework of an AA case, but I feel like DGS1 does more to break or shake up that framework in the first place, most notably in DGS1-2 and DGS1-3. DGS2 hews much more towards the traditional "your client is innocent and there's an evil murderer out there who framed them and you have to pull them onto the stand after 2 days of court."

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Takumi is usually quite good with that, actually. 3-5 for example was just 'let's have a similar setting as a certain book', while 2-3 borrowed something for the backstory, not the main, so I was kinda surprised they serves as the main ideas in this game.

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