Topic: Games You Recently Beat?

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I just beat Miles Edgeworth: Ace Attorney 2 via a DS Emulator with the fan translation patch applied. After recently completing the first Investigations game and being somewhat underwhelmed by it, I'm happy to say that this game is a major improvement in almost every category. I do want to warn you that this game has a lot of stuff that could be spoiled. I'll try to avoid spoilers as much as I can, but when I need to reference something, I'll use a spoiler mark. I strongly recommend not clicking on these unless you've beaten this game before, as I would hate to ruin the experience for newcomers.

Gameplay: Investigations 2 follows very closely behind the first game in terms of gameplay. It's pretty standard stuff all around, with the ability to walk around crime scenes still being a fun and interesting mechanic for the AA series. While this mechanic does lead to more interesting investigations compared to some of the earlier mainline games, it can still tend to be very slow-paced. Especially if you need to examine one last thing or deduce an object, you can end up feeling stuck for a while. This didn't happen all too often, but it was definitely something I felt. The testimonies and cross-examinations are completely unchanged from the first game and the mainline games, and for this game, they really don't need to be. They aren't as much of a focus as they are in other games, so I'm fine with them remaining the same. Overall, the gameplay in this entry is pretty standard stuff in the series, which is by no means a bad thing. It sticks with what worked for the games prior and I'm completely fine with that.

Story: Hoho boy, here we go. I'll say this once again, this game has some spoiler-y stuff in it. I'll be sure to mark it properly, but please don't click on them if you haven't played this game before. It'll likely ruin some surprises for you. I think my favorite aspect of this game's story is the fact that it somehow makes Turnabout Goodbyes from the first game have even more impact than it already did. You're able to get SO much backstory behind the DL-6 incident, along with why von Karma was penalized and what ultimately led to Gregory's murder. It's fantastic stuff and I really wasn't expecting the series spinoff to expand more on this story. Edgeworth's character also goes through an incredible arc that, once again, I really was not expecting. This man, who was once the resident "evil prosecutor" of the first game, is now debating and even acting on whether or not he should even be a prosecutor after seeing how corrupt the whole system is. It's honestly a great situation for his character to go through, and it even affects those around him, ESPECIALLY Gumshoe. I really was not expecting Gumshoe to have character development, either, but once again, this game somehow delivered on it. Pretty much all of the new characters are great as well. Ray Shields is a fun companion that has an interesting backstory of his own. Justine Courtney provides a great "semi-antagonist" to Edgeworth, and her development through the game is awesome. Sebastian, at first, just seems like kind of a joke, but through the course of the game we really start to see him change, and he ends up turning out to be a pretty cool character by the end. However, it really feels like they kind of forgot about him in the final case. He's basically just like "Hey don't worry about me, I'm taking care of these other bad guys," but then he never shows up after that. I thought that was really strange considering how important of a character he turned out to be. And it wouldn't be an Ace Attorney game without some villains. While Debeste and the Prison Warden are fun antagonists in their own right, I really wanna talk about the Mastermind. I was kinda spoiled on the fact that there was an ultimate bad guy in this game, and so throughout the entirety of the game, I was sort of hyping myself up as to who it was possibly gonna be. And then... when it was revealed, I was just like "Oh, okay." The person who it ended up being was unexpected, sure, but I was hoping it maybe would have been more prominent a character. I've heard some say that this character is on a level of a certain villain from Great Ace Attorney, and I honestly just don't see it. Sure the Mastermind was behind pretty much all of the cases in this game in some way, but to me, their effect on the game as a whole still somehow felt a little... underbaked, maybe? It's hard to pinpoint exactly why I found the reveal to be underwhelming, but I certainly didn't feel as much of an impact from this reveal as I did from some other character reveals in the series. The Mastermind, when revealed, was really good, though, and it was fun taking them down in the end.

Music: Okay, enough spoilers. Time to talk about music! This game was composed by Noriyuki Iwadare, who has been a staple of Ace Attorney music ever since Trials and Tribulations. You can absolutely feel his touch in this game; it has some absolutely fantastic tracks. The Objection and Pursuit themes are two of my favorites, and a lot of the investigation music is great, too. There were also some character themes that I was really impressed by. My only complaint with the music isn't even the music itself, rather, a lot of it tends to be very overplayed. Tracks will play for a long time, then be cut off for a second to heighten the impact of dialogue, and then it'll start the exact same track again and play it for a really long time. This was most annoying with the Heart of the Investigation theme, holy cow did that one play a lot. This game still has a great soundtrack, it just had some really annoying overplaying issues that likely were at no fault of Iwadare himself.

Conclusion: Overall, Investigations 2 left me thoroughly impressed. I really wasn't expecting this game to have the twists, developments, and great characters that it did. Especially after the first game lacked basically all of those elements. It still has some pacing issues, and some of the characters are disappointingly underdeveloped, but it's still a massive improvement over the first game. It's truly a shame that this game never got officially localized, however, the fan translation for this game is pretty amazing. It's very polished, and I never noticed any typos apart from a few slight grammatical errors. They even had ProZD voice a certain character, so you know it's good. I really recommend this game if you find yourself hopelessly stuck in the Ace Attorney void as I find myself in right now. Or even if you're just a casual fan of the series, I think you'll still find a lot to enjoy here. It's a bit of a hassle to get the patch to work through an emulator, but once you figure it out, you can prepare yourself for one of the best Ace Attorney games in the series. 8/10

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Welp, I complained about Bravely Default’s length/latter half of the game and AA Spirit of Justice’s abrasive insults and then didn’t even post again when I finished them, haha.

Played Ace Attorney Spirit of Justice to break from Bravely, and it was a good game. Not my favorite in the series, but I really liked what they did with the main characters and there were a lot of cool moments. I enjoyed all the cases, even if some had some clumsy handling in hindsight. Some of the music was really good, too. I especially liked two of the serious tracks.

The humor was pretty great sometimes, although again, there were instances of abrasive insults which were, at its best, mildly annoying and a little funny, but at its worst, it was a killjoy. I also hated the prosecutor for the majority of the game. Like, I really hated him. It wasn’t in the typical “you love to hate” way, either. Just hate, and it wasn’t fun. XD

I also played the DLC level; the humor was great and I really liked the story and the characters by the end. Although I’m a little surprised NintendoLife keeps referring to this case as being one of the best (in the eshop DLC article and the top AA cases article), because my sister and I both thought a lot of it was predictable and there weren’t many surprises, and we played it apart from each other. It was a good level, it was just underwhelming in the twists department. Or maybe we've just learned the system too well after 8 AA games. Lol
And can we finally retire Miles Edgeworth as a rival? After the Investigations games, I just can’t take him that seriously when he’s being adamant and kinda a jerk about blaming a crying woman, even though he’s convinced she killed someone in <i>self-defense</i>. Or when he says things like “it doesn’t matter the flower petals are different.” He’s just… way too good for all that now. lol

Afterwards, I went back to get Bravely Default’s true ending, and oh my gosh, it wasn’t nearly as stressful as last time since I didn’t feel so rushed to finish it and took my time instead. Let it be said, this game is a nightmare to try and finish quickly, at least on the first play. It also helped they started giving me new cutscenes, some of which were very good. Lol

Personally, I think the false ending did some things better than the true ending, so I would say it’s still worth doing, specifically before the true one. I ended up getting the false ending right before they really started to reveal the big plot twist, so even though I had my suspicions, the reveal was a lot more dramatic and unreal to me, and it was one of the most memorable moments in the game, haha.

Regardless, it was a good game, had good characters, good music, and a good FFV-esque job system, and plenty of QoL improvements in its pseudo-retro system (although I still don’t understand why you have to scan each enemy individually and why it doesn’t carry over between battles?). I also want to praise its voice acting. I mean, I’m not picky; I’ve played a lot of JRPG’s and I hardly ever find the anime-ish voices bad or annoying. But I thought the voice directing was particularly good here, like it had more inflection? (Mephilia and Qada come to mind) And boy, do some of them yell. Especially Agnes, she could shriek like a Japanese VA. lol

I bought the rest of its Theatrhythm Curtain Call DLC tracks, too. (why no Bravely DLC, Final Bar Line?? ….Actually, give us a Theatrhythm Bravely Default instead. And let me put Barras and Holly on my team. XD) I also bought Bravely Second, so I’ll see how that goes. lol

My sister and I slowly played through The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time on the Expansion Pass last year. Despite growing up knowing the game and watching other family members play it, we never actually played it ourselves, excluding goofing off when we were younger and doing things like jumping off the bridge to Gerudo Valley. It’s definitely dated in some ways, like being obtuse when it comes to directions, but it was still a good game with a lot of cool moments and mechanics. I didn’t really remember much of the story, so it was cool to experience it, and playing an old game where you half remember some things and have completely forgotten other things is always interesting. XD

I also started GRIS and finished it a while ago. It was good! Felt more like an atmospheric experience with light platforming and light puzzle elements than anything deep or challenging. The art and animation were beautiful, and the music really added an emotional and intense feel to the game (the intense music and sound effects can get loud in your earphones!).

It was a bit shorter than I ended up expecting; it probably took me 3-4 hours to finish it. Had I bought it at full price, I might be a little disappointed with the length. But in hindsight, I’m pretty glad it wasn’t padded out with any repetitive puzzles or weak mechanics or anything. The controls felt smooth and pretty fluid. New puzzle mechanics were introduced frequently enough to keep it interesting, and I found them pretty intuitive; sometimes it’d make you stop and think for a minute to figure it out, but nothing was challenging enough to cause frustration.

And I finished Layton’s Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires’ Conspiracy on the 3DS. Admittedly, I went in with low expectations, since everyone only seems to have bad things to say about it, but I actually liked it! I’m not a Layton superfan or anything, I’m only familiar with the original trilogy, but I don’t think this game was bad at all!

If you go in expecting something like the other games, then I think you’ll be disappointed with its heavily casual tone and episodic format, as well as the mysteries themselves being less interesting. But when you know what not to expect, it’s a good time.

The humor was pretty good and the characters grew on me quickly. I really enjoyed the different settings the cases had, and I’m glad each case was only a few hours long, so they didn’t overstay their welcome. I also think the last case was closer to the style of the original Layton trilogy in terms of somber tone and twistiness, although I personally enjoyed the penultimate one, too.

My only complaints are that I would have preferred the mysteries to be a little deeper and more plot twisty. Honestly, I even over-thought several of them and expected deeper conclusions. Although, that’s probably Ace Attorney’s fault. XD Some of the puzzles were pretty dumb and abstract, too. Unwound Future had quite a few trick puzzles, but some of these felt ridiculous. But there were still plenty of good ones, too.

Overall, I thought it was a pretty cute and feelgood game. I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I’m pretty pleased with how much I enjoyed it, despite its reputation.

I was able to download the 365 free puzzles, but it seems the DLC shop is empty now? I’m not disappointed, though; it saves me some money to use on something else. lol

Aaaand I’m done now. ;D