Phoenix Wright: Dual Destinies Special Episode: Turnabout Reclaimed

Yeah, this gonna be short and sweet. There's a new special episode for $6.03 (tax included, $5.99 w/o tax) and of course I need to review it because I said so much terrible crap about the game itself.

So the idea behind this case is that it is the story of Phoenix making his return after the events of Apollo Justice, so if you didn't play Apollo Justice (but you are reading this) then I'll ruin this for you: Phoenix lost his job and became the stepfather of a magician. But it makes sense, I promise.

When you lose your job, you get a magician. Also, psychic powers.

It features Athena even though I feel as though Athena... probably shouldn't have had anything to do with it. I mean, it doesn't make that much sense considering he's in Athena's first case and-- okay, I'm rambling. The point is, Athena's in this case, so they're probably going to milk the hell out of her power.

But before we get into this, I should make it pretty clear that they pumped this thing out without doing very much of a grammar check, so if grammar is one of your hot buttons, you'll find a few things that are annoying. Like... missing commas. There are a few of those. In the full game, some words are spelled wrong, so if you find a word spelled wrong here, don't get too surprised.

The upside to this is that Phoenix is the main character again! And of course he's just as brow beaten as ever, so I'm a happy camper. If you really like Phoenix's character, the beginning of this game (i.e. when you have to push buttons) is like a huge throwback. Even though it's with Apollo and Athena, the way the dialogue moves along is reminiscent of Larry and Maya. It's such a relief!

If something smells, it's usually the Butz.

So Phoenix exposits about being eight years behind on this whole "doing cases" thing, thinking about how they really need cases at this agency when the TV informs him of a murder at an aquarium that Athena and Apollo had been watching on TV. And then someone pops in and asks for Phoenix, and the game's afoot. And of course there are bad puns and silly jokes, because this is a Phoenix Wright game. And you're playing Phoenix Wright! You don't know how excited that makes me!

But of course it goes right off the deep end (no pun intended, honestly) when Phoenix chooses to go with Athena over Apollo. Then you just know the case is going to be littered with psychology stuff that isn't well thought out (since Athena's psychology is still pretty much just Apollo's power). But then, Athena is better suited to be a sidebar character (unfortunately. It would be awesome if there was a female lawyer on par with Mia in this series) so I guess it makes sense that he went with her over Apollo... but come on! Apollo's too adorable to leave behind, Phoenix!

So adorableeeeee

I didn't mention this in my previous review, but now is actually the best time to do this: The backdrops in this game are amazing. They have motion, they're SEGA levels of beautiful (that's pretty high, considering Sonic Colors) and the way you explore really makes the scenes feel real. In 3D, it's especially cool... if you don't get a headache and if you can get the 3D to work well. I love aquariums (and museums), and honestly if one looked even slightly like the one in this game, I'd visit everyday. They really sell it with the backdrops!

Also, also, also! The Phoenix Wright theme plays in this game and of course it is the best thing ever. When it plays for the first time that I can recall in this title at all, I couldn't help but get the most goofy smile ever, even though it comes on during a very obvious "Rise From The Ashes" sequence (trust me, when you play it and you hear the circumstances of this murder, you'll probably roll your eyes and think something along the lines of "And how did no one look at this and think foul play?"). It's awesome, just plain awesome. They reintroduce the notes function (which Athena should already know about, for the love of God, but she doesn't because why the hell not), and also they pretty much tell you how to play the game (for investigations, because you have to have beaten the tutorial trial to play this episode) so if you're looking for stuff to skip because you're boss at the game, there you go.

Also (and I'm sorry I keep fangirling, but this episode is kind of what I was hoping for in the full game), if you recall the 300 reference in Trials and Tribulations which of course you don't (or do, in which case I love you) there is another movie reference in this game. The magatama makes a re-emergence as well (and I didn't mention this in the review itself, but the music for the magatama is also fantastic), explaining the re-emergence of another character in a much better way than this character was introduced in game.

But then Athena sort of ruins everything by sort of bungling her backstory (seriously, everything about Athena is copied in one way or another) so I guess I'm back to my role as Athena Basher. But honestly, can you blame me? In a cast of such wide and colorful characters, she's more like a bystander. What makes it worse is that Phoenix keeps running into better sidebar characters. All it does is make Athena look bad. It would have been better for the game as a whole to just have Apollo be with him.

For the most part, if you're in this for a regular Phoenix romp, you've got it. Right down to terrible pun names (Norma DePlume, Capcom? Are you for real?) and the crazy plots. Athena's analytic psychology (of course) come to play here and it's about as useless as it was in the main game. Again, all Athena's doing is exposing "lies", which, need I remind you, both Phoenix and Apollo can do. Apollo's is the more applicable since his ability can be used anywhere.  The other thing is that Blackquill makes a point of stopping Apollo from using "gimmicks" but lets Athena go right on ahead and do her thing. Especially considering his stance for most of the game, it's highly unlikely that he'd allow this.

In a way, this case is a better version of the game as a whole. Athena's sidelined, except for when she helps in court (which I don't think the sidebar characters should be doing as much as Athena does, considering) and Phoenix is the leader of the case. Things are pretty okay, as far as characters and storylines are concerned. In fact, for all my complaints about Athena, she actually comes across as a real character in this case, like someone who could actually be added to the group. She really is a good sidebar character... it's just too bad she's the status quo for female sidebars in the series.

"Quick, make a peppy, cheerful character with an odd quirk!" "But we already have four of those!" "I SAID MAKE ANOTHER ONE!" -Capcom Design Team

The case itself is much more interesting than originally let on, because when I started playing I was like, "Ugh, clearly the client didn't do it, c'mon." But then it took a turn and I was pretty sure I knew who did it, but I really didn't want it to be that person.

Blackquill is in this case, because of course he is, but he's status quo too. I don't think Capcom is going to do better than Godot in the "dark, mysterious prosecutor" field. They're going to need a new angle.

This is pretty much all the mystery I need, thanks Capcom.

Just... throwing this one out there Capcom, but as far as new characters go, I'd be interested in seeing a detective like Ema again. You know, someone competent at their job and not a pain in the ass to get past during investigations, but still hard to beat in court? In fact, if you're going to go for that, why not give Ema her dream job in forensics and have someone take her place? I mean, Grouchy Ema was hilarious, but I think Ema deserves her dream job. Placing a detective like Ema, who clearly is out for the truth, with a prosecutor of interest-- like someone who was actually straight up bad, Manifred vonKarma style-- would be a good draw to a new Phoenix game.

In the end, this case is definitely worth the purchase. I feel like every case in this game should've been just like this case. It's damn near the best in this game, and it actually does approach being one of the better ones in the series, since it's a longform case (those ones always end up being some of the best cases). If you buy this game and you really want to have a great experience, I'd shell out the extra money. I do think it's kind of a farce that they're making you pay for this case (it being the best case in the game and all), instead of letting it just be free. I also hope there will be further new cases rather than new clothing downloads. I feel as though the developers must have realized that we're not interested in dressing Phoenix and the others up (it's a weird addition to a game that doesn't have high replay value to allow you to replay the game with different clothes) and might be working on new interesting cases.

Phoenix Wright: Dual Destinies

Guys, am I an asshole? Because I dislike a lot of new additions to old games.

My last review was full of all kinds of love for Rune Factory 4, and I stopped playing Rune Factory to play Phoenix Wright right when it came out. I planned on writing a review right away, but you know what happened? I didn't like it. Much. At all. And this is after Apollo Justice, which I also didn't like. But you know what? I actually prefer psychic hobo Phoenix and the case of the curiously coincidental cases to the train wreck of a story in Phoenix Wright Dual Destinies. And I'm going to spoil the literal hell out of the two games that came previous to this one, so, you know. Be prepared.

But first, a recap. Recall, if you will, Phoenix Wright himself was the main character of three games: Ace Attorney, Ace Attorney: Justice for All, and Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations. The latter is probably the best game in the series, considering. Phoenix Wright as a series depends on four things: The cases, the prosecutor, the sidebar character, and the main character. If any one thing is falling off, then the game starts failing. Now, in the first Phoenix Wright, there was no standard, so of course everything was relatively strong. In Justice For All, they made a slight miscalcuation on how interested we'd be in Franziska considering they barely give us any reason to find her sympathetic, but the game is still strong regardless and Franziska is likeable all the same. But then there was Trials and Tribulations, and no one can live up to that.

I'm sympathetic, but then I played Miles Edgeworth.

Trials and Tribulations is a perfect ending point for the series, only we all knew that Phoenix Wright could never end there. But thinking about it, it included the story of Maya Fey, the sidebar character, and her cousin, Pearl Fey, it had a part of Phoenix's past in a sensible and meaningful way, it had a bit of Maya's sister and Phoenix's mentor Mia and her story, and to top all of it off, it had Godot, literally the best prosecutor since Edgeworth. He had purpose, he had a great story, and his motivation wasn't completely ludicrous or a clone of Edgeworth's like Franziska's motivation.

They went all out on the "tall, dark and handsome" here. I'm not mad about it!

But like I said, they couldn't rightly end Phoenix Wright on that note, and they started making Miles Edgeworth games. They made two, one which didn't come to America since everyone just straight up stole it here. But Miles Edgeworth is where they started screwing things up. You see, in Justice for All, Phoenix (Actually, it's Maya, but... the Phoenix series, in this case) introduced the Magatama. It's an interesting relic that, when imbued with power, allows Phoenix to see the locks on people's hearts (when they're lying to him). Phoenix needs Maya or Pearl to imbue it before he can use it. For whatever reason, Capcom was like, "This is the only thing people are interested in, not the murder cases or the skewed logic or the crazy characters." So in Miles Edgeworth they introduced possibly the most annoying character in the series, Kay Faraday. Kay came with her own deus ex machina, Little Thief. Why is it a deus ex? Well, that would be spoilers. You can skip this next paragraph if you don't want spoilers.

Seriously, spoilers like, right beneath this. But I'll put a picture where you can come back.

The technology for Little Thief is absolutely backwards. Look, Phoenix and Miles use non-touch screen phones and actually look through files and stuff, but there's a machine that not only projects holograms for miles, but was created by a lawyer? And there's only one of them, not two or three? I'm just saying it's stupid that a lawyer made a machine that basically solves all cases for you. Which it does if you're not stupid, so they make it so that Kay is retarded and can't use basic logic. Keep in mind though, that Little Thief does somewhat work in the context of their world... later. Phoenix and Miles both use CDs and videotapes within the course of literally every game, making them seem to be in a world parallel to ours technology wise. And then there's Little Thief.

See? I promised and I made good on it.

But that's only the beginning of the side characters basically having more power than the main character despite not having the experience of the main character, because the next American release is Apollo Justice. And if you haven't finished Apollo Justice, you should probably skip because I'm going to get into some story here. No worries, I've still got the black and white woman to help you out.

Thank god for this woman.

In Apollo Justice, you meet Apollo (Justice), the most adorable lawyer in the series. Sorry, I'm just in love with Apollo. Anyway, Apollo's sidebar character is Trucy, and Trucy's power is seeing tension. Yes, okay, the first thing anyone asks is "Can she see this hard on?" and the answer is "I don't know, probably, yeah." I mean they barely ever mention the laws behind this stuff. She's a magician and also, Phoenix's adopted daughter. This would be cute if it wasn't also annoying and completely contrived. COMPLETELY.

Apollo has an "even more powerful" version of the power that Trucy has. Coincidence? Yeah, absolutely. Two people with the same power... but you know what, that doesn't really mean anything. Right? Right. Yeah. Not until by sheer coincidence, they have the same mother.

But the game parallels and foreshadows the ending with the brothers Klavier and Kristoph. Seriously, this game was strangely all about family tragedies. It would've been okay if it was just Klavier and Kristoph and their family tragedy, but the fact that Apollo and Trucy are stuck in there with their double dose of family tragedy? Weird. I don't hate Apollo Justice or anything, but this is a painfully contrived. I mean, damn.

Alright. Only one more of these, maybe.

So I know what you're thinking. You're like, "What does any of this have to do with Phoenix Wright: Dual Destinies?" Well, here's the thing. Sales of Phoenix Wright games in America have gone down drastically. It makes sense... somewhat. The games don't have a high replay value, so only collectors would really buy and keep the game. You're very likely to find the game used... or find people pirating it. Now, they didn't really have any issues with the first three Phoenix games, at least not as bad as Miles Edgeworth. But Miles Edgeworth and Apollo Justice were major missteps in the series that Capcom surprisingly didn't retcon immediately. But I give you props for that, Capcom. Nice work.

Now's the biggest ever spoiler corner, so I'll do you a solid since this is about to get wicked spoiler-y. If you've played both Miles Edgeworth and Apollo Justice, you can read on. If you're trying not to spoil the games but REALLY want to know about Dual Destinies... I commend your valiant effort, suggest you play the games, and will now use SOME LARGE ASS TEXT TO TELL YOU THAT THE NEXT FEW PARAGRAPHS ARE TOTALLY SPOILERS AND YOU SHOULD SKIP UNTIL YOU SEE SOME MORE LARGE ASS TEXT.

The thing is that Dual Destinies does sort of retcon some stuff for no reason. For example, Lamiroir, Apollo and Trucy's mother, wears distinctive clothes while singing. Klavier, who was in a band once and played with Lamiroir, doesn't mention the fact that a girl is dressing up in Lamiroir's clothes and singing the same song Lamiroir sung. No one in game does. No one in game mentions that Apollo and Trucy are siblings, making it seem like Phoenix didn't even tell them. Lamiroir doesn't even make an appearance, despite being super ultra ridiculous important at the end of the game for no reason in Apollo Justice. Okay, there is a reason that she's so important... but it's really, really ridiculous.

But even though they clearly "forget" everything in Apollo Justice... Pheonix remembers the black psyche locks. He even learns how to unlock them (anti-climatic: it's the same as the other locks). You can't just pick and choose the things you're going to forget, Capcom. You're telling a story in chronological order, not writing chapters out of order whenever you want. You could do that, no one's stopping you.

In Apollo Justice, the detective is Ema Skye, who was introduced in the first Phoenix Wright and appeared in Miles Edgeworth. She's nowhere to be seen in this game, despite the fact that her forensic science would be useful in this game. But that's probably why she's not in the game at all. In fact, there's a point in the game where I feel like Apollo would've just gone to Ema instead of the detective on hand but it would've just broken the game. She's a detective and a friend of Phoenix, Edgeworth, Trucy, and Apollo. Any one of them could've gone to her for help.

Edgeworth also knows about game breaker Little Thief, but for whatever reason doesn't have Kay with him or... have someone make him his own Little Thief? No? Okay, that's sensible. You just decided you didn't want to have a "solve every case" machine on hand? Got it. I don't mind the disappearance of Kay, I'm just concerned that no one was like, "Kay, do you mind if we make a copy of Little Thief? Your dad made it to solve literally every crime in the world and it would be nice if we could do that."

What about the Jurist System at the end of Apollo Justice? Did we forget about that, Capcom? Did we forget that we decided a jury is better than just straight up evidence? Looks like it. It's actually stupid how they never even address that they had a new system that pretty much made it impossible for another Phoenix Wright game to come out. They just forgot all about that system. Whatever, right? On top of that, this game has a very strong focus on what makes up some of the plot in Phoenix Wright, the forged evidence. The whole reason the Jurist System came to be had to do with the forged evidence, but it was discontinued in game, for some reason.

Welcome back, people who haven't played Miles Edgeworth and Apollo Justice. You've only just missed me being a fangirl. Let's talk about Dual Destinies.

Featuring Apollo Justice... and two other people. Apollo's in it, though.

Prior problems aside, right, this game has its own share of stupid things and they start with Athena. I actually like Athena as a character. She's bright, she's fun, she's excited to do her job... it's just too bad that she breaks the game completely.

Insert combobreaker joke here, I guess.

Athena's addition is A) Too soon after Apollo's, rendering his ability now completely useless, B) Unnecessary considering the cast of characters (her personality is a combination of other characters, like Maya's cheeriness and Kay's... uh, nearly everything and Trucy's oddities) C) Extremely forced (she's introduced as just "someone Phoenix met overseas," so clearly she should be in his agency) and D) A way to force Phoenix out of the game named after him.

Like I said, a good Phoenix Wright game depends a lot on the sidebar character, and you'll spend two cases with Athena as your sidebar but she isn't a sidebar character. This game literally does not have a sidebar character, so you don't have time to get used to any of the lawyers and you don't really have a character whom you can really depend on. And then there's Athena, and well... She's awful. Athena has a special ability-- I know, I'm so sorry about the lack of creativity going on at Capcom-- in the same strain as Apollo does. She can hear "the voices of people's heart," meaning that she can tell when they're lying. You know. Apollo's power.

Hey, Athena, if you can hear the voices of people's hearts, why is Apollo even using his power?

Now, to make it not Apollo's power, she says she's studied psychology. Ah, and you know how it actually takes like forever to become a lawyer, and how studying psychology might also take a few years? Yeah, no, she's like 18. Apollo's like 24 and she's like 18 and already a lawyer. Before you start complaining that Fransika was 18 and she was a prosecutor, at the very least her father had clout and the kind of crazed maniac in him to force her into that role. Athena had no one like that, so it's implausible that this is a real thing. And I'm not trying to base this in reality, I'm just going by norms within the series. Franziska was forced through in Europe, like Klavier, but both came from families with lawyers in them. But here's the kicker-- Everyone who has been a prosecutor at 18 has done it in Europe. But two characters are under 18 and about to become a part of the system after going to school in America. Ugh, Capcom, you're killing me here.

It's not an error, though. I guess America's finally catching up with Europe. Wait a--

Athena, like Apollo, has a physical power that gets augmented via an item. For Apollo, it's his bracelet. For Athena, it's Widget. Widget has like, two or three lines, max, and basically does nothing but make faces for the whole game. It also makes no sense considering Widget shows her "true feelings" but half the time seems to only show what she's feeling on the surface, which are far from her real feelings. And you might as well throw it in the same bucket as Little Thief and call it a deus ex, although they do explain how widget can even be a thing in game.

But to further make Widget and Athena not the same as Apollo's power (and not really working because SERIOUSLY), Athena's power changes the way you do your testimonies. It is pretty fun, but it has a lot of arbitrary rules. But I think what bothers me is that when Athena uses her power you can't lose. Apollo could lose in his game, but Athena literally cannot lose in this game. Inexcusable, Capcom. You can't add in a new character with a power and then make it so that you can't fuck up with her power. There's no tension that way. For shame!

Japanese to not spoil things, but anyway. The testimonies look pretty cool.

Her segments fail in the sense that she can just keep adding things to her repertoire. First it's like, "You've got to look for odd emotions," then it's like, "Widget is translating their voice into images that we need to correct" then it's like, "Look for odd emotions that only seem odd some of the time but not all of the time." I mean yes, for the sake of the game you need to differentiate Athena from Apollo, but if they were just going to be the same person, then Athena either didn't need to be made... or really needed a different power altogether. Her name is Athena, for god's sake. She's not even the goddess of truth (or hearing, for that matter). Apollo's power at least makes sense considering his namesake and Phoenix's name refers to his comeback ability, but Athena's named after a Greek goddess-- pretty much the Greek goddess, and has no connection to her namesake at all. Coming from a series that banks on naming conventions (Yeah, I'm looking at you Redd White... and hey, Gaspen Payne and Winston Payne, come join in), that's ridiculous.

But like I said, I don't hate Athena. She's actually a lot of fun. I like her expressions-- it reminds me of the things I liked in Kay-- the upbeat cheeriness really comes through in her character model. I like the way she talks, it's like a mix of Maya and Trucy. The yellow clothes and her intro with a judo throw is too close to Emmy from Professor Layton-- and Capcom, you worked with Level 5, so that's inexcusable-- but then she never uses judo again, just talks about going for runs and has an odd parallel with Apollo's Chords of Steel. She and Apollo have good chemistry. She doesn't really have chemistry with Trucy, but Trucy's barely in the game. And even though Phoenix is the namesake, she's barely got chemistry with him. But she is new...ish. So I suppose it's okay for her to be that way.

Emmy's pretty much nothing like Athena aside from the yellow and the excitedness and... Okay, they're realllllllly similar, but it only comes across full force if you've seen the Layton movies.

There is no main lawyer in this game, but Apollo is present more often than not. Phoenix is around (as in playable) in all of two cases, and in both he shows up like... after the case has already started up, as though he was busy doing other things and interrupted his schedule to be in the case. His name is on the case of the game. This should've be called "Everyone: Pheonix sometimes, but not always, actually nearly never". He's in the longest case and the first case of the game. The other two cases are split between Apollo and Athena. It makes me wonder why the game's called Dual Destinies... there's three lawyers and I'm not sure if the title is referring to Athena and the prosecutor or the fact that Apollo and Athena are new lawyers in the agency. Whose destinies are we talking about here? Seriously.

Dual Destinies: Now featuring three destinies

Apollo being the most drastic change in the game (the bandages and all), he steals the show hardcore. He's still sarcastic and still the only straightman to Phoenix and Trucy. Athena, even with her personality, can't hold a candle to him. That's crazy-- she's the newest character! For whatever reason, maybe to make Apollo less interesting, the case where Apollo is the lawyer is the only one where an anime cut scene straight up tells you who the culprit is. That. Is. Shit. Capcom.

You're too adorable, Apollo, I can't be mad at you.

Phoenix no longer is psychic, which makes no sense but was a good choice overall. They do retroactively explain how Phoenix could be psychic hobo Phoenix, but it still doesn't make total sense (it implies that more than one person is psychic hobo Phoenix, which is crazy, and also that people knew why Phoenix had to leave the profession, but then did nothing about it). But he has grown some, although he still has the defeatist attitude that made him adorable in the first three games.

And you're adorable this way, Phoenix. I'm sorry you got your job back. ...Wait, no-- I mean, I'm glad you got your job back! I'm glad!

Okay, so lawyers and sidebars are taken care of. What about the prosecutor?

Simon Blackquill is adorable, but he's not interesting. Here's the thing, okay? He's a good guy. And don't you start bullshitting me and acting like I ruined the game, there's no twist here. Literally no Chief Prosecutor would allow a criminal to act as a prosecutor unless there is some other motive behind it, i.e. he's clearly a good guy. Klavier from Apollo Justice had this same problem-- he's cute but he's not interesting. Klavier actually ends up worse when the story is finished in my opinion and Simon just is bland in comparison.

Also, like... I guess in prison they just kept giving Simon clothes that he'd want to wear to go along with his hair and attitude? Sensible.

Simon's known for using psychology in court, which is a running theme in this game, surprise. But he does it to the point of straight up annoyance. His bird apparently has a super power where it knows when Apollo is using his power and prevents Apollo from using his power but not Athena from using her power. And the two of them pretty much have the same power. ...Power. Sorry, I just needed to say it one more time.

Simon's story isn't strong enough to hold the story up. Compare to Godot, whose motive was unknown because his backstory was unknown for a good portion of his game or Edgeworth, who at least had a bond with Phoenix which made the tension between them elevate. Simon barely has any of that and it means he's mysterious, but not in a way that's intriguing. I mean, I didn't know what his motive was, but then it turns out that he barely has a motive. I mean it's there, and yeah, it's interesting, but I walked into this game knowing Simon was a good guy and I didn't leave the game thinking, "Man, that really changed my perception on XXYY," I just came out with a mindset like, "Yeah, so I can see into the future using tropes, go figure."

So the cases, right? The cases must make this game okay. Welp, not really. The cases are long, but it's not as good as Trials and Tribulations. The case that Athena presides over and the last case are the best in the game, but Athena is a weak lawyer so her case doesn't seem as exciting as Apollo's and Phoenix's, and you can tell who's the bad guy. There are interesting characters to meet, but not as interesting as some previous characters were. The game doesn't do the "neatly tie everything up" that Apollo Justice did, but at least in Apollo Justice you felt tension during the game. I feel like there is no tension in this game. I guarantee you can guess the criminal in every case but the last one before you get into the case itself. The anime cutscenes are mostly filler, except for the one that straight up reveals the killer in Apollo's case. It's abysmal.

What hurts me the most here is that I can see where a good game could've risen from the ashes of this one. There are good twists within the last case and I like how the tutorial case ties into the story as a whole a lot, it's clever. But it would have been a lot better if Athena was strictly sidebar and didn't have any lawyer responsibilities. If Athena was strictly sidebar, then we wouldn't have had the immense amount of foreshadowing that we did, which sort of ruined the game for me. We should have peeks into the main story, yes, but Athena's hamfisting her story in and that's a bit... bad for her character.

I enjoyed how they retired Trucy, but then she proves how great she was as a sidebar by appearing only every now and then. Whenever she appeared, I was hoping she'd tag along because Apollo needed someone like Trucy-- bubbly and oblivious though oddly smart and easy to get along with-- to support him. Athena fits the role, but doesn't fit the bill. Unlike Pearl and Maya, who at least served as sidebar together, Athena never works alongside Apollo and Trucy and doesn't show her differences to Trucy well enough to be a sidebar to Apollo. For example, Trucy uses her magic and her bubbly charm to make people talk to her. Athena uses psychology. Everyone Athena managed to get information from, I could see Trucy getting information from too. The methods are different, but the end product is the same. Compare to Maya and Pearl. Maya herself didn't get very many people to open up to her, but she could if she channeled her sister, and she tended to only do that when she wanted to help Phoenix. Pearl only got people to talk to her to explain things, because she was young and removed from society. Neither of them could really get the same information out of people-- Pearl probably couldn't have gotten some of the information that Maya got until she got older. Trucy already has a game behind her, so Athena being able to get the same information that Trucy does is... well, weak. It's like... Why not have Trucy just be the sidebar, then?

The problem is that Athena doesn't have enough time in this game to become beloved on her own. Apollo and Trucy had a whole game to themselves before popping into this one, so even if you didn't like them, you still understood who they were and their characters. Athena is buried underneath the strength of these other characters, it hurts her as a lawyer and as a character. She's just not interesting enough to be the focus of the story, and they're trying really hard to make her interesting and failing. They needed to flesh out Phoenix and Apollo further before dragging in a new character.

If I was in the habit of giving games star ratings or number ratings, this would have one of the lowest ratings I could muster for the series, probably tying with Miles Edgeworth in the "I don't see why we needed to see this story, but I guess you're laying the foundation for a better story" department. That's pretty bad. I think the update in graphics was unnecessary, the anime cut scenes were okay but useless and distracting, the addition of a new lawyer on top of already having a new character was a bad choice, the "power" in this game was already used and so is meaningless, and all in all, this game ended up worse than Apollo Justice. If we're only talking about the defense attorney games within the series, that means it is the worst "Ace Attorney" game.

That's not a bad thing, though. Apollo Justice was pretty good despite its flaws.

Capcom, for the future, you already ruined your "powers" with Apollo Justice. He literally can see when people are lying, and I guess if you decide that some people don't have small ticks when they lie, then you could add Athena in and call it new. But it's not imaginative or creative, and it weakens your character as a whole. I'd say if you really wanted to add a new character with a power, you should add one with a power that only borderline has to do with lying. For example, you already have characters who can channel spirits so you could probably make another supernatural character. Someone who can see into the past? Someone who can read intentions off of murder weapons? I mean you really can't make another character who can see/hear lies. It's unreasonable. If you do, at least make it like Phoenix's, where you have to present the magatama to people and it has to be recharged-- and can't be used during a trial.

If you're a fan of the series, you probably already bought this. If you're coming in new, drop this game and spend like $10 on Trials and Tribulations or the original Phoenix Wright. Money better spent, I assure you. This is very much a "for the fans" kind of game, without really recapturing the magic that made fans get into this series in the first place. For shame. I was looking forward to this, too.

Rune Factory 4: A Fantasy Harvest Moon Review

I really like the Harvest Moon series, but you knew that, unless you didn't and now you do.  Harvest Moon is the kind of cute/annoyingly long type of game that doesn't have a real ending though, and on top of that you'll probably find yourself really pissed at the Harvest Goddess who literally can stop all of the problems in every town you go to, but still she finds a way to just do literally nothing. But we're not here to talk about Harvest Moon, even though we kinda have to.

And I said I was going to clean this room because I have to, but...

So let's get Harvest Moon out of the way! Without getting into history or anything, Harvest Moon has just about 20 games in it's series (give or take if you don't consider games like Boy and Girl or  DS and DS Cute to be games of their own accord) and generally speaking, they're all the same. You either come from a city (you know the one) to get your parent's farm or you're an amnesiac that the mayor of a town decides to give full control of the economy. You know. Because.

"Thanks, Mr. Mayor!" - Literally every amnesiac ruining towns across Harvest Moon land

Your job basically is to save wherever you are from the Harvest Goddess, who for the most part, is the reason these towns are failing. You do this via getting married, having a kid, farming, ranching, cooking, mining, foraging, and making friends. Now if you're hearing this and thinking, "But where's the violence?!" well, that's what Rune Factory is. Sort of. I mean it's more than that, but if you wanted to play Harvest Moon but with violence, then you should give Rune Factory a try.

But if you've actually played any of the games from Rune Factory, you know that Rune Factory is a series now because it's... really kind of amazing. There are people called Earthmates who have the power to harvest runes, there are elves and dwarves with political problems with the human races, there are people related to people in other towns and continuity between the games, there is an actual enemy in an empire nearby to the country you live in, there are bosses, there are dungeons-- I mean, the game's world is immense. When you really look at Harvest Moon, there's a lot of vagueness, a lot of ambiguity about the world and the towns themselves, which makes it almost Pokemon-like, except that everyone in the town isn't completely mystified about what's over that mountain range, people of Kanto.

"DON'T GO OVER THOSE MOUNTAINS! WHAT IF THERE ARE MORE PEOPLE OVER THERE?!"

Rune Factory has a lot of story that doesn't really connect in the games until you get deep into the plot, so I'm not really going to talk about the story too much. I know, that's crazy of me.

Rune Factory 4 follows the incredibly creative and stunningly fresh amnesiac main character formula that I've never seen before in games like Harvest Moon, Rune Factory, Theresia, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, Final Fantasy,  Cave Story, Megaman Zero, Ghost Trick, and-- surprisingly-- Amnesia: The Dark Descent. You can pick to be a boy (Lest) or a girl (Frey), but I chose a girl, so we're going with that.

Is it a boy or a girl? I guess it... doesn't have breasts...?

You start on a airship with an odd glowing purple ball. You don't get any actual story here, while you have your memories. Nope. You just get kicked off the airship and land on a dragon.Oh, and you live, so this isn't a five second $50 game. The dragon you land on is Ventuswill, the Native Dragon of Wind. The names of the other Native Dragons are just the worst, so be happy you landed on one with a tolerable name. Ventuswill is oddly compelling for a god character (because the Native Dragons are pretty much gods). It's honestly kind of sad and infuriating to hear her story.

Because Harvest Moon as a series almost always has some god-infused problem, Rune Factory sometimes pulls from that idea bucket, and this game is an example of that. Ventuswill is the source of the problems in the game, and there's a lot of "tension" between her and the people of the town of Selphia, which you can't really tell because the game doesn't talk about it until the ending of the first plot. Oh, also, there are three plots to the story. 

Now, most Harvest Moon games have the same engine (depending on the system it is on) and the same goes for Rune Factory, for the most part. They changed this one up and for the most part, it's all good changes. But there is an issue with unequipping items and I am totally not a fan of always having to hold the magic book for escape despite it being on the bottom screen... but it isn't anything game breaking. The controls are otherwise intuitive.

Like most games that have day-to-day life, the people in the town have static texts, which is a bit lame. The people in the town are not all tropes, but they might as well be. You have a tomboy-ish girl who likes sweets, which is normal. You have the overly hyperactive girl with overly hyperactive actions. You have the moody male who is moody for the sake of moodiness... I mean, standard characters. But there are interesting twists on terrible tropes, like the narcoleptic butler who does her work while she's asleep and forms a "Get It Together" club. Or a man who time travels (Trust me, it makes sense within the story) to save the world. There's a gothic girl who sees ghosts, which is pretty trope-ish, but her family is a lovey-dovey couple who people actually think are too lovey-dovey, which is nearly unheard of in Harvest Moon. But  Rune Factory 4 actually has interesting in-game random events... like for example, there are three butlers in the town and one of them wins a butler competition randomly throughout the year and everyone in town talks about it. There are also Town Events with a group of characters who have an event together and they'll have different texts than normal. You can even have sleepovers, and the texts there will be different too (sometimes. I've gotten one or two different texts, but it probably had to do with the fact that I wasn't dating during the first sleepover and I was dating during the second one), but day to day you'll probably get through the static texts within a year, if you talk to everyone equally. The marriage candidates all have more dialogues after you get higher than 3 Love Points or Friend Points, and everyone else doesn't really have anything like that. It seems kind of lazy. When you reach 7 Love Points, you can start dating, and you'll get little events with each of the bachelors or bachelorettes where you start seeing that they might be in love with you.

Pff. Uninterested.

Now, like I said, I played as a girl, so I had to deal with bachelors. When you pass people in this game, they ignore you at FP/LP levels 0-2, wave at around 1-3, and wave with a musical note from 3-7. Around level 7, people will start waving with a heart over their head, which means that these people are free to date you if they're bachelors or bachelorettes. However, just because they're beckoning lovingly to you over a candlelight dinner doesn't mean they're ready to admit they're in love with you. A more surefire way to know is to wait for the event where you and your bachelor of choice are forced to interact. Some are really cute and some are... well...

My bachelor of choice was Leon, because if there's ever a dude who isn't white or Asian, I go for him to see if my kids will turn out dark skinned, except for Kai because I hated him. But it helps that I like Leon's character and I especially like his taste in gifts and foods.

Okay, so he's not THAT dark skinned, but who is in video games? AND DON'T YOU TALK ABOUT FF7!

Leon is the last bachelor you save-- which I will get into like right after this so SHUT UP-- but not the hardest bachelor to marry. Nope, that's Doug, who is storyline related. After Leon though, you never bring a new person into the town. The other three saved characters-- Amber, Dylas, and Dolce-- are leagues easier than saving Leon, who literally is the most ridiculous "end game" that there is. And that's the thing, after saving Leon, the game plays the credits like you just finished the game. I beat the "game" in one year, I even saved one of the characters on my in-game birthday (you're welcome Dolce!) because to make it "hard" on myself, while playing in Hard mode, mind you, I only saved one character per month. But to be fair, I'm the queen of Harvest Moon and Rune Factory... or something. But after the credits roll, you wait for a week and the second plot starts up, so...

Right, but, to beat the first plot you have to level up. In everything. No... seriously.  You level up in eating to get more health and rune points, which like stamina, you level up in sleeping (really) for the same stuff. You level up in bathing (really.) for the same thing. You level up in walking to--

(But in case you don't know, it's the same thing as the other three)

You level up in chemistry for better medicines than the doctor, and crafting for good armor and accessories... cooking for food that you can use to give to other people or to get more RP and HP from what you eat, and forging for making better weapons and tools. Leveling up in taming nets you more powerful animal friends, leveling up in different weapons makes them easy to use with less stamina wasted... and on top of that you still level up yourself. Dungeons have level requirements outside of them, and usually you're way above those requirements because you'll constantly be going back to old dungeons to get monster drops for crafting and forging and new pets for your animal barns. You might have problems with bosses, except in the first plot you'll find that the bosses are all pretty simple, with the exception of Dylas, that lying sack of--

Wait, isn't this a text review?

But this all sounds complainy when I actually really, really like the game. I like the tri-story bit, because it makes your actions seem like they have purpose. I like the fact that you can bring townspeople on trips to dungeons. I like the diversity of the texts, or I did for the first year. I LOVE THE TOWN EVENTS, and I like that the townspeople really do seem tightknit and still have some pretty crappy things to say about each other-- the town isn't nearly as saccharine as Rune Factory 2, where I feel as though everyone should've straight up been like, "Yo but, real talk... Mana suuuuuuuucks."

"I like Pink Turnips and flowers and farm produce, and I'm bright and chipper for no reason. Also, I have a strange lust for you, amnesiac farmer. MARRY ME!"

I like that I don't dislike Ventuswill in the way I dislike the Harvest Goddess, which sounds stupid but... I like that my dislike for Ventuswill is more sympathetic than... well, wondering why she's so pathetic. The Harvest Goddess always says the same stuff when you see her. Either she just straight up ruins a town, A Tale of Two Towns style, and expects some random newcomer to show up and fix her mistakes, or she's like, "I can literally talk to anyone I want, but I choose not to so everyone in town literally forgot I exist. Now I have no power because no one believes in me. I couldn't have forseen this, considering I'm a goddess and stuff."

I like the fact that I can decorate my house, although it's useless and for the most part meaningless. I like that I can open a store, and that my responsibility towards the town is just to attract tourists with more stores and festivals and fresh produce.

But I guess what I like the best is that I always feel like there's something to be done in this game. When I "finished" the game, I remember being confused. I was about to put the game down when I went online to check and make sure I hadn't just beat a $50 game in like... an in-game year. I mean the time I spent on this game to beat it was about... half a week or so if I put the hours together? I mean, it could've been shorter if I hadn't given myself restraints. But when I learned that there was more plot I was really happy because the next set of bosses are difficult and fun (although I hit level 100 before I reached the first boss of the second plot because I farmed the crap out of monster drops so the dungeons to reach the bosses are pretty subpar because of that. I haven't even gotten to the third plot yet, which I only know about because I looked up the first ending and stumbled across THAT gem. But you know what? I'm actually really interested in what will happen in the third arc.

The Gnomes are more interested in the second arc.

And just so you know, I stopped playing Rune Factory 4 at one point to play Pheonix Wright: Dual Destines, Pokemon, and Etrian Odyssey IV (because I can't play Millenium Girl until I actually beat that game). I really don't want to stop playing Rune Factory until I'm done, though. And that's incredible for me. I'm the kind of person who plays a game for a few weeks and then swaps the game out for something else. I mean, the only games where I don't put the game down are in my favorite games list: Sonic CD, 999, Lux-Pain, Ever 17, Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations... not very many games, but games that I like because there's something about them that pulls me into them. Sonic CD is colorful, fast-paced and fun, 999 is creepy, dark, mysterious and compelling, Lux-Pain is so thought provoking and compelling with an odd story that has people who really feel real for what could be considered anime characters, Ever 17 is straight up disturbing... and I think I like Rune Factory 4 because it's busy. You have a lot to do and the fact that you can balance all of the things you need to do in game is pretty incredible. And despite how silly the leveling up gets (and it really does have sleeping and eating as things you can level up in, for reals), it makes sense after a while of playing. 

So should you get this game? Yeah, definitely. I mean, if you're not into farming, you'll find you'll really like the farming system in this game, where you don't get penalized for planting crops out of season. If you don't like ranching, you'll be happy to know you don't need a milker or clippers or anything like that because your animals just drop their given item. But those things aren't really necessary, unless you're trying to win every festival, because you can fight bosses over and over and even make most of them your pets if you're into fighting stuff. That's CRAZY.

What I'm trying to say here is that Rune Factory 4 is a fantastic addition to this series and I hope all the games that come after this one have the same pomp and busy feeling to them. Where I felt let down in Rune Factory 2 when I randomly just played as my child for half the game for no reason even though I'd been building rapport with my main character, and I felt annoyed in Rune Factory 1 because it was so rough and ridiculous to play, I really found myself liking this game. (I don't remember what I picked up instead of Rune Factory 3, but I never played 3.) So, 3DSers, get this game. Go get married to some random townie and have a kid that looks nothing like them for whatever reason. I salute you!

But... one thing for Rune Factory 5... Can't we personalize the main character in these games at this point? Do you know how weird it is for the world to be so homogeneous and then Leon shows up and points out that dark skinned people exist? Do you remember there being a black elf in Rune Factory 1? Are you trying to tell me there are no dark skinned Earthmates? It's just that I always go for being a dark skinned person just so that when the entire town inevitably falls in love with me I can blow off most of them by sticking my nose in the air and going, "You're just in love with the exoticism of there being only one black person in miles." I would've gotten away with that in Harvest Moon: A New Beginning if Rebecca and Toni weren't dark skinned. But bet money my kid in Harvest Moon will be white as snow. I'm trying to add diversity to the games here. Diversity and the feeling of stuck-upness at being the only black person in a town. Pokemon did it, so now you have no choice but to do it!