Harvest Moon: A New Beginning and Why We Keep Playing This One Game

Alright, so I talked about Rune Factory a while ago and I mentioned Harvest Moon, so you and I both knew that this would happen. A whole post on Harvest Moon, specifically new, 3DS Harvest Moon before I go back and talk about old, not 3DS Harvest Moon. But yeah, Harvest Moon. Ready? Go!

Despite this game being called "A New Beginning", this game does not in fact have a new beginning. See, Harvest Moon is like... not the most creative in the beginnings department. I mentioned this before, but... I mean it's really, really ridiculous how this always turns out. Your family has land in Insert_Town_Here, and you know, no one was using it or anything. Sometimes it's like, "Your grandmother/father owned this land, but then they died and you came to take it" and sometimes you're just... driving by and decide to stop in and become a farmer. As you do, I guess.

This game comes from the "my family owned this land and didn't think to rent it out to anyone" family. You just show up, right, and the mayor, Crocodile Dundee, is super happy that you're around.  He asks if you'd like to join the community. You can say no, of course, but that's saying no to adventure. So, you know, your character just automatically says yes.

His name's Dunhill, though.

So you join the happy little town of three people, but then you're joined by another guy, Neil, almost right away. So the town, including you, is five people strong. Then Iroha joins you, making it a six person town. Finally, Rebecca and her son Toni move in and you're now eight people in a small enclosed area and honestly... it could stay that way for a really long time.

But here's the kicker... Harvest Moon: A New Beginning isn't as good as previous Harvest Moon games. And I mean like, games prior to A Tale Of Two Towns. I mean games that are generally thought of as bad, like Grand Bazaar. Why? Well...

Harvest Moon: Not The Best Choice For A Game

Around this time in Harvest Moon, I assume people somewhere were complaining about... err, something. Namely, it's hard to get married to people because if you play without a walkthrough, you might accidentally force your sweetheart to marry someone else. So they dropped that completely from literally every following Harvest Moon game. But just so you know, there is literally no other form of tension in a Harvest Moon game in the beginning of the game.

"We're the hardest people to marry~!"

I'm not saying that the now defunct marriage thing is what makes A New Beginning not that great of a Harvest Moon game, but it's one of the little things.

A New Beginning by the title suggests that the beginning is, in fact, new. That could mean a lot of different things. But I think they decided to take a large step backwards in this game and so the title turns out to be a very... err, faulty lie of a name.

Anyone who buys this game usually buys it with the warning that it has the slowest start-up of every Harvest Moon game. If you've been told this, the person who warned you is absolutely, positively 150% not lying. This game has a literal full year of dicking around before you can really get to do anything. On top of that, if you're not cheating your way through the game, you might find yourself with maybe... two or three bachelorettes for the first year. If you're playing as a girl, you have pretty much the same odds. See, this game is following the template of a few of the games in this year-- full customization. Rune Factory IV had it in the sense that you could decorate your rooms (it wasn't the focus of the game and everything is static so it's pretty annoying) and Animal Crossing had it in spades. This game really focuses on that aspect of gaming, so it has to teach you how you customize your town.

How, you ask? Well, Crocodile Dundee will give you Town Restoration plans, because even though you're not the mayor, you're the one making executive choices for the town. You choose where things are placed, like houses, fields, and so on. Full customization of your farm is, of course, the dream. I don't, however, see why the game changed so much between A Tale of Two Towns and this game.

FARM EVERYWHERE GOD DAMN IT

All Harvest Moon games have a story to break up the monotony of just farming everyday forever, which is why the Harvest Goddess usually is such a raging idiot. Thankfully, they decided to nix the whole "The Harvest Goddess made another whoopsie" story and went for "Everyone moved out of the town" story. I especially like that everyone just demolished their houses the moment they were leaving.

"My son and I run an inn, which I subsequently destroyed out of frustration that no one was coming to visit Echo Village."

Your job is to complete the Town Restoration plans that Crocodile Dundee has and create a new town from nothing. What does this have to do with getting married? Everything. You have to build someone's house in order for them to move in, and you have to build houses of people you don't even like to get people that you do like. I mean, if we were going for full customization, at the very least you should be allowed to pick who you want living in your town. On top of that, to get these people to live in your town, you'd better be cheating or just save everything you pick up, because the town restoration plans happen to be seasonal.

And don't get me started on the hoops you have to jump for the mine.

They don't seem seasonal, which is the problem. For one plan, you need to ship 10 honey, but one of the vital items doesn't appear in the summer or the winter. So if you reach this plan and you've been selling that item, you need to wait a season. The game is already slow enough without this bogging you down. Another thing is that rocks, which you need to break to make material stone, appear very rarely. If you don't buy material stone from Rebecca, good luck trying to finish the second and third plans within two or three years. What's stupid is that black rocks are all over the place, and black rocks take a special hammer to break. What's even more stupid is that small rocks are also literally everywhere but you barely use small material stone for anything.

Some liar somewhere told me that it was easy to make money in this game, which would be true if you weren't sinking your money into buying material stone and saving literally everything on the off chance that it might be used later, which again, would be something you'd have to do if you aren't using a walkthrough. But I guess the worst thing is that you have to buy items to start dating other people, even if they have reverse proposal/engagements. Like if you want to marry Neil, you need to be carrying a blue feather so that he can propose to you. What?

"I can't marry you unless you've put down at least 10000000G on our future. PS, I'm not going to help you on your farm, so... you know, fuck that."

To further the vast amounts of work you need to do for this game, you can get your cows and other produce animals to be more productive. Sounds good, right? Except your animals die and you have to level them up by giving them treats. "Eh." You say. "Still not that bad." Yeah, I know. That's why no one in game informs you and you only learn via straight up cheating that you have to give them a certain number of specific treats (cow, chicken, sheep) and a certain number of general treats to level up your animal. The plus side is, the treats roll over. The minus side is, it takes a bloody fortnight (okay, longer than that) and it adds to the already pretty long amount of time you spend tending to your crops daily. I suggest getting a pet that can herd when you have maybe five barn animals and let them feed themselves outside.

Pets have always been the bane of Harvest Moon because they never give you a pet to start out with, which means you get the pet animal so late in the game that the pet becomes more of a hassle than your produce animals. I get that you don't want the game to be too easy, Natsume, but by the time I buy my first cat or dog, I'm literally done with the game. So this game decided to cut that short (thankfully) and make it so you could buy pets early on, if you complete the town restoration plans quickly. The moment you see "Build a Cottage", you should just dump your money into that so you don't waste half your morning running into and out of buildings to feed your animals. Unless you only have chickens, in which case you have to build a separate place for them to eat outside AND you have to put food down for them everyday. The only upside  to chickens is that the star level of the eggs corresponds to the number of hearts a chick hatched from said egg will have.

And if you have ten chickens, prepare to spend an in-game hour picking them up and putting them down.

But this is a lot of complaining considering that I like the Harvest Moon titles a good deal. So why do I dislike this one so much? Outside of all that stuff I labeled above I just... don't think Harvest Moon has been progressing.

I get it, though. As we move forward, people want new and more exciting things and Harvest Moon is just a status quo. Farming isn't exciting (or new) and so of course players get bored with it. I mean, since Harvest Moon has appeared on the DS, I think only two games have been really original in the whole set. If we're talking about Wii games, don't even get me started-- Animal Parade is probably the best Harvest Moon game for the system and one of the better series installments, but I don't want to play Harvest Moon on a Wii, really. The creator of Harvest Moon, Yashuiro Wada, for some reason thought that the series itself was beyond saving (he called it a marriage simulator) and created a new game, Hometown Story. But that game seems to be suffering from the same flaws that this game is. It's slow, it's extremely boring, and after a while it becomes just... intensely annoying to play. It's like having a job on top of your real life job.

By the way, you can get married in this game, so... marriage simulator, this time without growing stuff.

But have you seen the reviews of that game-- have you played it yourself? I only played a little, but it suffers from Harvest Moon Syndrome hardcore, and it's worse off than the regular Harvest Moon games. Harvest Moon games start getting bad the moment you are no longer interested in the townspeople, romantically or otherwise. On top of that, without the nostalgic backing Harvest Moon has, it's very hard to want to continue playing Hometown Story. The character design took a step back and isn't as cute as Harvest Moon is, the characters are all bland and forgettable, the camera is ridiculous and the music is forgettable too. It's literally just Harvest Moon if you extract all the things that made you play Harvest Moon.

But we keep playing games like Harvest Moon and Hometown Story-- Why? It's a life simulator and we actually live lives, but Harvest Moon's charm comes from the small town closeness that it generates on top of the life simulation, in my opinion. The moment you stop trying to progress making the people in the game interesting is the moment that the game starts to stall. The way to make people continue to play Harvest Moon games is, quite simply, to keep giving them characters to learn about and to keep making the characters interesting. For example, after Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life, you never had to build a relationship with your child again. In Animal Parade, they touched on it, but not in the same way that A Wonderful Life did-- instead of watching your child grow and having a relationship outside of "Hey kid, good to see you're still mine, " A Wonderful Life had character arcs for your child (depending on the mother, but that's still a thing that occurs in game). I don't know why, but this function was completely dropped from the game.

And look at him. HE'S ADORABLE.

With new technology comes better ways to make Harvest Moon interesting again. Why not make it so that people in towns get married to each other again? Why not have small story arcs for your child? Why not make it so that the amount of time you spend with your child as a baby influences the way your child treats you when it grows older-- why not have an "ending" to your character's game and have the child take your place in a New Game + option? How about using the 3DS's DLC to add new characters or levels to an actual mine and not the crap we got in A New Beginning and A Tale of Two Towns? If you're really all about making the game fully customizable, how about finally making the kid look like both parents i.e. make it so that making a black or Asian character isn't just a skin and is actually something that has continuity in the game? They could update the things people say via downloads, or make the characters change clothes depending on the season (they do change their clothes in some games, so the technology exists). There could be downloadable festivals, or ones that only show up on odd numbered years or even numbered years. Maybe make the game so that we can visit a nearby city and open a shop and hire people to run the store? Or make tons of different town events for each year that actually impact the town in some way? How about having characters be indifferent to you, or become your enemy over specific events instead of everyone just being sugary sweet all the time? How about more events that have an effect on your town's look and feel? How about making same sex friends have the option of becoming "best friends" and that resulting in different scenarios and options for the player? In all of Harvest Moon I can only remember one character actually dying, like for real dying. They had a tombstone and everything. Why not more character progressions in that way? What happened to just living your life in a town, even if the town isn't one of your creation?

I need to feel invested in order to play a life simulator. When you really think about the genre of life simulation, gameplay comes in two forms: either you are a god or you are one of the mortals. When you're a god, your "gameplay" comes from your own sense of humors and so forth. For example, the Sims is a life simulator in which you are a god, and people play those games in vastly different ways. But Harvest Moon is a life simulator in a different way. You're no god, you're just a person who lives in a town. Sometimes, you befriend everyone because you love everyone. Sometimes, you just don't befriend people. That's just how it is. Your gameplay experience by and large has nothing to do with who you are, except for who you marry and what you design your house to look like. But investment comes from the same place. Why are you playing the Sims? Are you playing to design houses? You might be, but you're probably not. You're probably playing because of the people. You're probably playing the Sims and enjoying being an immutable, infalliable voice in the lives of computer people. And in Harvest Moon, you might not be a god, but you're probably not playing the game to run a farm. There are plenty of free Facebook games for that. You're also most likely playing Harvest Moon for the people. The gameplay is different, but the investment is the same. You play the game not for the bells and whistles, but for the "lives" that you have the chance of touching.

And you play this game if you want to litter your friends walls with nonsense and terrible art.

I felt invested in the lives of the people in Rune Factory 4, I was invested in the conversations they had, the festivals, the events... everything. I wanted to protect the town and so I played and played until I had done so. That made the absolute mundane chore of farming (which it was, I'm serious) less mundane. It was less about me making a nest egg for myself and more about me getting Princess Points to get more things for the town. I stopped playing Rune Factory 4 right before I had enough Princess Points to nationalize the bath houses, and it wasn't because I was bored but because I had a backlog of games I had yet to finish writing reviews for. That is crazy.

A new Harvest Moon graces the horizon and while I spent this whole article stripping the veneer off of the series and saying what amounts to "there's no forward thinking here", I'm probably going to buy it because Harvest Moon is a dying breed. Say what you will about it, Harvest Moon is not a game that holds your hand, it's not a game that makes things easy, and the amount of nuance put into each game is commendable. But I spent all of Rune Factory pretty much talking about the good things in Harvest Moon, because those good things carried over into Rune Factory as a series. I hadn't even touched on every single good thing. Crazy.

I want the next Harvest Moon to be good, I really do. I can see why the series creator sees it as a lost cause. But what I'd tell him as a fan of the series is that this particular series has only really just begun. I'm not sure that in the world where Call of Duty still makes money (you know, with their one game) that Harvest Moon will become the next big thing, but I think there's still some merit to it's existence and continued existence. If Harvest Moon does, one day, run out of ideas outside of "create more characters and make the world larger" (cough cough Pokemon) then it's probably time to think about calling it quits. But right now, while I don't recommend A New Beginning, I do recommend the series.

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.

A Day In The Life Of A Boutique Owner in Who-Gives-A-Fuck-istan (A Style Savvy Trendsetters Review)

Day 97, I think, since the day passes but it's still the same day, sometimes

Take that, fashion, I wore a bikini top with overalls and yet was still made Czar of Fashion. WHAT CAN'T I DO?

So for all you newcomers to my blog, I'm Orfea, the current winner of the International Contest and owner of the boutique Velvet Room, named after something I saw in a dream once that was way better than the life I'm living right now. 

Anyway, of course, as I do every month, I'll recap my entire life story for you noobs. I originally came from literally anywhere else and stumbled into Michela's boutique, the Mira Luna, where I became part time help and generally just did Michela's job because why not, right? As such, when Michela decided for no reason that she was just going to leg it, I took over the shop. Also, Emmylou was there, whatever she brings to this story. We dicked around in the store for a while, playing dress up with the customers, when finally Emmylou decided she also wanted fame and opened up her own boutique that I'm pretty sure immediately failed because literally five people in this town can dress themselves properly. It was then my duty, although I never asked for this, to teach people how to properly dress and bring my sense of fashion forward as the world's new fashion trend.  Sorry, I'm making all of this sound like it's a terrible drag when it's sometimes pretty fun.

Pictured: fun. Not the band, I mean... me having fun. Whatever.

From my last overly depressing and long post, I'm aware that a good portion of you think I subscribe to the gothic lifestyle and wear only the frilly, dark, dramatic styles that characterizes the genre, but I'm just not that kind of person. Of course, the inside of my shop really isn't helping, but I'd like to think that just because I like the idea of overly-dramatic, intricate, and beautiful design doesn't inform people of what they might find in my shop. I prefer bright, cheery clothes in stupid colors, or refined, mature outfits, or academic clothing. My least favorite style changes often, but you'll be damn sure it's this Boho-chic trend that has been flooding my store recently, followed quickly by literally every person trying to look fashionable in clothes meant for sports. Hint, hint: I can't fix your train wreck of an outfit with more items that the designers pulled out of a homeless woman's cart. Yeah, we're bound to find SOME good things, like one or two things that work, but you and I both know you'll still look like a train wreck at the end of it, so I don't know what the point of you asking me to make you look like a better train wreck is supposed to be.

These people can dress themselves. See any sports clothes? HELL NO.

That being said, I have been asked a lot in the comments if I'm related to another boutique owner in our neighboring city of Shitty-First-Game, and I'm going to have to go with "well, yes, I'm related to her, it would be weird otherwise, wouldn't it?" So, yes, Ru'a of Fool's Gold is my sister, as it were, and why yes, I did learn a little from her about becoming a boutique owner, which probably explains why the lot of you think I'm so good at it, although if the lot of you who can actually navigate to this page on a computer or a phone walked up to Michela and said you wanted to run a store, I'm sure you could do it too. After being bombarded with questions about Ru'a last time I posted, I felt like I should really sit my sister down and talk about our experiences as boutique owners. So I called her up, mostly for old times sake.

Ru'a expressed to me once, before I left Shitty-First-Game to come to this city, that she was surprised by the lack thereof of men in Shitty-First-Game. There were two males, Dominic and his butler, and as I recall, Dominic spent most of his time shying away from romances with Grace and Ru'a herself (and failing miserably at it, if I might add). There's something to be said about living in a city populated only by women who don't know how to dress themselves. Fortunately, men actually appear often in Who-Gives-A-Fuck-istan, although it still took them forever to show up period. And of course they Buyer Center was completely unforgiving with the selection of clothes for men, which is probably the most annoying part of having men in the city in the first place. But I have to admit that I rather like living in the non-apocalyptic city over the apocalyptic endgame that was Shitty-First-Game.

I will say that Who-Gives-A-Fuck-istan is far more beautiful than Shitty-First-Game... I mean, everything about it is, but what I like best is that everyone doesn't look like a husk of a human being staring blankly into a bleak future and getting just excited over new clothes because it would change the humdrum po-dunk post-apocalyptic lives they lead only ever so slightly when they look in a mirror, and indeed while it is possible to run into people who look exactly like those from Shitty-First-Game, I have to say that the fact that people's eyebrows move independently from their mouths and eyes is at least giving me the illusion that we're not all dead on the inside.

I can even go out and take pictures with people who don't look exactly like me. It's like a miracle!

On top of that, I think there's a lot to be said about how beautiful the landscapes in Who-Gives-A-Fuck-istan are. For example, our lavender fields are just to die for (in the summer) and have you been to the cake shop? It's shaped like a cake! Crazy. Also I do rather like the park and I'd be remiss if I didn't point out we have fabulous tea, but I feel like some of the architects from Shitty-First-Game are creeping over here and don't understand that we haven't reached the apocalypse in this city yet, which explains why downtown is so shitty and why the concert venue seems to just be full of cardboard cutouts meant to be human. But... right, so I was talking to Ru'a about the differences in owning boutiques...

Ru'a said that she liked selling clothing from a line called April Bonbon, which sounds absolutely adorable, and sure enough it's the kind of pop clothing one would expect from a clothing line with a name that sweet. But her interior design is much more of an upscale-luxury look, which means she gets clientele that don't match what she sells. I wish I could say I don't have that problem, but I get a lot of you gothic folk in here. I don't hate you-- I'm just saying I really do want to sell colorful things and you're giving me nothing to work with here.

Here, I've done the gothic thing before, and I've done it pretty well, if I do say so myself.

But Ru'a's actually worked with April Bonbon, which at the very least attracts their customers to her. Me, I've never once been asked to design clothes with Mint Sprinkles or Harlow Heights and I sell the literal hell out of their clothing. I guess Shitty-First-Game needs an injection of color more than we do in Who-Gives-A Fuck-istan, but... I mean come on. It would be so much fun to create some kind of clothing for a brand.

Compared to the vast amounts of literal nothing that goes on in Shitty-First-Game, I do a lot of stuff here in Who-Gives-A-Fuck-istan. I drink tea a lot, visit people at the beach and even go to concerts (although there's only one band that comes here, Satellite 55). So I guess I've done a lot more with my time than my sister has in her city. I also can do more than one contest in a "day", although "day" is a weird way to put it since I'm pretty sure the time between two full moons is exactly one month and sometimes I'll notice that the moon will be full four or five times in a row depending on how well I do in concerts, my sales, and even other things, like going out to meet people at different locations. I'm just saying I think I might be going insane or time-traveling, and it's weird that literally no one else in this town talks about it. Do none of you notice that months go by in the course of what should be a week, but it's still the same month and same day of the year? It's weird. Time definitely didn't pass as quickly in Shitty-First-Game, but at the very least it was more sensible.

But you're not here to hear me complain about this. I promised, of course, to show you all the life of a fashion icon as I take on the international contest for... what is this, the millionth time? I decided I might as well give you a photo diary of my day, sort of kind of, so we'll start in the early morning.

Unlike my sister, I have multiple assistants, but I usually pick Gordon to work with me. He dresses himself and doesn't restock me with absolute nonsense that I don't need, which I appreciate. I usually spend the mornings deciding clothes for the mannequin in my window. But yesterday no one bought the outfit I put up in the middle of the night for the sake of putting something up, so I didn't have to today. Fortunately, a customer came by and wanted that very outfit. So I sold it and put up a new one.

Next, I went inside and helped out my first customer of the day, this guy who apparently is in a band. He liked my outfit of the day (an AZ-USA outfit, so pretty bold, if I do say so myself) and wanted something similar. I of course made him look fantastic instantly, because that's just what I do. He gave me free tickets to his concert, so I figured I'd stop by before the contest tonight. But, weirdly enough, his group's name is Spinach Lemmings. What a weird name.

Trust me, you don't want to see what he came in with. This is how he left, though.

I then helped a new customer named Millicent, who commented on how cool and bold I was because I wore clothes that were bold. After all, clothing defines the person, doesn't it? She asked me then to make her an outfit of the same type. I agreed, because I'm a slave to money. But just to prove I can do whatever I want, I made a hideous outfit with a floral skirt, a plaid top, and a magenta tank so bright it's practically off-color. And she bought it, because I am a god.

Here's how she came in, she looks alright, right?

PFFFFFFFFFFFFF--

After that I worked on a few other people who pretty much just wanted hats or jeans or skirts, the most egregious of which was a woman who had an increasingly alarming obsession with the fact that she didn't usually wear skirts, which is something I thought young children and homeless men were privy to on account of them being young children and homeless men. Never mind that she came in wearing a skirt. But-- and this is something I can't stand, so literally all of you, stop this-- she didn't tell me what type of clothes she likes and I couldn't tell from her terrible sense of fashion, so I just had her try on things until mercifully, she just left (she did buy clothes, though). She'd never once been to my boutique before, by the way. Annoying. If you're going to come to my store and you don't even have a stamp card yet, the very least you could do is say something like, "I'd like to look like this" or "I dislike that" so I'm not left to look at the shambles you call clothing and determine what you like.

I thought she liked girly clothes, but apparently it was feminine clothes. Well shoot me.

And this is how she leaves. Beautiful? I guess.

I then helped two new people, mothers who didn't look like they were mothers because everyone in this city looks like a teenager. The person I helped was named Diva and her friend was named Rochelle. Diva asked me to find her an outfit that would suit me, though she didn't seem to know what she wanted to look like. So my first choice was to put this mother into some flirty clothes because I have no soul to speak of. But she actually liked it. Like, for real. Crazy. Although, to be fair, I really did like her jacket... I'm going to have to visit the Buyer's Center.

These two? Mothers? YEAH OKAY.

How you dress when you have kids!

And so went my day, on and on, until of course it came time to see the Spinach Lemmings (ugh, this name) at their concert. I didn't bother changing because I always look fantastic. But first I stopped downtown, where I ran into Teagan our resident photographer, who took a picture for me for Nuances. That's right, I now take up not only the cover and the must-see area of our fashion magazine, but I'm also the person who is wearing THE BEST CLOTHES this town has ever seen. Sad? Absolutely.

Teagan, just hanging around in the downtown area.

I met Gary at the concert venue. And the Spinach Lemmings were already done playing! Apparently he put too much faith into his look and not his band. Considering I was the one who put together his look, that blows my mind.

Apparently they sounded like crap.

After that, I decided to join the International Contest. The theme of the day? "An Asian-inspired look-- from head to toe." I have a theory with this theme and it goes thus: Asians only wear kimonos. I know that this is true because I have never once lost with a kimono. Never ever. To further the racism win, I also went for the double bun hairstyle and the makeup set called Eastern Promise. So there you go, my most racist outfit ever made. Because racism wins these things. I entered with Angelina, a model I worked with and won with 6 times now because I know how to put clothes on other people. 

MC Mode, the man who introduces every contest, looks as silly as usual, as you can see...

Why, exactly, do we let this guy tell us what looks good and what doesn't?

First up? Stylist Juliana with the model Lilianna, whose eyes really creep me out. Of course they got fourth-- Julianna's love of socks and sandals has never gotten her anywhere-- and I'm concerned with the color combination of green, red, and gold with the cheongsam dress that matches but has nothing to do with the green Julianna chose.

Her eyes aren't that creepy in this picture... but trust me, her eyes are creepy!

Stylist Luka was next, with the model Roberta. I do like Roberta a lot, and I was unsurprised when they won second because Roberta actually looked good in what she was wearing. If Luka had changed Roberta's hair to not an afro, maybe they might've been a threat to me. But the pink/purple/brown motif looks really good on Roberta.

Powerhumping the air is standard for these functions.

Then there was stylist Padma with model Cailyn, who I like but I've never actually worked with. She does look silly in Padma's color trainwreck, mostly because there's too much color and too many complex designs in her clothing. They came in third.

OH GOD THE COLORS

Then, of course there was Angelina and me.. And of course I FUCKING WON. Like I said, just straight up racism will win this contest. I have no shame. So with $5,000 more in my pocket, I stepped back out into the night and ignored the party at the hotel to write this blog. You're welcome.

You're damn right I went for the most racist everything ever and won.

So, with that, I leave you. I'm going to get back to my job-- you know doing all that stuff I just said? So I'll see you guys when I see you guys. Later.