LogFAQs > #956909933

So we're back! We open with a quick chat with Kazuma, where we mention that while we're not great at lawyering, we're quite observant. Then it's into the fire again, where Kazuma does not give a fuck about the politics. But Naruhodo makes a pretty keen political statement: "A country that fails to uphold the truth in its justice system is a country with no future at all."

This next section is quite hand-holdy, but I really like Brett as a witness. Her eye-mask thing, her arrogance, the eyes-averted smirk... it's phenomenal, classic AA. There's a moment early on where we're staring her down and the screen zooms in on her turned face, and she just smiles. So good. Auchi immediately starts simpering on her in a way that's both hilarious and sickening. "In England it's always ladies first!" "Beautiful as a hummingbird" - very Dahlia Hawthorne vibes, though her theme song is more whimsical than serene.

Brett starts off by hiding behind the "I don't speak Japanese" route. Hosonaga infuriatingly explains that she she didn't have a gun - which he knows because he asked her, and she said she didn't have one. He also entirely failed to conduct a body search - what the fuck? We also find out that she literally stole evidence from the crime scene in a handbag, which seems to have no impact on the judge or prosecution. Instead we find out that the glass went into the handbag, but no gun is visible. Ach.

This actually results in a hilarious damage animation from Ryunosuke - he's blasted backward in a way that you usually see in enemy prosecutors. Even Kazuma seems ready to give up... until Ryunosuke comes up with something of a bluff. Grasping for straws, we stare at the crime scene photo and notice a mark on the victim's wrist... and are able to match it to the hot plate on which the steak was served. In other words, this was a fresh burn... and yet the victim never cried out in pain.

In the single coolest of the moment of the case, the truth dawns on us... that the victim was already dead. And since he had no external wounds... he must have been poisoned.

Auchi starts making excuses, but then Brett reveals that she speaks Japanese (perhaps the least shocking of many not-shocking reveals about AA witnesses' "handicaps") and becomes outwardly antagonistic toward the Japanese people and their language. Auchi is simpering even after her direct insults, which feels particularly sickening (and accurate). Brett excretes out an insulting testimony full of lies and specifically making fun of the justice system. Pressing one of her statements about the dead body results in us being able to use one of the game's new gimmicks: pursue. It turns out that the worst inspector in the world has... removed evidence from the crime scene. Now this actually winds up helping us, but yeeeesh.

Anyway, he produces a proverbial smoking gun: the bottle itself. This piece of decisive evidence feels like a perfect climactic, ultimate moment, but of course it's already been tested for all known poisons, and it doesn't work. I want to scream what about the glass she removed, but I'm not allowed to, so whatever. But when all feels lost, in comes Susato, the daughter of the suspicious-looking mentor professor. In my darkest hour with nowhere left to go, she appeared like a bolt of lightning.

Susato is greeted with some misogyny from Auchi and the Judge, but she does produce some useful evidence: the research journal of Jezaille Brett, which very conveniently enumerates the precise murder weapon... a toxin known as Curare, one unknown in Japan. At this point, Brett busts out her Shut up! which is honestly actually pretty delightful, since it almost exclusively is used to destroy Auchi's revolting, slobbering obeisance.

But this starts to go on pretty long when there are just asspulls and obvious gaps that don't get pointed out for half an hour. This whole poison thing feels very unearned, but sure, there was enough drama around Susato's entrance that maybe I can accept its being a coup de grace. Except then after we expose the dental records as being why curare could kill the professor but not the witness, Brett renders the entire sequence moot by smashing the evidence. Which again, no one seems to mind much.

We then completely obliterate the momentum of the case by having Ryunosuke giving us yet another unearned detail, a memory that the player couldn't possibly have known about. It doesn't play at all off any of the previous work we did regarding poison. We now are talking solely about the position in which the professor was shot, with the fact that his chair was rotated being out of the question. It's flagrantly obvious from the moment that Hosonaga opens his mouth that the fact that Nosa was eating a plate of steak was going to have some sort of switching importance. Yet it takes fucking forever, including a silly sideplot, for everyone to finally agree on the obvious truth. It's an absolutely brutal stretch.

What's even more bizarre is this confession. While Brett's breakdown (and honestly everything she does) is spectacular, and the breakdown is timely, it doesn't really make sense (at least 'til afterward) why she's confessing to everything. Like, we just legitimately never proved anything about the existence of the gun (or how about the way that the poison was brought to the crime scene?!) and yet here she is, not asking for evidence but just going like "yeah that splatter (tampered with by an admitted criminal) has convinced me to confess to using poison which was basically dead in the water, and also yeah I just concealed a gun under my skirt."

It's infuriating how much stuff is unearned in this one. It's kind of handwaved since we find out Brett was never going to face justice anyway and was doing it all as a mockery, but YEESH.

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- Not seeing Jezaille Brett's pun. Though I did realize that Kurokata is supposed to sound like "Collector" and that his first name is like "Curio."

- "Late luncheons are in the vogue in Britain!" / "No."

- Didn't realize that it wasn't customary for beef to be eaten in Japan until they opened to the west. Maybe they're talking about steaks specifically.

- Calling Nosa a monster for being a thief during a murder trial feels weirdly tone-deaf. AA is often tone-deaf, but this is truly weirdly tone-deaf.

- The game continues to sound great. Kazuma and Susato's theme music probably are my favorites for now, but I also love the suspense theme and the Objection theme. I think the Pursuit theme is a little "okay" for AA standards and the Questioning theme is a little uninspired, but the orchestration sounds great.

- Despite all my complaints, I'm still liking a lot of what this game has done - the setting is super interesting; the political stuff is definitely interesting; and Ryunosuke's PREY INSTINCT is great stuff.

- Kazuma keeps waving the "too good to live" flag. He gets interrupted asking Naruhodo for a favor at the end of the case, raising HUGE Mia Fey flags. He also gave me big time Kamina-in-TTGL vibes with BELIEVE IN THE ME THAT BELIEVES IN YOU.

So despite all the complaints about *this*, really looking forward to the rest of the game!
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness