LogFAQs > #957148074

Finally, we're able to exit Kazuma's room. It's Ryunosuke's first time out... but... where has he been going to the bathroom? I'm not sure that that logic makes sense unless there are private bathrooms, which obviously we haven't seen. Anyway, let's skip that inconvenient detail.

The hallway is fairly limited. We find a mousetrap (whose cheese Ryunosuke is very interested in taking), a suspiciously empty log, and a very large sailor, who blocks entry into the adjoining room. The sailor (the impeccably named Bif Strogenov) randomly leaves, and we're able to enter the room, which doesn't seem to be locked - and which does have a shriek. Sholmes shows up and is extremely eager to kick the door down, but is frustrated to find that we can just open it, as it is unlatched. What's he going to do with this pent-up energy??

I will admit that I was immediately confused and thought that Roylott character was actually the assassin mentioned. He's also got some massive shears. Something is also moving inside a bag. Sholmes deduces (with an incredibly theatrical sequence) that this is in fact the revolutionary, and that the ballerina is in the bag. Honestly, it doesn't sound like such a bad idea; it's fairly close to what it looks like, though yeah, the character looks a little more cartoonish than in the photo. But Ryunosuke and Susato act like it's totally obvious that it's Sholmes is saying nonsense.

This is going to become a major recurring theme with this case, but it feels a lot like telling and not showing. Just like how in case 1 Ryunosuke would be bringing up details that were in his memory but never explained to the player, I was surprised at how quickly Susato and Ryunosuke wrote off Sholmes's seemingly sensible deductions. It took me quite a while to realize you could move the camera; it's a pretty neat form of investigation, but it also feels a bit like a "gotcha!" to the player in a way it's probably not intended to - from the straight-on POV, you can't see the hair at all, so how does Ryunosuke immediately know that the shears are intended for it? Also with a cartoon perspective, it's very much not obvious that the ballerina couldn't fit into that bag.

All that said, the new gimmick is fun. It's visually brilliant; investigating during it and hearing the commentary during trial is entertaining; and man, Ryunosuke gets into it. I feel like most of the AA games are fun because of the antics of the player characters, but man, Ryunosuke is the lawyer who seems to have the most fun himself doing it. He immediately starts coopting Sholmes's cocky poses and even gets called out by Susato for how much he enjoys it. Anyway, the result of the deduction is that this is in fact Nina Pavlova, the missing ballerina, who is attempting to flee the ballet by stowing away with her pet (which she refuses to show).

One question that remains unresolved is: how did Nina get on the boat, if her disappearance happened last night? And... uh, the game doesn't ask this, and maybe there's a logistical explanation for this, but how did the newspaper end up getting onto the ship? Everyone is pretty much in agreement that the newspaper is from today...

We're ejected by Bif and head back to Kazuma's cabin, only to find that ya boy Hosonaga has had his face rearranged by the ship's captain. That's a man willing to lay his life on the line, as advertised. He gives us the update that Kazuma's post-mortem found a broken neck. Shockingly, this means he didn't write "WARDROBE" in Russian with spilled ink. Anyway, some time passes in the hallway as we annoy Sholmes by interrupting his song and find an extremely prominent red button that says it will emergency-stop the entire boat. (It seems absurd to hand access to this button to just about anyone, but... oh well?)

We reenter Nina's room (seriously, why can't you lock and unlock these doors from the outside? It just seems like bad design!) We find more suspiciously knocked-over books, even more strongly suggesting a boat lurch of sorts, a diadem worth twenty thousand roubles (a number that will be echoed forevermore), and an open suitcase (whoops), along with a plate on the ground obviously meant for a pet, but which Ryunosuke imagines is to catch rain. But the only clue that really matters happens when someone hits the emergency button, causing the boat to lurch to a halt... and indeed, the books fall over and the latch slides into place.

With that, we are no longer in a locked room mystery. We proceed to what feels like a final act, as everyone floods into Nina's room. We're threatened with being thrown into a cell in Hong Kong, where presumably we'd have a trial. But Sholmes intercedes - he's already determined the killer is... and here we finally pull in the snake from the intro, the "speckled band"... wrapped around the face of Strogenov. Well okay.
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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