Board 8 > Yet another Great Ace Attorney Playthough topic (spoilers as I go)

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The start of Part 3 shows the crime scene more clearly. Gina is passed out and holding a gun while Windibank has a gunshot wound. The storeroom is locked from the inside so this is another closed room! Ryunosuke heads back to meet up with Iris and fill her in on what's going on. Windibank is dead and Gina is the prime suspect for the murder. Sholmes is in the hospital for the gunshot wound. I suspect there's at least one more Great Deduction in this case so he'll probably show up out of nowhere at some point. Susato is still away being questioned by the police so Ryunosuke gets to go investigating with Iris this time!

We head off to go see Gina in prison. Gina still has a lot of trust issues so she has been turning away the public defenders that have been sent to represent her in court. Does this mean the prosecutor won't be Van Zieks? If it was, no one would want to take Gina's case, right? Gina sure like Iris a lot. She is still lying about her reasons for going to the Pawnbrokery to protect Iris. Gina tries to claim it was for money but that's obviously not the case. Gina also mentioned an unforgivable lie but won't say what it was. In the end she gives us another Windibank's redemption ticket that she found in the coat. It's for a small box so maybe it was the music box that goes with the music box disk?

I try to see Sholmes as the hospital but he isn't in his room since he's about to have his operation. Next I want to go to the pawn brokery but I take this chance to reload an older save file to explore the place from before the crime. This actually reveals that there is only one key to the storeroom and Windibank always keeps it on his person. Ryunosuke also says Sholmes would be the prime suspect if the pawnbrokery is ever burgled but It doesn't quite turn out like that. >_>

Back in my current file I meet with Gregson and find out I can't examine the crime scene until Gina names us as her official representatives. One thing I've been wondering, can Gina read? It seems unlikely she ever attended school but maybe someone else taught her. Being asked to sign papers you can't read would be a problem. Gregson calls this case simple as well to keep the trend going but as always I have my doubts! We find out from Gregson that the two mysterious persons from last night have been caught. Also we find out that Susato is waiting for us to pick her up after her meeting with Stronghart so next we go to do that.

Susato needs to head back to Japan because her father is sick. That's unfortunate but I'm sure I'll see her again. She's leaving tomorrow so there's not much time left. It also means Susato won't be there for Gina's trial. We fill Susato in on what's going on before heading off to see Gina again to get those papers signed.

Susato and Ryunosuke try to get Gina to open up a bit and she finally does. Ryunosuke thinks that the lies Gina told were related to the McGilded case from 2 months ago and Gina confirms this. I thought she was mostly telling the truth during the trial. Oops. So it turns out the Mason and McGilded boarded the omnibus together. At the time, McGilded had the coat and music box disk as well. McGilded paid Beppo 10 guineas to deposit the coat (which had the music box disk in it) at Windibank's. McGilded told Gina to go get the ticket and make sure the two month time limit doesn't lapse. McGilded also goes over how Gina should rig her testimony in court. He threatens Gina so she had no choice but to do what he says.

Gina says that's why she isn't a person worth trusting. Naturally, Ryunosuke responds by asking her to sign the representation papers for court tomorrow. He says he needs them to investigate and Gina can still back out later if she wants to. Gina is also informed that Sholmes got hit with a bullet. Gina seems to like Sholmes a lot as well since can't keep up her tsun act and is visibly worried about him. In the end, Gina does sign the papers so we can investigate but still says she doesn't need a lawyer.

Part 3 ends and there's going to be a part 4.

There are still some things that don't make sense with G1-3. Like why was the storage compartment filled with tools again only to remove them later? Gina was definitely there and definitely hiding under the seat. I also didn't quite catch how Gina was supposed to get the redemption ticket from Beppo. I guess she can just steal it but then she won't know the password. Gina also repeatedly mentions a "thud" sound in regarding to Mason but she never mentions Mason crying out in pain after getting stabbed. None of the other witnesses do either.
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I'd guess Mason died immediately, and Beppo might have found a way to bring the ticket back to McGilded or Gina at the trial.

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I assumed McGilded told Beppo what password to use, and then told Gina the password he told Beppo.
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I think Mason got stabbed once in the stomach, right? That doesn't seem like it should cause instant death.

Gina also mentioned she hid the ticket in a bush overnight before coming back to get it. So I think she really did steal it from Beppo or Beppo was told to give the ticket to her. The game doesn't go into much detail regarding what McGilded told Beppo.

The password stuff makes sense. Once again, I don't think the detail was actually mentioned in game but it does seem reasonable that McGilded said what password to use since he used Windibank before and would know about the password system.
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It's optional but if you present the representation papers to Gina (or examine it, I forget which) you get some info on Gina's literacy.
Yeah, some of the minor mechanic details of the Mcgilded case are never answered. The tools in the omnibus being one, and another is why the witnesses saw two different moments of him getting stabbed.
A possible answer i got for the first one is that Mcgilded initially wanted to keep Gina secret only to reveal her later but that's kind of silly.
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Gina said she removes them before the omnibus takes off so she can fit under the seat, and presumably, she puts them back when the omnibus gets back so no one gets wise to her scheme. Either that, or poor Beppo gets stuck doing it!

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Investigation Part 4! It's finally time to take a good look at the crime scene. I tried to examine the blood on the calendar and Iris helpfully informs us that she had effectively invented luminol. I can't help but feel that dragging in future tech like this partially defeats the purpose of making a story that takes place in the past. >_> It turns out this stuff is better than luminol! Blood from different people will change to a different colour. This would be super useful in cases where blood from multiple sources mixed together. Although in the past, there aren't any DNA databases around yet so we still need to figure out whose blood turns what colour.

We also find a redepmtion ticket with some blood on it. The blood seemed to come from a gloved hand which reminded me of the blood on McGilded's glove in G1-3. Oh, the game actually lets me take a guess as who the blood came from so I go with Mason. The characters seem to agree but I'm not sure it makes sense. This ticket is for the coat. That means Beppo got it when he turned in the coat then Gina got a hold of it. I don't think McGilded had a chance to touch the ticket unless Beppo gave it to him to give to Gina. But, I'm pretty sure McGilded told Gina to get the ticket off Beppo.

Next place to explore is the storeroom. Gregon gives us some info here. The one and only key to the storeroom was found in Gina's pocket. Although, Sholmes showed it wasn't that hard to cheat and copy a key so there could always be more than one key. Speaking of Sholmes, his operation is now done but he's still sleeping. We find Iris's manuscript inside the storeroom as expected but the box it was in was broken in to. We also find Windibank's gun that was originally in Gina's hand. Windibank said he only ever put one bullet in the gun and right now it's empty so it looks like it was fired at some point. Finally we examine Windibank's blood and it turns blue. The mysterious blood on the calendar was green and Mason's was purple. Some blood got on the music box disk a while back but we don't get a chance to test that yet.

Visiting hours are almost done at the prison so we head back to Gina to make sure she's okay with Ryunosuke defending her. I was going to present the gun to ask Gina about it but it was never added to the court record. Why wasn't the alleged murder weapon added to the court record? >_> After pressing Gina about it she finally admits that she did go to Windbank's to look for the manuscript and Ryunosuke noticed that her coat has some blood on it so it's testing time! That's a lot of purple! The coat is covered in Mason's blood. Is Gina really okay with still wearing it? She wasn't exactly happy about getting some of Mason's blood on her hands. The blood could only have come from when Mason was stabbed with the knife. The true culprit of G1-3 is Magnus McGilded!

Iris asks Ryunosuke if he believed McGilded was innocent. Ryunosuke said he was trying to believe. That he wanted to believe. That was pretty much my reaction to G1-3 until pretty close to the end. I sort of wish it was a bit more ambiguous regarding whether McGilded was guilty or not since I've been pretty sure he was guilty for quite a while now.

Kazuma's theme hype! It's a flashback to G1-1 where Kazuma talks about a lawyer's greatest weapon being their belief in their client. Can I trust Gina after everything that has happened? I always trusted Gina. Ryunosuke says that no matters what happens until the end, he'll be on Gina's side. Gina finally gives in and lets us represent her tomorrow! Although, apparently Gina got Susato to sign the papers for her. Is that really allowed?

It's the night of April 16th and Ryunosuke is having one last chat with Susato. Susato leaves at 4am tomorrow which is way before the trial starts. Susato gives Ryunosuke her note on G1-3 so it seems like we'll need them. Ryunosuke is of the opinion that Susato has done a fantastic job as a judicial assistant but Susato seems to be of the opinion that she has failed at her job for some reason. I wonder why. I'm also of the agreement that she has been a big help. It's a sad farewell but I'm sure she'll show up again. Hopefully both alive and not as a defendant.

There's one last scene at the end where Susato meets up with Sholmes who is now awake and apparently asks him to help with something. The assistant position in the trial is now open, so maybe that? Although, I think the prosecutor slot is also still open...

Investigation done!

It sounds like the current case is going to deal with G1-3 a fair bit. Like right now it still isn't known who set the omnibus on fire and killed McGilded. Stronghart and Gregson have also been hinting at a bigger case going on right now that is related to McGilded.

GiftedACIII posted...

It's optional but if you present the representation papers to Gina (or examine it, I forget which) you get some info on Gina's literacy.
Yeah, some of the minor mechanic details of the Mcgilded case are never answered. The tools in the omnibus being one, and another is why the witnesses saw two different moments of him getting stabbed.
A possible answer i got for the first one is that Mcgilded initially wanted to keep Gina secret only to reveal her later but that's kind of silly.

It was presenting the papers to Susato and the window to do so isn't very big. I believe Gina also said in the past that the different redemption tickets look the same to her which is likely because she can't read them.

Furst and Fairplay never saw the stabbing at all only the knife stuck in Mason. Beppo said he was just mistaken about seeing a stabbing somehow. The three of them all oversold their testimony.

LeonhartFour posted...

Gina said she removes them before the omnibus takes off so she can fit under the seat, and presumably, she puts them back when the omnibus gets back so no one gets wise to her scheme. Either that, or poor Beppo gets stuck doing it!

She might do that in the normal case (I forget if she said she did). But at the very least, at the time the omnibus stopped in G1-3 there were no tools to put back in the storage area since they would be back where the omnibus left from. Someone would have to bring in new ones from somewhere to edit the crime scene.
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Yeah, I'm not sure about it. The fact that stuff was under the seat made me wonder if Gina lied about being there at all because she theoretically shouldn't have been able to fit if the stuff was there.

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The 1:00am photo should be stricken from the record for making my client look bad.
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It's called the Red-Handed Recorder for a reason...!

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Trial Part 1 begins which means Susato is gone now. Gina and Iris are at the court with Ryunosuke. Iris brings us a newspaper that has info about the weather. The newspaper is naturally in English so I can read it and I imagine it was in the Japanese version as well. I wonder how the Japanese version handled the translation since I don't think they had subtitles when the cursor is moved over foreign language text. Iris says she will be joining Ryunosuke at the bench for emotional support. That's good to hear but what is Sholmes up to? Iris knows that as well. She says Sholmes isn't awake yet. That's strange. He should be awake already, right? But no time to ponder that, the Bailiff calls us in!

Looks like the prosecutor is Van Zieks after all. I wonder why the game was hiding that until now. It's also time to meet the jurors... wait is that THE Vilen Borshevik?! Juror 1 is John Garrideb. No. 2 is the maid from G1-3. No. 3 looks new. No. 4 looks like G1-4 Juror No. 6 except now wearing a doctor's coat. No. 5 looks like the typewriter juror from G1-3. Juror No 6 is literally Vilen Borshevik and he's trying to get to the Crystal Tower. >_> I am shocked that they actually went somewhere with that plotline from G1-2.

We get some details about the overall crime. Windibank was shot in the back and died instantly. Gina was the only other person in the closed room. The closed room had one entrance and it was locked from the inside. You know, it just hit me that we never asked Gina for a detailed account of what happened inside Windibank's. We just spent all our time asking her about G1-3. Like she was found passed out but maybe she had some info from before that happened. Now the murder weapon gets added to the court record but it's too late to try presenting it to Gina for more info.

The three witnesses are Nash Skulkin, Ringo Skulkin and Tobias Gregson. Gregson is mostly there to keep the other two in line. The Skulkins caught me off guard. I was expecting Benedict to be one of the witnesses and maybe that playing card person from G1-4 that didn't do much. The Skulkins have a gun and Ryunosuke showed that it was fired and hit Sholmes. The calendar was used for this so I guess the green blood belongs to Sholmes. Van Zieks uses this against us. The problem is the Skulkin gun was only fired once. If the shot hit Sholmes, it didn't kill Windibank.

Van Zieks then presents the photos from the security cameras that Sholmes installed. The 1:00am photo shows Gina holding a gun while facing Windibank. Well that's not good. >_> Gina wouldn't kill anyone so I'm sure there's an explanation but I don't have it yet. The jury doesn't want to wait, though. Six Guilty votes means time for a Summation Examination!

We have a chat with Juror No. 1, Garrideb. It turns out he had problems getting tenants since G1-4 so he's not too happy with Ryunosuke right now. Juror No. 4 said he operated on someone yesterday. Did he operate on Sholmes? I get the feeling he did. To Juror No. 6: "Please tell me you're not Vilen Borshevik". Is it safe for Ryunosuke to ask that? We get the 1:30am photo to check if anything was stolen but nothing sticks out. There's some stereoscope stuff to compare the images but it just doesn't work for me so I have the game do it. Maybe this works better on the 3DS? It looks like the objects on the table got moved somehow which means the Skulkin testimony so far may be unreliable. This is apparently enough to get the jurors to changes some votes and continue with the trial. The Skulkins get called back up.

That's it for Trial Part 1!

I didn't really think I would like the Skulkins much but they are actually pretty funny. Seeing who was on the jury was kinda amusing since there are a bunch of famliar faces selected at "random" from the 6 million people in London including literally Vilen Borshevik. The 1:00am photo came as a shock. I wonder if Gina is aiming at something behind Windibank for some reason. Overall, not much progress is made on figuring out the case. A lot of time was spent piling up evidence to make my client look bad.
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Mario and Luigi Skulkin are great

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The Skulkins and Gregson are on the stand again. They say that just before the gun shot they heard a voice yelling out "Gimme that gun!" which is weird because Windibank got shot in the back. Nash said Windibank was holding a gun when he yelled that out. Wait, what?! Why is Windibank holding a gun? Nash says Windibank and Gina were pointing guns at each other so now there are three guns at the scene and one is missing? It would have been nice if we asked Gina what happened. Like in a lot of cases the defendant doesn't really know much about what went on. But, it seems like Gina should have had useful information for untangling this mess of a testimony. In any case, this contradicts the photo of Windibank not holding anything and also Windibank was shot in the back not the front.

The Skulkins change their story again. Windibank confronted the Skulkins while holding a gun and threatened to shoot if they didn't drop their weapon. This shows that the Skulkins did have a chance to attack Windibank. Ryunosuke now has a proposed solution to the closed room. Windibank fled back into the store room and was shot in the back at the same time from the Skulkins in the main area. Gina then locked the store room from the inside the protect herself from the Skulkins.

Van Zieks isn't buying it. The fact remains that the two guns (I guess the Skulkins were lying about the third) were each shot once and we know the Skulkins shot Sholmes. That means Windibank must have been killed by his own gun. He also takes this chance to bring up the music box disk to discredit Gina's character. That means it's "luminol" time. The blood is green! So the blood on the calendar is Benedict's not Sholmes! I was wondering how that could have worked considering Sholmes was shot in the stomach and the answer was that wasn't the same bullet! With that said, why didn't Sholmes leave any blood behind after getting shot? In the end, the jury finds Van Zieks convincing so we get six Guilty votes again. RIP.

The judge kicks off the Summation Examination since he knows Ryunosuke will ask for it anyways. One thing that bugs me. Why are people treating Gina like a thief for trying to get McGilded's disk? Gina got the coat redemption ticket and password from McGilded. She paid Windibank the proper amount to pay for the coat. The coat, and whatever is in it, should rightfully be hers! During the Summation Examination, we find out Juror No. 4 was Sholmes's surgeon. He needs help from a ballistics expert like Vilen. "Those two statements clearly contradict the idea that all I do is pit jurors against each other!". I found that amusing. We work out the the bullet likely hit Sholmes's pouch which we now get from Van Zieks. After examining the pouch, we find a third bullet! We have two guns that fired one bullet each and three bullets that were fired that night. That's a problem. While we don't convince any Jury members to change their vote, we do convince the judge to continue to trial anyways.

Nash, Ringo and Gregson take the stand yet again. Van Zieks asks the Skulkins if they had an accomplice and they deny it. Ryunosuke thinks they are lying and tries to push that point. Now Van Zieks is suddenly against the idea even though that's what he was suspecting just a moment ago. He wants proof but that's okay. The defense is ready! We use the green blood on the music box disk and calendar to show that Benedict was at the scene of the crime. I'm not sure why magic "luminol" is admissable but it apparently is! Wait, no it isn't. Van Zieks say shady magic chemicals shouldn't be admissable as evidence. Iris says it doesn't matter what Van Zieks thinks and that it is up to the jury. We get four Not Guilty votes so the trial continues! I do feel bad for Van Zieks there. He's right that it isn't well tested enough to be considered as evidence. Iris's stuff likely does work but something like this can be abused by McGilded types.

The judge would like to call Benedict to the stand but there's a problem. The name is an alias so they don't know where to find him. Fortunately, there is a photo of him from the security cameras that Sholmes installed. Also, as luck would have it, Benedict is a co-worker of Juror No. 5. So it looks like we can call in Benedict after all!

Trial Part 2 done!

It looks like we're finally making progress but at the same time it feels like there's still a long way to go. Is Sholmes going to be all right? It sounds like he was pierced by a shard of glass and his surgeon left it inside him. Or maybe he didn't. If he did, surely there would be complications by now, right? The mysterious music box disk has been around for a while now. What could possibly be on it that is so important. Gregson also hinted that government officials were trying to cover up the disk as well.
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Nah, the surgeon didn't leave the shards inside of Holmes. He was confused because he couldn't find the bullet, but that just meant the bullet didn't actually hit him, as totally innocent foreign tourist juror pointed out.

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Trial is on break while Benedict is called in. We take the chance to finally ask Gina what happened in Windibank's. Gina snuck into Windbank's and got surprised by Windibank appearing. She panicked and ended up taking Windibank's gun and got caught on camera. They go to the storeroom to look for the manuscript. Soon afterwards, the Skulkins arrive. Windibank is a pretty good guy. Despite everything, he wants Gina to say behind and out of danger. Gina gives Windibank his gun back while he goes to investigate. But not long after that, two gun shots ring out and Windibank is now dead. Gina does in fact take the gun and lock the door before passing out to create the closed room. At this point, we already figured most of that out so it would have been helpful to have the information sooner!

Court is now back in session with Nash, Ringo, Gregson and Benedict on the stand. Although, Benedict's real name is Ashley Graydon. Graydon was likely shot at the scene of the crime. How is he actually he and uninjured? It turns out he isn't and is just covering up the wound. Nash helpfully informs us that Graydon was shot two days ago and Nash is worried about Graydon constantly waving his arm around. Nash is a good guy but I don't think Graydon wanted to hear that. Ryunosuke tries to connect Graydon to Windibank's by pointing out the connection through McGilded's disk but Graydon says the disk was his in the first place. He knew McGilded and shared music box disks with him but accidentally left one in his coat when he pawned it. In any case, the police took the disk so breaking into Windibank's to steal it wouldn't work.

Next we try to connect Graydon by saying there was something else of McGilded's at the pawnbrokery that Graydon was interested in. The small box in the other ticket. Van Zieks says the security photos prove that nothing was stolen. Helpfully, he provides two photos for this so it is stereoscope time! It looks like nothing was stolen but a small box was moved and that's likely to be McGilded's box. It'll take about half an hour to go fetch the box from the pawnbrokery. In cases like this, Van Zieks normally has all the evidence on hand but I guess even he can't bring everything from Windibank's. Graydon slips up and says McGilded pawned the coat along with the box. I thought he was maintaining that he pawned the coat? No one seems to mind that he said that, though. To show why the box and disk are important, Gina needs to be called to testify about the omnibus case again.

Ryunosuke recaps the case quickly and convinces Gina to tell the court what she told us about the case. Van Zieks tries to scare her with claims about getting charged were perjury but we all know perjury doesn't really matter in the Ace Attorney world. Van Zieks is bluffing. After Gina finishes people are mad at Ryunosuke for helping McGilded get off. I guess they don't know that Ryunosuke wasn't really in on it. Gina said it sounded like there were talks of money so based on the disk being labeled as "McGilded" is sounds like Mason was the original owner of the disk and was selling it to McGilded. A person in debt preparing to hand a disk to their creditor and somehow winds up dead instead. I feel like I've heard this story before! Anyways, in the end Gina didn't know what to do with the ticket she got from the now deceased McGilded. Just before the deadline, she decides to pay off the loan and retrieve the item. Is there really a problem with that? If it expired, the item would just be put up for sale anyways. Finally, the Baliff arrives so it is time to find out what the small box is!

That's it for part 3!

We go off on some tangents here since we need to show that Graydon was at the scene of the crime. And so far we still haven't been able to do that. >_> Maybe if we keep trying stuff we'll eventually figure something out. Also, the names Graydon and Gregson are way too similar. I feel like I'm always just a hair away from writing down the wrong one. <_<
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Just call him Ash. He wants to be the very best communications officer, like no one ever was.

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I wrote down Graydon in all of my notes so that will probably make things worse. >_>

Anyways, the small box is a music box! Can we play the music disk now? Ryunosuke wants it played and Gregson is absolutely against it. Van Zieks sides with us so the disk finally gets played. It's Morse code! I was wondering what it could possibly be since it doesn't seem like it could have been a recorded voice. Please translate Juror No 5! That message must be something absurd. Graydon says the music box is broken but Ryunosuke disagrees. I wonder if the Morse code message was translated from Japanese. Wait, it was probably always an English message to begin with even in the Japanese version. Ryunosuke suggests that the sound is Morse code and contains stolen government secrets and the culprit would have done anything to get it back. If so, why did Graydon leave the music box behind? There's also the question of why Mason had the disk full of secrets to begin with.

We move on to Graydon's testimony regarding stealing secrets and the Skulkins want in again. The Skulkins just sold out Graydon! I can't believe they just did that! They are NOT okay with selling out the country and now outright point the finger at Graydon being there during the crime. It seems like they're upset that Windibank died as well. Also, it turns out I'm dumb. Graydon correctly points out that a single note is not enough to encode Morse code and two notes are required. I guess this is why Juror No. 5 can't translate for us. But that's okay, the music box had a secret second half so we just need to find where the second disk is.

The Skulkins are apparently on our side now and spill the beans on their history with Graydon. It turns out they were old friends. They also know that Ashley Graydon used to be Ashley Milverton. Susato isn't here but she bails us out with her research on the omnibus case. Mason's last name was also Milverton and Graydon is Mason's son! Ryunosuke presents the second half of the music box. The claim is Mason was trying to sell a second disk to McGilded. When things went wrong, the second disk would end up at Windibank's. Graydon finally admits to being at Windibank's that night but still denies being involved in either murder or stealing government secrets. But, just showing that Graydon was shot should be good enough. The Skulkin gun shot Sholmes's pouch. Windibank's gun shot Graydon. That means it must have been Graydon who shot and killed Windibank. Therefore, Gina can her her Not Guilty now, right? Nope. Graydon has another card up his sleeve.

Graydon says he saw Gina shoot Windibank through the peephole in the door. As a result, Gina's coat got covered in blood. Van Zieks tells us that real luminol exists to test for blood. Well that's not good. We already know Gina's coat is covered in blood. That's another six Guilty votes so it is time for the third Summation Examination!

Or not? The Baliff starts speaking to us and it is Sholmes! I don't really get Van Zieks. He says he doesn't like Ryunosuke much but is frequently very cooperative except for when he isn't. Sholmes says Susato gave us one last going away present to use as a last resort. The present is the Cat-Flapomat! How does that help?! Wait, is Sholmes implying that Susato made the peephole in the storeroom door. The peephole doesn't exist in the 1:00am photo but it does exist in the 1:30am photo. That's abusrd! Susato, what have you done?! I can't believe that that detail was sitting in the Court Record the whole time!

Ryunosuke asks to cross examine Graydon again. I guess we aren't doing a summation examination after all. I present the 1:00am photo to the line about Gina throwing the gun out the peephole but that doesn't work even though I think it should. Gotta present the Cat-Flapomat instead. With no peephole, Graydon's testimony falls apart! We also use the security photos to show that the peephole didn't exist at the time of the murder but it still isn't enough.

So we take a different approach yet again. We need to figure out why Graydon knows about a peephole that didn't exist when he was at Windibank's. There's also the issue of how he knew about the blood on the coat but that's not a real issue. He briefly stole Gina's coat from her so he might have figured it out then. Ryunosuke thinks Gregson leaked info about the peephole to Graydon during Gina's testimony in exchange for the second disk. Did the peephole really never come up between Graydon first arriving and his testimony using it? It feels like it might not have, but I would have to go back and check. To prove Gregson made a deal, Ryunosuke demands that Nash be searched and we find the disk! Graydon passed the disk to Gregson who hid the disk on Nash but that's not enough to get past Ryunosuke! I'm not sure if Nash was in on this though. It seems like he wasn't which makes sense since Gregson wouldn't trust Nash to keep it a secret.

Graydon still won't crack from this since it still doesn't prove the disk came from him. So we go crack Gregson instead. We threaten to play the music box with both disks installed. Gregson suddenly panics over this and says Ryunosuke insisting on this may make him an enemy of the entire British government. But, Ryunosuke will stop at nothing to protect his client! Van Zieks is very helpful as always. He wants the truth so he won't get in the way. Won't he get in trouble for this as well? I suspect he doesn't care! The music box plays Morse code for a bit before Gregson breaks and asks for it to stop. He finally admits to feeding Graydon information about the peephole in exchange for the disk. Ryunosuke says this finally shows that Graydon was the third intruder who shot Windibank.

This finally gets Graydon to admit to his crimes. He met McGilded one day and got an offer for lots of money in exchange for government secrets from his job as a communication officer. Graydon reached out to Mason to build the special music box and the disks. McGilded would give 10 Guinea for the first disk and 1000 Guinea for the second. 1000 Guinea is a lot! That's enough to build a mansion in the most prestigious area of Tokyo (Thanks Susato!). Graydon never told his father was the real contents of the disks were but Mason eventually got suspicious from the amount of money it was bringing in. One time Mason said he wanted to do the exchange for the disks. That was the night of the omnibus murder. Even Graydon doesn't know why the deal fell through. Only that his father was dead and McGilded still got the second disk. For revenge, Graydon also used his money to have McGilded killed after the omnibus trial.

After that, Graydon tried to recover the two disks and the music box. He figured out Gina had the ticket from the trial and followed her. But, after that fell apart and the police took one disk, he used more extreme measures to try and get the second. That fell apart as well when Windibank turned out to be inside his shop at the time. Graydon managed to get the disk but Windibank showed up and shot at Graydon. Graydon ended up shooting back and unfortunately his one shot turned out to be lethal. After that he ran for it. And that's everything that happened.

The judge asks the jury for the votes and we get our six Not Guilty votes! Gina still has to deal with perjury from the omnibus murder trial and also for breaking into Windibank's. Finally Juror No. 5 steps in with a translation of the music box! I'm thinking Mason figured it out and the disks contain a different message but I'm wrong. Juror No. 5 says that the two disks put together did NOT make up a Morse code message. It was completely meaningless. We know for a fact that Graydon was selling secrets so what went wrong here? In any case, we get our fireworks and confetti!

Van Zieks and Ryunosuke have a little chat after the trial. It looks like Van Zieks has taken a specific interest in Ryunosuke. He only became prosecutor for the case to go up against Ryunosuke. I guess that's why we didn't hear anything about the prosecutor for the case for such a long time. He also hints at a Japanese friend who betrayed him but beyond that continues to be cryptic about his past. I guess I need to wait until the second game to find out what happened.

After the trial Ryunosuke meets up with Gina, Sholmes and Iris. While Gina isn't guilty of murder, she still has a bunch of other charges to answer for so she's still not free. But after all this, Gina says she might be trying to get out of the pickpocket business. The prison carriage arrives so Gina needs to go now. She thanks Ryunosuke for believing in her and then she's off! Iris and Sholmes inform Ryunosuke that due to weather conditions, Susato's ship can't leave yet. Isn't it kinda bad that Susato is still in the country since she has that whole manipulating the crime scene

I think Graydon could've avoided all this if he waited a day and simply bought the music box from the forfeited items shelf. It's unlikely the police would've got to it by then. His first music disc was already in police custody so that was a lost cause.
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GiftedACIII posted...

I think Graydon could've avoided all this if he waited a day and simply bought the music box from the forfeited items shelf. It's unlikely the police would've got to it by then. His first music disc was already in police custody so that was a lost cause.

Well, I think losing the first music box disk forced his hand, so he felt like he couldn't risk losing the other one, even if it was likely it wouldn't be found.

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GiftedACIII posted...

I think Graydon could've avoided all this if he waited a day and simply bought the music box from the forfeited items shelf. It's unlikely the police would've got to it by then. His first music disc was already in police custody so that was a lost cause.

He said he didn't know that it already expired or he would have done exactly that. I think he only found out it was on the forfeited items shelf after he already broke in.
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Case G2-1

The game opens up with Susato in front of a grave. It's been 2 months since she has returned to Japan and she's now involved in another incident. Susato is the lawyer for the case?! I didn't expect that at all. I guess it would have to be Susato if this takes place in Japan since Ryunosuke is still in Britain. Also, I think the victim might be Jezaille Brett?

The date is August 13 so I think the Great Exhibition is supposed to be happening right now. We're back in Japan's court and get confirmation that the victim really is Jezaille. Murderers who get away sure like showing up dead. The defendant is Rei Membami who is Susato's friend. So being the friend of a judicial assistant is apparently sufficient cause to get into trouble. Rei doesn't seem to recognize Susato for some reason. You know, I just remember they said way back that women weren't allowed in the Japanese courtroom. So, I guess Susato is in disguise? Susato's father Yujin Mikotoba confirms this. I'll still refer to him as Mikotoba and I'm sure that won't cause any confusion at all. It also looks like he will be the assistant for the case.

The prosecutor is Taketsuchi Auchi again and as part of the disguise Susato is going by the name Ryutaro Naruhodo who is allegedly a cousin of Ryunosuke. This is Susato's first time as lead but she's already better at hitting the table than Ryunosuke was when he started. Jezaille was killed the day before her departure to Shanghai while she was on a beach trip. Cause of death was getting stabbed in the back while in the beach hut. Jezaille was assigned a detective to make sure nothing went wrong. The detective is Hosonaga isn't it? I like him a lot but I must say his skill as a bodyguard is questionable.

The first set of witnesses are Satoru Hosonaga and Soseki Natsume. I did not expect Soseki at all. He sure likes getting into involved with trouble. Soseki's involvement is he was at Yumei giving a guest lecture, then he did an interview with Mikotoba followed by getting invited by Jezaille for a beach trip. As expected, Hosonaga was Jezaille's escort. Obviously Hosonaga and Soseki aren't intentionally trying to hide anything so it's just a matter of trying to make sense of what they saw. Soseki heard a scream that could have pierced the heavens. But, that's not right. When a person gets stabbed in the back they don't scream. It's more of a gasp because the breath is driven out of their body. Anyways, Hosonaga and Soseki rush to the scene and end up seeing Rei pulling the knife out of Jezaille.

The problem is pulling the knife out of a person who got stabbed isn't necessarily a good idea since it can make the problem worse and Rei should know that. I'm a bit surprised that Susato didn't know that. That sort of feels like the kind of thing she would know about or have a reference on hand to look it up. Susato counters back by saying that Rei withdrew the knife due to suspicions that the knife may have poison on it based on the symptoms that Jezaille was showing.

So Rei was in charge of a new poison with unique symptoms and some of it was stolen. She suspected Jezaille and was confronting her at the time that Jezaille got stabbed in the back. They were alone in the hut at the time, so where was the culprit? Auchi presents a photo of Rei holding the knife in Jezaille's back. But, I'm not sure how that changes anything. That's still consistent with the claim of Rei pulling the knife out of Jezaille. It also shows there was another witness somewhere! Based on a defect in the camera used, Soseki says he thinks the photographer is Raiten Menimemo. Menimemo was also the person who interviewed Soseki and Mikotoba earlier and took a photo was the same defect. We break for recess to call him in!

During the recess we get to catch up with Rei. She confirms that Jezaille really did get stabbed in front of her and that no one else was in the hut. Mikotoba also gives us a bottle of liquid that can be used to test for the new poison. After that, the Bailiff calls us in.

That's it for Part 1!

I was pretty hyped for Susato as a lawyer but I'm not liking it as much as I thought I would. I think part of the reason is being able to see inside Susato's head doesn't make her seem as smart as usual. This is compounded by the tutorial case having to explain how the game works so Susato needs things explained to her that feel like things she should already know. I also think she went a bit too far with copying Ryunosuke's animation. I don't mind Ryunosuke being an inspiration but it just felt a bit much.

The pen with the initials on it reminded me that McGilded literally committed murder with a dagger with his initial on it. That's a lot of confidence that he will get away with it and he mostly did! At least until Graydon stepped in.
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Susato may not be a great lawyer, but at least she has a great Objection theme

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Yeah, they have to dumb Susato down a bit because it's a tutorial case, but I enjoyed getting to play as her.

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LeonhartFour posted...

Yeah, they have to dumb Susato down a bit because it's a tutorial case, but I enjoyed getting to play as her.

TBH, anxiety over having to do actual lawyering instead of being an advisor, all the while having to keep a gender swap facade going is a pretty good reason to seem less competent.

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_SecretSquirrel posted...

TBH, anxiety over having to do actual lawyering instead of being an advisor, all the while having to keep a gender swap facade going is a pretty good reason to seem less competent.

Not to mention that she's 16. It would make sense to be braver when you're following someone compared to being the lead at that age as I can remember far too well in group projects.

And yeah, Ryutaro has a banger of a theme.
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Yeah, I get that the added pressure makes things more difficult for her. I don't find it unrealistic, as opposed to something like 3-1 where Mia somehow forgot how to lawyer between her first and second case...!

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Oh yeah, good point! Forgot about that.
Also, Rei being attracted to Ryutaro is funny as well.
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The trial beings again with a very happy looking Auchi. Turns out the dagger was not poisoned. Jezaille was clearly poisoned so how did she get poisoned? Raiten Menimemo is called to the stand so maybe he can fill us in. He apparently found out about Jezaille being able to do what she wants despite being a murderer just because she's a British citizen and he isn't happy about it. Although, it isn't exactly clear to me why Britain is okay with this. The person Jezaille killed was also a British citizen. Britain should have a problem with that even if it happened on Japanese soil. As a result, Menimemo followed the group to the beach. The beach hut walls were flimsy so he was able to see inside through a hole in the wall. He said he saw Rei pull out a knife and stab Jezaille so I guess that makes Menimemo the culprit!

Soseki also returns to the stand to talk about Jezaille's dying words. Jezaille was briefly still alive when Soseki arrived and he had the sense to ask her who the culprit was. Soseki should be reliable so this should be helpful. Except Jezaille pointed at Rei who was unfortunately standing in between Jezaille and the culprit outside of the hut. We literally have a reliable witness accurately relaying the victim pointing directly at the culprit's location and it still causes problems for our case. Things are never easy are they? It was around this time I got the impression that Soseki might be jumping between English and Japanese but it's all in English so I can't tell. Soseki does clarify that Jezaille might have been pointing to the empty back of the hut but he's not sure. In any case, this is an opportunity to propose what really happened. Susato points out that the culprit was behind the hut and used the small gap in the hut walls to stab Jezaille. The only one who could have done this is Menimemo!

Menimemo fires back that it doesn't matter if Jezaille was stabbed because she was poisoned first. He outright admits that he was the one who stabbed Jezaille and claims he had no reason to do that if he had already poisoned her. Does stabbing Jezaille after she was poisoned really not count as murder? >_> It really feels like both parties should get in trouble in that case. Although, even if this was true this wouldn't help Rei. We need to show she didn't poison Jezaille either.

Menimemo claims Rei was arguing with Jezaille about Dr. Wilson and Rei barges on the stand to say the argument was over the poison. Soseki refers to a bad experience with a poison? When was that? I don't remember a poison in G1-4. To justify why Menimemo still had to stab Jezaille, Susato presents the article about the poison and it turns out I didn't even realize half off the problems that would be caused by using the new poison. Due to the unique properties of the poison, it would be immediately obvious where it came from. No one from the lab would use it because they would all be the first ones suspected of the murder. Menimemo only realized how special the poison was after he already used it so he needed to kill Jezaille before the unique effects showed up. Menimemo wants us to present evidence of how he stole the poison and got it past the lab security but it's obvious. Susato says she can prove how the poison was stolen and presents the fountain pen. The pen tests positive for the poison and that's the decisive blow!

When Menimemo went to interview Jezaille about being a killer, she just laughed at his face and mocked him. Combined with the injustice of Jezaille walking free, it pushed him to the point where he decided to take justice into his own hands. He also mentioned some sort of coverup related to the trial from 9 months ago and thinks that Britain and Japan cut a deal of some sort to set Jezaille free. He tried to get the story printed but couldn't due to government pressure. He doesn't say what the deal is so I'm not sure if he found out.

In the end, we get out Not Guilty! We meet up with Hosonaga and Soseki after the trial. Hosonaga brings up that we still don't know why Jezaille killed Dr. Wilson. I suspect we won't until we find out what was up with the list of names from G1-5. Mikotoba is also with us and Susato asks why she was called back if he was always in good health but doesn't get an answer.

Menimemo suddenly shows up again! He makes an ominous claim that Mikotoba was involved in Kazuma's fate. But that was an accident, right? Apparently there was a cover up regrading Kazuma's death. In Japan, they think he made it to Britain. I wonder if Susato already knew about this cover up. Surely she's mentioned Kazuma at least once since coming back only to realize that the person she was talking with didn't know he was dead. But that's all the info we can get from Menimemo since the Judge shows up and puts him down with a Judge Takedown. Wait, the judge has a name?! Seishiro Jigoku. Still not the A. Shin we are looking for. Also Judge Takedown was actually a Seishiro Sling. Seishiro and Mikotoba head off to deal with diplomatic issues but Soseki says he has some more information for Susato. Apparently Susato got called back to Japan right after he submitted a report about what he went through in Britain. Mikotoba even came to visit Soseki to specifically talk about the second case Soseki was involved in. There was a second case? Didn't he leave Britain like a day after his trial ended? Also it sounds like Sholmes forbade everyone from talking about that second case in public. So Susato then writes to Ryunosuke to review her notes about that case, the case of the haunted lodgings.

Case G2-1 End

The case was okay. The most interesting parts are the ones where it is setting up something for a future case like Menimemo revealing the coverup regarding Kazuma's death or dropping hints about another case Soseki was in which I guess isn't really a future case. While it was good to see Hosonaga again, he didn't really get to do much. Soseki's return was solid and it sounds like his role in the story isn't done yet. I'm a bit curious how Susato will get back to Britain. But there are plot developments on the Japan side so she might need to take care of that first.
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I thought it was pretty good. Poor Auchi, sacrificing his sprout.

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One interesting thing to keep in mind is that Soseki probably remembered what happened the last time he fled when a woman was stabbed in the back while he was there so this time he stayed and asked her even while he was terrified.
Anyway, I liked this case, thought it was one of the stronger 1st cases. Much better paced than the 1st game's. Menimemo actually grew on me and his motive and actions were very sympathetic. Also his breakdown was great as well as Rei and Ryutaro joining in. Auchi having Kazuma's nocturne theme playing was priceless.
And then we got funny and interesting moments with the Judge and Mikotoba.
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I believe Soseki actually said something along those lines. He knows what it is like to get in trouble so he was able to think of asking the victim for more info before they went.

I can sympathize a bit that Menimemo felt his cause was just. But, that falls apart a bit when he proactively tried to frame Rei for the crime. I think he tried to give a brief justification for this but I forget what he said.

I did like the twist that the Judge and Mikotoba knew each other and the Judge was in on it the whole time for Susato's disguise.
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I think it was something along the lines of Rei and Mikotoba just letting Brett have free reign, even knowing what she did. He felt like they should have done something.

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Oh no, Menimemo didn't have any excuse for framing Rei. Once Ryutaro pointed out that he's no better than Brett for doing that he just hangs his head and goes "I suppose".

And yeah, I like how the judge already knew. Makes the court seem less incompetent.
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Yeah, I think I remember that line now. Also he went in hard on Rei as well. Like the knife attack he had to work out on the fly and making Rei look guilty could be argued as coincidence. He might have done the same thing even if Rei left the room. But, he followed that up by taking a misleading photo of Rei to make her look more guilty and sent that in to the police.
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Team Rocket Elite posted...

Yeah, I think I remember that line now. Also he went in hard on Rei as well. Like the knife attack he had to work out on the fly and making Rei look guilty could be argued as coincidence. He might have done the same thing even if Rei left the room. But, he followed that up by taking a misleading photo of Rei to make her look more guilty and sent that in to the police.

And ironically that picture was also the thing that linked him to the scene because nobody knew he was there otherwise.
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Yeah, he blew himself up there.
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Case G2-2

Four months have passed since G1-5 so it's at the end of August now. Ryunosuke is meeting up with Iris for breakfast and says he got a letter from Susato. Six months ago there were two cases involving Soseki on Briar Road and Susato is telling Ryunosuke to review the second case. G2-1 made a few references to the case so I wonder if G1-5 did as well. Garrideb did seem unusually unhappy with Ryunosuke when Garrideb was on the jury. Iris mentions that she wrote a story around the case but Sholmes veto'd it before it could be published for some reason. Ryunosuke and Iris decide to review the details of the case. Ryunosuke also drops a bombshell that he is literally not allowed to practice law in Britain at all. I guess asking for government secrets to be played in court really did come with repercussions but we'll have to deal with that later.

We pick up the case in the early morning of February 21. The G1-4 trial was February 20 so this is the very next day. We meet up with the victim of G1-4, Olive Green. In the end, we don't learn much from her other than that she's an art student. Sholmes brings up how it'd odd that she was at Briar Road when it is so far away from where she lives but there's not much time to pursue that line of questioning since a message arrives from Soseki. It looks like we've got a murder case to investigate!

We head to the location of the incident which is the first floor apartment under where Soseki lives. The victim's body is still there and it looks to be that playing card person from the end of the G1-4 investigation. He's also the resident of the room we are in. We talk with Gregon and find out the victim's name is William Shamspeare. IIRC in G1-4 it was said that this person liked to have literary debates with Soseki so the name checks out. His body was found by Soseki and Garrideb when Shamspeare didn't wake up at his usual time.

When did Sholmes sneak into the background? I don't think he was completely off screen this time so he must have snuck in at some point. "So far, all I've managed to deduce is what actually happened." It would be nice if that was actually true. >_> In any case, it's time for act one of the Herlock Sholmes's Logic and Reasoning Spectaculars! Sholmes claims the victim died due to eating soap and this is another closed room so this must be a suicide. Why is there actually a half bar of soap on the table? Anyways, we find the other half on the ground so Shamspeare wasn't eating it. It looks like Shamspeare may have been poisoned via the tea he was drinking. Wow, Ryunosuke is going full on boke during the Great Deduction and Susato finally snaps at him. I guess even her patience has limits! Soseki's books were found at the crime scene so we have our defendant!

Gregson takes Soseki off which gives up a chance to look around the crime scene. There are some loose bricks in the bricked up window with more bars of soap? There sure are a lot of bars of soap around. We also find some teacups, a part of an envelope and discover Shamspeare is alive. Wait, what?! I don't know what to say about that. I guess they did say the body wasn't fully examined yet but I never expected this! Gregson is also now back and kicks us out of the room. So is there even a crime? Shamspeare might have just been sleeping.

Out on Briar Road, we seen the man in yellow again but he runs off so next we go question Garrideb. One thing from G1-4 that wasn't really resolved was why Garrideb seemed to know his tenants schedules in such detail. Maybe we'll find out now. Garrideb said he got home at 6pm yesterday and Shamspeare was out at the time and wouldn't be back until 8pm. Shamspeare would then go to sleep at 1am. Garrideb also reveals the secret of the gap lamps. He can tell when the ones on the other floor are lit or go out based on how much they dim the lamps in his room since the gas is all connected.

Next up we meet with Soseki in prison. Ryunosuke has wonderful news for Soseki. In the worst case, he can only be tried for attempted murder! Isn't that just fantastic? Soseki accidentally lets it slip that he did meet Shamspeare last night. He brought tea as gift and debated Shakespeare for a while. When Soseki left, Shamspeare was still in good health. Soseki says his room is cursed because the previous tenant died there and he also has nightmares of suffocating each night. Is there an issue with gas poisoning or something in the building? The previous tenant in Soseki's room died of mysterious causes. Finally, Gregson shows up again to helpfully inform us that Shamspeare and claims he was poisoned by Soseki.

Investigation Part 1 and 2 done!

I got the impression that Soseki and Shamspeare were on good terms with each other so I wonder what made Shamspeare think Soseki tried to kill him. Right now the players in the case seem pretty small time so I'm interested in seeing how this will somehow end up having international implications. Since Soseki brought the tea I'm guessing it didn't actually have any poison in it. Although this case is supposed to be related to poison so maybe it did somehow.
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get thee to a nunnery

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The trial begins and Van Zieks is the prosecutor yet again. We sure see him a lot. Speaking of familiar faces, there sure are a lot of them on the jury. 5 out of the 6 are the same as in G1-4. The only change is Joan Gerrideb got swapped out for a new lady. So much for random selection. Oh, wait it isn't random. Van Zieks says the same jurors were brought back when possible.

The first two witnesses on the stand are Gregson and Soseki. It's not often that the defendant gets to take the stand although I guess that just happened in G2-1 as well. Gregson gives an overview of the case. Shamspeare was poisoned by strychnine and was found in the morning with his room locked. Van Zieks claims the tea Soseki brought over was poisoned. But, this could not be confirmed since there was no more tea left. Soseki went back to his room at 11pm but Shamspeare wouldn't turn out his lights until 1am. Gregson says it takes around 30min for strychnine to kick in so clearly there's a timing problem here. Soseki said they drank the tea around 9pm so the timing doesn't work out. Van Zieks says it still works out if Shamspeare drinks the tea after Soseki left. Unfortunately, there's no way to prove what the real timing was.

To help sort things out, we get the next set of witnesses. The new witnesses are William Shamspeare and Adron B. Metermann (a drone bee?). It seems like we'll have another rarity where the victim is providing testimony. Rare, but somehow not actually unheard of in the Ace Attorney world despite almost all victims being murder victims. >_> Metermann is the man is yellow who showed up a few times before and works for the Altamont Gas Company. He was keeping an eye on Shamspeare during the time of the incident. Apparently, Soseki knows ju-jitsu and that's how he beat Shamspeare while dressed as Juliet. Are literary debates always supposed to be this physical? It seems like Shamspeare and Soseki get along well. What happened that caused Shamspeare to accuse Soseki of trying to kill him? Shamspeare said he drank the tea around 1am which is a lie since it's different from what Soseki said. So it does seem like Shamspeare is out to get Soseki for some reason. We haven't been able to make much progress so the jury has given up on us. Six guilty votes again! Time for a Summation Examination!

Van Zieks and the Judge treating the summation examination as a waste of time for never working seem weird at this point. Like Ryunosuke has already used it successfully quite a few times now even excluding G1-5 which hasn't happened yet. During the summation examination we find out that Juror No. 4 is the wife of Augustus Altamont, the owner of Altamont Gas Company. She says that Shamspeare is likely stealing gas but they still need to prove it. Metermann was spying on him for this reason. The jury turns on Shamspeare pretty hard here since they now aren't sure if he's telling the truth. They want to hear more about his character. That was a pretty short summation examination.

So now we randomly decide to go down the rabbit hole of working out how Shamspeare is stealing gas. Juror No. 4, aka Quinby Altamont (Queen bee?), takes the stand with Metermann to help figure it all out. The gas meter turns out to have a hole in it. I have no clue how they missed the hole before since apparently they've been going over the whole thing in detail. The talk of coins made me go check up on the red disk in the soap and it's gone! When did it disappear? It still has a the coin shaped hole in it and Metermann says this could be a way to produce fake coins. But no fake coins were actually found in the meter. Shamspeare was making coins out of ice! After being used, the coins would drain out the hole in the coin box. That's pretty creative!

Figuring this all out is nice and all, but why does it matter? Susato covers for Ryunosuke and says that Shamspeare is a liar and a thief. Van Zieks counters back that it doesn't matter. There are currently no other possible culprits. Suicide can be ruled out and Soseki was the only visitor. Ryunosuke says the recent cross examination changes the situatation. Wait, it does? I don't see how it does. Let's go with "Was the poison in the tea?". Ryunosuke points out that the fake coins were made off the tea! They can now be tested for poison. It'll take some time to get this done so the trial is done for the day. So it looks like our first multi-day trial!

Trial Part 1 done.

I don't recall much Shakespeare so I get the impression that a lot of the references that Shamspeare are going over my head. He's definitely quite a character anyways, though. I just don't get why he's out to get Soseki. Even if we show the tea isn't poisoned that still leaves a big question regarding the true method that was used to poison Shamspeare. There aren't a lot of potential culprits either since I doubt Metermann or Quinby are the culprits. So currently things look like Shamspeare severely poisoned himself to the point he nearly died to frame Soseki because ???. I guess that's why we need another day of investigating!
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Quinby is great

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Investigation day 2 begins! We go visit Iris and Sholmes to get a recap on Van Zieks backstory. He brings up the Reaper's curse but it must be a coincidence. Like we eventually find out Graydon was the one who killed McGilded and Van Zieks had no control over that. Sholmes also mentions how Van Zieks used to have a Japanese friend 10 years ago but won't say more than that. We try meeting up with Green in the hospital next but we don't get much info out of her other than she will be discharged from the hospital soon.

After that we meet up with Soseki at the prison and he reitterrates that they drank the tea before the Romeo and Juliet battle. Shamspeare is lying about everything and we have no idea why. Soseki also mentions that the previous tenant of his room was a capital offender. It kinda cuts off there so I'm guessing I'm here too early and need to go somewhere else first.

So next thing we try is to investigate Shamspeare's room again. Gregson is here but the result of testing the tea aren't done yet. Sholmes is also here and it is time for some forensics! Sholmes has a magic spray that can tell us what items in the room were touched by Shamspeare. This is Shamspeare's room so shouldn't that be everything? We give it a try anyways and we do find two locations of interest. Under the floor we find a secret area and near the painting on the wall there are a bunch of hand prints for no reason.

In the secret area there's a newspaper article about Selden, a death row inmate who died due to illness in prison. He allegedly left behind stolen goods valued at 1000 Pounds but no one knows where they are. Perhaps they are left in one piece somewhere? I'm guessing Selden is the former tenant of Soseki's room. There's also a photo of Garrideb and a young man along with an empty tin box. We go back to Soseki to ask him about Selden and he confirms that Selden used to live in the room he is renting now. Selden died in prison 3 months ago. Oh, there's a tenant between Selden and Soseki who also lived in the room. I was thinking that some details didn't add up. This person is the one who died in the room mysteriously. Or not so mysteriously. The person officially died of asphyxia and his room was found full of gas at the time. Soseki says he also has a similar problem of gas unexpectedly filling the room at night.

Next we hit up Garrideb to ask him about Shamspeare and the photo. So Shamspeare only showed up about three days after Selden died. Apparently he wanted Selden's room but it was already rented out. It was rented out to Duncan Ross who is the man in the photograph with Garrideb. Ross is also the person who died in Soseki's room before Soseki rented the room. Ross moved in about a year ago into Selden's former room and died about a month ago. Since then, Garrideb said he had the gas pipes fixed but somehow Soseki still has the same problem. One last thing before we go, Garrideb said that he had a love letter written by Ross from just before Ross died but it didn't have an address so he couldn't send it off. But, there is a name. Olive Green. I guess this is how she's getting connected to the case! I expected the love letter to get added to the court record so we could go show it to Green but I guess not.

We go see Green at the hospital anyways. We show her the picture of Ross and it surprises her so much she knocks over her bottle of medicine. Is it supposed to glow magenta like that? Green was engaged to Ross before he died. He only moved into the Selden room to save money for a wedding. That's rather sad. Green asks us to leave but suddenly Sholmes is here. He said he's here to help prevent a new case from happen so we look at the glowing medicine. Oh dear, a poor rat tried to drink the medicine and it died. ;_; It turns out Green was second away from committing suicide via poison when we interrupted her. After being found out, Green is more willing to talk to us and apparently she's more connected to this case and G1-4 than expected. She received a letter saying to meet an unknown person on Briar Road at 5pm on the 17th. That's the exact time of the unfortunate G1-4 incident and is the reason she was even there. In the end Green says she won't try to kill herself again. She has the feeling she at least needs to see the current events through. Also that ripped envelope that Green had looks like it matches the piece in Shamspeare's room. But, I don't understand why he would send out a ripped envelope.

That's pretty much all of the time for investigating. Susato brings up how we still don't know the results of the tea test. We'll just have to find out tomorrow!

Investigation Part 3 done.

This case throws around a lot of dates and times. Like I think the timeline of events currently looks like this:

12 months ago - Selden is arrested. He was living at Soseki's place at the time.
12 months ago - Ross moved into Selden's former room. (a bit after Selden was arrested)
3 months ago - Selden dies in prison due to illness
3 months ago - Shamspeare moves in to the first floor room (3 days after Selden died)
1 month ago - Duncan Ross dies
1 week ago - Soseki moves into the room (more like a week and half now)

So the picture I'm getting is that Shamspeare is after Selden's treasure and people keep moving into the room before he can so he needs to keep killing them off. No clue what Shamspeare was doing between Ross dying and Soseki moving it. There was a fair amount of time in between. With that said, poisoning himself and trying to frame Soseki for it seems to be a rather lousy way of getting rid of Soseki. We also still need to find out why talking about this case is such bad news and that it somehow causes problems in Japan.
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Yeah, this case has a lot of moving pieces, but it's fun putting them all together.

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I'll keep my thoughts until you finish the trial.
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Trial Part 2 begins and the results of the tea test are in! Gregson says the liquid in the soap was confirmed to be tea. He also says there was no poison in the tea! So case closed? Nope, it isn't that easy. Van Zieks calls Shamspeare back to the stand to testify how he was poisoned anyways. Shamspeare claims that he used the tea in Soseki's cup to make the ice coins and Soseki simply didn't put the poison in his own cup. But, this contradicts how Soseki's cup did not have a ring. That means Soseki drank he tea immediately. Van Zieks tries to get Shamspeare to change his testimony to say he made the ice coins out of the tea in the teapot instead and Shamspeare takes him up on it. Is this the first time Van Zieks was feeding testimony to the witness? I feel like he never did that before but maybe I'm misremembering. Shamspeare once again points out that he didn't eat or drink anything else that night so the tea must be how he was poisoned. The jury seems happy with that explanation. I was half wondering if Quinby would be a hold out but nope. Another six Guilty votes!

It's time for another summation examination! One big problem is we just haven't been able to show a way Shamspeare could be poisoned other than via Soseki's tea. Susato is of the opinion that we need to show another possibility to get out of this. Can we really do that? I have no idea how else Shamspeare could have been poisoned. From Juror No. 3 and Quinby we find out that blowing into a gas pipe can make gas lights flicker. We also find out that blowing hard enough can make the gas lamps and stove go out altogether. I guess that's what is happening to Soseki. Ryunosuke wants to check the mouth of the gas pipe in Shamspeare's room for poison! But, why would there be poison there? Van Zieks objects during the summation examination. Is he allowed to do that? For more evidence, Ryunosuke presents the skin prints showing that Shamspeare is trying to do something to the lamp. Is this really admissible as evidence? Van Zieks steps in and puts a stop to using the magic skin prints photo. It isn't admissible as evidence but that doesn't stop us from using it to manipulate 3 jury members to considering continuing the trial. For one more push, we also point out that Soseki's testimony earlier confimed that his gas stove mysteriously went out that night. That gets Fairplay on board for four Not Guilty votes. The trial continues!

We run into another problem. Testing the gas pipe for strychnine won't work. Even if there was poison, the poison would be long gone by now. Anyways, Ryunosuke makes it formal and points the finger at Shamspeare to accuse him of trying to kill Soseki! I'm guessing Shamspeare was also responsible for killing Ross as well. Van Zieks brings up a question. Even assuming the gas pipe was poisoned and Shamspeare tried to blow into it, there's still the issue of who poisoned the gas pipe. That's a very good question. Wait a sec, did Green figure out that Shamspeare was responsible for killing Ross and in turn placed a trap for Shamspeare? That's crazy but I don't see any other options. How would that even work? Van Zieks is trying to say that Soseki is the only one who would even think of putting poison on the gas pipe as a way to kill Shamspeare. Susato says we need to name the true culprit to turn things around. Ryunosuke points the finger at Olive Green! We're really doing this! Ryunosuke wants to call her in to testify. Van Zieks is cooperative as always and agrees to call her in but, we need to go on a one hour recess first.

During the recess, Sholmes finally shows up after sleeping in. He tested the bottle of poison that Green had and it turns out it was filled with strychnine. Oh dear, is Green really responsible for placing the trap? Gregson shows up as well. He gives us a copy of info from the files on the Selden case. Selden had a cellmate when he died. I wonder if that cellmate was Shamspeare. Considering how willing Shamspeare is to kill maybe Shamspeare is Selden himself who swapped places somehow. That's all the time we have and the Baliff calls us back in.

Trial Part 2 end!

I must say, I can not stress enough how shocked I was to find out how Green might be connected to all this as the culprit. She didn't even seem connected at all when the case first began. I mean I guess I still don't know if she did it but who else could it be at this point? Ryunosuke figuring out the gas pipe was poisoned seemed like a pretty big leap to me. How did he even think of the possibility of that? But, if that's the only other thing that Shamspeare put in his mouth that night I guess Ryunosuke has to go for it even if it sounds crazy. Somehow, it might actually be true!

The events around Green and the poisoning incident create more timeline stuff:
Feb 17, 5:00pm - Green gets hit by a falling knife while walking down Briar Road
Feb 20, 3:00pm - Green wakes up around here. We were told this at the end of the trial in G1-4
I think sometime here Soseki meets Shamspeare just before Shamspeare heads out. I'm not sure what time this is, though.
Feb 20, 8:00pm - Shamspeare returned home
Feb 20, 9:00pm - Soseki visits Shamspeare's room
Feb 20, 11:00pm - Soseki goes back to his own room
Feb 21, 1:30am - Shamspeare is poisoned by strychnine somehow
Feb 21, 5:30am - Ryunosuke and company meet Green at the hospital

Green said she took the bottle of poison from the hospital so she could only use it after she woke up. Not a big time frame but Shamspeare was conveniently out of the room at the time. Although, if he locked the door I'm not sure how she got in. Assuming Green is the one responsible for the poison, I am curious about whether she will be honest about what she did or not. Like is she okay with Soseki taking the fall for her actions? Maybe Green will try to pin everything on Shamspeare. Since her poison trap activated, she would know that he tried to kill both Ross and Soseki. So a lot of interesting questions that still need answers!
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ya go my Green

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We start part 3 of the trial with William Shamspeare and Olive Green taking the stand. Green says she doesn't know anything about a poisoning or anything about Shamspeare. Unsurprisingly, we'll have to do this the hard way. Shamspeare claims not to know who Green is at all. Apparently I got the time and date wrong for when Green woke up. She didn't wake up until early on the 21st which is after the poisoning incident. My G1-4 notes say she woke up around the end of that trial so maybe I wrote that down wrong or something.

Green and Shamspeare testify about what they were doing on the 17th around the time of the G1-4 incident. Green says she was just walking on Briar Road at the time while Shamspeare claimed to be at The Slug and Salad which is the place mentioned in the letter Green got. We use the piece of envelope in Shamspeare's room to show a connection between the letter and Shamspeare. Wouldn't it be crazy if Green was the one who sent the letter to Shamspeare before stealing the letter back? That would explain why Shamspeare appeared to be the one following the letter and Shamspeare really doesn't seem to know who Green is. Green still insists that the letter was originally sent to her but that just doesn't make any sense when combined with the fact that part of the envelope showed up in Shamspeare's room. Ryunosuke wasn't too far behind my thought process. He now says that Green must have stolen the envelope and card back after breaking into Shamspeare's room. It's pretty funny watching Shamspeare's reaction to everything going on. He has absolutely no idea what is going on and why he is apparently being targetted.

We get more testimony from Green and Shamspeare. Shamspeare now remembers that he did receive the note. He followed the instructions but no one showed up at the Slug and Salad. He didn't notice the letter was missing until his meet up with Soseki. I think Shamspeare is telling the truth here for once. But, it is a bit silly that he apparently legitimately forgot about all this until now. >_> Green is still trying to deny everything. So we need to connect Green to Shamspeare's room. I struggled a bit trying to figure out what to do here. Like I see the angle where Green is trying to get revenge on Shamspeare for killing Ross but it wasn't clear how to make use of that. Turns out I needed to present the bottle of strychnine. We are back to pushing the idea that Green was the one who set the trap for Shamspeare!

The new proposed timeline is Green broke into the room on the 17th, put poison on the gap pipe and stole the letter. Shortly afterwards, a knife fell on her to kick off G1-4. Due to police presence and Soseki not being in the room, Shamspeare took a break from blowing into the gas pipe. Soseki came back on the 20th and the night of the 20th was when Shamspeare tried to kill Soseki again and finally triggered the gap pipe trap. How long does it take for strychnine to evaporate? Van Zieks implied it wasn't that long when he said the gas pipe could not be tested for strychnine. But, for this timeline to work, the strychnine had to sit on the pipe for a little over 3 days. Anyways, Ryunosuke then connects this back to the letter. It was bait to get Shamspeare out of the room. Green was the one who sent it to him and stole it back to hide the evidence (and then kept it for some reason). Shamspeare is furious at this. He really has no idea who Green is and just found out she really tried to kill him. Ryunosuke says the motive was revenge for Ross.

The next thing Van Zieks wants explained is why Shamspeare even wants to kill Soseki. Green has given up on pretending she didn't break into Shamspeare's room and mentions how she stole an important looking key while she was there. Shamspeare is upset at this as well and says he inherited the key. So it looks like he really was Selden's cell mate. Van Zieks helpfully says this can be verified if necessary. Ryunosuke suggests that Selden told Shamspeare that the treasure was hidden in Selden's old room and Shamspeare was resorting to murder to get access to the room. For one final push, we use Sholmes's magic skinprint to show how Selden's treasure can be located. With the treasure now out of reach, this finally breaks Shamspeare and gets him to admit to his crimes.

Shamspeare goes over what he did and it mostly confirms what we already figured out. One question I had was why he didn't rent the room between Ross dying and Soseki showing up. It turns out he did try but Garrideb wouldn't let him change rooms. Shamspeare also claims he wasn't actually trying to kill anyone and just wanted to chase Ross away. Although, even after he unintentionally killed Ross with the gas pipe trick he used it again on Soseki. So the fact that he killed someone didn't really bother him that much.

Green then fills us in on what she did. She worked out that Ross's death might not have been an accident after coincidentally hearing that Soseki had the same problem even after the gas pipes were fixed. One thing that was bugging me was why she even had the poison in the first place but she got it from the black market not the hospital. I'm not sure why I believed her story of getting it from the hospital. It wouldn't be in an ominous looking unlabelled jar if it was from the hospital. <_< After that, she planted the trap. If Shamspeare was innocent, nothing would happen until Metermann tries to blow into the gas pipe someday down the line. If Shamspeare was guilty, the trap would trigger. She confirms she sent the letter and placed the trap while Shamspeare was out hoping to catch him red handed.

This resolves everything regarding Soseki and the poisoned gas pipe so we get our Not Guilty!

We meet Soseki and Sholmes after the trial and Soseki said he has decided to cut his study tour short and head back to Japan. Didn't he already say that after G1-4? I guess this time he means it. Last time he took too long to get out and got caught in another case. There's also still the issue of Selden's treasure and we go figure that out the next day. Hidden in the ceiling of Soseki's room is a large jeweled collar with blood on it. There's a large B on it and a crown symbol. B for Baskerville, perhaps? Not that I have any idea what that would mean. Sholmes looks unhappy to see this show up. He has Gregson take it away as evidence and has everyone promise not to talk about this entire case.

Finally we get some voiced lines by Ryunosuke hinting at something happening about two month after Susato's letter arrived that connects to this case. It is apparently related to the Great Exhibition of London. Wasn't that already supposed to be happen? Why another 2 months delay? I'll have to find out about that later!

Case G2-2 End

This was a good case. I wasn't really expecting that from Green after first meeting her. She's almost like a different person in court. I guess that's how much Ross meant to her. I went back and checked G1-4 regarding what it said about Green waking up and I did mess up in my notes. It said the Green would be waking up soon not that she already woke up. That messed up a lot of my predictions about how things would go. Shamspeare was a lot of fun and he had good reactions to finding out what Green did. One thing I did find disappointing was the case was hyped up as something that was of worldwide importance but that really only came into play at the very, very end. The actual events of the case itself didn't really mean much. I also feel like this was another case where the jury kinda feel out of importance as the case approached the end. I guess these cases are bloated enough as is, but I do enjoy the scenes where people on the jury just happen to have specialist knowledge that's useful to the case.
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Yeah, that's a good trial day. Shamspeare and Green play off of each other well.

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I didn't like 2-2 much; I'm pretty sure it was my least favorite case from this game or indeed GAA in general. There were a few leaps of logic I couldn't get on board for. In particular, the lengthy diversion with the gas on day 1, and bringing in Olive on day 2, I really just felt those two weren't handled too well. I also found Shamspeare impossibly obnoxious, even considering he was effectively the true culprit for that case and those are more likely to be annoying.

EDIT: Once Green did show up, the rest was quite good. But the journey there was not my favorite.

Fortunately the next case is excellent to make up for it.

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Yeah the case does go on rather lengthy tangents. Like the gas stuff on day 1 does eventually matter but it takes a long time to get there and Ryunosuke is somehow allowed the time to get there. I mentioned this above but I did feel like it was a bit of a jump to figure out that the gas pipe was poisoned. Like the discussion was mostly around food and drinks at the time instead of just things that a person might put their mouth on. I can definitely see why someone might think Shamspeare is obnoxious because he is. But, I guess I just found that endearing in the end.
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Team Rocket Elite posted...

So the picture I'm getting is that Shamspeare is after Selden's treasure and people keep moving into the room before he can so he needs to keep killing them off. No clue what Shamspeare was doing between Ross dying and Soseki moving it. There was a fair amount of time in between. With that said, poisoning himself and trying to frame Soseki for it seems to be a rather lousy way of getting rid of Soseki. We also still need to find out why talking about this case is such bad news and that it somehow causes problems in Japan.

I like how due to her recent suicide attempt Olive is beneath notice for almost everyone I've seen. Most players suspect it was Shamspeare who poisoned himself or believe it's Adron B/Quinby.
This is definitely a very character-driven case with Olive and Shamspeare's rooted history with Duncan Ross being a key factor into the plot. Shamspeare takes up the bulk of the screentime, testifying for all three trial parts so if you genuinely dislike him onscreen you might have a problem with the case. But I think overall, he's fun to contradict and take down and the overall story is very creative and genuinely got me invested into Olive's story. Trial 1 is therefore a bit irrelevant due it not being related to Olive at all but figuring out the gas trick was still neat imo and the two bees had their moments.

Soseki is also hilarious in this case with his romeo and juliet wrestling match roleplay and he seemed to have genuinely gotten camaradie with Shamspeare if it wasn't for Shamspeare's greed.
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