#t-bone steaks...

Coming into this case I had 0 expectations, and I was actually pleased with it. This case placed a big emphasis on the exploration of its setting, in this instance, the studio, its lots, and the dressing room. This change caught me off guard at first, I'm not particularly used to backtracking or returning to areas that I had explored previously. But in this case, it proved important to do so, revisiting the dressing room to find Sal, and coming back to the employee area to find Cody. After a bit of trial and error (sad to admit that I got lost for like 5 minutes before I returned to the dressing room to find Sal) I eventually got used to the notion of having to check locations multiple times.

A comment in my last post let me know that some people believed this case unnecessary. I had a lot of fun with it, this is not to say it's without its problems which I will get into later on. Despite the issues, the case felt like a wild ride in which I had to constantly guess the killer and the possible motives for the killing. This feeling kept me on my toes throughout the course of the case. My initial guess which I thought would make the killer a bit too obvious was Penny. When given the security cam photo of the suspected killer the first thing I noted was the pants dragging. Subjectively speaking I feel like other people must've had the same thought as I did. Instead, the game emphasized the leg dragging behind which would indicate Powers due to his ankle injury. Even though my initial thought was incorrect I found the usage of the limp to more than make up for my surprise. The writing in terms of the limp was great, it made it so technically only people at the rehearsal could imitate Powers, narrowing it down to 4 people who could don the suit, Powers, Vasquez, Oldbag, and Hammer (which at the time would seem unthinkable). With Oldbag getting ruled out early on the rest of our focus pivots to the rest of the people in the room. Unlike the 1st and 2nd trials, the vast variety of possible suspects made the case really thrilling. Having to narrow down possible suspects one by one is something I hope returns in future cases. (I for a split second thought it might've been the kid but that would be too dark for this game..... surely.)

The most interesting portion for me, well portions, for me were 1. Hammer being the "killer" and 2. THE DANG TBONE STEAKS. First off my thoughts on Hammer, his storyline is actually a bit sad, someone who was accidentally involved in a tragedy. In the world, emphatically we can understand why he chose to try and kill Vasquez, he had been held hostage for 5 years, for something completely out of his control, a freak accident. This turmoil and anger caused him to stoop as low as to possibly implicate Powers in the murder, essentially ruining an innocent person's life. I found this fact ironic because it similarly mirrors his own situation, ruining one's life for a death they did not cause. It's easy to say he's in the wrong (which he is) but at the same time, grief and sadness can cause people to do things they normally would never think of doing. I thought the twist of having him be an attempted murderer to be super interesting, something I thought wasn't possible or plausible coming into this case. Now going into the real important tidbit, the T-bone steaks in what world would anyone expect T-bone steaks to be vital information in a court case, not to be used only once but twice... When I first entered the employee's area I was a bit befuddled as to why they specified the steaks to be T-bones, I laughed it off musing to myself "Surely they aren't important". When I first entered studio 2 and saw the plates it hit me "huh no bones". At that point, I knew that somehow as some absurd affront to God, the T-bones became VITAL to the case. (I'm so so so glad that the game made reference to them somehow eating the bones as well it's so funny)

Before I get into the gripes I had about the case I wanted to go over my thoughts on Edgeworth turning a new leaf. In my last post, I talked about how his methodology seemed cold but fair, and how I wanted to get more insight into his character. This case delivered in this aspect, with him taking a 180 and pulling back once he realized Phoenix was about to lose his chance at fully freeing Powers of his indictment. My personal canon built in my mind from only knowing Edgeworth from two cases is that he had built his career on always attaining a guilty verdict. Without much care for right or wrong, he simply pursued his role in the court. After his last run-in with Phoenix, I suspect his view had changed, the realization that he potentially could've ruined the lives of both Wright and Maya, their innocence, and his subsequent loss in the previous trial would cause him to rethink his outlook on his role as a prosecutor. I suppose future cases will go further in-depth to explain this because as with Phoenix and the rest of the jury, it seemingly came out of left-field leaving us wondering why Edgeworth would risk his own job to protect the defense. Gumshoe also has a minor redemption in the form of protecting Maya and Phoenix from getting wiped by the mafia which I thought was a fun little bit.

Now as for my problems with this case, I mainly only have two, 1 Being Sal as a whole, and 2 the aftermath of the case especially pertaining to Vasquez. I'll start off with Vasquez, I'm no lawyer but in my eyes, she is liable for multiple very serious offenses, namely the covering up of the truth of events in a death 5 years past, and her involvement with the mafia. She had also recently killed an individual in self-defense, as well as almost going through with the murder of a 17-year-old and a defense attorney, with Gumshoe being a witness in the latter incident. I'm left wondering if I had missed something in the aftermath of what happened to Vasquez, or possibly it just being something that's left up to the imagination. It's not entirely out of the picture that I'll get a follow-up to the case in the future, all I can really do is wait and see.

Now on to my main problem Sal, now without mincing words or tip-toeing around it, he's just weird and unnecessary. We see this type of character pop up a lot in media, the pervy nerd, a lot of the time I'm left wondering why they exist. I've played a couple other similar games to AA namely AITSF, the Zero Escape series, and Dangan Ronpa and they all to some extent suffer from similar archetypes with the severity ranging from title to title. My problem with the character kind of starts and ends with my initial statement, he isn't necessary to the plot and just kind of comes off as a pervert as some sort of comedic punch. I understand that it's most likely a case of something not aging well, with the game being originally released back in 2001, but even back then I would've been disappointed with him as a character. I found this trial to have a large cast of characters/suspects, all having their own possible motives, and I found each of them to be interesting, having a part in the greater narrative of the case. I feel like they could've done so much more with the role of the producer, especially since he's seemingly overworked and/or being pushed around by Vasquez. I think my disappointment comes from that, him being an unlikeable character, on top of the potential of the role his character could've played, which just left a bad taste in my mouth. It's not to say he completely ruins the case, It's precisely because it's a good case that I have such a problem with him.