this game is a wild ride i cannot believe how much of it is dedicated to a bunch of obnoxious yayhoos trying to fuck a sixteen year old and i ESPECIALLY cannot believe that that is also the case that solidified this game’s theme of the law and its systems being designed to enforce the law and prop up the social order it protects rather than see justice done, which is good shit that gets explored throughout a bunch of cases that i simply did not have nearly as much fun with as the first game.
i was baffled by the choices of returning supporting characters; generally hated all of the new characters (bar Pearl who is fine but also mostly a blank slate here and clearly only exists because Maya is written out of the aide role for two cases); find Franzisca Von Karma to be a very shallow replacement for Edgeworth with an obnoxious gimmick whose ultimate development that could have been is denied when she’s unceremoniously ejected from most of the last third of the game with little fanfare; and to top everything off the music is notably worse which is highlighted whenever a banger from the original game gets reused back to back with a new track.
AND YET the part where you PLAY IT is much improved! The trials are as fun as ever even when their subject matter sucks ass, which is a blessing; the investigation sections are better paced in general even though a few of them still feel obnoxiously aimless and drawn out with too much walking around and a lot of arbitrary triggers; no case goes for more than a couple days which doesn’t actually lead to shorter cases because instead everything is just structured to flow a little better.
So it’s a real mixed bag. Some absolutely dogpiss writing in this one, and three of the four cases are mediocre to “wow this better be the worst thing this series ever does because holy shit” but that fourth one?? Pretty good. Preeeeeetty good. And I just enjoy the moment to moment play of this game, and I like Phoenix and Maya they’re just fun to hang out with. I hope the next game is more consistent and generally better.
no matter what though this will always be the game where Maya said “that monkey doesn’t fake the funk on a nasty dunk.” and that’s maybe the funniest sentence i’ve ever read, so i’ll always have that
i was baffled by the choices of returning supporting characters; generally hated all of the new characters (bar Pearl who is fine but also mostly a blank slate here and clearly only exists because Maya is written out of the aide role for two cases); find Franzisca Von Karma to be a very shallow replacement for Edgeworth with an obnoxious gimmick whose ultimate development that could have been is denied when she’s unceremoniously ejected from most of the last third of the game with little fanfare; and to top everything off the music is notably worse which is highlighted whenever a banger from the original game gets reused back to back with a new track.
AND YET the part where you PLAY IT is much improved! The trials are as fun as ever even when their subject matter sucks ass, which is a blessing; the investigation sections are better paced in general even though a few of them still feel obnoxiously aimless and drawn out with too much walking around and a lot of arbitrary triggers; no case goes for more than a couple days which doesn’t actually lead to shorter cases because instead everything is just structured to flow a little better.
So it’s a real mixed bag. Some absolutely dogpiss writing in this one, and three of the four cases are mediocre to “wow this better be the worst thing this series ever does because holy shit” but that fourth one?? Pretty good. Preeeeeetty good. And I just enjoy the moment to moment play of this game, and I like Phoenix and Maya they’re just fun to hang out with. I hope the next game is more consistent and generally better.
no matter what though this will always be the game where Maya said “that monkey doesn’t fake the funk on a nasty dunk.” and that’s maybe the funniest sentence i’ve ever read, so i’ll always have that