Mid game. It's got some cool ideas but most of them are squandered, and the cases and the twists surrounding them are incredibly predictable, all things considered. The overarching plot is un-engaging and relies on infodumps near the end of the game to make any sense to the player, halting the game's pacing to a fault, and the ending simply loses a lot of its steam near the second half. Additionally, the game's cast is rather basic and not very noteworthy as well (Kiyotaka & Sakura still slay though).

The peak of Pokemon ROM hacks. Stupidly fun and addicting, with huge amounts of customization letting players tweak their runs to their tastes. With a large variety of routes, events, and bosses, the game never feels stale, and the many QoL features present in Rogue make it easy to tailor your team at most a few minutes. And the difficulty hits the sweet spot between legitimately challenging while giving you just enough tools to overcome bosses with your remaining resources. If you're looking for an alternative Pokemon experience, give this game a shot; it won't disappoint.

Despite the absurd premise of a story centering around the adventures of a bird defending others in 1848 France, I'd say that Aviary Attorney is a pretty darn good game. The story manages to blend the outlandish premise of the game with serious, post-French Revolution politics in a way that manages to show the best of both worlds, and when it's time for the heavier story beats to reveal themselves, they don't feel out of place at all. There's a very real sense of life to the setting; to giving money to a starving mother and her child, to settling down and playing cards with a patron at Falcon's favored pub, and just taking part in chitchat with the various characters you come across, Aviary Attorney manages to create a bustling, engaging world despite its short runtime.

While we're on the topic of the game's setting, it makes great use of its time period of nearing the second French Revolution, from how many characters are intrinsically tied to either the fate of the revolution's success or the past French Revolution and their struggles in the present, and it creates this sense of uniqueness in its story that isn't replicated else anywhere much, if at all. And by that the game also enhances its character writing as a result, as their flaws, virtues, and ideals feel so real and human that in spite of its cartoonishness of Aviary Attorney's artwork, the grounded nature of them work. And above all, the game's also plain hilarious and has that same charm as the source material it openly acknowledges that it emulates.

Though it's not without its flaws (the trials and mysteries being disappointingly simple, even during the end and the penultimate trial being a near identical copy of the first Ace Attorney's fourth case being a large point of contention), if you have a few hours to spare and looking for something new, give Aviary Attorney a shot.