[T] The Best Most Epic Turnabout ●

Find and discuss trials made by other members and showcase your own trials.

Moderators: EN - Forum Moderators, EN - Trial Reviewers

User avatar
Blackrune
Posts: 3805
Joined: Fri Apr 17, 2009 3:11 am
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English, German, Japanese
Location: The Submarine

[T] The Best Most Epic Turnabout ●

Post by Blackrune »

~The Best Most Epic Turnabout~


What is this?
A case I made a few years ago for the German 'SpeedTrial' competition. What's SpeedTrial?
It basically worked like regular trial competitions, except you only got one week to do it.
Originally, I never intended to provide this masterpiece to the English section, but it looks like some people left me with no choice by actually translating it.
I labeled this as a serious trial, but it's frankly not that serious. Well, the title probably does a pretty good job of conveying that.
If you find any untranslated remnants of its origin, just let me know. Those shouldn't be left in any important plot-relevant spot though.


What's the premise?
An epic of never before seen proportions... is what our protagonist 'Ren' is yearning for. Being an undefeated prosecutor for years, he's seen it all.
However, he has not yet given up. Some day, he is certain, he will find the glory he is yearning for. Maybe he'll even put an end to the dark age of the law that's looming on the horizon.
Maybe.
Now, he's faced with a new case. Will this be the one? The one that will finally be different? The one that will finally make him feel alive again?
The Best Most Epic Turnabout he's been waiting for?
Maybe.


What's with the sprites?
Well, I don't remember their origin, aside from it being a site with free-to-use VN sprites.
Now that I had time I could have gone and found more AA-like sprites, but I figured I should just keep this as close to the original thing as possible.
Besides, it would be hard to find fitting ones for some of these, and I'm either switching them all or none.


Walkthrough please?
Spoiler : :
[Redacted. Thanks Dio.]
Links?
Epic Investigation
Epic Trial

Spoiler : Credits :
Ren's sprites were made by Singidava
English translation by palex00 and DeeYo
User avatar
Blizdi
Posts: 388
Joined: Wed Jul 03, 2013 3:39 pm
Spoken languages: English

Re: [T] The Best Most Epic Turnabout ●

Post by Blizdi »

;_; Awwwwwwwwwww, "The Most Epic of Epic Turnabouts" was a better title, Blackrune.
Image
User avatar
Tiagofvarela
Posts: 357
Joined: Thu Jun 26, 2014 7:16 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English, Portuguese
Location: Portugal

Re: [T] The Best Most Epic Turnabout ●

Post by Tiagofvarela »

I... This was made in a week? Good Lord.

I really liked the case, even if I must admit I presented 50 pieces of evidence at every prompt.
I'm not sure whether to take such cases as inspiration for my own, or be crushed by their greatness and my own puniness.

Spoiler : Thoughts - Spoilers :
I laughed far too much at this case. I'm certainly not an avid mystery fan. I love seeing mysteries be solved, but I kind of suck at solving them. Even then, I could see the clichés and tropes, so that was funny. The fact that our protagonist even had foreshadowing indicating mental illness, and he brought it up, was hilarious.
Out of all the lawyers, I do believe Apollo was the best choice. His snarkiness (whereas others would just think it) and one liners were gold. "That's a well." sticks particularly well.
This prosecutor... had a hard to categorise personality. He seemed way more competent during the investigation than during the trial. Such laziness (him during the trial). His sprites making him look like a shocked/hurt little girl may have been bloody hilarious, but they also made him look like he was really bad at this. Doesn't look nearly as experienced as he'd have us believe, especially not when he's complaining all the time about how "predictable" the cases are.
Maid was fairly generic, not that I disliked her. Your usual "I don't want to deal with this crap" witness. An old classic which, to me, always works.
Cook was surprisingly competent. Must have been playing a lot of Ace Attorney on the internet. His was my favourite testimony because, for once, we were pointing out contradictions, not making up nonsense. We're only supposed to do that after the testimony, not during it, or at least, that's how I prefer it.
Really liked Victus. He was clearly not incompetent (which made his loss streak all the funnier), and his virtue and honesty still shone through it all. He didn't aggressively refute most things, and recognised when we were right. He also sticks to the rules. Yay! Hilarity!

Oh, I still don't know how a bed could have made for a catapult, any way you slice it.
Any particular reason why there isn't a walkthrough? I certainly know that if I couldn't save-scum so beautifully I wouldn't have played the greater part of this case.

There were German sections in the failed objection and co-counsel of the second to last testimony, on the topic of motive.
Spoiler : Culprit :
With Mr. Victus.
I don't know about (what I assume is) the last section because, when I saw the structure of the testimony, I automatically assumed it'd be won by disregarding the meta and all logic and just presenting something stupid. I was right. I didn't even check anything more than the first statement.
I was going to point out typos and four liners and such, but I got shy.

A great case overall. I personally take issue with making up theories/possibilities instead of pointing out contradictions, but the former is a totally possible manner in which to make a trial. There were some prompts which were reliant on earlier information (i.e. not clear enough), so if I had forgotten the frame immediately preceding it, I wouldn't know how to answer. But indeed, I loved the case.
A Laggy Turnabout ★
A Batty Turnabout ★
A Tricky Turnabout ★
Upcoming: A Worldly Turnabout, A Courtly Turnabout, A Clumsy Turnabout, A Needy Turnabout
User avatar
DeeYo
Posts: 937
Joined: Fri Nov 23, 2012 4:21 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: Hungarian, English, some Russian, Spanish, German
Location: Yes

Re: [T] The Best Most Epic Turnabout ●

Post by DeeYo »

The German parts and most 4-liners were fixed. If you remember any egregious typos, please post them so that we can fix them.

Also this case is a remnant of the old times, where memory contradictions and vague hints were a must.
Last edited by DeeYo on Thu Oct 13, 2016 7:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Image

Total times sued: 10328
User avatar
Tiagofvarela
Posts: 357
Joined: Thu Jun 26, 2014 7:16 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English, Portuguese
Location: Portugal

Re: [T] The Best Most Epic Turnabout ●

Post by Tiagofvarela »

DeeYo wrote:The German parts and most 4-liners were fixed. If you remember any egregious typos, please post them so that we can fix them.
"ringtune", during the investigation, is the only one I can recall right now. Apologies.
A Laggy Turnabout ★
A Batty Turnabout ★
A Tricky Turnabout ★
Upcoming: A Worldly Turnabout, A Courtly Turnabout, A Clumsy Turnabout, A Needy Turnabout
User avatar
DeeYo
Posts: 937
Joined: Fri Nov 23, 2012 4:21 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: Hungarian, English, some Russian, Spanish, German
Location: Yes

Re: [T] The Best Most Epic Turnabout ●

Post by DeeYo »

Tiagofvarela wrote:
DeeYo wrote:The German parts and most 4-liners were fixed. If you remember any egregious typos, please post them so that we can fix them.
"ringtune", during the investigation, is the only one I can recall right now. Apologies.
Fixed, thank you for your feedback.
Image

Total times sued: 10328
User avatar
Blackrune
Posts: 3805
Joined: Fri Apr 17, 2009 3:11 am
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English, German, Japanese
Location: The Submarine

Re: [T] The Best Most Epic Turnabout ●

Post by Blackrune »

@Tiagofvarela:
I actually agree that there was too much 'pointing out possibilities' rather than finding actual contradictions in the testimonies. These days I'd shy away from doing that kind of thing, it's too arbitrary what counts as the right possibility most of the time. The theme of that competition was Chekhov's Gun, so I was also kind of rushed to set up clues AND find good ways for the player to explain stuff with them. In retrospect, maybe some sort of prompt system instead of cross-examinations would have been better. (after all, you're already a prosecutor and technically not supposed to perform the CEs anyway, regardless of special circumstances)
There's no walkthrough because I didn't write one for the German section either, and who am I to create inequality~? ...Might add one later
Spoiler : spoilery stuff :
Well, if the last testimony worked out for you that quickly, that's pretty lucky. I still remember lots of people despairing on that one until they get it by accident (more than half of the statements accept it, at least). Honestly, any meta logic or whatever is appropiate at that point. Heck, the original intention was that the biggest Chekhov's Gun in the case is the fact that you're playing as a prosecutor for no initially apparent reason, which only comes back to matter at the very end. (after one already accepted this simple decision because so much other strange stuff has happened)

Even I'm not sure if the catapult would work, and out of the three major solutions it's probably the least plausible part. (and, considering the other parts are a cardboard kitchen and a murder weapon disguised as a flower, that probably means something, ha.)
Glad you were entertained by this despite some of its obvious shortcomings.
User avatar
Enthalpy
Community Manager
Posts: 5169
Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2012 4:40 am
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English, limited Spanish

Re: [T] The Best Most Epic Turnabout ●

Post by Enthalpy »

Well, I finished the case. It was indeed the best most epic turnabout.

Given that Blackrune is already aware of some of the design elements that weren't quite to my liking, I'll just say that this case was hilarious. If you have a high tolerance for guesstectiving, I highly recommend this one!
[D]isordered speech is not so much injury to the lips that give it forth, as to the disproportion and incoherence of things in themselves, so negligently expressed. ~ Ben Jonson
User avatar
Ferdielance
Posts: 778
Joined: Sun Mar 09, 2008 12:46 am
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English

Re: [T] The Best Most Epic Turnabout ●

Post by Ferdielance »

So, I've got an SOC and a review here. SOC is spoilery, review is not.
Spoiler : SOC :
Stream of consciousness for best most epic turnabout
* Really. Best Most Epic Turnabout. That's... I mean, I guess it could be funny. I'm going to reserve judgment, but I don't think "subtlety" is gonna be what we get here.
* Man, I hate timed frames
* "For messing with us" THE PIGEONS
* Okay, hopefully this is KYLO Ren.
* So this sidekick is marginally stranger than the canonical ones, maybe
* ...Okay, that went fourth-wall-breaky waaaaaay too quickly.
* Oh god, this guy isn't even a prosecutor, is he? He's some kind of crazy Edgeworth fanboy and the whole case is taking place in a mental ward, I'm calling it.
* Undefeated for seven years... could it be...? Nah.
* Okay, so sealed building crime. Familiar-seeming territory.
* WHO IS MAX SECURITYTENEMENT, THOUGH?
* I'm changing my hypothesis with that Jaegers line. They are literally teenage children in some kind of make-believe club.
*** The profiles are lying if that's true, though. But nobody over 12 talks this way.
* ..."Literally teenage children" and "normal AA case" aren't mutually exclusive, though.
* ...Mellifera. As in "Apis mellifera," the honeybee? Hmm.
* oh this awful music
* No examine responses, huh
* Okay, so the inevitable maid surfaces.
* FLOWERGIRL STORMBLADE, really
* ...Youmu.
* did she just use TV Tropes terms in a conversation? Sorry, Marianne, that's an instaguilty there.
* No profile for Ren?
* This kitchen needs more interactable spots - I had to find the pots using the "scan with mouse and javascript link" trick.
* A two-handed sword, huh? That's... hmm. But if she had the petal in her hand -
* Okay, how was I supposed to find that pencil besides random click/scanning?
* Of course, all of these random pieces of evidence will be 100% relevant
* No bed, YES.
* of course more vocaloid music
* THAT DIAGRAM
Grisela Annie OP... Gaap? GOP? GAOP? Anagram? Alias something something something
* She was stung by bees and hit her head, solved, done, bees don't leave footprints. Or I guess someone could have used the soil to get rid of them, but that's boring.
* "Can a person pole vault 50 meters high" ahahaha
* AH, TOXINS, THIS I CAN WORK WITH. Batrachotoxin would be frog, Apitoxin sounds like bees, and carfentanyl is for the knockout
wait everyone did it
but why would the bees have frog poison?
oh why did you have to present the attorney's badge, defense attorney
And the game immediately says where those poisons come from because I'm not allowed to have unfair advantages, booooo.
"A let's talk about how mysterious this case is again scene is not necessary" THANK GOD
Brilliant strategy, Ren
Poor Apollo
* I see a lot of potential contradictions here. She COULD have been hit in close combat if drugged with fentan - okay that's not it.
* Okay, do the bees contradict MUST HAVE been poisoned needle? Nooope
* Okay, the obvious link is to the EP-1 case - no weapon, no needle found. Maybe that? But it'd be a weird way to present it...
* Okay, bees on the "culprit must have been human?" Nooope.
* Oh, right, the soil. I'm just getting ahead of myself. Laying out fresh soil to block prints. Duh.
* ...Don't we flat out have testimony from the cook SAYING the maid was there?? Why do we even need to present a vague probability?
* bleeeh, okay, probability presenting time. Drugs? Nooope
* Incidentally, doesn't the fact that the sack of soil isn't OPEN proof it wasn't used that way?
*Wait, I have to present the bees NOW? Under "Kept me at a distance with her sword?" That's... a bit awkward.
*THE AUTOPSY - oh no. No, it's the flower petal. Reaaaaally?
*I can forgive a lot because this is so goofy, though, and I like that.
*There is a way to remove beestings, I think - I think duct tape would actually do it. But... is it DUCT TAPE?
*THANK YOU APOLLO FOR POINTING OUT THE OBVIOUS
*Are we... are we seriously presenting the coffee as a contradiction for feeling tired... or as evidence that he was drugged? Or both? I don't even know why I did that, but.
*No, no, please don't tell me there was a CARDBOARD KITCHEN
*it's not that, right?
*oh god it is
*...really, the pencil? Not the bed that suggests an entire scene fakeup? The pencil could have just been left in the shed after.
*It's ALIBI GIRL - oh wait no, apparently not???
*Okay, reason to accuse the prosecutor. Prior case, of course. What, no? He's the only person there besides the victim connected to that case... well, it's a flimsy argument.
*Perhaps they walked on the fence...???
*Does the grabbing at petals suggest she hit the tree, perhaps?? Or that her sword was embedded in the ground???
*... Oh, the autopsy report.
*I'm with Apollo on this one
*Okay, rods... ah, fisherwoman?
*No that's right, she was a pole-vaulter. Anyway.
*The stabs... no... I think I see what the weapon could be but... Oh geez... could it...
*OH GOD, I WAS RIGHT, THE BADGE
*... I think I know but oh my god... straw and petals??!!!
*FIRST GUESS!!!
Review (not-spoilery):
Spoiler : Reasonably epic :
First off: This is an entertaining case. It's a really entertaining case, from its wacko premise to its lunatic prosecutor-PC to its doofy VN portrait stock characters. The humor didn't always hit the mark for me, but when it did, as in the final puzzle and an absolutely inspired sketchbook/notes intermission, it hit hard. It was competent at making fun of AAO tropes, but at its best when it entered an absurd world of its own.

The ridiculousness feels breezy and off-the-cuff a lot of the time, which is harder to do than it looks when the plot's main goal seems to be creating a dozen different setups and having them all pay off by the end. It's similar to Phantasmagoria of Betrayal's trial in its insistence that every insane factor of the crime play a role by the end, but the approach is quite different - more a hallucinogenic ride through the magical world of guesstectiving than PoB's careful, step-by-step dissection of bad trial design.

This sloppiness is the trial's biggest charm and biggest weakness. When it hits, and you're on the author's wavelength, it's gleefully irreverent. It's great to guess a completely insane answer on an instinct and be correct. AA canon games sometimes pull this off marvelously, though they've gotten less brave about it for the last few entries, and PoB tried to cultivate this in the last few reveals. But The Best Most Epic Turnabout puts all of its chips on "wacky lucky guesses," and mostly works out.

I say mostly because sometimes, the cross-exams just need more playtesting, and allow too much scope for wacky guesses that get ahead of the game's desired wacky guesses. The best way to handle this, I think, would be to add conversations anticipating all of those insane guesses with Easter eggs, but this is a labor-intensive approach and probably not workable for a case that had to be finished quickly. But it's worth noting that you will need a high frustration tolerance at a few points, and there's no way for me to tell which points those are. Some puzzles I breezed on instinct through that, by all rights, should have had me stumped. Others seemed kind of fair-ish, as far as this game ever got, and yet stumped me for a while.

(One is just bad-absurd, not believable in a realistic scenario but also not epic enough to justify its inclusion, and not clued enough or physically workable enough to feel rewarding after the fact. I'll comment in the spoiler section below.)

My biggest complaints, I guess, are "not enough playtesting for playability on a key puzzle or two" and "not epic enough." Starting with "50-foot-wall" isn't really epic, it's just taking something normal and making it bigger.

"50-foot-wall that has embedded live sharks with their heads sticking out, who are kept alive by an elaborate water circulation system, and outfitted with machine guns on their fins, and gun down and then eat anyone who tries to pole vault over" would be closer, though still not epic enough, since sharks and bears have become the tritest of epic animals.

"A wall that is itself actually a gigantic snake, with giant machine-gun spiders crawling all over it" would be epic, but only if it were made to pay off in some logical and non-random way.

That said, this trial was still at least reasonably epic. I had an idiotic grin on my face for a lot of it, save that one bad puzzle above, and that's an expression I like to wear in AA trials. This one's worth checking out. It sets up its jokes and gives them payoffs, instead of assuming that randomness alone creates humor.
Some more spoilery comments:
Spoiler : Spoilers here :
The bed catapult didn't work for me, first because it seemed physically implausible, and secondly because it wasn't physically implausible in a cool way.

Wrapping the victim's body in a magnetic material and firing it from a big, home-made rail gun would also be implausible, but it'd let that pass. Bed + pole vault sticks + well? No, I don't think so.

The flower was epic, though, as was the ridiculous cardboard kitchen.
"A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"
User avatar
keyz05
Posts: 52
Joined: Mon Feb 17, 2014 8:30 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English
Location: Plano, TX
Contact:

Re: [T] The Best Most Epic Turnabout ●

Post by keyz05 »

Does anyone have a walkthrough?
User avatar
Enthalpy
Community Manager
Posts: 5169
Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2012 4:40 am
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English, limited Spanish

Re: [T] The Best Most Epic Turnabout ●

Post by Enthalpy »

That will depend on if Rune wants there to be a walkthrough.

If you're stuck on a specific section, let us (in spoilers) know where you are and where you're stuck, and I can provide some hints.
[D]isordered speech is not so much injury to the lips that give it forth, as to the disproportion and incoherence of things in themselves, so negligently expressed. ~ Ben Jonson
User avatar
Bad Player
Posts: 7228
Joined: Wed May 20, 2009 10:53 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: American
Location: Under a bridge

Re: [T] The Best Most Epic Turnabout ●

Post by Bad Player »

aw i was wrong
Spoiler : :
I thought the killer was Verena, who exists but can only be perceived by Ren, which is how she was able to sneak up on and murder Hanako. She hid her footprints by putting the cardboard down over the soil, walking back and forth over it, and then dumping it in the well afterwards.

that was all i got
User avatar
ParrotMan01
Posts: 26
Joined: Wed Jul 20, 2016 9:16 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English

Re: [T] The Best Most Epic Turnabout ●

Post by ParrotMan01 »

Bad Player wrote:aw i was wrong
Spoiler : :
I thought the killer was Verena, who exists but can only be perceived by Ren, which is how she was able to sneak up on and murder Hanako. She hid her footprints by putting the cardboard down over the soil, walking back and forth over it, and then dumping it in the well afterwards.

that was all i got
I actually liked that solution a lot. Mine was just bad...
Spoiler : :
I thought precise pole vaulting, epipens, and cranes were involved.
Again, just passing through...
User avatar
nWoObjection
Posts: 8
Joined: Mon Jul 18, 2011 11:15 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English, Moderate Spanish, Minor Japanese(Romanji)

Re: [T] The Best Most Epic Turnabout ●

Post by nWoObjection »

Spoiler : :
Ok, so I figured out about the spiked coffee. Stuck on what to do next.
Boredom is the mother of creation.
User avatar
DeeYo
Posts: 937
Joined: Fri Nov 23, 2012 4:21 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: Hungarian, English, some Russian, Spanish, German
Location: Yes

Re: [T] The Best Most Epic Turnabout ●

Post by DeeYo »

nWoObjection wrote:
Spoiler : :
Ok, so I figured out about the spiked coffee. Stuck on what to do next.
Spoiler : :
I think that's the point where you need to show the source of the noise that woke up the cook. You should of course press until you get a statement like that, if you haven't already.
Image

Total times sued: 10328
Post Reply