[T] Athena Cykes: Ace Attorney – Dark Ace Saga ★☆○○

[ZekromFan57]

Just played the case. And I have one thing to say.

HOLY HELL WAS THIS GOOD.
Sure a few things felt a bit fanfic raise the stake's moment but holey hell I was invested. so who cares.

Really nice continuation of your AU premise. I love everything about it.
(Athena is such a great character too bad Capcom forget about her in AA6 [it says a lot that my favorite case in that game was the raukugo filler case, Athena and Blackquill are fun]. and even AA5 was memey).

The only bug i noticed was a court bug where i think you switched the backgrounds for defense and proesction for a few frames but i ignored it to focus on the great writing [so sadly i cant tell what frames they are on].

Some feedback though

Spoiler : :

It be really nice if evidence from the first game was hidden on day 1 for conciseness and only came into day 2 once you prove relevancy. Just reduce inventory clutter. Cause Trial Day 1 had this clutter and be irrelevant. Hope the future case cleans inventory a bit cause well there is an overload amount.

Overall rate it 10/10 so good. Its great. Love it so much.

Glad you enjoyed.

Could you explain what you mean by "switched backgrounds"? Are you talking about the wall behind them?

Spoiler : :

The reason the evidence is there is because of the optional present dialogue during the investigation. The ties between this case and Ace are strong, but you’ll start with a practically clean slate next case.

[ZekromFan57]

Spoiler : bug that happened to me :

In trial, day 2, when it revealed that the pen was inside the nail polish, the objection track played for 1 second and it stopped.
But when I loaded my save file to test it again, I was a few frames later from the scene where the music was supposed to start playing and it played normally. Idk, maybe it's a bug with aao, not with the case.

this one happened to me too during playtesting & i struggled to figure out why it was inconsistent—i wonder if it might be a bug relating to music beginning on a "display evidence" frame? i'll have to do some testing. lmk if you run into any other bugs!!!

Huh, I never had that happen to me during any playtests. Weird.

[cleverretortnotfound]

By wall I meant at one point the prosecutor was talking but the background was the "talk to assistant at bench" or "defense attorney talking background".

Like, the positions for a frame were wrong. But I was too invested in the story to remember which one, sadly. (That intended to be a compliment, since at that point i was like, oh weird bug, but have to know how it ends)

[kal0123456789]

After finishing the case, I have 2 questions:

Spoiler : :

1. There are some frames when Athena and Apollo are arguing, the pictures of them are slightly off taking into account their positions and the desks(Athena is looking left while Apollo to right). Not sure if it's intentional.
2. For the Trucy's therapy session, there is no indication that Kristoph's profile is also correct for the hapiness, surely they mean the same. If not, you can say in the lines of "there is a better present".

But overall, this case really shines based on the characterization and narrative. The logic is also good, although there are some design desicions that I felt "off". Definitely this case needs to be considered for being featured.

[ZekromFan57]

By wall I meant at one point the prosecutor was talking but the background was the "talk to assistant at bench" or "defense attorney talking background".

Like, the positions for a frame were wrong. But I was too invested in the story to remember which one, sadly. (That intended to be a compliment, since at that point i was like, oh weird bug, but have to know how it ends)

If the screen was centred on someone who isn't talking (and they had no talking animation) then it's probably intentional. There's times where that happens in the main series as well.

If the prosecutor/whoever was talking is on screen, that's gotta be a bug but I don't know how that could have happened.

[ZekromFan57]

After finishing the case, I have 2 questions:

Spoiler : :

1. There are some frames when Athena and Apollo are arguing, the pictures of them are slightly off taking into account their positions and the desks(Athena is looking left while Apollo to right). Not sure if it's intentional.
2. For the Trucy's therapy session, there is no indication that Kristoph's profile is also correct for the hapiness, surely they mean the same. If not, you can say in the lines of "there is a better present".

But overall, this case really shines based on the characterization and narrative. The logic is also good, although there are some design desicions that I felt "off". Definitely this case needs to be considered for being featured.

Spoiler : :

1. I'm not sure what you mean. Do you have any screenshots of those moments?
2. I'm gonna need clarification on this one too.

Thanks for playing, glad you enjoyed.

[applekitty]

Spoiler : Bug :

Got stuck day 1 investigation. After I talk to Buttz and display the card, I went back to Trucy and could not talk to her about anything. No talk options to discuss, nothing happens when presenting Larry. Save.

[ZekromFan57]

Spoiler : Bug :

Got stuck day 1 investigation. After I talk to Buttz and display the card, I went back to Trucy and could not talk to her about anything. No talk options to discuss, nothing happens when presenting Larry. Save.

Spoiler : :

You're missing one piece of evidence in solitary cell 13. Once you've found it, return to the agency.

[applekitty]

Spoiler : Bug :

Got stuck day 1 investigation. After I talk to Buttz and display the card, I went back to Trucy and could not talk to her about anything. No talk options to discuss, nothing happens when presenting Larry. Save.

Spoiler : :

You're missing one piece of evidence in solitary cell 13. Once you've found it, return to the agency.

:3 We should all line up to shoot me with a BIG GUN and then smash my head in with a GIGANTIC MALLET!!!!!!!!!!!

[DJJ6800]

I still remember first playing Ace of Turnabouts when I was co-hosting the Butterfly Effect comp and it blew me away how good it was. I expected a lot from its sequel and it did NOT disappoint in the slightest! It's as if Ace Attorney did its own "What if" from Marvel and you two really made it work here. Really looking forward to seeing it continue! Keep it up!

[ZekromFan57]

Spoiler : Bug :

Got stuck day 1 investigation. After I talk to Buttz and display the card, I went back to Trucy and could not talk to her about anything. No talk options to discuss, nothing happens when presenting Larry. Save.

Spoiler : :

You're missing one piece of evidence in solitary cell 13. Once you've found it, return to the agency.

:3 We should all line up to shoot me with a BIG GUN and then smash my head in with a GIGANTIC MALLET!!!!!!!!!!!

You're good, I think a lot of people missed evidence there.

I still remember first playing Ace of Turnabouts when I was co-hosting the Butterfly Effect comp and it blew me away how good it was. I expected a lot from its sequel and it did NOT disappoint in the slightest! It's as if Ace Attorney did its own "What if" from Marvel and you two really made it work here. Really looking forward to seeing it continue! Keep it up!

Thanks, glad you liked it!

[PersonWhoExists50306]

Excited to finally play this. Prediction:

Spoiler : spoilered on the 0.1% chance I'm right :

Trucy did it.

[CodingAnt]

Excited to finally play this. Prediction:

Spoiler : spoilered on the 0.1% chance I'm right :

Trucy did it.

Funnily enough, you're the second person I've seen make that prediction.

[drvonkitty]

-snip-

thanks for playing!! the fanfic line is pretty accurate tbh—my writing can be on the melodramatic side sometimes!

-snip-

have fun!!! you inspired me to check out the alex order series which was a blast, so thank you for that!

-snip-

thanks for playing!!

Spoiler : big spoiler :

trucy's mood matrix at the finale does have a bit of a guessing element to it (hence why no penalty for incorrect answers) but i do think there is some basis for presenting kristoph's profile (or autopsy) for happiness. the initial monologue during the intro throws out some thoughts on grief/mourning and its relation to wickedness. kristoph was certainly a wicked man, and he made trucy do a lot of grieving: not for him, but because of him. you may not agree with that conclusion, but i think it makes sense for trucy to feel some degree of happiness (maybe "relief" is a better word for it) at kristoph's demise. after all, as athena says during the therapy session, she's just human.

-snip-

thank you, especially for hosting that comp!! i was ready to hang up my aao hat after atcj, but the idea struck me when i read butterfly effect (one of my favorite themes in all of literature tbh) and i got lucky that zekrom was able to handle the parts that i'm not as good at--i think it really helped free me to focus on the parts that i feel most confident in.

i've never actually seen the new what if marvel show, but that is essentially what i was going for: showing all these cascading impacts of a single change, and how those differences play out across character dynamics, situations, etc. but of course,

Spoiler : implied spoiler :

there clearly a lot more changes at play here than just the misham verdict, so who knows what the true "single change" was...

-snip-

-snip-

love to hear people's theories so feel free to share!

hopefully i didn't miss anyone i'm just bad at responding to forum posts for some reason lol

[applekitty]

Spoiler : Trial 2, last? cross examination :

I'm sad I can't present the juice bottle on "I had no motive to kill him." and make the wild accusation that Kingson was actually jealous of Cleef giving attention to Marian instead of him, and propose that they were in an eternal unrequited relationship which caused the murder. Then Apollo would say something like "erm why wouldnt he kill marian to claim his boyprize? your strange theory is strange and peculiar!" and then Athena would be like and get a penalty.