Spoiler : :
For those who weren't there for the stream: this was one of the most frustrating games that I've played in quite some time. Most of the contradictions and puzzles were unfair. Now, they're fixably unfair, but still need to be fixed. I will only comment on the narrative parts minimally, as the insanity of the case took all my attention, leaving none for me to care about any of the narrative bits.
First Cross-Examination:
Every single thing Keiichi does in this testimony is unmotivated. "Why did he kill his friends" is a valid question, but so are all of the following:
* Why in his room?
* Why did he run to a phone booth?
* Why did he call the police?
* Why did he commit suicide in the middle of the conversation?
* Why did he choose to commit suicide by clawing at his own throat? That sounds needlessly painful.
You try to explain the first three in press conversations, but only for the first one does the detective give us a plausible enough explanation. The other two are so just too unbelievable. He wanted to call his parents, and he did the next logical step of going to the booth, but spontaneously decided not to. He wanted to turn himself in to the police, and he did the next logical step of calling them so he could turn himself in, but spontaneously decided not to. I'm still calling the second and third items on this list equally suspicious. With this many unnatural things, most people wouldn't pick out the motive as the unnatural thing without prodding, especially when it isn't actually a contradiction, and nothing in the cocounsel hint says we need to find something suspicious, but not necessarily contradictory. If, in my playthrough, calvinball hadn't hinted that I was on the right track in looking for suspicious things, I would have thought we were just supposed to go with these oddities.
Also, there are some unintended timeline contradictions. The autopsy says Keiichi died that night, but Ooichi says he didn’t survive the morning. The police transcript should say he fell unconscious during that conversation, not that he died. (Credit to Evo for finding the unintended contradictions.)
Second Cross-Examination:
The Satoshi bat contradiction is good.
For the next contradiction… As-is, the prosecution is not selective enough about Keiichi's insanity. He says Keiichi believed in this conspiracy, but he also says "maybe Keiichi was insane and delusional" for why he thought Oyashiro-sama was after him. It also is the most logical way to explain all these other oddities from cross-ex 1. Given the general tone, and the statement of "paranoid ramblings," it paints a picture of somebody who has lost touch with reality. This is open season on "lolInsanity." Add in the implications that he has bashed his own doorway to make threats... Add in fit of madness from searching the house... Add in that Ooishi used insanity to justify Keiichi's behavior in some of his press conversations... Add in that the prosecutor explicitly says he gave the trash a patdown, which he calls insane. The prosecution is doing general-purpose insanity arguments! So it’s too much of a stretch to make the torn out note a contradiction. lolInsanity means he can do a lot that might not make sense. For example, why couldn’t he have written the second page, thought it made too much sense or that he was wrong, and then decided to rip it to shreds? An insane person might do that. Even if he wasn’t insane, what if he just wrote the original second page too fast, had horrible rewriting, and decided to rewrite it with better handwriting? That’s another plausible alternative that doesn’t require insanity. Clarifying the bounds of Keiichi’s insanity and saying that we don’t need a rock-solid contradiction would both go a long way.
Now for some minutiae:
You should catch the present of Satoshi’s bat at things pointing to another suspect. It certainly does point that way. You just want us to find the second contradiction first.
Also, why wouldn’t the conspiracy destroy the note in its entirety, if this was the work of a third person? Simply not leaving any note would work much better.
Cross-Examination Three:
The third cross-ex is a decent segment, though I second Bad Player's thinking there are multiple options here.
I wouldn't have known to accuse 34 if not for xat spoilers. Why not any of the other people from Serial Death Report?
You should clarify that "demoned away" just means vanish.
The rest is all fair enough, if VERY conspiratorial.
Cross-Examination Four:
Next... Good catching the Maebara note in the evidence calling for a group, though I agree with BP that the note should also be accepted. If our theory assumes that Keiichi wasn't insane, then we should be able to use "Keiich wasn't insane" if it helps explain a motive.
As for the contradictions you are looking for...
* It isn't clear how the trash searching points to a group. How does that point to a group any more than an individual? Either/or could go through the trash, and I don't see it being substnatially more likely that a group would do this than an individual.
* The motive you're looking for isn't clear. I thought you were asking about the group's motive to kill Rena and Shion, not their motive to their strange things in general. (Come to think of it, what would be their motive to commit non-Watanagashi murders?)
* The "hole in the theory that ours better explains" doesn't make any sense to me. Are you seriously saying that the Conspiracy Four manipulated Keiichi into calling the police and talking about Oyashiro-sama when they wouldn't have otherwise? I don't see how that is a better explanation, but that's what you appear to be looking for.
Cross-Examination Five:
I thought this was completely unfair in the beginning, but couldn't quite vocalize why. Now,the issue is much clearer. The whole point of this cross-examination is that the player loses the case against their expectations, which is not always going to work. This can work for a player with a "guesstective" style of presenting everything, or any hazy idea they have in their head, but for somebody who is actually going to be looking for contradictions, and filtering the ideas to have to see if they are contradictions...
They could get stuck here for quite a long time, possibly even indefinitely. In essence, this excuse for a puzzle rewards presents=-spamming and punishes careful consideration of the evidence. If somebody does perfectly carefully consider the evidence, then either there should be nothing for them to present, or you've slipped up. (In this case, it's more that there isn't anything for them to present. The only way I discovered this the first time is that I was too quick to try an impeachment by omission.) If I had my usual amount of patience by this point, instead of being worn down by the madness that was the rest of the trial, I would probably have wasted at least half an hour on this one.
I'm well aware that enigma thinks "it's inevitable to get penalized if you as the game tells you," and that the game has been telling you to accept failure the whole time, but I'm not seeing either of those.
Narrative Concerns:
Lastly, there are two things that strike me as troubled with the ending. First, I have to echo BP about the ending with Ooishi. As for the ending sequence, "whether the true ending is good or bad depends on whether Misae approves" isn't a standard I can accept. Letting your happiness and sense of morality be wrapped up completely in what somebody else thinks is terrible, and it's not something I would have thought of coming into that segment.
It's also not entirely clear after Kuroshima's monologue that he thinks the standard for his conduct is Misae. He says that he's been "sacrificing everything he cares about," and it isn't clear why he'd need to change his conduct, if his standard has been Misae. Has he known that Misae wouldn't want him to give up all along, and just hasn't been fighting it? If so, that hasn't been well-communicated.
First Cross-Examination:
Every single thing Keiichi does in this testimony is unmotivated. "Why did he kill his friends" is a valid question, but so are all of the following:
* Why in his room?
* Why did he run to a phone booth?
* Why did he call the police?
* Why did he commit suicide in the middle of the conversation?
* Why did he choose to commit suicide by clawing at his own throat? That sounds needlessly painful.
You try to explain the first three in press conversations, but only for the first one does the detective give us a plausible enough explanation. The other two are so just too unbelievable. He wanted to call his parents, and he did the next logical step of going to the booth, but spontaneously decided not to. He wanted to turn himself in to the police, and he did the next logical step of calling them so he could turn himself in, but spontaneously decided not to. I'm still calling the second and third items on this list equally suspicious. With this many unnatural things, most people wouldn't pick out the motive as the unnatural thing without prodding, especially when it isn't actually a contradiction, and nothing in the cocounsel hint says we need to find something suspicious, but not necessarily contradictory. If, in my playthrough, calvinball hadn't hinted that I was on the right track in looking for suspicious things, I would have thought we were just supposed to go with these oddities.
Also, there are some unintended timeline contradictions. The autopsy says Keiichi died that night, but Ooichi says he didn’t survive the morning. The police transcript should say he fell unconscious during that conversation, not that he died. (Credit to Evo for finding the unintended contradictions.)
Second Cross-Examination:
The Satoshi bat contradiction is good.
For the next contradiction… As-is, the prosecution is not selective enough about Keiichi's insanity. He says Keiichi believed in this conspiracy, but he also says "maybe Keiichi was insane and delusional" for why he thought Oyashiro-sama was after him. It also is the most logical way to explain all these other oddities from cross-ex 1. Given the general tone, and the statement of "paranoid ramblings," it paints a picture of somebody who has lost touch with reality. This is open season on "lolInsanity." Add in the implications that he has bashed his own doorway to make threats... Add in fit of madness from searching the house... Add in that Ooishi used insanity to justify Keiichi's behavior in some of his press conversations... Add in that the prosecutor explicitly says he gave the trash a patdown, which he calls insane. The prosecution is doing general-purpose insanity arguments! So it’s too much of a stretch to make the torn out note a contradiction. lolInsanity means he can do a lot that might not make sense. For example, why couldn’t he have written the second page, thought it made too much sense or that he was wrong, and then decided to rip it to shreds? An insane person might do that. Even if he wasn’t insane, what if he just wrote the original second page too fast, had horrible rewriting, and decided to rewrite it with better handwriting? That’s another plausible alternative that doesn’t require insanity. Clarifying the bounds of Keiichi’s insanity and saying that we don’t need a rock-solid contradiction would both go a long way.
Now for some minutiae:
You should catch the present of Satoshi’s bat at things pointing to another suspect. It certainly does point that way. You just want us to find the second contradiction first.
Also, why wouldn’t the conspiracy destroy the note in its entirety, if this was the work of a third person? Simply not leaving any note would work much better.
Cross-Examination Three:
The third cross-ex is a decent segment, though I second Bad Player's thinking there are multiple options here.
I wouldn't have known to accuse 34 if not for xat spoilers. Why not any of the other people from Serial Death Report?
You should clarify that "demoned away" just means vanish.
The rest is all fair enough, if VERY conspiratorial.
Cross-Examination Four:
Next... Good catching the Maebara note in the evidence calling for a group, though I agree with BP that the note should also be accepted. If our theory assumes that Keiichi wasn't insane, then we should be able to use "Keiich wasn't insane" if it helps explain a motive.
As for the contradictions you are looking for...
* It isn't clear how the trash searching points to a group. How does that point to a group any more than an individual? Either/or could go through the trash, and I don't see it being substnatially more likely that a group would do this than an individual.
* The motive you're looking for isn't clear. I thought you were asking about the group's motive to kill Rena and Shion, not their motive to their strange things in general. (Come to think of it, what would be their motive to commit non-Watanagashi murders?)
* The "hole in the theory that ours better explains" doesn't make any sense to me. Are you seriously saying that the Conspiracy Four manipulated Keiichi into calling the police and talking about Oyashiro-sama when they wouldn't have otherwise? I don't see how that is a better explanation, but that's what you appear to be looking for.
Cross-Examination Five:
I thought this was completely unfair in the beginning, but couldn't quite vocalize why. Now,the issue is much clearer. The whole point of this cross-examination is that the player loses the case against their expectations, which is not always going to work. This can work for a player with a "guesstective" style of presenting everything, or any hazy idea they have in their head, but for somebody who is actually going to be looking for contradictions, and filtering the ideas to have to see if they are contradictions...
They could get stuck here for quite a long time, possibly even indefinitely. In essence, this excuse for a puzzle rewards presents=-spamming and punishes careful consideration of the evidence. If somebody does perfectly carefully consider the evidence, then either there should be nothing for them to present, or you've slipped up. (In this case, it's more that there isn't anything for them to present. The only way I discovered this the first time is that I was too quick to try an impeachment by omission.) If I had my usual amount of patience by this point, instead of being worn down by the madness that was the rest of the trial, I would probably have wasted at least half an hour on this one.
I'm well aware that enigma thinks "it's inevitable to get penalized if you as the game tells you," and that the game has been telling you to accept failure the whole time, but I'm not seeing either of those.
Narrative Concerns:
Lastly, there are two things that strike me as troubled with the ending. First, I have to echo BP about the ending with Ooishi. As for the ending sequence, "whether the true ending is good or bad depends on whether Misae approves" isn't a standard I can accept. Letting your happiness and sense of morality be wrapped up completely in what somebody else thinks is terrible, and it's not something I would have thought of coming into that segment.
It's also not entirely clear after Kuroshima's monologue that he thinks the standard for his conduct is Misae. He says that he's been "sacrificing everything he cares about," and it isn't clear why he'd need to change his conduct, if his standard has been Misae. Has he known that Misae wouldn't want him to give up all along, and just hasn't been fighting it? If so, that hasn't been well-communicated.
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I wanted to like this case, but as it is right now, I can't. There are things to like here, but there are very real problems that clouded them all out for me. Good luck getting them resolved.