[T] [CE] Inboubarashi-hen ☆

[enigma]

@CLC: Many thanks! In this "remastered" version, there's a special little easter egg I put in just for you and Calvinball since I know how much you "enjoyed" a certain thing in the older version. I've also fixed up the system and made the puzzle you guys got stuck on easier, among other things. I hope you both enjoy the full version of Inboubarashi-hen.

@Blizdi: That's exactly the response I was hoping for! I hope you enjoy the original games as well. Thank you.

[enigma]

Also, in case anyone missed them, here were the comp hype sigs.

Spoiler : :

And due to "why the hell not," here's the original plan for Inboubarashi-hen. It has a few slight differences, as you might notice, and the ending is very different, but besides that it's almost exactly the same as the finished product. It also has MAJOR Higurashi spoilers, iirc. So keep that in mind. But, yes. If you're curious about the original plan, here it is.

Original Inboubarashi Plan

[Calvinball]

Aha! I knew I wasn't crazy!

Unless... we're all hallucinating together!

[Bad Player]

☆ 謎評し編を始めた

[kwando1313]

Exciting~

Good luck, enigma~

[Bad Player]

Spoiler : higu spoilers :

No bullet points. Deal with it.

Saves at my own risk? …SOUNDS LIKE A PLAN~ (How do you break saves anyway? Does AAO just savestate?)
Only the most original writing for us~
Also huh, all this time I thought it was Okonomiya… Although I was probably just getting it confused with Okonomiyaki, heheh
MaeBARA, eh?
Which is his given name, they both sound like surnamesssssss (also it should probs be Sakimoto)
Dead defendant, no sweat if we lose, hooray~
What awkward writing. I blame the translation.
“Running over some things over in my head.”
So is Kasumi SHSL Obvious Villain or SHSL Red Herring.
Don’t worry. Your wife will be all better by the time you get back. Unless… SHE EATS THE POISON KASUMI DISGUISED AS COLD MEDICINE TO KILL HER SO THAT SHE COULD HAVE YOU ALL TO YOURSELF OH NOEZ
NIPAAH~
Rika Furude?! I have no idea who she is!! Well, the one thing I DO know is that she can’t possibly give us any important information or anything. (Also shouldn’t she be dead by now or something.)
“I’ve only known them for hundreds and hundreds of years. There’s nothing important I can tell you.”
How does Rika even reach her head.
Where did all this “sir” come from anyway.
SOMEBODY HAS TO PAY THE PRICE. FOR EVERYTHING. And if I do my job right, we’ll be able to pin this thing on somebody living so we can turn their live into a living hell and begin a cycle of hatred and revenge, rather than just letting this whole thing end
…No ファイト、おーです?
Also man, 決まったこと does not translate as nicely into English.
SHSL Profile Dump
Onimura… Nice name.
“Honour”… whhyyyyyyyyy
Also a messenger will arrive to let us know their verdict? Then… they’re not here? Then… how do they know what’s going on here?! How do they decide?!
Nuuuu you can’t leave, you’re already infected!
…gimme dat striptease please. I’ve seen the young version of these sprites and this guy is hot.
Also Onimura has a woman’s suit lol
No timer in the gavel bang right before the opening statement. Or the objection bubble after Onimura offers his condolences to the, uh, “Ryuuguu” family.
They’re… SHSL Invisible Ghost Girl!
Should be “victims’ names”
Should be “defendant’s home”
I think he, uh, more than ‘attempted’ suicide.
Need a timer at the end of the village council segment
Also was Rika ever that open about “I know the future lol”…?
Hi there Det. Delicious~
Hi there Det. McCloud~
Delicious cloud, delicious cloud… Cotton candy?!
Should be “we meet” not “we’ve met”
“don’t mess up” is usually a good game plan
“----The Current Theory----“ ‘plays’ twice. Set the second frame to instant-display.
*lovers’
I’d start the music after the objection one frame earlier.
Stuff Onimura presents appears on the right side of the screen
“There might be a difference as to whether or not there’s a body.” HIGU TRANSLATION TEAM PLS
Also is there any particular reason the note is on two pages? Doesn’t seem that long to me.
Commas and periods go INSIDE quotes, c’moooon.
Stop Kuroshima’s mouth from moving while he’s thinking zzz
*parents’
“Who said I was going to argue what I was going to argue” is a really awkward line
Making Onimura answer questions is, uh, kinda weird.
Dat dear you
SATOSHI, LEND ME YOUR STR—ow
Sometimes there aren’t spaces after periods. My guess is that it’s when you’re merging frames.
HIGU FLASHBACK TIEM~ (*yawn*)
Oryou? Going too far? Naaaaaaaah.
Askin’ the wrong person there, Ooishi.
Our client is dead. Not sure we really got an order from them.
Wow, Kuroshima doesn’t usually even make it this far? He really sucks.
ファイト、おーです！
CHIE-SENSEI~
‘s mouth doesn’t close when she finishes talking o.O
I think it should be either “the Watanagashi festival” or just “Watanagashi”
PLEASE UNDERSTAND
Chie’s rant slows down about halfway through :’(
This super-objection is pretty bad. There’s just soooooooooooooo many combinations. Besides the one you wanted, there’s two main “groups” of evidence that I think could also be used: trying to connect it through Satoshi (the bat, Satoshi’s profile), and trying to connect it through “Oyashiro-sama’s curse” (the police transcript, Keiichi’s note). I think you need to program in special responses for all the reasonable combinations involving those pieces of evidence—even if they just shoot it down by going “Satoshi went missing over a year ago. Even if his name has popped up again, we won’t accept it without direct proof that he himself was actually involved”/”If you want a connection, we need cold, hard facts, NOT the delusional rantings of a murderer!” (Of course, the police transcript mentions Keiichi clawing out his throat, so there’s also that)
Tbf, even if the same person killed Keiichi and Tomitake, that doesn’t have a direct impact on whether Keiichi killed Rena and Mion!
…Takano was the answer? Wow, I’m REALLY good at making joke answers that end up being right in AAO cases.
*too old
Man, the tone of all this changed waaaay too quickly
Also wasn’t Takano’s burnt corpse found in some other prefecture?
(also man do they really NEED someone to throw the trial considering how stacked everything was against Keiichi?)
Giving Oyashiro-sama’s curse as a motive is kind of circular. And if the motive is just “lolOyashiro-sama’s curse,” then you should also accept Keiichi’s note that shows that he was onto them.
Also maybe update the statements after you “prove” each one?
I think the missing part of Keiichi’s note is a valid point that our theory explains better than Onimura’s…
The murmurGAVELmurmurGAVEL thing goes on a bit too long…
Dat Trick music
First you forgot to put apostrophes where they were supposed to be, now you’re putting in way too many Dx
Oh it’s… I’ve forgotten his name already lol
Chie can’t be part of the conspiracy, her eyes aren’t darkened!
Ootori needs courtroom overview sprites
INVISIBLE GHOST GIRL~~
Also in that co-council convo there’s a frame missing a timer
What direction is keiichi’s bedroom window even facing
Kuroshima has gone so insane, he had a 4-line dialogue box!
理科！運命なんて、簡単に破れるんだ！
And not Rika is thought-speaking too
You forgot a merge and got a stray “?)” on its own frame in the lobby scene at the end.
I don’t think losing your wife is “breaking even.”
Ryuikishi?


So if you wanna get it featured, you gotta fix all the technical errors (missing and extra apostrophes, “Ryuuguu,” missing timers and mergers, etc), adding in custom convos for all the wrong super objection presents, and add more build-up to the reveal (Kasumi should give more hints to throwing the trial sooner (starting really weak, and getting stronger), we should see Kuroshima start to feel personally connected to and responsible for Keiichi and whatnot). There’s probably some other stuff, but w/e you can see all the comments for yourself.

…Also did that ending sequence actually mean anything. (Well, I already know that it doesn’t, sooo…)


Since you wanted general thoughts…
This is basically as straight of a HiguxAA crossover as you can get. We have an attorney who’s been presented with the end of EP1, and has to sort it all out. That’s about it. Characters are all presented fine. I feel like some traits were a bit too exaggerated, but I think it might be because the case wasn’t that long, so you had to put things where you could. Music was fine. (Only comment I would really make is that by the end you get a lot of tracks that play once in a short amount of time, but it’s all fine when you’re going through.)
I glanced at some of the other reviews, and I think they were right about one thing: the less you know about Higu, the better. Knowing the 90% of the truth behind the case (including the explanation for all the horror elements) just… kinda took away from it. As I alluded to earlier, the twist was pretty sudden, and could have used some easing into.
I also didn’t like the grimdark nihilism of the ending. I mean, when the “bad” end is better than the “good” end… Despite Ooishi’s speech, the ending was pretty bad. (He lost the chance to save his wife, got a huge stain on his career, and is probably going to die of Hinamizawa syndrome in exchange for absolutely nothing.) I understand that you can’t do much more (without, like, giving away all of Higu), but the ending still just wasn’t my cup of tea.
…Oh yeah, I remembered the other thing. The “was that an extra footstep?” thing in the bad end was just way too heavy handed. Instead should be something like “…? I thought I heard someone behind me.”

[AceAttorneyMaster111]

Do you need any knowledge of Japanese to play this game?

[enigma]

Nope! Not at all!

[SwagmaWampyr]

I glanced at some of the other reviews, and I think they were right about one thing: the less you know about Higu, the better. Knowing the 90% of the truth behind the case (including the explanation for all the horror elements) just… kinda took away from it.

Spoiler : trial :

Guess I'm in the minority, then.

Personally, I just found it very interesting to reconstruct Higu canon, which is essentially what you're trying to do here. The game makes it clear that you cannot win, and if you haven't played Higu, it comes off as the usual ambiguous intimidating nonsense, but if you have, you know it's 100% true: You can't win. What they say happened is indeed what happened. So all you can really do is come up with a bizarre alternate explanation for everything. Sure, this obviously didn't happen, but look at this evidence that supports that it COULD have! And this, and this, etc... as far as I know, none of the DA's arguments contradicted Higu canon, but an expert is welcome to prove me wrong then.

I just find AUs interesting as a whole when they're executed properly, and one of the best ways to do that is if they manage to tell their own story without contradicting or changing canon too much. ToC and TAT are both great examples of this as well.


But that's just my take. I looked at this as an AU take on the events of Higu rather than it just being it's own thing. And maybe that's not the correct way to interpret it, but that's still how I see it.

[Bad Player]

I glanced at some of the other reviews, and I think they were right about one thing: the less you know about Higu, the better. Knowing the 90% of the truth behind the case (including the explanation for all the horror elements) just… kinda took away from it.

Spoiler : trial :

Guess I'm in the minority, then.

Personally, I just found it very interesting to reconstruct Higu canon, which is essentially what you're trying to do here. The game makes it clear that you cannot win, and if you haven't played Higu, it comes off as the usual ambiguous intimidating nonsense, but if you have, you know it's 100% true: You can't win. What they say happened is indeed what happened. So all you can really do is come up with a bizarre alternate explanation for everything. Sure, this obviously didn't happen, but look at this evidence that supports that it COULD have! And this, and this, etc... as far as I know, none of the DA's arguments contradicted Higu canon, but an expert is welcome to prove me wrong then.

I just find AUs interesting as a whole when they're executed properly, and one of the best ways to do that is if they manage to tell their own story without contradicting or changing canon too much. ToC and TAT are both great examples of this as well.


But that's just my take. I looked at this as an AU take on the events of Higu rather than it just being it's own thing. And maybe that's not the correct way to interpret it, but that's still how I see it.

Spoiler : higu/inbou :

yeah, and knowing that the charges are true and so the most you can do is come up with some crazy theory that is 99% likely going to fail just... took away from it. There was no "oooh I wonder what happened" or "oooh I wonder what's going to happen" because my knowledge of Higu basically dictated it all. There was the "oooh I wonder what the conspiracy is," but (1) knowing there's a conspiracy from the start kinda takes away half the fun of it (not that this is enigma's fault, considering the circumstances), and (2) the conspiracy in inbou is like adding a drop of water to an ocean compared to the massive conspiracy already at play in higu (which is only a problem, again, if you already know higu).

...rika also annoys me a ton when she gets into her "waaaah i can't do anything even when there's a freaking explicit choice in the game" mode. In the larger, actual higu game, a scene/choice like that might've been a helpful illustration of rika's mental state, but in a short standalone spin-off that doesn't deal with any of that and where rika isn't even the main character, I just didn't feel it.

[NihilisticNinja]

Spoiler : higu/inbou :

yeah, and knowing that the charges are true and so the most you can do is come up with some crazy theory that is 99% likely going to fail just... took away from it. There was no "oooh I wonder what happened" or "oooh I wonder what's going to happen" because my knowledge of Higu basically dictated it all. There was the "oooh I wonder what the conspiracy is," but (1) knowing there's a conspiracy from the start kinda takes away half the fun of it (not that this is enigma's fault, considering the circumstances), and (2) the conspiracy in inbou is like adding a drop of water to an ocean compared to the massive conspiracy already at play in higu (which is only a problem, again, if you already know higu).

Spoiler : Inbou and Higu :

I had a similar experience to BB. Yes, I knew the game was unwinnable, and that basically the prosecution (And Tokyo) were completely right. However, I found having to try and fight against that to be quite entertaining- to try and have to spin the facts in such a way that there just might be enough doubt to persuade people that the truth wasn't, in fact, the truth. What really made it work is that the game wasn't a pointless slog where everything I said got shot down- circumstances made it so that there were enough oddities and unexplained points that it is completely possible to construct that alternate case, as crazy as it may end up being. The fact that the deck was basically insurmountably stacked against me from the moment the trial started wasn't something I found demotivating, but instead made me be encouraged see how far I could get.

In the end, though, how much we enjoy something is utterly subjective. What I find fun is going to often be different to what you find fun, and that's just how it goes. Just thought I'd chip in with my own perspective.

[TheDoctor]

Spoiler : Higurashi arc 1/This game :

Well, I knew going in that Keichii was technically guilty, but I thought the point was to show he had a justified reason for being guilty. Oh well.

Overall, I thought the case was constructed rather well based on what little I know of Higurashi (only seen up to the end of arc 3), although I'm disappointed there seems to be no way to really change how the game ends. The closest you get is the "bad ending" where you most likely end up dying before getting to see your wife again, whereas the true ending seems to imply your wife ends up dying before she sees you again. It's a Morton's Fork if ever I've seen one. Then again, I haven't gotten to the Kai arcs of Higurashi yet, so maybe that's just the way the stories go in the first place.

As a side note, "Keichii at the Bat" amused me far more than it should have. lol

Now, the super objection on the other hand... While the two pieces of evidence you have to present and the statement you need to present them at are blatantly obvious, it's precisely because of that fact that makes it so difficult. Why? Because I'm so 100% positive I know what I need to do, I don't even bother looping to the co-council point. The fact that the super objection isn't unlocked until that point only makes matters worse considering this kind of objection could very easily be made by presenting one piece of evidence first, then the second when prompted. Even the protagonist knows the super objection is something ridiculous that will probably only be mocked 35 years later, so why is it there in the first place? /rant

On another note, I complained about a similar issue once before, but having to lose the final CE on purpose is just a little frustrating, particularly if you have full health at the time. Perhaps an option to give up or keep fighting could be given after each failed objection?

Spoiler : A few minor technical notes (spoilers?) :

NOTE: I only looked at the editor to find the problematic frames via word search. I didn't go digging for spoilers until after I finished the game. Anyway...

Frames 253, 259, 303, and 2235 need timers.

Frame 857 has this typo...
"All of this happened because I made the mistake of letting *insiders* into the village."
One would think "insiders" were already "inside."

Finally, frame 2243/2244 was a 4 liner.

[Enthalpy]

I'll be streaming this case here and leaving up a review afterwards. Let's see what this case is like!

[DLA]

Spoiler : My Thoughts - Spoilers, of course. :

I've never played Higurashi, but I still really enjoyed the case. Kuroshima and Kasumi were both interesting and well-written, though the prosecutor wasn't anything special.

The plot set-up reminded me of, forgive me if this is a dumb comparison, Hot Fuzz, with the whole village council conspiring to eliminate those they didn't like in the town. Not sure if this is a Higurashi thing or just this case, but I thought it was neat. I was a little confused about what the deal was in the Give Up ending, though I presume the rash was some kind of poison they used to get rid of him and eliminate the loose ends? Regardless of a few points here and there where I was confused and some parts I felt were a bit tricky, I still liked it. The penalty thing was a little annoying, but didn't cause too much frustration.

This gets the DLA Seal of Approval from me!

[enigma]

Spoiler : :

Glad you enjoyed it!

I'm happy you liked Kuroshima and Kasumi. As for Onimura, yeah. He's nothing particularly special. After all, he's not that important. With the trial as rigged as it is, anyone could probably do his job and... well, have a decent chance of winning. The real villains are the three great families or, more directly, Kasumi. But, even then, Kasumi is only an agent of a larger organization. Not even a high ranking member, even. So, even SHE is not the real villain.

As for the bad ending... Well, read/play/watch Higurashi to find out! 8D

And sorry that the penalty system was frustrating... Hopefully, the instant revival system balanced that out?

Also, just a reminder for people not to use saves. There is a mercy/revive system in place for your benefit. Much thanks.