Quite liked this one, although I do feel as though it loses points for theme revelance in this particular comp. It seems more of an Investigation than a Misc trial. The main thing that would set it apart from a normal investigation would, I guess, be the multiple endings, and... I gotta agree with Reecer on this one;
even with some sort of notification about needing to find those two endings, it's still hard to know where to look. I'm not sure if I missed any hints about what paths you need in-game or if there just aren't any, but something like that might be helpful for those who don't use a walkthrough. It's not as hard to follow as CT, as there were far less choices to make, but it's still a little annoying to have to find each ending with no guidance. Especially as a lot of them are bits of dialogue repeated in other routes.
On the other hand, I liked the slight change in style with this one. For a lot of the start, it felt very similar to Empty or Curtain 2, where some of the dialogue doesn't really uniquely fit each character. As if certain lines spoken by Apollo could just have easily been said by Kristoph, or vice versa. It's a little hard to explain, but it's especially prevelant in those moments where the characters take jabs at each other... they seem interchangeable.
For the most part, it wasn't too distracting. In a couple of scenes before he's "met," de Killer seemed a little more casual than he usually was. Trucy ("Trucy") was by far the most jarring - up until the very end, I was sure that this was the same sort of Trucy from Empty, which... I'll admit, didn't seem much like Trucy at all. Luckily, it was part of the plot this time - it was nice foreshadowing. Shows what you get for assuming things about the characters with ??? nametags...
Incidentally, the change in tone from the rest of the case at the very end was... a little crack. And you promised prceisely zero crack. That said, if the rest of DWaMland is grimdark (which, CT aside, I never really saw it as), this was a far lighter ending than any of the other cases had let me to expect. Even with everyone we knew being either someone else entirely or a liar/killer, the ending still managed to be more upbeat than it was gloomy. It's a nice change of pace. Empty had bittersweet endings too, but that left a bunch of unanswered (albeit hinted at) questions. It was neat to see the protagonist completely succeed this time around and not be upset by the outcome.
The rest of the true end did seem a little rushed, though. Main two scenes that stick out are the two confrontations against Nell and Gavin. It's hard to see that Nell confessed so quickly in this route when she didn't in others, and the fact that 3000 (ish? I'unno) frames of build-up led to such a quick clash with Gavin was a bit underwhelming. Especially since you can't lose that confrontation. That was the only moment where I thought that it might have been better as a standard court case for that scene, with several rebuttals. Obviously, that wouldn't work within the boundaries of the competition, and with that in mind, it wasn't so bad.
Other scenes on that route, like the de Killer hospital scene, also seemed to be a mad rush to tie up all the loose ends. The dialogue was strong in those scenes, but it was quite clearly exposition. I can't tell if it was always meant to be like that or if it was comp rush, but a slower pace in those parts might have paid off.
(Then again, I heard this whole thing was an homage to Kara no Shoujo, which I'm not that familiar with. The way the revelations are handled might be intentional for all I know.)
Overall, though, the classic detective novel vibe made the case very enjoyable (when I hadn't read the dialogue already on other routes) and yeah, I quite liked the plot, even if Phoenix de Killer came nearly out of nowhere. It might not be as atmospheric as Tomorrow or ADB, but as more of a "short story" (which is what this feels more like,) it worked well.
end of pretentious review
also what the hell is with that title