[T] The Other Side ●

[Gizmological]

Intro

This is a very short story, set outside Ace Attorney canon. The game follows Morty Cisco, an entirely unremarkable young man who meets with an unfortunate accident. Now he struggles with an incident from his past that he would prefer to forget. This is a new style for me, so let me know what you think.

Click on the door to begin playing.

Spoiler : Walkthrough :

CE 1:
In any order;
Press all initial statements
Present Pistol on statement 4 to reveal 4-1 and 4-2
Present Autopsy Report OR Floor Plan on statement 4-2 (You must have both in the court record for this.) (This will hide 4-1 and 4-2)

CE2:
Present Witness Testimony on statement 4 to reveal statement 6
Press statement 6
Press statement 1 and present Caitlin's Phone when prompted

CE3:
Present Morty's Van on statement 3
Present Autopsy Report and Witness Testimony when prompted

Select "Hold it!" OR wait for 5 seconds for an alternate ending
Present Caitlin's Phone on statement 4

Credits

Spoiler : Character Sprites :

Morty Cisco - Hank Gott sprites by gotMLK7
Damien Alder - Jack Sundae sprites by LunchPolice
Danica Crow - Cindy Law sprites by Tear and Silver Glas
The Judge - Judge Awwyeah sprites by Lunchpolice
Caitlin Yoe - Aqua Brown sprites by Fenrirdarkwolf

This game uses music from Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors and Miles Edgeworth Investigations 2.

[coolbrad888]

I'm pretty new to aaonline, and the only other one of your works I've played is GoT, which I greatly enjoyed. Needless to say, The Other Side did not disappoint.

WARNING: Contains Spoilers

The Good:

Spoiler : :

You do a lot of new stuff here. You've taken the Ace Attorney formula we know and love and shaken it up in a lot of interesting ways. One thing I've been wondering about the main series for a while is how they intend to keep raising the stakes, and The Other Side provides us with an exciting answer. We've gone from defending a client from a jail sentence and the occasional death penalty, to defending them from literal eternal damnation. Speaking of which, I thought the afterlife element was crafted extremely well. It's not original, by any means, but it had a few quirks that I enjoyed, such as the judge with the sunglasses, and the idea that lawyers have to win 1000 cases before they can ascend to heaven. And, of course, all of the stuff at the end was very innovative, and it really made me think about just how much you can do with a trial simulator. Also, the characters were quite well written. Damien came off as a little edgy and typical at first, but once he got placed in the underdog role, and got pushed around a bit by the other characters, I enjoyed him a lot.

The "Bad":

Spoiler : :

Considering the trial's length, there's not actually a lot to complain about here. There were no massive case-destroying plot holes that I could find, at least. However, some areas were a bit lacking, gameplay-wise. My biggest problem is with the very first contradiction, because it didn't feel very much like a contradiction. We weren't given a lot of information on who could and couldn't get into the cabinet, and I felt like, since Morty is the boyfriend of the daughter of the guy who owns the cabinet, it's sort of implied that he could have snuck a peek at the combination somehow. It felt like the idea of him not being able to get into the cabinet had already been addressed, so I didn't think to address it again. And, while the second testimony is a bit confusing, the rest of the gameplay is pretty smooth. I especially liked the second contradiction, with the cabinet shattering due to the bullet from the suicide. It felt like just the right amount of difficulty for that point in the case (Although the police really should have been able to figure that out themselves based on the location of the bullet/bullet hole in the initial investigation.) Anyway, there's not much else to complain about. I always was a bit surprised to hear Phoenix's voice coming out of Damien, because he looks so much like Apollo, but that's hardly a problem.

Conclusion:
If you couldn't tell from me struggling to find much wrong with it, I had a pretty good time with this case. It's not mind-blowing, but that's understandable considering its length. It doesn't take very much time at all, and if you have time to spend, there's little reason NOT give The Other Side a shot.

[ned63]

Spoiler : Review, play the case first :

I really liked this!

The world building was interesting and never felt like a huge info dump- the player was fed information through character dialogue in a way that I thought felt really natural. This goes for the characterisation of the characters, too. I really enjoyed learning about Damien and Crow's relationship early in the trial and it was a source of entertainment throughout the case.
Damien comes across as a bit negligent at the start, but I thought he was always pretty likeable. I really liked his monologue about fear- that made me think perhaps his negligence with the official procedures is a side effect of the overconfidence he sometimes forces himself to have? Either way, it was a great moment to see what a gem Damien is. It reminded me of Phoenix's reason for being a lawyer in the canon games.
Crow was also enjoyable to go up against. I thought from the beginning that it was off for a courthouse in the afterlife to reward lawyers getting the defendant found "guilty" or "not guilty" instead of finding the truth of whether they deserve to go to heaven, so it was nice to see Crow's focus on "winning" the trials addressed.
The Judge was probably the weakest character, but I guess it makes sense for a part of "God" not to have too notable of a personality. I think he worked very well with the other characters, especially in his mentioning of a "successful trial" as I mentioned before, so he served his role in the story well.

The length was pretty nice too. Pretty much every line felt like it had purpose, either giving information about the case, the lore of the world the case takes place in, the characters, giving some comic relief- and often multiple of those things at once. I noticed no spelling/grammar errors either which is pretty rare. The writing in general just felt high quality and tight (in a good way) throughout.

I think the mystery flowed quite well too. There were no super-mind-blowing twists, but everything fed into the next point pretty well. No actual witnesses being present (for obvious reasons...) gave the case an interesting and unique feeling. Debating with Crow was enjoyable.

My only critiques are quite minor. Whilst playing, I thought it was a bit weird that they never mentioned explicitly why no one could use the window to enter/exit, but thinking a bit harder I guess the tree Cisco (supposedly) looked through was too far away.
Also, Crow's case felt pretty weak throughout- sometimes it felt like it was "meant" to be a bit stronger than it seemed. It never really felt like Damien had the odds against him too strongly, for better or for worse.

Cisco also didn't bring up any plausible explanations for the phone being moved- but I don't actually think that's a bad thing. Clearly the incident had weighed on him for a long time (the opening- which I also liked quite a lot- gave the impression that he might be depressed? Maybe his guilt lead to his bleak outlook on his life?) so I don't think him giving in fairly easily once confronted felt out of place, or counts as a plot hole or anything.
Most contradictions were pretty easy, but that's always way, way better than the solution being so cryptic it feels impossible. The truck backfiring was foreseeable from a mile away (still a good one though!. The contradiction with the phone's position in the "Guilty" ending, though, took me a bit of thought and was satisfying to realise; that was a great final puzzle.

I liked the theme of redemption/human nature (at least in the "Guilty" ending, which definitely felt like the "True" ending even if neither ending was specified as "canon"). Maybe it felt like a bit of a religious message, but in the context of the story, I think it fit well- going to the afterlife would have a similar effect on many people, I think.

I can't really remember what else I wanted to write. Whenever I play through a case like this I always regret not making a stream of consciousness because I never remember everything that I want to say about it, so I'll just end by saying that I really enjoyed this, and am eager to see what you make next (as always)!

[Gizmological]

Glad to see the positive feedback so far! (coolbrad, if you wouldn't mind, could you put any story elements in your comment behind a spoiler please )

@ned63

Spoiler : :

I thought it was a bit weird that they never mentioned explicitly why no one could use the window to enter/exit, but thinking a bit harder I guess the tree Cisco (supposedly) looked through was too far away.

Yeah, these are fair points. I wanted to keep the murder mystery aspect of this game as simple as possible which is why I gloss over a lot of finer details of the case. Sort of like an anti-Chekov's gun.

Also, Crow's case felt pretty weak throughout...

This was, at least partly, by design as a way to demonstrate Crow's attitude towards the system, in that she'll happily indict anyone if there's even a chance that she can win the case in a 'throw it at the wall and see what sticks' kind of way. The challenge then became to write a case against Morty that was notably flawed, but still strong enough to justify taking it to trial.

[Iron spaghetto]

Hey, so tho I was wandering around here a few years ago you could say I'm "new" to this whole thing. I really enjoyed "The other side". It was the perfect length to get back on tracks if you allow me.

As for the case itself :

Spoiler : :

I've not done a lot of custom cases around here but it did feel pretty refreshing when compared to the AA games. I really enjoyed the afterlife idea and how you did it introduced it. It actually reminds me of a French book I read "L'empire des Anges" by Bernard Werber which is basically about a guy needing to win his"clients" access to paradise to himself be allowed out of purgatory. Like it was mentioned above, the case was pretty simple but still very enjoyable and the music especially the one from 999 was cleverly used and served well the ambiance. The first contradiction was a little weaker than the rest, I had some trouble figuring it out since the gun wasn't really contradicting the statement. I also think the "bad" ending could have used a little more text. Not much but this sounded more like the dead ends we sometimes encounter in the AA games than an alternative ending.

Overall it was a great experience and I'll make sure to take a look at your other projects!

[Gizmological]

Thanks, Iron.

As multiple people have brought it up now, I've tweaked the wording of the first cross-examination. This should hopefully make things clearer.

[Igniam]

Spoiler : Typos/feedback :

That was a cool concept for a case. A client whose true guilt in the situation is unknown til the end and it didn't drag on (usually that plot point goes "wait, the last thing the witness said is a testimony" and it's dragged out, but it's only a flashback here and it's much more direct). Only thing is, I wish the bad ending was more clear in how to... get it, I guess (since I got the "good" ending first). I first clicked Hold it! and tried to spam present dummy evidence and such, then after about 3 minutes I went back and waited to get to it.

I also feel the "unsettling" aspects of it landed pretty well, for me, especially the bad ending's "Right? Right? Right? Right? Right?" and use of repeated lines.

The two typos:
"ammend"
"defendant have every reason to lie about that" has