[T] Maya Fey: Spiritual Successor ●●○○ (Case 2 Remake Out!)

[Rtaos Grimm]

Ok then, Part 2, here's my thought processes:

Stream of Conciousness:

Spoiler : :

Today I'm tired, I've been thirsty all day, England is in a heatwave which is extremely rare and I'm affected badly by heat, so I need something new to play (Thought while the case loaded).
On the intro you can put a quote from someone? George W Bush has some good ones.
Three Taxi drivers for the same company? Is this the part where they claim they don't know each other?
Homed in, eh? Is this based on the Homing weapons from Worms? Actually, if only the Weapons Factory in Mayhem was more in depth, I would of made a Homing Taxi weapon.
I really wish these systems with the homing taxis are made reality, that would be one step towards the actual future.
Same old Judge, and that's the end of my thought.
Hah, connection and opportunity, needs motive and you're meeting the Hangman. If he was alive in this year of course.
Racinder and Joshuason are obviously the other two defendants.
Hater comments? You're 26 years old for god's sake.
Two testimonies? That's a bit too short for my liking.

This part is really, really short. Actually how many frames is it?

This is a recommendation 256 Pi:

Spoiler : :

I can't see how Part 3 could be very long and unless you have more than one witness, Part 4 can't be very long either. Can you combine Part 3 and Part 4? That's assuming that I'm right, maybe you'll make it longer?

[256 Pi]

Part 1 is 535 frames, and Part 2 is 486 frames. I expect parts 3 and 4 will be longer,

Spoiler : :

as Part 1 was just examining one small area, and part 2 was only two testimonies.

I don't know what your definition of "long" is, but it's long to me. I don't know, I guess this is going to be a short series. Sorry if it's not long enough for you; the cases' lengths were the least of my priorities in this series. I'm sure it's long for other people in the forum. And either way, this is still only Case 2.

I suppose I could combine Parts 3 and 4, but I really don't want to since that would significantly delay the end of the case. I'll try to extend the last two parts, but keep in mind I'm trying to get this done as fast as I can without dipping in quality too much.

And also, one thing about your stream of consciousness...

Spoiler : :

You said, "Hater comments? You're 26 years old for god's sake."

It's far enough in the future that homing taxis exist, so obviously people who are teenagers now are going to be significantly older at the time that this case happens. This takes place 4 years after GS5, after all.

[kwando1313]

Err... Hate to be a negative Nancy here, but ~500 frames per part is really short. An average part in an AAO trial now is... At least 1.5k frames? And some people are crazy enough to have up to 5k frames in one part. Just a heads up.

[Rtaos Grimm]

Part 1 is 535 frames, and Part 2 is 486 frames. I expect parts 3 and 4 will be longer,

Spoiler : :

as Part 1 was just examining one small area, and part 2 was only two testimonies.

I don't know what your definition of "long" is, but it's long to me. I don't know, I guess this is going to be a short series. Sorry if it's not long enough for you; the cases' lengths were the least of my priorities in this series. I'm sure it's long for other people in the forum. And either way, this is still only Case 2.

I suppose I could combine Parts 3 and 4, but I really don't want to since that would significantly delay the end of the case. I'll try to extend the last two parts, but keep in mind I'm trying to get this done as fast as I can without dipping in quality too much.

And also, one thing about your stream of consciousness...

Spoiler : :

You said, "Hater comments? You're 26 years old for god's sake."

It's far enough in the future that homing taxis exist, so obviously people who are teenagers now are going to be significantly older at the time that this case happens. This takes place 4 years after GS5, after all.

Fair enough.

Spoiler : :

Good point about the ageing but I always see "hater comments" as a childish thing that people should grow out of. But they don't. Ever heard of the Westboro Baptist Church?

kwando: For me over 1000 frames is an average per part. But I'm working on increasing my personal average. I won't beat ZetaAzuel and you in length though. In length.

[256 Pi]

Err... Hate to be a negative Nancy here, but ~500 frames per part is really short. An average part in an AAO trial now is... At least 1.5k frames? And some people are crazy enough to have up to 5k frames in one part. Just a heads up.

Well, I already had this series written out in full when I joined the AAO forum, so I couldn't have known people were going to be expecting it to be THAT long. So it turns out that the series I had planned out isn't as ambitious as I originally thought it was. Whatever, sucks for all those people who wanted it longer.

Either way, I certainly won't deny that the first two parts of Case 2 are pretty short, even for this series. However, I seriously doubt any part of this series is going to make it all the way to 1500 frames, heck, I don't think most parts are going to surpass 1000. (Some may get close, though.) Don't ask me to estimate an average, though, I have no idea.

I'll try to extend future parts as much as I can, but you should still expect these to be shorter than usual on the AAO forum. At least I can say for sure that the later parts were going to be longer anyway (again, I am only on case 2). For those of you who have played the first two parts of Case 2...

Spoiler : Note on Case 2 Part 3 :

Maya FINALLY gets a chance to use her Magatama and break Psyche-Locks in Part 3, as well as Logic again.

That should bring up the frame count significantly, but no guarantees. I'll strive for at least 700 frames, but again, I have no idea how long this is going to be. My priority is more about getting it out than making it long. Although, I know I CAN make these longer. One of my old cases, The Turnabout Convention, got to 658 frames in Part 1 and 784 frames in Part 2, and I only made it as a practice to make sure I knew how to do investigation sequences properly. The first two parts just weren't very long because not a lot of area was covered during the investigation. Part 1 was more of a tutorial to Logic and Deduce.

So finally, yes, I can assure you all the later parts will be longer than this.

And also, to Rtaos Grimm...

Spoiler : :

I agree, hater comments are totally childish. That's why Zuma didn't post the comment. And yes, I know about the Westboro Baptist Church. They are one of the reasons for my dad's high blood pressure. But let's not even get into that...

[Phantom]

You guys are sending the wrong message with this talk of frame count.

Pi, don't worry about artificial length. Frame count means nothing if your player isn't feeling like she/he is engaged in a case. It can be a 2 thousand frame trial but still feel like it's short/reasonably lengthed depending on the experience they get. It can be a 500 framed trial but feel like it's being dragged out too much, again, depending on the player experience.

My thinking is along with waht kwando is trying to express with the average frame cuont being 1000 (which he's right on), but not being clear: 1000 per part is usually a good "baseline" frame count to assist the author in fleshing out the case as much as possible. That's what been agreed on by the community a year ago I think.

Do what you think is best, but don't get drudged up in filling a number quota

[256 Pi]

Well, thanks for clearing that up. MF:SS is already fully scripted out, so I don't think the "fleshing out" is really necessary. It's at least good to know that people don't necessarily think that a case has to be long in order to be good. And my brother said he was just as engaged in this case as any other case he's seen here. I suppose I got the wrong idea since Rtaos Grimm said he got hit by a heatwave and wanted something to occupy the time, and although Case 2 Part 2 might have been entertaining while it lasted, it didn't last very long.

Well, quota or no quota, the parts to come are still going to be longer than the ones that have already been posted.

[256 Pi]

And Case 2 Part 3 is done! It's the longest part so far.

Link in the usual place.

[jayvdale]

One part left might be the completion of second case it will wait for September to release the part 4.

[256 Pi]

Yeah, probably. School tends to get in the way like that.

Hopefully it's early September instead of late September.

[sonicboyincourt]

There's actually a bit of an issue near

Spoiler : :

the end of Part 3. You're able to select "Hostage crisis" when you're supposed to break Yellowcab's locks.

[256 Pi]

Fixed. Thank you for pointing that out.

[256 Pi]

CASE 2 IS DONE!!!!!!!!!!

Links in the usual places.

Note: Since I am currently watching dowolf's translation of AAI2 and finding it amazing, I snuck in a few AAI2 MEGA SPOILERS references. No spoilers, don't worry. I never mention at any time the plot of AAI2. (I am only through Case 2 in the translation at this point in time, after all, but not that I would mention it anyway. ) I also included one non-spoiler AAI2 music track (Logic Chess). Just thought I might give you a heads up on that.

Also, Case 2 Part 4 unexpectedly became the longest part after I totally redid the ending, at 887 frames! (Some of you may think that's too short. Get used to it, my cases are shorter than average. )

[~Dataman~]

Spoiler : Streamer :

1: Good music.
2: Only two magatamas in this existence? This contradicts the canon, I think.
3: Apollo's having a heart attack from seeing Mia. Isn't this... love??
4: 'Police have' should be 'Police has'.
5: Edgey, fancy as always!
6: Always trust in yellow taxis.
7: Let's take a look at the car's insides.
8: Why'd the antenna have string attached? Someone used it like a harpoon?
9: That device must be energy shield. That would explain why wasn't the taxi damaged.
10: I'm stuck.

[Enthalpy]

I'm not doing Stream of Consciousness for this review because the style just isn't helpful for this sort of game.

Spoiler : Warning! HIGHLY negative review! :

I'd like to start out with a question. If you want something, does that mean that getting it is a good idea, and that you'll be happy with it? You can take a few minutes to think about that, but the answer you'll probably get is no. There are some cases when getting that thing has more complexities than it seems, and with those factored in, you wouldn't think it's a good idea after all. Other times, you don't know what you're asking for as well as you think you do, and it turns out that it would be bad.

Playing through these cases, there's the very distinct sense throughout that this series is very much based on things you wanted that didn't really turn out to be good ideas.

I want to start with the basic premise of the case. Maya Fey quits Kurain to be a defense attorney and work with Phoenix and Apollo, with Pearl, the new Master, as her assistant and Edgeworth as her friend and mentor. You obviously like this idea, but how is this going to work? Being familiar with the characters, there are a few questions that come up almost immediately. How can a character like Maya be a lawyer while retaining her personality, which includes a lighthearted lack of forethought, common sense, and practicality? Those traits are contradictory. Unsurprisingly, this theoretical design problem creates a practical playability problem, in that Maya feels extremely out of character the entire time. When you have a markedly out of character protagonist, the player will easily get distracted. You had this idea, but the idea itself proved to be a problem. You have other problems. How are the other characters going to react to Maya being a defense attorney? Well, I can't see the characters coming to terms with it quickly, so when they do in-game, it's out of character and thus distracting. Come to think of it, most of the canon characters are out-of-character. Adrian Andrews most certainly is.

Before continuing, there are some critical side points to address. I extremely highly recommend that you not do as many of your own sprites. Yellowcab's sprite and the sprite of the case 1 killer are both unpleasant to look at due to the relative sizes of their head and neck. Also, swearing in cases is a reportable offense and can get your cases taken down, so please remove most of the profanities. "Ass" and "bastard," I believe, are fine in moderation, but the others are not.

Looking at the custom characters you have, most of them seem 2-dimensional. They lack backstories and personalities besides one or two distinguishing features. Zuma is the girl who is singing along to her iPod too much. Yellowcab is the sweaty guy. Case 1 killer is a stereotypical American west rancher. Case 2 killer is the obnoxious guy who swears a lot and comes up with excuses. Case 2 defendant says "sheila" a lot. Phoenix's defendant in case 2 is a rude person. For these last four, I'm not saying their names because I don't remember them. Your custom characters lack personality, and that is greatly weighing down your stories.

Even the plot isn't conducive to what you're trying to do because it doesn't make much sense due to plot holes and poor pacing. Why is Edgeworth on the ceiling of a disco club in the introduction? Why exactly is Maya leaving Kurain? Doing it to avoid conflict between her and Pearl is far too flimsy a motive, especially if they have no relationship afterwards. Most of the conclusions in the investigation segment are illogical. How does Maya have the money to get an apartment? How does Maya get into law school? Why is Trucy on trial? What was the point of the investigation sequence with the tree? A lot of pacing is also bad. For instance, well, quite often. This is egregious in the prologue, with incessant time skips, and the investigations of case two, where illogical deductions are made and facts come out of nowhere. For instance, the connections between the three cases, the hostage situation, and most everything with the taxi systems.

The crime and investigations were also lacking. The investigations were horribly, horribly linear and I needed a walkthrough for most of them. The logic function was poorly explained and poorly done, in particular. A lot of the logic bits didn't flow. Anything requiring evidence was a good example of this, and so was the needle and hole. The relevance of the two hasn't been established, and in hindsight, why would the needle have even been thrown away? Most examinable objects were far too small to catch. As for the crimes, they lacked a certain Ace Attorney flair. I'm still trying to work out the timeline of events in case one, so I can't comment on that, but the idea that three criminals with the exact same M.O struck at the same time by sheer coincidence is absolutely ridiculous.

Lastly, the logic. This is really bad. The logic chess made no sense whatsoever. What did Flip have to do with anything, what was the importance of the motive, and... Well, the second round just confused me. As for the psyche-locks most of them were off. I don't see why the key couldn't have been simply stolen, and Taxicab's sweating hardly proves he was nervous about the conversation. A massive number of contradictions weren't even contradictions, either. Contradictions should either disprove the witness' statement or (in rare cases) answer the witness' question. Most of your contradictions weren't either. Other times were logic problems. For instance, Racinder may have said he couldn't give the killer an alibi, but a witness said he could. It also isn't quite reasonable to assume the killer works for the company based solely on the M.O, because the technology might be common, or the culprit could work for the manufacturer. The timeframes for the alibis weren't established. The bumper also doesn't show car damage was impossible. I'm still lost on the purpose of the clock...

I hate to be negative. I mean, I really don't want to be negative. To be perfectly honest, everything you've made so far needs massive overhauls. It can be done, but not without a massive amount of work. So far, you've just put in things you like without regard for how they work as a whole. I want you to make the best case you can, and in order to do that, you're going to have to think a lot more about design.