Looking Back (Awards Ceremony is out!)

[FenrirDarkWolf]

My entry is submitted!

[risefromtheashes]

We've gotten six submissions already! Still waiting on three! (Also looking at you, clcman...)
The 24-hour grace period ends in less than 10 hours, so please keep that in mind!

[clcman]

So, what was got?

[risefromtheashes]

So, what was got?

Six entries in total! We've started playing the first one, and will be writing our reviews for it soon.

[Super legenda]

A Turnabout by John Phoenix, by Ana.

Themes: Best Worst Comp, Roulette Rules (Pen is Mightier), They Shall not Kill, No Pressure, Keeping it Simple and Short and Sweet.

Spoiler : risefromtheashes's Review :

"Disappointed in the lack of Herlock Sholmes."
- Anonymous

Overview: Sherlock Holmes travels to the future and gets sued for existing.

Story: I mean, wow. This was a masterpiece. A true creation of our Lord and Savior's son, Pees'lubn Andistan'dhin himself. (On a serious note, the comedy was great in this case, and I laughed my ass off several times. And there was actually a contradiction that subverted my expectations at the end! Not much to say other than this was a pretty solid mini-case to have a good laugh at.)

Presentation: No issues here. Music worked well - DGS music, unsurprising given the plot, with one Last Window theme that fit nicely with the character who it was used for. Sprites were solid - with some DGS imports, and a Phoenix edit for the protagonist that I personally enjoyed! There was also a character whose sprites were imported from Last Window, and it was really funny seeing only their massive head and shoulders taking up the whole witness stand - fit well with the comedic theme of the case.

Gameplay: Pretty basic, but that's not a bad thing. Just your typical "go to trial, present evidence" scenario. (There were no press conversations, which I personally wish there was, but that's more of me wanting there to be more funny quips, as opposed to an actual issue with the gameplay.)

Theme Relevance: Well, it fits all of these categories! (In hindsight, maybe "Keeping it Simple" and "Short and Sweet" should've been counted as one theme for the comp rules, but this submission had four others, so it's fine.) Emphasis on "The Pen is Mightier", which was basically the central focus of the case.

Conclusion: No big complaints on this entry! It was a pretty refreshing "Best Worst"/joke-type entry that I really enjoyed.

Super legenda's review:

Spoiler : :

Ah yes, "The Mystery of the Time Detective" is my favorite Sherlock book.


Overview: Time Travel, Sherlock Holmes, Payne, and laughs every minute, you got it.

Story: For being a "Best Worst" kind of case, the story, even though without much depth, is extremely unique, first, there isn't any murder, but rather... Copyright, which is an extremely unique premise.

Presentation: Being the kind of case that this is, presentation is not really that important, but there still were some good things, DGS sprites... and an EXTREMELY unique character visually, which looks so out of place, that is just awesome.

Gameplay: The gameplay is simple, but still fun, there's no Press option, which is a shame, because I'd love to have more incredible dialogue. The contradictions are simple for the most part, though one of them actually subverted my expectations with its contradiction, and had a pretty smart answer.

Theme Relevance: The case nicely fits on all the themes, though I'll say that it failed at Best Worst case... because the case was actually too good, I will never be able to consider a case "bad", if it made me laugh every minute, and its got the "No Pressure" theme pretty well, as John Phoenix is an actually extremely competent lawyer, who never sweats or gets nervous at any point of the trial.

Conclusion:This case is... terrible, it has no Herlock Sholmes! Just kidding, lol, the case was great. It was a laugh every minute, with an unique premise and an interesting character, this case was a DeLite.

[DJJ6800]

As the guy who sporked the John Phoenix stories...I'm very afraid.

[Super legenda]

As the guy who sporked the John Phoenix stories...I'm very afraid.

Why are you afraid? It's great.

[DJJ6800]

As the guy who sporked the John Phoenix stories...I'm very afraid.

Why are you afraid? It's great.

Because I'm afraid to admit that anything with John Phoenix in it is good.

[Super legenda]

As the guy who sporked the John Phoenix stories...I'm very afraid.

Why are you afraid? It's great.

Because I'm afraid to admit that anything with John Phoenix in it is good.

Huh, ok.

[risefromtheashes]

As the guy who sporked the John Phoenix stories...I'm very afraid.

Why are you afraid? It's great.

Because I'm afraid to admit that anything with John Phoenix in it is good.

*points gun* YOU MUST DO IT!!!!! FOR SCIENCE!!!!!!!!

Also, next up is Turnabout Reality by DJJ6800!

[Nicky Boy]

Spoiler : In riseoftheashes's review :

"Until then, Mr. holmes cannot be allowed to exist without the estate's approval"

Which is why he became Herlock Sholmes, instead

[risefromtheashes]

Spoiler : In riseoftheashes's review :

"Until then, Mr. holmes cannot be allowed to exist without the estate's approval"

Which is why he became Herlock Sholmes, instead

I legitimately was hoping the case would make that joke... but whether it did, I will not tell you!

[Super legenda]

Turnabout Reality, by DJJ6800

Themes: Three's Company, Short and Sweet and They Shall not Kill.

Super legenda's review:

Spoiler : :

Oh boy, this is gonna be interesting...

Overview: Phoenix Wright has to take on an extremely unique case in a high school, dealing with some reaaally unique characters and with a big mystery around.

Story: The absolutely best part of the case by far, not giving spoilers, but, this case is a crossover, and with a game known quite well for its "Woah" factor, I'm actually not gonna go much in detail on this part of the review, but I assure you, the story is incredible and with many big twists. Also, as part of They Shall not Kill, this case has a base other than murder!

Presentation: Not really outstanding, and it has some problems, for example, one of the characters has some sprites which are really blurry, also some frames that are not timed whent they should, and such. Though the music was good and fitting.

Gameplay: Many of the testimonies were really simple, some of the first ones were just Press all, but others were really well done, and I legit had difficulty with the tougher ones and had to look at the walkthrough, then one of the testimonies has an incredibly unique answer, which was cool.

Theme Relevance: This case... literally gets all of the themes PERFECTLY, seriously, I think that it'll be hard to top how Turnabout Reality used its 3 themes, I won't go into detail, but you'll understand everything when you play it...

Conclusion: This is one of the most Mind shattering cases out there in my opinion, be it Ace Attorney Online, or Official, the crossover aspect was perfect with the characters, the prosecutor is amazing, and the later parts are just full of twists.

Spoiler : risefromtheashes's Review :

"'Uwa?' What was that supposed to be?"
- Phoenix Wright, Ace Linguist

Overview: A crossover case where Phoenix Wright ends up in a mock trial court in Doki High School, and defends Natsuki's father on the charges of assaulting her.

Story: I will say, the story was quite solid. I enjoyed it a lot, both as an Ace Attorney fan and a Doki Doki Literature Club fan. The prosecution was perfectly in-character, and executed very well, in my opinion. The big twist was a bit surprising, even if I personally saw it coming (I'll chalk that up to me being a genius /j) - but only at the last second. The last testimony of the case was great, and - avoiding spoilers again - very clever, in tandem with the rules of the competition. The contradictions were not that difficult, but that was fitting for a case of this length, which I imagine was just meant to be a silly crossover case with a few testimonies. The comedy was pretty great too, in my opinion.

Presentation: Probably the case's weakest area. There were one or two frames with inner monologue that didn't have closing parentheses, a couple of frames in the credits that didn't have the voice set to "None" (or a timer), and one frame that should've had a voice line that didn't. I suggest that DJ double-check when putting sound effects into certain frames (sometimes it glitches out, which could've been what happened), and also double-check punctuation, voice blip settings, and the like (those can really slip your mind sometimes). The custom sprites, while very pleasing to see, were very blurry - probably a side effect of resizing them, so I can't fault DJ too hard on this, because I believe they were originally, like, three times the dimensions of the AAO game display screen (whatever it's called) on each side. The profile pictures were odd, because they seemed like they had been taken from transparent files, but because they hadn't been edited properly, one of them had a white background, one or two had a black one, and one had the grey-checkerboard "transparent" background. (Saving transparent PNG's and then editing them in Paint 3D is one possible fix for this.) The music was mostly from the editor (but selected well, in my opinion), but the intro and ending scenes had music from Doki Doki Literature Club, which were well-chosen.

Gameplay: Not much to say here. A couple of testimonies where you press and present. I will say that there was one testimony where I felt like a certain piece of evidence should have been presentable, but the game was implying something other than I had intended. However, this is more of a case logic thing than a gameplay thing. In any case, nothing faulty about the gameplay, but nothing unique either.

Theme Relevance: By far the strongest part of this case, in my opinion. I can't spoil anything, but the case fit these themes perfectly, and the methods that DJ used to make this happen were... very unique.

Conclusion: Even if you have never played Doki Doki Literature Club, I feel like this case would be a good play for you. Some presentation flaws aside, the case was quite good, and you don't necessarily NEED to know DDLC to find it fun - though you will definitely miss some references. The end of the case was especially great, in my opinion.

[Awsome2464]

Turnabout Reality, by DJJ6800

Themes: Three's Company, Short and Sweet and They Shall not Kill.

Super legenda's review:

Spoiler : :

Oh boy, this is gonna be interesting...

Overview: Phoenix Wright has to take on an extremely unique case in a high school, dealing with some reaaally unique characters and with a big mystery around.

Story: The absolutely best part of the case by far, not giving spoilers, but, this case is a crossover, and with a game known quite well for its "Woah" factor, I'm actually not gonna go much in detail on this part of the review, but I assure you, the story is incredible and with many big twists. Also, as part of They Shall not Kill, this case has a base other than murder!

Presentation: Not really outstanding, and it has some problems, for example, one of the characters has some sprites which are really blurry, also some frames that are not timed whent they should, and such. Though the music was good and fitting.

Gameplay: Many of the testimonies were really simple, some of the first ones were just Press all, but others were really well done, and I legit had difficulty with the tougher ones and had to look at the walkthrough, then one of the testimonies has an incredibly unique answer, which was cool.

Theme Relevance: This case... literally gets all of the themes PERFECTLY, seriously, I think that it'll be hard to top how Turnabout Reality used its 3 themes, I won't go into detail, but you'll understand everything when you play it...

Conclusion: This is one of the most Mind shattering cases out there in my opinion, be it Ace Attorney Online, or Official, the crossover aspect was perfect with the characters, the prosecutor is amazing, and the later parts are just full of twists.

Spoiler : risefromtheashes's Review :

"'Uwa?' What was that supposed to be?"
- Phoenix Wright, Ace Linguist

Overview: A crossover case where Phoenix Wright ends up in a mock trial court in Doki High School, and defends Natsuki's father on the charges of assaulting her.

Story: I will say, the story was quite solid. I enjoyed it a lot, both as an Ace Attorney fan and a Doki Doki Literature Club fan. The prosecution was perfectly in-character, and executed very well, in my opinion. The big twist was a bit surprising, even if I personally saw it coming (I'll chalk that up to me being a genius /j) - but only at the last second. The last testimony of the case was great, and - avoiding spoilers again - very clever, in tandem with the rules of the competition. The contradictions were not that difficult, but that was fitting for a case of this length, which I imagine was just meant to be a silly crossover case with a few testimonies. The comedy was pretty great too, in my opinion.

Presentation: Probably the case's weakest area. There were one or two frames with inner monologue that didn't have closing parentheses, a couple of frames in the credits that didn't have the voice set to "None" (or a timer), and one frame that should've had a voice line that didn't. I suggest that DJ double-check when putting sound effects into certain frames (sometimes it glitches out, which could've been what happened), and also double-check punctuation, voice blip settings, and the like (those can really slip your mind sometimes). The custom sprites, while very pleasing to see, were very blurry - probably a side effect of resizing them, so I can't fault DJ too hard on this, because I believe they were originally, like, three times the dimensions of the AAO game display screen (whatever it's called) on each side. The profile pictures were odd, because they seemed like they had been taken from transparent files, but because they hadn't been edited properly, one of them had a white background, one or two had a black one, and one had the grey-checkerboard "transparent" background. (Saving transparent PNG's and then editing them in Paint 3D is one possible fix for this.) The music was mostly from the editor (but selected well, in my opinion), but the intro and ending scenes had music from Doki Doki Literature Club, which were well-chosen.

Gameplay: Not much to say here. A couple of testimonies where you press and present. I will say that there was one testimony where I felt like a certain piece of evidence should have been presentable, but the game was implying something other than I had intended. However, this is more of a case logic thing than a gameplay thing. In any case, nothing faulty about the gameplay, but nothing unique either.

Theme Relevance: By far the strongest part of this case, in my opinion. I can't spoil anything, but the case fit these themes perfectly, and the methods that DJ used to make this happen were... very unique.

Conclusion: Even if you have never played Doki Doki Literature Club, I feel like this case would be a good play for you. Some presentation flaws aside, the case was quite good, and you don't necessarily NEED to know DDLC to find it fun - though you will definitely miss some references. The end of the case was especially great, in my opinion.

I played this case, myself, as it's been posted, and I must admit that these reviews hit the nails on the head perfectly. Not perfect by any means, but still a great experience that takes advantage of its themes and plot!

[DJJ6800]

Turnabout Reality, by DJJ6800

Themes: Three's Company, Short and Sweet and They Shall not Kill.

Super legenda's review:

Spoiler : :

Oh boy, this is gonna be interesting...

Overview: Phoenix Wright has to take on an extremely unique case in a high school, dealing with some reaaally unique characters and with a big mystery around.

Story: The absolutely best part of the case by far, not giving spoilers, but, this case is a crossover, and with a game known quite well for its "Woah" factor, I'm actually not gonna go much in detail on this part of the review, but I assure you, the story is incredible and with many big twists. Also, as part of They Shall not Kill, this case has a base other than murder!

Presentation: Not really outstanding, and it has some problems, for example, one of the characters has some sprites which are really blurry, also some frames that are not timed whent they should, and such. Though the music was good and fitting.

Gameplay: Many of the testimonies were really simple, some of the first ones were just Press all, but others were really well done, and I legit had difficulty with the tougher ones and had to look at the walkthrough, then one of the testimonies has an incredibly unique answer, which was cool.

Theme Relevance: This case... literally gets all of the themes PERFECTLY, seriously, I think that it'll be hard to top how Turnabout Reality used its 3 themes, I won't go into detail, but you'll understand everything when you play it...

Conclusion: This is one of the most Mind shattering cases out there in my opinion, be it Ace Attorney Online, or Official, the crossover aspect was perfect with the characters, the prosecutor is amazing, and the later parts are just full of twists.

Spoiler : risefromtheashes's Review :

"'Uwa?' What was that supposed to be?"
- Phoenix Wright, Ace Linguist

Overview: A crossover case where Phoenix Wright ends up in a mock trial court in Doki High School, and defends Natsuki's father on the charges of assaulting her.

Story: I will say, the story was quite solid. I enjoyed it a lot, both as an Ace Attorney fan and a Doki Doki Literature Club fan. The prosecution was perfectly in-character, and executed very well, in my opinion. The big twist was a bit surprising, even if I personally saw it coming (I'll chalk that up to me being a genius /j) - but only at the last second. The last testimony of the case was great, and - avoiding spoilers again - very clever, in tandem with the rules of the competition. The contradictions were not that difficult, but that was fitting for a case of this length, which I imagine was just meant to be a silly crossover case with a few testimonies. The comedy was pretty great too, in my opinion.

Presentation: Probably the case's weakest area. There were one or two frames with inner monologue that didn't have closing parentheses, a couple of frames in the credits that didn't have the voice set to "None" (or a timer), and one frame that should've had a voice line that didn't. I suggest that DJ double-check when putting sound effects into certain frames (sometimes it glitches out, which could've been what happened), and also double-check punctuation, voice blip settings, and the like (those can really slip your mind sometimes). The custom sprites, while very pleasing to see, were very blurry - probably a side effect of resizing them, so I can't fault DJ too hard on this, because I believe they were originally, like, three times the dimensions of the AAO game display screen (whatever it's called) on each side. The profile pictures were odd, because they seemed like they had been taken from transparent files, but because they hadn't been edited properly, one of them had a white background, one or two had a black one, and one had the grey-checkerboard "transparent" background. (Saving transparent PNG's and then editing them in Paint 3D is one possible fix for this.) The music was mostly from the editor (but selected well, in my opinion), but the intro and ending scenes had music from Doki Doki Literature Club, which were well-chosen.

Gameplay: Not much to say here. A couple of testimonies where you press and present. I will say that there was one testimony where I felt like a certain piece of evidence should have been presentable, but the game was implying something other than I had intended. However, this is more of a case logic thing than a gameplay thing. In any case, nothing faulty about the gameplay, but nothing unique either.

Theme Relevance: By far the strongest part of this case, in my opinion. I can't spoil anything, but the case fit these themes perfectly, and the methods that DJ used to make this happen were... very unique.

Conclusion: Even if you have never played Doki Doki Literature Club, I feel like this case would be a good play for you. Some presentation flaws aside, the case was quite good, and you don't necessarily NEED to know DDLC to find it fun - though you will definitely miss some references. The end of the case was especially great, in my opinion.

I played this case, myself, as it's been posted, and I must admit that these reviews hit the nails on the head perfectly. Not perfect by any means, but still a great experience that takes advantage of its themes and plot!

Spoiler : :

Ahahahahahaha~ Monika here. I've hijacked DJ's AAO account to bring you a message. Thank you so much for the reviews and if you don't declare this case the winner, I'll be sure to...do something. I'm not sure what, though.

Goddammit, Monika! Get back to being the prosecutor at the trial! I'm not paying you to mess with the other competitors!

You're not paying me at all, DJ. You're just using me as an excuse to make a joke in this forum because you couldn't come up with anything else witty enough for a response.

One more crack like that and you're getting deleted.

No, please! I have three best friends and a literature club!