Spoiler : More detailed thoughts/rambling :
I'll start by saying I'm not the biggest fan of Apollo Justice as a game for a variety of reasons, one of them being that Kristoph was kind of undercooked when it came to him as a character. I always thought of the guy as a shoddier version of Manfred without making him any deeper than he could possibly be. I mention this because that unintentionally creates a bit of a treasure trove for people to fill in the blanks as to what the guy is like deep down. Having Kristoph being this almost deranged, agitated loser was really amusing to see for that reason, lmao.
I can also see why you decided to make him and Phoenix be weirdly similar to each other, biggest difference being that Kristoph pretty much never shows people that he is on the verge of having a number 2. Not that Phoenix really shows that now himself, but I digress.
Speaking of, I love how you did Phoenix in this. Him being this epic sans undertale kinnie and not much else in Apollo Justice always rubbed me the wrong way. The idea of him actually thinking that Kristoph believed in him fits very well with how he usually is, especially when he was offering emotional support to the guy here. The part of him that goes "It's only natural for living creatures to fight to protect their own lives. But what makes us human is that we fight for others." is the part of him I always loved to see the most, especially in the more emotional moments. I think you nailed that on its head without veering into other directions too much. "Make a miracle happen." has no right to be as raw as it is.
I admit for a good chunk of the case I thought its ultimate conclusion would be to create a personal hell for Kristoph to go through, something specifically designed by The Devil just for the sole purpose of making him suffer, without him really being able to "win". A theory me and my friend had was that every character was specifically designed and placed to annoy Kristoph as much as possible and make this the worst god damn case of his life. I mention "ultimate conclusion" because I genuinely thought he would not really "win", at least in one of the routes.
That being said I'm glad for the direction this actually *did* take. You could have easily have this go full Bible Hell mode and I'd probably eat it up like the slime that I am, but this worked wonders too. I did not expect Larry of all people to be the culprit, and I was really curious as to why he would even do this to begin with. I honest to god thought that Libby was gonna be the culprit and she just came up with the whole crime on the spot because she's Satan and not really good at making mysteries. While one could argue that Larry is... not the brightest, I can accept that he more or less just mimicked what happened in the other cases his friends did, and just pulled the good old "make this crime really complicated for no reason" card that a lot of other AA cases do.
Speaking of like some others have said, the vending machine twist was absolutely hysterical to witness. It walks the fine line between "who the hell would even do something this stupid" and "this is absolutely on-brand for this series". NOT TO MENTION THAT IT'S KRISTOPH OF ALL PEOPLE COMING UP WITH IT, LIKE, WOW BUDDY YOU REALLY GOT ABSOLUTELY NO GOOD OPTIONS HERE HUH.
On that note, while this isn't fanart, I wanted to share with you an image my friend made in regards to the vending machine thing. I hope your enjoy it.
What else, what else... Oh yeah, the music choices weren't anything that really bothered me or wowed me, aside from them being a bit bombastic. I do appreciate wanting the trial to feel like a race against time, lest Kristoph's soul be taken by Old Scratch. The only real issue I had with the case (aside from the vending machine twist being a bit obtuse to figure out) is that I don't really believe Edgeworth or whatever wouldn't have helped Phoenix out over the past 7 years. It goes unmentioned in Apollo Justice, sure, but I always saw that moreso as the game wanting to feel like a reboot/new era instead of relying on old faces.
and then it relied on old faces by having phoenix be a thing again
oops!
And yeah I guess there's the idea that if this didn't happen with Kristoph then Larry would have gotten away with murder, but it's not like this is an official product by Capcom or whatever, just fanfiction at the end of it lol. The above point in general is more of a nitpick than a huge issue, anyway.
As for logic problems, I'm not sure if I'm entirely the best person to give criticism on that, as I did liberal use of a walkthrough whilst playing this. I can say there weren't really any moments that felt particularly BS. The whole idea of writing mystery fiction always felt like a huge undertaking to me, so I must commend whoever successfully manages to do something like that. Much less something that is really complicated and crazy lol.
I very much enjoyed this, overall. It felt nice to play an AAO case again, a good one at that too. Cheers!
I can also see why you decided to make him and Phoenix be weirdly similar to each other, biggest difference being that Kristoph pretty much never shows people that he is on the verge of having a number 2. Not that Phoenix really shows that now himself, but I digress.
Speaking of, I love how you did Phoenix in this. Him being this epic sans undertale kinnie and not much else in Apollo Justice always rubbed me the wrong way. The idea of him actually thinking that Kristoph believed in him fits very well with how he usually is, especially when he was offering emotional support to the guy here. The part of him that goes "It's only natural for living creatures to fight to protect their own lives. But what makes us human is that we fight for others." is the part of him I always loved to see the most, especially in the more emotional moments. I think you nailed that on its head without veering into other directions too much. "Make a miracle happen." has no right to be as raw as it is.
I admit for a good chunk of the case I thought its ultimate conclusion would be to create a personal hell for Kristoph to go through, something specifically designed by The Devil just for the sole purpose of making him suffer, without him really being able to "win". A theory me and my friend had was that every character was specifically designed and placed to annoy Kristoph as much as possible and make this the worst god damn case of his life. I mention "ultimate conclusion" because I genuinely thought he would not really "win", at least in one of the routes.
That being said I'm glad for the direction this actually *did* take. You could have easily have this go full Bible Hell mode and I'd probably eat it up like the slime that I am, but this worked wonders too. I did not expect Larry of all people to be the culprit, and I was really curious as to why he would even do this to begin with. I honest to god thought that Libby was gonna be the culprit and she just came up with the whole crime on the spot because she's Satan and not really good at making mysteries. While one could argue that Larry is... not the brightest, I can accept that he more or less just mimicked what happened in the other cases his friends did, and just pulled the good old "make this crime really complicated for no reason" card that a lot of other AA cases do.
Speaking of like some others have said, the vending machine twist was absolutely hysterical to witness. It walks the fine line between "who the hell would even do something this stupid" and "this is absolutely on-brand for this series". NOT TO MENTION THAT IT'S KRISTOPH OF ALL PEOPLE COMING UP WITH IT, LIKE, WOW BUDDY YOU REALLY GOT ABSOLUTELY NO GOOD OPTIONS HERE HUH.
On that note, while this isn't fanart, I wanted to share with you an image my friend made in regards to the vending machine thing. I hope your enjoy it.
Spoiler : Big boy of an image :
and then it relied on old faces by having phoenix be a thing again
oops!
And yeah I guess there's the idea that if this didn't happen with Kristoph then Larry would have gotten away with murder, but it's not like this is an official product by Capcom or whatever, just fanfiction at the end of it lol. The above point in general is more of a nitpick than a huge issue, anyway.
As for logic problems, I'm not sure if I'm entirely the best person to give criticism on that, as I did liberal use of a walkthrough whilst playing this. I can say there weren't really any moments that felt particularly BS. The whole idea of writing mystery fiction always felt like a huge undertaking to me, so I must commend whoever successfully manages to do something like that. Much less something that is really complicated and crazy lol.
I very much enjoyed this, overall. It felt nice to play an AAO case again, a good one at that too. Cheers!