[T][CE] Turnabout Retribution ☆

[DeathByAutoscroll]

I gave this a shot, and while I'm not going to write a review, I am going to say this:
If you somehow got to the second third page of this thread without deciding to play this case... go and play it already, and enjoy it's really excellent, tightly written mystery that respects the canon it is basing itself on with wonderfully integrated custom assets and contradictions that give genuine "AHA!" moments from things previously overlooked. Oh also there's tons of flavour text and it's incredibly funny. I hope to one day see it as a featured case on this site : D

Spoiler : :

Live DeathBy reaction.

[pinkcocoapowder]

MY GOODNESS GRACIOUS THIS CASE IS FUJOTASTIC !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
To put it bluntly (and spoiler free (i just have a lot to say)),

Spoiler : :

Turnabout Retribution is a fancase that excels in achieving that god forsaken ace attorney feeling of making you dread picking an answer that feels dumb as [Censored. Please be polite...] and then pulling off the bluff insanely well.

The presentation is AWESOME and even had me, an instant text user, turn it off every once in a while just to enjoy the case as is. Fury wrote up a great mystery that i was able to piece bit by bit while still freaking out over things that were revealed (i am proud to admit i consulted the guide 3 times and 3 times only….). Genuinely had me hooked and playing though the entire case in a day (about 8 hours with breaks every once in a while, despite me A) hating visual novels and B) hating aa4 and most importantly, C) KNOWING kaiji itou from kaiji ultimate survivor was supposed to be in this case but was cut because someone got scared over asking for sprites for him……


but oh my god this case was CRAZY !!! i appreciate both routes and their respective endings, both having dialogue that had my jaw on the floor like. What the hell man. WHO LET HIM COOK !!!!!!!! HELP !!!!!!!! HELP ME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The chemistry between wright and kristoph was actually off the walls insane. Kristoph being paranoid as hell really added fuel to the fire here and boy was i ready for some stew. Is it gay for a guy to be worried about his friends feelings ? I’d argue its about a 7 on the scale. Below smoking cigarettes though. Friendship (and “friendship” as in MEN INTERACTING in a GAYBAITY FASHION) is a huge theme in Fury’s story here and it had me sniffling a little i cannot lie. Can you believe i felt bad for people in a well written narrative.

Additionally, fury picked out SO many bangers for this case. I’m listening to a couple right now but good lord the picks from Knights in the Nightmare are CRAAAZY the snare/ (amen breaks?) in battle in the abandoned church really help set the tone on the cross examinations. BUT MY GOODNESS GRACIOUSSSSSSS DMC’S ULTRA VIOLET ??????????? I’ll ALWAYS appreciate thought put into music choices. Im like the #1 music guy so you got me SCROBBLING the Turnabout Retribution OST ok ?

I also cant forget to mention many of the presents that were available within every segment. I’ll always be a patrick presenter so it’s very nice to see a bunch of flavor text full of things that make me giggle within both the investigation and trial itself…

To copypaste from my live pink reaction: “honest to god, the stupidest nitpick i have so far is 800,000 using a period and 0.75 using a comma.” Be better.
Overall, an excellent case that got me like

Spoiler : :

and (large image alert)

Spoiler : :

they BETTER feature you……

[The Fury Wraith]

MY GOODNESS GRACIOUS THIS CASE IS FUJOTASTIC !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
To put it bluntly (and spoiler free (i just have a lot to say)),

Thank you for playing! Since this review dives into more specific things regarding the case in depth, (and more importantly because I'm in the mood for it, I guess) I'll be responding to this one with a bit more detail. (Maybe I should just finish writing a Director's Commentary already but other stuff that warrants my attention keeps popping up...)

Spoiler : :

Turnabout Retribution is a fancase that excels in achieving that god forsaken ace attorney feeling of making you dread picking an answer that feels dumb as [Censored. Please be polite...] and then pulling off the bluff insanely well.

The presentation is AWESOME and even had me, an instant text user, turn it off every once in a while just to enjoy the case as is. Fury wrote up a great mystery that i was able to piece bit by bit while still freaking out over things that were revealed (i am proud to admit i consulted the guide 3 times and 3 times only….). Genuinely had me hooked and playing though the entire case in a day (about 8 hours with breaks every once in a while, despite me A) hating visual novels and B) hating aa4 and most importantly, C) KNOWING kaiji itou from kaiji ultimate survivor was supposed to be in this case but was cut because someone got scared over asking for sprites for him……

Glad to hear it was so engaging for you. Visual Novels like AA don't have fancy game mechanics that can do the hooking for the player, so it needs to rely on a captivating story and proper difficult mystery to engage the player, I'd say. I also have a very short attention span where I get bored easily if a story does nothing to engage the reader with, so it was very important for me to have a good hook as soon as possible which then keeps building on it with interesting questions or suppositions the player/watcher can wonder for themselves. (Stuff that I really like such as Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor and Death Note do this a lot too, which is why I believe those shows can get so many people on the edge of their seats.)

Difficulty of the mystery more or less contributes (or can be a detriment) to that too, so I was aiming for above average but fair difficulty. Funnily enough most players have expressed that the case wasn't too hard for them, though. But I do suppose most people who are on an AA fansite would have played the canon games and are thus more experienced.

but oh my god this case was CRAZY !!! i appreciate both routes and their respective endings, both having dialogue that had my jaw on the floor like. What the hell man. WHO LET HIM COOK !!!!!!!! HELP !!!!!!!! HELP ME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The chemistry between wright and kristoph was actually off the walls insane. Kristoph being paranoid as hell really added fuel to the fire here and boy was i ready for some stew. Is it gay for a guy to be worried about his friends feelings ? I’d argue its about a 7 on the scale. Below smoking cigarettes though. Friendship (and “friendship” as in MEN INTERACTING in a GAYBAITY FASHION) is a huge theme in Fury’s story here and it had me sniffling a little i cannot lie. Can you believe i felt bad for people in a well written narrative.

The friendship theme is a funny one since I only thought it up after the entire mystery and the premise of Kristoph taking on a case to get rid of Phoenix was conceptualized. It was something I only really added to make those first two aspects a bit more interesting, but then it kept growing to the size it is at now. I'll spare the details for now since I'll be here all day otherwise, but I thought it was interesting to highlight the differences and similarities between Kristoph and Wright in this case, particularly in how these two characters have different interpretations on bluffing in the beginning stemming from their own personal approaches to doing things in cases. But as Kristoph starts to grasp Phoenix's interpretation on bluffing more, he also starts to understand Phoenix as a person more. The rest of the friendship stuff was also mostly built off of some choicy lines Phoenix mentioned to Kristoph in 4-4, where it appears that Phoenix did care about Kristoph as a friend to a certain degree.

Additionally, fury picked out SO many bangers for this case. I’m listening to a couple right now but good lord the picks from Knights in the Nightmare are CRAAAZY the snare/ (amen breaks?) in battle in the abandoned church really help set the tone on the cross examinations. BUT MY GOODNESS GRACIOUSSSSSSS DMC’S ULTRA VIOLET ??????????? I’ll ALWAYS appreciate thought put into music choices. Im like the #1 music guy so you got me SCROBBLING the Turnabout Retribution OST ok ?

I'm glad to hear the thought I put into picking these music choices paid off. To ruminate on it a bit, I selected the tracks based mostly on what instruments they contained and if the feeling they conveyed was applicable to the story I was writing. The tracks used in the trial often have pipe organ to sell that feeling of inevitable doom and judgement you're up against and some tracks have church bells to sell the feeling that time is really close to running out. (That Knights in the Nightmare track, Battle in the Abandoned Church, has both even.)

A bunch of the tracks were selected before I even started writing some scenes. Then I sometimes used context of the scenes where these tracks are originally from to determine what to put in or how I would write the scene myself. For example, the Galbadia Garden theme from FF8 plays when you visit this rival academy for some appointment with its headmaster. This academy looks and feels all impressive and shiny when you first enter it. But since in this situation you're from a different academy, you get the feeling you're not quite welcome here and are catching some dirty looks from people. The fact you're waiting for this appointment to happen where you're anticipating some foreboding news further sells the feeling of unease. This music track conveys those feelings well and so I felt it fitting to repurpose the track for a scene where you first meet the esteemed and famed prosecutor Miles Edgeworth, who then seems onto Kristoph's true nature, while in the back of your head you're still on that 24 hour time limit.

There's also some that contain some happy accidents. For example: Some of the Wario Land tracks that were originally from levels with a mining theme, hence the ticking sound in the background of the track to convey a pickaxe hitting some stone. That ticking can also sound like the ticking of a clock, making that fit for this story as well.

I also cant forget to mention many of the presents that were available within every segment. I’ll always be a patrick presenter so it’s very nice to see a bunch of flavor text full of things that make me giggle within both the investigation and trial itself…

Aye, I figured people don't like their time wasted with non-worthwhile optional stuff, so I set a rule for myself where all of them had to contain a small little joke and that none of them could last very long. (In investigations I made a hard rule where none of them could be longer than 8 frames.) It helps the pacing, I think. It wasn't easy doing that, though, lol. Often I got stuck thinking about what to put in. But at least since they weren't part of the main narrative, I could often leave them for later. (Though I tried not to too often...)

To copypaste from my live pink reaction: “honest to god, the stupidest nitpick i have so far is 800,000 using a period and 0.75 using a comma.” Be better.
It's apparently a european thing. Sorry you had to experience that, though.
Overall, an excellent case that got me like

Spoiler : :

and (large image alert)

Spoiler : :

they BETTER feature you……

Thank you very much for the pretty fan art! That's quite the honor~

Sorry for nerding...

[CodingAnt]

Best yaoi I've ever played.

Spoiler : Brief thoughts :

Phoenix and Kristoph are so cool in this... I don't know how accurate their characterisation is in canon, but I really like the idea that Phoenix wanted to believe in Kristoph all this time, and that he was able to turn Kristoph into a better person through the power of bluffs. Edgeworth and Larry are awesome too. I can tell you have a lot of fondness for the Phoenix+Edgey+Larry friend group, and it really shows in this case! Also, the vending machine trick is so cool... I wish I thought of that...

The only times I used the walkthrough were for the last time you present the map (but if you edited it so the vending machine would work as well, I would've gotten it) and for the B route, where I didn't have as much energy to figure things out. Oh, and the investigation. (There's really no indication you need to examine the safe again...) And yet it was still a fun challenge trying to figure out all the contradictions. I felt so smart presenting the pencil on Larry's last testimony . So take that as a sign that your case logic holds up excellently!

This is one of the best cases I've ever played. Holds up with all the best gay romance cases (which this case definitely is) like MMLW. I'd love to see any future projects from you!

[Enthalpy]

This has been sitting on my metaphorical desk too long. I'm hoping to get this QA done by December 27th, but worst comes to worst, it'll be before the year's end.

[The Fury Wraith]

This has been sitting on my metaphorical desk too long. I'm hoping to get this QA done by December 27th, but worst comes to worst, it'll be before the year's end.

Alrighty, thanks for letting me know~ Fortunately, I wasn't feeling too impatient for the QA since I've had my hands full with stuff as well, but it's good to know regardless.

[MegaEdgeworth3]

Legitimately one of the best fancases I've ever played. I could gush for hours on end on how pretty much everything about this case goes hard, even down to the music choices. Solid 10/10.

[The Fury Wraith]

Legitimately one of the best fancases I've ever played. I could gush for hours on end on how pretty much everything about this case goes hard, even down to the music choices. Solid 10/10.

Thank you for the kind words~ I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the case.

[marysu]

Spoiler : major case spoilers :

what an evendful case

Spoiler : major case spoilers 2 :

the vending machine twist is one of the dumbest things I've seen this side of the "a boomerang did it" crime fiction plot twist. I say that with utmost affection, it rules. I loved dispensing the worlds largest knife into redd white like a coca cola. what if that wasn't blood but it was pink flavoured soda. stop the court's. we gotta taste test that.

[Trybien]

Spoiler : major case spoilers :

what an evendful case

Spoiler : major case spoilers 2 :

the vending machine twist is one of the dumbest things I've seen this side of the "a boomerang did it" crime fiction plot twist. I say that with utmost affection, it rules. I loved dispensing the worlds largest knife into redd white like a coca cola. what if that wasn't blood but it was pink flavoured soda. stop the court's. we gotta taste test that.

If I could thumbs up this post, I would

[ihaetschool]

Spoiler : :

kristoph redeeming himself is not something i thought i needed

the music choice is pretty awful most of the time but other than that, really damn good

[Enthalpy]

Okay, I've at least finished the case now. I expect a very long review, so writing this will take me a while.

[The Fury Wraith]

Okay, I've at least finished the case now. I expect a very long review, so writing this will take me a while.

Coolio, can't wait~

Also, in other news: pinkcocoapowder was kind enough to spontaneously make me a fanart promo image, so I've added that to the OP as another promo image. Go check it out, it's very cool~

[Enthalpy]

QA Review: Turnabout Retribution


Yeah, that about sums it up.

As far as I'm aware, this is Fury's first case. If not first case, first foray back into casewriting in a very long time. So I really didn't know what to expect going into this one. To be fair, neither did Kristoph.

_____________________________________________________

I need to split Check #1 in pieces, but otherwise, this format is standard.

They check that it has an overall story and gameplay of astounding quality; it should be really engaging, have interesting contradictions and be really fun.

✮ – The Sparkling Feature Star is given for an aspect that makes your trial stand out even among the featured trials. Getting a Sparkling Feature Star means your trial is pretty much guaranteed to be featured after implementing the changes from check 2, unless it gets a Hollow Star.
+ – The Great Plus means that this aspect makes your good trial great. You don't need a Great Plus in every category, but you should have at least one Great Plus or Sparkling Feature Star for the trial to be featured.
✓✓ – The Double Check Mark means that this aspect is good enough for a featured trial. Almost everything in this area works solidly, but it lacks a "wow" factor. An otherwise great aspect that requires some non-trivial tweaking falls in here.
✓ – The Single Check Mark means that this aspect can be good enough for a featured trial, but requires not major, but non-trivial modifications to make it truly solid. You must not have any Single Check Marks in order to pass Check 2.
✰ – The Hollow Star marks a problem that can't be fixed without a major rewrite. A trial must not have any Hollow Stars in order to pass Check 1. If you get one, don't be discouraged! Remember that a Hollow Star is only a star that hasn't been filled yet. It's something you can work on when improving this trial or writing your next one, and once you've worked on it, go for another QA review!

Unlike the other marks, the Hollow Star and Single Check Mark only talk about how large of a rewrite is needed to be featured-trial good, not how good that part of the trial is.

Spoiler : Check #1a: Here Be Spoilers! :

Contradictions and Cross-Examinations: ✰

When I played the case, I started off noticing issues but being able to brush them aside. As the case progressed, both the number and the severity of the issues became harder to ignore, and I found myself with a progressively weaker grasp on what the witnesses said and what the prosecution theory was. By the end of the case, I was quick to appeal to the walkthrough when stuck and felt justified in doing so. My intuition was that this needed major work, though details were unclear to me.

When writing the review and trying to make those details clear, it became clear that there were more problems that I thought, and that many of them are not quick fixes, but require reworking of other parts of the case that may be a long ways. Just charting this all out was overwhelming, and after attempt three (which you can find in Check 1b), it became clear to me that fixes that onerous merited a Hollow Star. I stopped the write-up after cross-examination number three, because I suspect doing more would be overwhelming for Fury, to say nothing of the effort it would take of me.

The major issues I foresee are:

• The prosecution's theory remains unclear for most of Trial Former. While this is a deliberate choice, it makes Former confusing and Edgeworth's argument that "I withheld the secret passage because it was inconsistent with my theory" untenable. The question of "How did the defendant and victim enter the vault?" is the primary source of confusion. The prosecution strongly implies that Roy walked in on Bethany, only for Edgeworth to drop on us a testimony that Bethany knocked Roy out before entering the vault, which we promptly get side-tracked from. It's no wonder I couldn't keep the prosecution's theory straight!
• Visibility in the vault is vague, but the details we have are unphysical. Larry expects us to believe he couldn't see so much as a silhouette four feet into the vault from outside, and we're also asked to believe that the victim could see the vault well enough to be confident there was nobody else in there.
• The key insights of Kristoph's theory (murder by vending machine, the vending machine was disguised as a safe) are extremely difficult to get without a bolt of inspiration. I don't know whether this needs more hints, or if removing the mental clutter around the rest of the case will be enough.
• Standards as to what constitutes a contradiction are inconsistent - some dubious contradictions are accepted while others aren't. It counts as a contradiction that there are no prints on a door the Bethany supposedly used (the hardcore AA fan who is going to be on AAO will know about gloves) but it is not a contradiction that the victim was begging for help at a locked door he presumably had the key to (for him to not have the key, we need to make the implausible assumption that Larry failed to mention evidence tampering at the scene while he was watching it... which Larry asserts in the next testimony). I was asking myself "Why isn't that a contradiction?" many times when Phoenix testifies about his video camera.

There are several great ideas for puzzles here, and this case certainly avoids the common trap of a case so easy that it becomes boring. Once the issues are patched, I could easily see this case getting a Great Plus for the cross-examinations. The final showdown against the killer is thrilling, the murder scheme is imaginative, and the puzzles are uncommonly well-integrated with the broader story, here Kristoph learning to bluff.

Add it all up, and you get case logic with tremendous potential that hasn't been actualized yet. I really do want to see this case featured, and I'm willing to consult on how we can get the issues fixed. However, feature-quality is a ways off.

As a footnote, I recognize this case had five playtesters. It's unusual for there to be this many logic issues after that much testing.

Dialogue and Characterization: ✓✓
Disclosure: The case I have in the works and will get back to when I'm done with AAO development and QA tasks is a Franziska character study where she badly loses control of a case and needs to use Phoenix-style methods. This is similar to my big issue here and undoubtedly colors my opinion.

Kristoph is the star of the show here, which I'll talk more about in the Narrative section. For here, Kristoph was recognizable but felt off to me. While Kristoph's heel-face-turn builds over the course of the story, he first starts to suspect Phoenix isn't actually a bad person based off Phoenix being nice to him. While Kristoph doesn't accept this immediately, I'd think he would need something more for those thoughts to even occur to him. Kristoph knows better than most that a smile and cooperativity can mask anything. Having a change of heart is delicate thing, and the presentation here is serviceable, but I think could use a touch more tweaking. The end of the investigation is definitely too early for this. As of right now, I can't pinpoint other proposed fixes. This could easily be a situation where the problems in logic affected my ability to follow along the characterization.

Now for other characters! Bethany is distinctive, which is about all that you can ask for, given her little screentime. Larry is a very entertaining fool. The idea of having Edgeworth lead the defense of Larry rather than Larry is an excellent one, though I think you need to go a little further in that direction to be true to Larry being, well, himself. Phoenix felt perfectly in-character. I'd need to re-play the case to evaluate Libby and Edgeworth, again because I think logic errors got in the way of me picking up on characterization.

Narrative: ✮
This is what makes the case amazing. Seeing Kristoph struggle to make his scheme to frame Phoenix work while dealing with everything going wrong, pushing him far beyond what he's capable of was absolutely brilliant, and I don't think there's another case on AAO like it. I cannot praise this enough.

The tension between Phoenix, Kristoph, and Edgeworth is another major highlight of the case. Sadly, a lot of this was when the logic problems were at their highest, so I can tell that I missed some things here. Edgeworth's suspicion about Kristoph keeps the first part of the trial interesting, and seeing him have to defend Larry makes the knowledge of Kristoph's behavior hit all the harder. Phoenix's trust, misplaced though it may be, also hits a good note at keeping Kristoph second-guessing his plan.

Integration of the actual puzzles and the broader story is another thing this case does remarkably well. The way the case flows drives Kristoph further up the wall, forces him to clarify where he stands (and shifts where he stands!) on Phoenix, and both the ultimate motive for the crime as well as the aforementioned tension with Edgeworth was thematically perfect for Kristoph's inner struggles. I almost see this on AAO.

Presentation: ✓✓

Overall, very solid! I enjoyed the music choices a great deal, and the graphics for the video camera footage were a very nice touch, given that I was expecting a text description. There were a couple hiccups, but overall, it was nice.

Spoiler : Check #1b: Here Be Many Spoilers! :

This entire section is dedicated to logic issues up through the first three cross-examinations, to give you a taste of what needs to be done. Some of these problems affect multiple parts of the trial, and I've organized related clusters into a single issue at the point in the trial that makes the most sense. I've also included proposed fixes. I don't insist on these, and I present them as starting points for your own thought, so you don't think this is a last cause.

Trial Former

Pre-Cross-Examination
We open in the defense lobby. Kristoph has forged evidence to frame Phoenix. He regrets this upon learning the prosecutor is Miles Edgeworth, who clearly suspects his history of forgery. Edgeworth invites/threatens Kristoph to collaborate.

In court, Edgeworth's opening statement is to-the-point: two witnesses saw the defendant did it, and we have evidence. He then calls Gumshoe. Gumshoe outlines the poker tournament. He also presents the Autopsy Report and mentions that the witnesses saw the bodies through a window in the vault.

Cross-Examination 1
Edgeworth directs Gumshoe to testify to the (reasons for) arrest. It's a classic locked room setup. The defendant is the only person with the victim, and the only key is locked in a room with the two of them.
Comment Edgeworth and Gumshoe don't lay out a timeline of exactly what happened. Now, the lack of a timeline is by design. As we'll see after the Thought Route, Edgeworth is very deliberately not laying out a timeline, due to his own distrust of Kristoph. Yet this still makes the case more confusing, as my tutorial warns.

Kristoph has two objections to this, both of which raise doubt as to whether the defendant could have entered the vault. First, the defendant's fingerprints are not on the vault door, which suggests that she didn't open it. Edgeworth counters that maybe the prints were wiped, or maybe she wore gloves. Kristoph tries unsuccessfully to refute those. Second, Kristoph objects that she'd need the key to get in the vault, but the victim had it. Edgeworth objects that she could have gotten it in multiple different ways. This is enough to give the judge doubts, but no more.
Issue: Contradiction Assumptions The vault door contradiction relies on the player assuming Bethany would have left fingerprints on anything she touched. A savvy player (like yours truly) will predict that Edgeworth will use gloves to fight this, and Kristoph will use Bethany's prints on the knife as a counter, but Edgeworth can just work around this. In other words, the assumption isn't believable. Likewise, the key contradiction relies on the player assuming if a woman is not supposed to have the key to a locked room, she cannot enter it. I assume Edgeworth just hasn't explained this part of his theory. After all, he hasn't explained much yet! Having contradictions that rely on bad assumptions is bad form. (See Jean of mArc's wonderful cross-examination difficulty tutorial and my cross-examination and contradiction tutorial.) As discussed in 1a, this encourages players to present more dubious contradictions.
Proposed Fix Have the co-counsel conversation tell the player to expect them to walk into a trap. Then my thoughts of "this is Edgeworth withholding information, not a contradiction" loses its weight.
Comment: Gloves Precedent Edgeworth's rebuttal to the fingerprint argument establishes precedent that a person can use gloves to open the door without leaving clear traces. This creates problems in Trial Latter, when the ability of people to touch objects without leaving traces gets brought up again.

Cross-Examination 2
Edgeworth then calls Larry, who testifies to seeing and hearing Roy cry for help, finding the door locked, and then seeing Bethany stab him. When Kristoph presses, he points out that Larry didn't have the visibility to see Bethany. Larry says of course not, he inferred that she was the killer. Naturally, the court is not amused.
Issue: No Escape It should be a contradiction to the Vault Key that Roy was begging for help and needed Larry and Phoenix to let him out. Unless Larry is omitting to mention "And then Bethany planted the key," Roy should have been able to escape on his own. And he would want to! In Edgeworth's current theory, he should expect Bethany to be in there. It makes even less sense that he stays after Larry and Phoenix show up, since he thinks these are safe people. Although Larry does claim to have missed the planting (cross-examination #3, statement #2), such a gap in his testimony damages his credibility, but Kristoph never pursues the point.
Proposed Fix Have Kristoph ask about this after Larry testifies. Edgeworth says he may not have had the key. Given the height of the window, Bethany could have crouched down low to plant the key on the body, out of Larry's view from the window.
Issue: No Wound It should also be a contradiction to the Autopsy Report that "He looked like his usual self otherwise" on F689. What about the wound on his head?
Proposed Fix Just update the autopsy report to say the wound was to the back of his head. It's then obvious how Larry missed it. Bonus points if you mention this in the press conversation.
Issue: Window Non-Contradiction The actual contradiction for the second cross-examination is not a contradiction. That the victim had his body pressed against the window doesn't tell us that he blocked the entire window. From the picture of the staff lounge (which is later corroborated by Phoenix's video camera), the window is large enough that Roy wouldn't have blocked a view of Bethany.
Proposed Fix Say that Bethany was very short, so the victim would have blocked a view of her, even if the view into the entire room wasn't blocked.
Issue: Magic Darkness The resolution to the second cross-examination's contradiction is not physically plausible. Larry says that he didn't see the defendant stab the man who was pressed against the window into the fully lit room. Adding together estimates for the door thickness, Roy's torso thickness, and Bethany's arm-to-shoulder length, Bethany's face should have been about 4 feet (1.2 m) from the door at most when stabbing Roy. I can't believe that it was too dark to see her. When I played the case, I reconciled this by assuming there was effectively a magic bubble of darkness in the vault and not to worry about it. Naturally, this made the "opening the secret entrance would have shown up on camera" contradiction in Trial Latter unsolvable.
Proposed Fix: For the contradiction, say that Bethany was very short, so the victim would have blocked a view of her, even if the view into the entire room wasn't blocked. You still need to justify dim lighting for later. Here are some possible explanations:

• The window was tinted. (You then need to adapt frames where you say the victim wanted to look into his vault. Why have tinted windows? You'll also need to edit the camera footage to darken Roy.)
• Say Larry could make out an unidentifiable silhouette. (Which doesn't show up on camera. Maybe it's not that high quality, given Phoenix's budget?)
• The staff room lighting has an intensity slider. It was on dim when the footage was taken.

Cross-Examination 3
Larry argues that the locked room nature of the vault means that Bethany was the only person who could have seen the stabbing. Unfortunately, he mentions that the killer locked the vault.
Issue: Inconsistent Prosecution Theory Edgeworth doesn't have a clear or consistent story about how the victim got in the locked room for the first half of the trial. Rather, he has multiple unclear and inconsistent stories. This causes mental clutter, create plot holes, and costs you a chance to play up the Kristoph-Edgeworth tension.

• When pressed on statement #5, Det. Gumshoe says "We do happen to know that the defendant must've entered before the victim did" because "we have another witness who can confirm as much!" I still don't know which witness this is supposed to be.
• Kristoph explicitly asks Edgeworth "But how would the defendant then have access to the the [sic] locked vault without [the door key]?" and Edgeworth responds with "I'll admit we don't exactly know when the defendant got their hands on the key." He proceeds to give two elaborate possibilities, both of which are hard to follow and create other implications for the crime. In his "pickpocket" theory, the defendant needs to plant the key on the witness later. In his "unlocked vault" theory, the reason the victim is at the crime scene is because he realized he forgot to lock the vault.
• Press statement 2 on Larry's second testimony is about Larry's theory of how the door came to be locked. Not only does Edgeworth not correct Larry's theory that Roy entered under his own power at a different time than Bethany, but Edgeworth makes a hypothetical argument that assumes his theory.
• After Libby's first testimony is presented, Edgeworth summarizes his theory of the case. "So [Bethany, the defendant] had knocked [Roy, the victim] out first. Perhaps this is how she obtained the victim’s key, although we’re not certain about that. Regardless, after knocking the victim out cold... ...the defendant must've pulled the victim's body into the vault and then locked the door." All this earlier speculation is in complete contradiction to that, and it's indefensible for Edgeworth to have entertained all those hypotheticals when he knew about this testimony.
• When challenged on his not submitting the secret passage earlier, Edgeworth's defense is that because the prosecution assumed Libby's testimony to be true, he saw no reason to assume the secret passage was used. This completely falls apart if Edgeworth has not been assuming Libby's testimony to be true for the first three cross-examinations.

Proposed Fix:
From the moment the case starts, Edgeworth's plan is: (a) have Gumshoe testify to the basic locked room problem and incriminating physical evidence and (b) have Larry attest that he saw Bethany murder Roy. If Kristoph makes an issue of how the defendant entered the room, dismiss its importance but have Libby testify if necessary. The secret passage needs to be suppressed because Kristoph will run wild with that. And besides, Libby's testimony about how Bethany entered means that it probably wasn't used.
Accordingly, when Kristoph focuses on Gumshoe's cross-examination on whether the victim really used the vault door, Edgeworth points out that Kristoph isn't denying the basic locked room problem. The judge overrules Kristoph, and Edgeworth calls Larry. Kristoph uses Larry's testimony to continue to argue about how the defendant entered the room. Edgeworth then calls Larry's theory worthless and calls Libby to the stand, framing it as a trap. He has the perfect witness to end all of Kristoph's objections!
Gumshoe's statement is removed. Edgeworth's first round of hypotheticals in cross-examination #1 is replaced with a simple, "The prosecution can't be certain, but we believe she simply stole the key from the victim. Ultimately, it doesn't matter. What matters is that the defendant was alone in that locked room!" In cross-examination #3, rewrite the press conversation in question. Edgeworth objects that this is speculation (Your Honor, I tried to tell you allowing this would be a waste of time!), but Kristoph gets the objection overruled and gets Larry to say why he thinks the killer locked the vault. Larry says that like Kristoph argued earlier, if he had the key, Roy would have left. Bethany must have pounced him to get the key as soon as he entered. In a cramped vault like that, he probably never moved from that spot.
Issue: Misleading Map The position of the killer and victim on the Casino Map is (understandably) misleading. Because the door swings into the vault, you have the killer and victim pushed into the vault away from the door, even though they're actually right against the door. I mistook this for an actual contradiction.
Proposed Fix Since the evidence already includes two copies of the map, on the copy with people labeled, put the victim and killer where they "actually" were. You can either (a) mark all doors as closed or (b) have people on top of the doors. Each side has a tradeoff (a) clues to a savvy reader that the way that doors swing is likely to be important, while (b) is a bit uglier.
Issue: Clutter Based on the head wound the victim got and Larry's statement that the victim looked like he was in a fight, I was reasoning that the victim could have entered the vault, struggle happens, killer gets close to the door and locks it, struggle continues, then victim is pressed against the door. Or perhaps the killer sneaks to the door before a struggle happens, using the extreme levels of darkness in my vault that were established in the previous testimony. The confusion generated by not having a clear exposition of the prosecution's theory yet makes this an easy mistake to make.
Now, the essential point for this contradiction is the assumption that the defendant stayed in place. That is only added by Larry in a press conversation where Larry is asked to defend his conclusions. Even within that press conversations, the details are shoe-horned into a dense, technical discussion about the vault key. Amidst all that clutter, it is extremely easy to miss the side point about the victim's movements or lack thereof. The point of the victim stayed in place needs to be clearer.
Proposed Fix Prune this press conversation, as proposed for the Inconsistent Prosecution Theory.
Issue: Redundancy Kristoph needs to argue for why the killer couldn't have gone around Roy to lock the door. This is redundant, given that Larry adds this detail in a press conversation, and relies on multiple dodgy arguments. Kristoph has to say Roy wouldn't have allowed that (maybe he was stunned from having his head bashed in), and that the killer wouldn't have done that (maybe they were trying to negotiate first). These additional arguments are much too complicated.
Proposed Fix Strip these out. This contradiction already exists because Larry isn't assuming Bethany's testimony. Kristoph hammers Larry for this assumption, and Edgeworth can shame Larry for it, as discussed in Inconsistent Prosecution Theory.

Spoiler : Check #2: Minimal Spoilers :

These are incomplete. What follows is as much as I had written when I was weighing whether the case passed Check #1.

Investigation
Presentation and bugs
Writing and characterization
* I'd recommend editing Libby's dialogue when she talks about why she was so keen on winning the tournament. From what we know later, it wasn't really about the fame...
* Kristoph would never think that Moozilla was high art. Perhaps the joke can be tweaked?
* I'm surprised that Kristoph would be softening up to Phoenix as early as the investigation. Surely he already thought Phoenix was too trusting, so why should the co-counsel offer affect him so? I don't insist on this change, but it may be worth either giving Kristoph a more personal reason to soften up or hold off on that until the trial.
Proofreading and clarification
* F49: "commited" -> "committed"
* F70: "executed and" -> "executed, and"
* F123: "here and" -> "here, and"
* F124: "slip ups" -> "slip-ups"
* F206: "choosing and" -> "choosing, and"
* F488: The word "disperse" feels wrong here, both because it's not referring to a physical object, and because Gumshoe would use a simpler word. How about "leak" or "talk" or "give"?
* F636: "renown and" -> "renown and"
* F644: "lawyer, for" -> "lawyer for"
* F918: "good and" -> "good, and"
* F1203: "murder crime" is redundant. Pick one.
* F1997: "now yourself" -> "now, yourself"
* F1988: "demeanor or" -> "demeanor, or"
* F1579: "right or" -> "right, or"
* F1641: "me and" -> "me, and"
* F1718: "too considering" -> "too, considering"
* F1931: "ago you" -> "ago, you"
Sprites and graphics
* Please add courtroom mini sprites in the opening.
Music and sound effects
Gameplay
* When examining the safe and hearing that you need to do more investigating, maybe you can look at the variables to give the player a clue as to where they should investigate? I got lost for a bit here.
* I found it very easy to not think to ask Phoenix questions. Maybe you can add a line of dialogue to the relevant investigation option?
* I accidentally took Libby's snarky response to our examining the breaker panel as a cue that I was done investigating there. (I didn't see the coin for a long time.) Perhaps you can reword?

Trial Former
Presentation and bugs
Writing and characterization
Proofreading and clarification
Lobby Conversation
* F10: "plenty ideas" -> "plenty of ideas"
* F63: "do I know" -> "I know
Det. Gumshoe's First Cross-Examination
* F271: "time it's" -> "time, it's"
Between CE#1 and CE#2
* F467: "the the locked" -> "the locked"
* F469: "their" -> "her"
* F432: "or wiped" -> "or wipe"
Larry's First Cross Examination
* F751: "it's steel" -> "it's a steel"
Larry's Second Cross Examination
* F911: "open we" -> "open, we"
* F964: "end and" -> "end, and"
Sprites and graphics
Music and sound effects

Trial Latter
Presentation and bugs
Writing and characterization
Proofreading and clarification
Sprites and graphics
Music and sound effects
Gameplay
* The plot point that anybody who used the vault must have left prints contradicts earlier game dialogue. In a press conversation from his first cross examination, Det. Gumshoe says, "I even tried opening the door myself! Without getting my prints on it, of course." (F258). This might mean that Det. Gumshoe didn't even try the handle but just tried to ram the door, but if so, it's not clear.
* The lighting of the vault is not physically plausible. In Larry's cross-examination, we establish that the lights in the Staff Room are fully on, and this suffices only to "kinda see a little bit into that dark vault through the vault door window," to the point that Larry needs to defend his ability to see the victim get knifed, and he can't see the person who actually did the knifing.

Spoiler : VERDICT :

☆ The QA inspection is complete. This case is not good enough to be featured. Sorry!

I really want this case to be featured. It does some wonderful things that I don't think I've ever seen on AAO before, especially regarding integrating the story and the actual mystery-solving. The trouble is that the case logic needs massive work, and probably more than one pass of changes, as those fixes will have side effects. I don't know if the author is up for it, and even if he was, at that point, it would need a new reviewer. This is unfortunately the risk of cases that have 13 cross-examinations, even with 5 beta-testers. If you're content to use a walkthrough when you start getting stuck, I heartily recommend the case. But that's too big of an if to allow for a star.

If you are interested in getting the case featured, you can request a review from Bad Player. I do however recommend you deal with the issues I've raised first. And once again, I'm happy to consult if you want this to be featured and are committed to the changes it would take to make that happen.

Regardless, I wish you the best and look forward to seeing future cases from you. I'm truly impressed.

[The Fury Wraith]

Responses will be in red.

QA Review: Turnabout Retribution


Yeah, that about sums it up.

As far as I'm aware, this is Fury's first case. If not first case, first foray back into casewriting in a very long time. So I really didn't know what to expect going into this one. To be fair, neither did Kristoph.

_____________________________________________________

I need to split Check #1 in pieces, but otherwise, this format is standard.

They check that it has an overall story and gameplay of astounding quality; it should be really engaging, have interesting contradictions and be really fun.

✮ – The Sparkling Feature Star is given for an aspect that makes your trial stand out even among the featured trials. Getting a Sparkling Feature Star means your trial is pretty much guaranteed to be featured after implementing the changes from check 2, unless it gets a Hollow Star.
+ – The Great Plus means that this aspect makes your good trial great. You don't need a Great Plus in every category, but you should have at least one Great Plus or Sparkling Feature Star for the trial to be featured.
✓✓ – The Double Check Mark means that this aspect is good enough for a featured trial. Almost everything in this area works solidly, but it lacks a "wow" factor. An otherwise great aspect that requires some non-trivial tweaking falls in here.
✓ – The Single Check Mark means that this aspect can be good enough for a featured trial, but requires not major, but non-trivial modifications to make it truly solid. You must not have any Single Check Marks in order to pass Check 2.
✰ – The Hollow Star marks a problem that can't be fixed without a major rewrite. A trial must not have any Hollow Stars in order to pass Check 1. If you get one, don't be discouraged! Remember that a Hollow Star is only a star that hasn't been filled yet. It's something you can work on when improving this trial or writing your next one, and once you've worked on it, go for another QA review!

Unlike the other marks, the Hollow Star and Single Check Mark only talk about how large of a rewrite is needed to be featured-trial good, not how good that part of the trial is.

Spoiler : Check #1a: Here Be Spoilers! :

Contradictions and Cross-Examinations: ✰

When I played the case, I started off noticing issues but being able to brush them aside. As the case progressed, both the number and the severity of the issues became harder to ignore, and I found myself with a progressively weaker grasp on what the witnesses said and what the prosecution theory was. By the end of the case, I was quick to appeal to the walkthrough when stuck and felt justified in doing so. My intuition was that this needed major work, though details were unclear to me.

When writing the review and trying to make those details clear, it became clear that there were more problems that I thought, and that many of them are not quick fixes, but require reworking of other parts of the case that may be a long ways. Just charting this all out was overwhelming, and after attempt three (which you can find in Check 1b), it became clear to me that fixes that onerous merited a Hollow Star. I stopped the write-up after cross-examination number three, because I suspect doing more would be overwhelming for Fury, to say nothing of the effort it would take of me.
No worries. That said, I am still curious to see your assesment/write up of the rest of the case if the trouble isn't too great. I'm interested to know if the biggest problems are mostly with the first 3 CEs and whether or not the issues are less severe later in the case. For now, I will mostly be focusing on the case logic details you wrote up in this very response.

The major issues I foresee are:

• The prosecution's theory remains unclear for most of Trial Former. While this is a deliberate choice, it makes Former confusing and Edgeworth's argument that "I withheld the secret passage because it was inconsistent with my theory" untenable. The question of "How did the defendant and victim enter the vault?" is the primary source of confusion. The prosecution strongly implies that Roy walked in on Bethany, only for Edgeworth to drop on us a testimony that Bethany knocked Roy out before entering the vault, which we promptly get side-tracked from. It's no wonder I couldn't keep the prosecution's theory straight!
  I can definitely see how those ended up confusing for you. The points you bring up here were, in fact, already issues I encountered during development in the case editor as I was making this case, which prompted me to fix them. (In other words, these issues used to be worse before I addressed them.) Unfortunate that it wasn't enough, it seems. I suspect a lot of the issues here to be problems I encountered already in an earlier version of the case, which I then had to patch up, but may still feel a bit band-aidy to a certain extend as a result.
  
• Visibility in the vault is vague, but the details we have are unphysical. Larry expects us to believe he couldn't see so much as a silhouette four feet into the vault from outside, and we're also asked to believe that the victim could see the vault well enough to be confident there was nobody else in there.
  Yeah, the problem there is mostly thanks to the second point of the victim being confident enough there was nobody else inside the vault. For the puzzle (which is Phoenix's second testimony where you point out the light should've seeped into the vault) it was necessary for the player to know/accept that the victim was alone, which prompts the need for the ''killer'' to use the secret passage before stabbing the victim, which is then contradicted by pointing out the lack of light. Unfortunately, there's no red truth in AA, so getting this made clear and feasible while also making enough sense to use as the proposition for Phoenix's testimony proved a bit of a challenge.
• The key insights of Kristoph's theory (murder by vending machine, the vending machine was disguised as a safe) are extremely difficult to get without a bolt of inspiration. I don't know whether this needs more hints, or if removing the mental clutter around the rest of the case will be enough.
  Admittedly, while part of this present is intended to be a bit of a leap to show Kristoph was willing to go for the insanest bluff ever in order to get through this with his life, this being a difficult one is probably also the result of a bit of poor planning on my part when it came to actually presenting the true solution. For quite a long time in my outline, after presenting the lack of light in the vault contradiction, my notes basically said ''Then Kristoph reveals the true answer was the vending machine'', lol. The ''Thought Route'' section inbetween was designed to bridge that gap, which it does to some extend, but the gap was very large in the early stages, as you can see. And as crazy as it sounds, during development I was perhaps a bit too paranoid that people would somehow guess the true solution too early.
  
  There is some slight foreshadowing to it, but perhaps they're a bit too discreet and missable. (But again, it's a tough balancing act to hint these properly without giving away the solution too early.) Kristoph goes over most of it after presenting that the second safe is the vending machine, but another, less obvious one, is that when you press one of the statements in Libby's final testimony, she mentions the coin she dropped rolled away somewhere and probably ''rolled under a vending machine''. Since Kristoph grabbed this coin off the ground no problem (aka it wasn't under anything), it hints that the vending machine the killer ended up using to kill Roy with was in fact the one where Libby's coin got rolled under.
• Standards as to what constitutes a contradiction are inconsistent - some dubious contradictions are accepted while others aren't. It counts as a contradiction that there are no prints on a door the Bethany supposedly used (the hardcore AA fan who is going to be on AAO will know about gloves) but it is not a contradiction that the victim was begging for help at a locked door he presumably had the key to (for him to not have the key, we need to make the implausible assumption that Larry failed to mention evidence tampering at the scene while he was watching it... which Larry asserts in the next testimony). I was asking myself "Why isn't that a contradiction?" many times when Phoenix testifies about his video camera.

This is an interesting one. It might be worth to discuss in DMs (or here in the thread) where else you got hung up on elsewhere to see what you tried to present or where you tried to look for a contradiction at any given time, mostly to make sure of any instances where there's a statement that contradicts with the evidence but isn't actually a solution, since those kinda things are worth refining in the case so they can't occur. (I'm aware of at least one other instance where a player thought something they presented should've also worked. I'm planning on doing something about that one.)

I can see where you're coming from with the example you mentioned. When it comes to Ace Attorney puzzles, I feel player interpretation can sometimes vary to an extend which is sometimes difficult to properly account for in all ways. In other words, what one may find a dubius contradiction or not can vary as a result. This, of course, can be debated, which is why a proper conversation on it could help on what's too egregiously dubious and what isn't.


There are several great ideas for puzzles here, and this case certainly avoids the common trap of a case so easy that it becomes boring. Once the issues are patched, I could easily see this case getting a Great Plus for the cross-examinations. The final showdown against the killer is thrilling, the murder scheme is imaginative, and the puzzles are uncommonly well-integrated with the broader story, here Kristoph learning to bluff.

Add it all up, and you get case logic with tremendous potential that hasn't been actualized yet. I really do want to see this case featured, and I'm willing to consult on how we can get the issues fixed. However, feature-quality is a ways off.

As a footnote, I recognize this case had five playtesters. It's unusual for there to be this many logic issues after that much testing.
I'll add to this that I've also seen many a playthrough and/or read an SoC of people playing this case, and what's interesting to note is that I've seen everyone get a bit stuck in this case at some point, I've not really seen a point where people got consistently stuck on. Points where I saw a person get stuck on (and thus expected more people to have trouble with it) would be breezed through by the next person I saw. Furthermore, there seems to be no point where I can definitively determine something like: ''Alright, a lot of people got stuck here, perhaps this should be changed, then.'' Most people were also often able to figure out the contradiction by themselves without the walkthrough (bar the aforementioned inconsistent point they got stuck on), which makes it hard for me to determine what's a logic issue that truly needs addressing or not sometimes.

Dialogue and Characterization: ✓✓
Disclosure: The case I have in the works and will get back to when I'm done with AAO development and QA tasks is a Franziska character study where she badly loses control of a case and needs to use Phoenix-style methods. This is similar to my big issue here and undoubtedly colors my opinion.

Kristoph is the star of the show here, which I'll talk more about in the Narrative section. For here, Kristoph was recognizable but felt off to me. While Kristoph's heel-face-turn builds over the course of the story, he first starts to suspect Phoenix isn't actually a bad person based off Phoenix being nice to him. While Kristoph doesn't accept this immediately, I'd think he would need something more for those thoughts to even occur to him. Kristoph knows better than most that a smile and cooperativity can mask anything. Having a change of heart is delicate thing, and the presentation here is serviceable, but I think could use a touch more tweaking. The end of the investigation is definitely too early for this. As of right now, I can't pinpoint other proposed fixes. This could easily be a situation where the problems in logic affected my ability to follow along the characterization.
Could be. That first instance at the end of the investigation was more just an early spark (which Kristoph dismisses as soon as the thought crossed his mind, showing that at that point he hadn't really changed yet), and not an actual change of heart yet. But it helps to have a tiny bit like that early on so the audience can anticipate it a bit, which in turn helps Kristoph's redemption and change feel more natural and organic as a result, I'd say.

Now for other characters! Bethany is distinctive, which is about all that you can ask for, given her little screentime. Larry is a very entertaining fool. The idea of having Edgeworth lead the defense of Larry rather than Larry is an excellent one, though I think you need to go a little further in that direction to be true to Larry being, well, himself. Phoenix felt perfectly in-character. I'd need to re-play the case to evaluate Libby and Edgeworth, again because I think logic errors got in the way of me picking up on characterization.

Narrative: ✮
This is what makes the case amazing. Seeing Kristoph struggle to make his scheme to frame Phoenix work while dealing with everything going wrong, pushing him far beyond what he's capable of was absolutely brilliant, and I don't think there's another case on AAO like it. I cannot praise this enough.

The tension between Phoenix, Kristoph, and Edgeworth is another major highlight of the case. Sadly, a lot of this was when the logic problems were at their highest, so I can tell that I missed some things here. Edgeworth's suspicion about Kristoph keeps the first part of the trial interesting, and seeing him have to defend Larry makes the knowledge of Kristoph's behavior hit all the harder. Phoenix's trust, misplaced though it may be, also hits a good note at keeping Kristoph second-guessing his plan.

Integration of the actual puzzles and the broader story is another thing this case does remarkably well. The way the case flows drives Kristoph further up the wall, forces him to clarify where he stands (and shifts where he stands!) on Phoenix, and both the ultimate motive for the crime as well as the aforementioned tension with Edgeworth was thematically perfect for Kristoph's inner struggles. I almost see this on AAO.

Presentation: ✓✓

Overall, very solid! I enjoyed the music choices a great deal, and the graphics for the video camera footage were a very nice touch, given that I was expecting a text description. There were a couple hiccups, but overall, it was nice.

Spoiler : Check #1b: Here Be Many Spoilers! :

This entire section is dedicated to logic issues up through the first three cross-examinations, to give you a taste of what needs to be done. Some of these problems affect multiple parts of the trial, and I've organized related clusters into a single issue at the point in the trial that makes the most sense. I've also included proposed fixes. I don't insist on these, and I present them as starting points for your own thought, so you don't think this is a last cause.
Aye, I will also fairly state up front that I don't think I'll be able to make this trial's case logic absolutely perfect (given how complex this case is) and so that even after inevitable fixes are made, some issues may still persist, including some that may or may not get mentioned here in this check by you. I do agree that these issues/flaws are valid, but I will be wanting to focus more on the bigger/more pressing issues that end up causing the bigger problems on a grander scale. This may be why I won't be responding to every point brought up here, not because I believe those issues to not be important (for they may very well be), but because I haven't determined yet whether fixing those issues would solve the underlying bigger problems here.

Trial Former

Pre-Cross-Examination
We open in the defense lobby. Kristoph has forged evidence to frame Phoenix. He regrets this upon learning the prosecutor is Miles Edgeworth, who clearly suspects his history of forgery. Edgeworth invites/threatens Kristoph to collaborate.

In court, Edgeworth's opening statement is to-the-point: two witnesses saw the defendant did it, and we have evidence. He then calls Gumshoe. Gumshoe outlines the poker tournament. He also presents the Autopsy Report and mentions that the witnesses saw the bodies through a window in the vault.

Cross-Examination 1
Edgeworth directs Gumshoe to testify to the (reasons for) arrest. It's a classic locked room setup. The defendant is the only person with the victim, and the only key is locked in a room with the two of them.
Comment Edgeworth and Gumshoe don't lay out a timeline of exactly what happened. Now, the lack of a timeline is by design. As we'll see after the Thought Route, Edgeworth is very deliberately not laying out a timeline, due to his own distrust of Kristoph. Yet this still makes the case more confusing, as my tutorial warns.
For narrative reasons, this is indeed due to Edgeworth distrusting Kristoph. But there are also two other reason why the timeline isn't outlined particularly by Gumshoe: 1. Phoenix more or less gives the order of events of the crime during the investigation in one of this talk convo's and 2. Larry's first testimony then does it again, so it's not mentioned by Gumshoe to avoid repetition. I can see why it leads to a bit of confusion, since Phoenix's explanation may have been a little while ago for the player to remember, and Larry's testimony hasn't come up yet.

Kristoph has two objections to this, both of which raise doubt as to whether the defendant could have entered the vault. First, the defendant's fingerprints are not on the vault door, which suggests that she didn't open it. Edgeworth counters that maybe the prints were wiped, or maybe she wore gloves. Kristoph tries unsuccessfully to refute those. Second, Kristoph objects that she'd need the key to get in the vault, but the victim had it. Edgeworth objects that she could have gotten it in multiple different ways. This is enough to give the judge doubts, but no more.
Issue: Contradiction Assumptions The vault door contradiction relies on the player assuming Bethany would have left fingerprints on anything she touched. A savvy player (like yours truly) will predict that Edgeworth will use gloves to fight this, and Kristoph will use Bethany's prints on the knife as a counter, but Edgeworth can just work around this. In other words, the assumption isn't believable. Likewise, the key contradiction relies on the player assuming if a woman is not supposed to have the key to a locked room, she cannot enter it. I assume Edgeworth just hasn't explained this part of his theory. After all, he hasn't explained much yet! Having contradictions that rely on bad assumptions is bad form. (See Jean of mArc's wonderful cross-examination difficulty tutorial and my cross-examination and contradiction tutorial.) As discussed in 1a, this encourages players to present more dubious contradictions.
Proposed Fix Have the co-counsel conversation tell the player to expect them to walk into a trap. Then my thoughts of "this is Edgeworth withholding information, not a contradiction" loses its weight.
I suppose most people just see ''Oh, weird. The defendant didn't leave any fingerprints but all these other people did. Then how did the defendant enter the vault?'' and find that ample reason to present that data on the statement where Gumshoe states the defendant entered the vault before the victim did since that contradicts, even if it relies on not considering the underlying assumptions you mentioned. So in a sense, the contradiction works, but if you start thinking further ahead on points which Edgeworth brings up after you present the contradiction, then I can see why it can lead to problems on what should be presented.
Comment: Gloves Precedent Edgeworth's rebuttal to the fingerprint argument establishes precedent that a person can use gloves to open the door without leaving clear traces. This creates problems in Trial Latter, when the ability of people to touch objects without leaving traces gets brought up again.
I'm interested to know what these exact problems are, since I'm struggling to think of anything that causes a problem in Trial Latter with this precedent.

Cross-Examination 2
Edgeworth then calls Larry, who testifies to seeing and hearing Roy cry for help, finding the door locked, and then seeing Bethany stab him. When Kristoph presses, he points out that Larry didn't have the visibility to see Bethany. Larry says of course not, he inferred that she was the killer. Naturally, the court is not amused.
Issue: No Escape It should be a contradiction to the Vault Key that Roy was begging for help and needed Larry and Phoenix to let him out. Unless Larry is omitting to mention "And then Bethany planted the key," Roy should have been able to escape on his own. And he would want to! In Edgeworth's current theory, he should expect Bethany to be in there. It makes even less sense that he stays after Larry and Phoenix show up, since he thinks these are safe people. Although Larry does claim to have missed the planting (cross-examination #3, statement #2), such a gap in his testimony damages his credibility, but Kristoph never pursues the point.
Proposed Fix Have Kristoph ask about this after Larry testifies. Edgeworth says he may not have had the key. Given the height of the window, Bethany could have crouched down low to plant the key on the body, out of Larry's view from the window.
I believe this to be an issue that stems from the fact it's a bit unclear who exactly had the vault key at what point when Bethany and Elflash entered the vault, which this case is rather vague on. Perhaps this problem can indeed be solved somewhat if it was made more clear up front that the police assume Bethany planted the key on the victim after killing him.
Issue: No Wound It should also be a contradiction to the Autopsy Report that "He looked like his usual self otherwise" on F689. What about the wound on his head?
Proposed Fix Just update the autopsy report to say the wound was to the back of his head. It's then obvious how Larry missed it. Bonus points if you mention this in the press conversation.
Fair point and easy enough to add, at least.
Issue: Window Non-Contradiction The actual contradiction for the second cross-examination is not a contradiction. That the victim had his body pressed against the window doesn't tell us that he blocked the entire window. From the picture of the staff lounge (which is later corroborated by Phoenix's video camera), the window is large enough that Roy wouldn't have blocked a view of Bethany.
Proposed Fix Say that Bethany was very short, so the victim would have blocked a view of her, even if the view into the entire room wasn't blocked.
Given that the proposed fix isn't a big hassle to implement, it's probably something I can add.
Issue: Magic Darkness The resolution to the second cross-examination's contradiction is not physically plausible. Larry says that he didn't see the defendant stab the man who was pressed against the window into the fully lit room. Adding together estimates for the door thickness, Roy's torso thickness, and Bethany's arm-to-shoulder length, Bethany's face should have been about 4 feet (1.2 m) from the door at most when stabbing Roy. I can't believe that it was too dark to see her. When I played the case, I reconciled this by assuming there was effectively a magic bubble of darkness in the vault and not to worry about it. Naturally, this made the "opening the secret entrance would have shown up on camera" contradiction in Trial Latter unsolvable.
The fact that Larry and Phoenix think it was ''too dark to see anyone further into the vault'' is a bit of a wrong assumption on their part. They didn't see the killer (because as it turns out, there was in reality no second person inside that vault when Elflash got stabbed) so they assume the reason for they never saw the killer is because the inside of the vault is dark (which it admittedly is). Physically, when you think about it, it's indeed a bit weird that they wouldn't have seen the killer, but it's also something that has an explanation when you consider the true solution.
Proposed Fix: For the contradiction, say that Bethany was very short, so the victim would have blocked a view of her, even if the view into the entire room wasn't blocked. You still need to justify dim lighting for later. Here are some possible explanations:

• The window was tinted. (You then need to adapt frames where you say the victim wanted to look into his vault. Why have tinted windows? You'll also need to edit the camera footage to darken Roy.)
• Say Larry could make out an unidentifiable silhouette. (Which doesn't show up on camera. Maybe it's not that high quality, given Phoenix's budget?)
• The staff room lighting has an intensity slider. It was on dim when the footage was taken.

Cross-Examination 3
Larry argues that the locked room nature of the vault means that Bethany was the only person who could have seen the stabbing. Unfortunately, he mentions that the killer locked the vault.
Issue: Inconsistent Prosecution Theory Edgeworth doesn't have a clear or consistent story about how the victim got in the locked room for the first half of the trial. Rather, he has multiple unclear and inconsistent stories. This causes mental clutter, create plot holes, and costs you a chance to play up the Kristoph-Edgeworth tension.
This is an issue I agree a lot with, but it's also one that may prove to be very challenging to fix. Part of that being is that it seems to be a tenacious problem where more problems show up elsewhere when attempting to fix it. (All the points you name below here were actually already attempts at patching this problem up when I encountered it during development.) It's hard to exactly put into words why that exactly is the case, but I think it mostly has to do with the fact that the case's structure and case flow (aka how does one point/contradiction lead to another organically) were designed first, and the prosecution's theory was designed around it. Unfortunately, this led to some problems down the road where the prosecution's theory became inconsistent because I prioritised the case structure it was to follow. (Which may even be the result of me already cutting out/changing a lot of planned contradictions/points in the early stages and I didn't want to cut much more. Me rushing to implement the first 2 to 3 CEs to meet the comp deadline was a bit of a miscalculation as well.) As such, this problem is very integrated and hard to fix. May need some further considerations (perhaps even in DMs) on how exactly to go about this, since I suspect this is a big one where the real issue isn't fixed with some patchwork or rewrites. But I'm also not sure how feasible/problem-free a bigger overhaul would end up being.

• When pressed on statement #5, Det. Gumshoe says "We do happen to know that the defendant must've entered before the victim did" because "we have another witness who can confirm as much!" I still don't know which witness this is supposed to be.
  Gumshoe is referring to Libby. This press statement was a bit of a doozy, since in the original version Gumshoe flat out stated something as fact that Libby's testimony contradicts (which Gumshoe, as the police should know about, meaning that Gumshoe was comitting perjury with the original version's statement.) I patched that to what it is now, but it may be that the real big underlying problem you're describing wasn't properly fixed with it.
• Kristoph explicitly asks Edgeworth "But how would the defendant then have access to the the [sic] locked vault without [the door key]?" and Edgeworth responds with "I'll admit we don't exactly know when the defendant got their hands on the key." He proceeds to give two elaborate possibilities, both of which are hard to follow and create other implications for the crime. In his "pickpocket" theory, the defendant needs to plant the key on the witness later. In his "unlocked vault" theory, the reason the victim is at the crime scene is because he realized he forgot to lock the vault.
  Aye, it kinda makes the prosecution's case vague, a bit weak and not all too clear-cut, which is less than ideal, admittedly. Perhaps it'd be less confusing if these sequences were rewritten where instead of Edgeworth trying to come up with those explanations as to what could explain Kristoph's objection, he outright dismisses them as unimportant. But as of right now I am uncertain if that wouldn't create new problems somewhere else.
• Press statement 2 on Larry's second testimony is about Larry's theory of how the door came to be locked. Not only does Edgeworth not correct Larry's theory that Roy entered under his own power at a different time than Bethany, but Edgeworth makes a hypothetical argument that assumes his theory.
• After Libby's first testimony is presented, Edgeworth summarizes his theory of the case. "So [Bethany, the defendant] had knocked [Roy, the victim] out first. Perhaps this is how she obtained the victim’s key, although we’re not certain about that. Regardless, after knocking the victim out cold... ...the defendant must've pulled the victim's body into the vault and then locked the door." All this earlier speculation is in complete contradiction to that, and it's indefensible for Edgeworth to have entertained all those hypotheticals when he knew about this testimony.
• When challenged on his not submitting the secret passage earlier, Edgeworth's defense is that because the prosecution assumed Libby's testimony to be true, he saw no reason to assume the secret passage was used. This completely falls apart if Edgeworth has not been assuming Libby's testimony to be true for the first three cross-examinations.
  Aye, we may have to discuss these points in more depth over in DMs sometime, mostly so I can fully comprehend the exact issues. Would do it now, but I suspect it may be more beneficial if it was done in a more instant back-and-forth manner. For now I will say that these issues were known to me in a much older version of the game, which I then attempted to patch. Seeing as you're still able to detect these issues, it's definitely something I want to see if it can be fixed more properly.

Proposed Fix:
From the moment the case starts, Edgeworth's plan is: (a) have Gumshoe testify to the basic locked room problem and incriminating physical evidence and (b) have Larry attest that he saw Bethany murder Roy. If Kristoph makes an issue of how the defendant entered the room, dismiss its importance but have Libby testify if necessary. The secret passage needs to be suppressed because Kristoph will run wild with that. And besides, Libby's testimony about how Bethany entered means that it probably wasn't used.
Accordingly, when Kristoph focuses on Gumshoe's cross-examination on whether the victim really used the vault door, Edgeworth points out that Kristoph isn't denying the basic locked room problem. The judge overrules Kristoph, and Edgeworth calls Larry. Kristoph uses Larry's testimony to continue to argue about how the defendant entered the room. Edgeworth then calls Larry's theory worthless and calls Libby to the stand, framing it as a trap. He has the perfect witness to end all of Kristoph's objections!
Gumshoe's statement is removed. Edgeworth's first round of hypotheticals in cross-examination #1 is replaced with a simple, "The prosecution can't be certain, but we believe she simply stole the key from the victim. Ultimately, it doesn't matter. What matters is that the defendant was alone in that locked room!" In cross-examination #3, rewrite the press conversation in question. Edgeworth objects that this is speculation (Your Honor, I tried to tell you allowing this would be a waste of time!), but Kristoph gets the objection overruled and gets Larry to say why he thinks the killer locked the vault. Larry says that like Kristoph argued earlier, if he had the key, Roy would have left. Bethany must have pounced him to get the key as soon as he entered. In a cramped vault like that, he probably never moved from that spot.
Issue: Misleading Map The position of the killer and victim on the Casino Map is (understandably) misleading. Because the door swings into the vault, you have the killer and victim pushed into the vault away from the door, even though they're actually right against the door. I mistook this for an actual contradiction.
Proposed Fix Since the evidence already includes two copies of the map, on the copy with people labeled, put the victim and killer where they "actually" were. You can either (a) mark all doors as closed or (b) have people on top of the doors. Each side has a tradeoff (a) clues to a savvy reader that the way that doors swing is likely to be important, while (b) is a bit uglier.
Issue: Clutter Based on the head wound the victim got and Larry's statement that the victim looked like he was in a fight, I was reasoning that the victim could have entered the vault, struggle happens, killer gets close to the door and locks it, struggle continues, then victim is pressed against the door. Or perhaps the killer sneaks to the door before a struggle happens, using the extreme levels of darkness in my vault that were established in the previous testimony. The confusion generated by not having a clear exposition of the prosecution's theory yet makes this an easy mistake to make.
Now, the essential point for this contradiction is the assumption that the defendant stayed in place. That is only added by Larry in a press conversation where Larry is asked to defend his conclusions. Even within that press conversations, the details are shoe-horned into a dense, technical discussion about the vault key. Amidst all that clutter, it is extremely easy to miss the side point about the victim's movements or lack thereof. The point of the victim stayed in place needs to be clearer.
This is a point a betatester of mine picked up on, which led to me adding the shoehorned info in the press convo in an attempt to fix the problem, but I suppose that may have been the wrong approach. A cleaner and more clear prosecution theory put up front may indeed solve this problem. (Which does require some thinking how exactly to go about it.)
Proposed Fix Prune this press conversation, as proposed for the Inconsistent Prosecution Theory.
Issue: Redundancy Kristoph needs to argue for why the killer couldn't have gone around Roy to lock the door. This is redundant, given that Larry adds this detail in a press conversation, and relies on multiple dodgy arguments. Kristoph has to say Roy wouldn't have allowed that (maybe he was stunned from having his head bashed in), and that the killer wouldn't have done that (maybe they were trying to negotiate first). These additional arguments are much too complicated.
Proposed Fix Strip these out. This contradiction already exists because Larry isn't assuming Bethany's testimony. Kristoph hammers Larry for this assumption, and Edgeworth can shame Larry for it, as discussed in Inconsistent Prosecution Theory.
This may be an example of a problem cropping up because I tried patching up the problem I mentioned above that my betatester found. Would probably also get better once the whole Inconsistent Prosecutor Theory has a proper fix, hopefully.

Spoiler : Check #2: Minimal Spoilers :

These are incomplete. What follows is as much as I had written when I was weighing whether the case passed Check #1.

Investigation
Presentation and bugs
Writing and characterization
* I'd recommend editing Libby's dialogue when she talks about why she was so keen on winning the tournament. From what we know later, it wasn't really about the fame...
* Kristoph would never think that Moozilla was high art. Perhaps the joke can be tweaked?
* I'm surprised that Kristoph would be softening up to Phoenix as early as the investigation. Surely he already thought Phoenix was too trusting, so why should the co-counsel offer affect him so? I don't insist on this change, but it may be worth either giving Kristoph a more personal reason to soften up or hold off on that until the trial.
Proofreading and clarification
* F49: "commited" -> "committed"
* F70: "executed and" -> "executed, and"
* F123: "here and" -> "here, and"
* F124: "slip ups" -> "slip-ups"
* F206: "choosing and" -> "choosing, and"
* F488: The word "disperse" feels wrong here, both because it's not referring to a physical object, and because Gumshoe would use a simpler word. How about "leak" or "talk" or "give"?
* F636: "renown and" -> "renown and"
* F644: "lawyer, for" -> "lawyer for"
* F918: "good and" -> "good, and"
* F1203: "murder crime" is redundant. Pick one.
* F1997: "now yourself" -> "now, yourself"
* F1988: "demeanor or" -> "demeanor, or"
* F1579: "right or" -> "right, or"
* F1641: "me and" -> "me, and"
* F1718: "too considering" -> "too, considering"
* F1931: "ago you" -> "ago, you"
Sprites and graphics
* Please add courtroom mini sprites in the opening.
Music and sound effects
Gameplay
* When examining the safe and hearing that you need to do more investigating, maybe you can look at the variables to give the player a clue as to where they should investigate? I got lost for a bit here.
* I found it very easy to not think to ask Phoenix questions. Maybe you can add a line of dialogue to the relevant investigation option?
* I accidentally took Libby's snarky response to our examining the breaker panel as a cue that I was done investigating there. (I didn't see the coin for a long time.) Perhaps you can reword?

Trial Former
Presentation and bugs
Writing and characterization
Proofreading and clarification
Lobby Conversation
* F10: "plenty ideas" -> "plenty of ideas"
* F63: "do I know" -> "I know
Det. Gumshoe's First Cross-Examination
* F271: "time it's" -> "time, it's"
Between CE#1 and CE#2
* F467: "the the locked" -> "the locked"
* F469: "their" -> "her"
* F432: "or wiped" -> "or wipe"
Larry's First Cross Examination
* F751: "it's steel" -> "it's a steel"
Larry's Second Cross Examination
* F911: "open we" -> "open, we"
* F964: "end and" -> "end, and"
Sprites and graphics
Music and sound effects

Trial Latter
Presentation and bugs
Writing and characterization
Proofreading and clarification
Sprites and graphics
Music and sound effects
Gameplay
* The plot point that anybody who used the vault must have left prints contradicts earlier game dialogue. In a press conversation from his first cross examination, Det. Gumshoe says, "I even tried opening the door myself! Without getting my prints on it, of course." (F258). This might mean that Det. Gumshoe didn't even try the handle but just tried to ram the door, but if so, it's not clear.
* The lighting of the vault is not physically plausible. In Larry's cross-examination, we establish that the lights in the Staff Room are fully on, and this suffices only to "kinda see a little bit into that dark vault through the vault door window," to the point that Larry needs to defend his ability to see the victim get knifed, and he can't see the person who actually did the knifing.

Spoiler : VERDICT :

☆ The QA inspection is complete. This case is not good enough to be featured. Sorry!

I really want this case to be featured. It does some wonderful things that I don't think I've ever seen on AAO before, especially regarding integrating the story and the actual mystery-solving. The trouble is that the case logic needs massive work, and probably more than one pass of changes, as those fixes will have side effects. I don't know if the author is up for it, and even if he was, at that point, it would need a new reviewer. This is unfortunately the risk of cases that have 13 cross-examinations, even with 5 beta-testers. If you're content to use a walkthrough when you start getting stuck, I heartily recommend the case. But that's too big of an if to allow for a star.

If you are interested in getting the case featured, you can request a review from Bad Player. I do however recommend you deal with the issues I've raised first. And once again, I'm happy to consult if you want this to be featured and are committed to the changes it would take to make that happen.

Regardless, I wish you the best and look forward to seeing future cases from you. I'm truly impressed.

For now, I think I'll be doing some planning and contemplating on how to properly address these issues, then implement them. As I said, I kinda feel these need to be carefully considered so that other problems don't crop up elsewhere. I want to pinpoint more what are some of the bigger impacting problems with the case logic and find a proper solution for that, rather than individually tackling/changing things as I see them, since that seems to not have worked out all too well. That said, I also need to consider how much I truly want to end up changing with this case, since I realize a fair amount of people already played this case and I don't want to risk changing things too much that people may have already enjoyed. Like I'm certain people won't mind if, for example, the prosecution's theory was more consistent and less vague, but I would be interested in keeping the presents/contradictions relatively the same. Yet at the moment it is unclear to me how much of that would potentially have to change in order for me to solve some of these issues, which is why I want to give this all some proper thought. Will do an announcement when I'll start implementing the changes so people are free to play the current version in the meantime, at least.