Turnabout Cat in a Box by BadJoe
Ahahahaha… that’s so silly… imagine that…
Defence attorney Apollo Justice is presented with his latest case, defined by his boss Godot as a ‘Level 5 mission’. This mission, once he chooses to accept it, entails defending a university student on the suspicion of killing a teacher. But being a level 5 mission… something that Apollo has never faced before, this defendant is no normal university student of course… he is in fact secretly the heir of a crime family. Apollo may have to leave his laid-back lawyer attitude at the door for once if he doesn’t want to feel the wrath of The Scarlet Foxes...
Story: I have to be completely transparent about my feelings on this case because if I don’t… well I feel like I might just explode.
This is one of my favourite things I have ever played on AAO.
I had no clue what to expect from this case with BadJoe being a veteran member of AAO who had never released a case before. At the beginning of this competition, he was quite active on the AACD discord server but after a while, he appeared less and less and I got worried,,, I made the assumption that he was just gonna be another one of those users who out of the blue sign up to a comp only to drop out at the end after not really doing anything. After not hearing from him for a while I then got a DM from him apologising about how he hadn’t been working on the case because of laziness and I wholeheartedly empathised with this sentiment, (being too lazy/busy to finish working on any of my projects oops) at this point though, to be frank, I was expecting a half baked, half-assed case…
…but this couldn’t be further from the truth. I absolutely loved it. Talk about a dark horse.
Now, I will say the mystery is on the weaker side of things, only really being a set-up so far, but a good set-up nonetheless. What makes this case shine so blindingly though, is the amount of flavour text, fluff and character building that sets up the characters of the universe so incredibly well that I was immediately hooked from the beginning and this interest only increased and increased as the case went on, to the point that I actually cried real tears when the demo ended… I don’t know if these were tears of joy, sadness or just utter shock and awe at what I just played (or maybe the hot chocolate coffee abomination I drank last night had some side effects…), all I know is that this case made me feel things.
Characters: I absolutely loved every character in this case. But the funny thing about this is, that I didn’t like them in the usual way you would expect. These characters are so unlikeable, they are either incredibly pompous, rude or lazy jerks and all absolute LOSERS, but they are written so well and are so silly that their unlikability just makes them charming beyond my comprehension. The character writing of this case absolutely oozes with rizz and I feel like by saying that I’m still not giving it enough credit. There are very few characters introduced in this case but they are all so rich with personality, so vastly distinct from one another that there didn’t need to be a huge cast because they have enough character combined to make up for it. And you know what the best part about all these characters is… THEY ARE ALL ALTERED CANON CHARACTERS. I KNOW RIGHT??? LIKE WHAT??? BadJoe took some of the most bland ass characters from the infamous Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney and gave them life with his writing and I can’t believe I'm saying this, but I prefer all of these characters to their canon counterparts. Apollo is a protagonist that I normally find incredibly boring but I absolutely loved BadJoe’s characterisation of him being a laid-back slacker who stays up late to binge-watching kid's TV shows and openly complains to his boss about how terrible he is. Some of these canon characters have been changed to less of an extent (still for the better in my opinion) but some of their personalities have been flipped completely on their head but I don’t want to spoil them by talking about them because I was just so utterly taken aback that I want people to have the same reaction I did. I loved all these characters a lot and picking just a single screenshot for this case was incredibly difficult as there are just so many incredible lines and funny moments that made me laugh out loud so hard that I felt delusional and couldn’t believe what I was playing.
Presentation: The presentation of this entry is by no means perfect but I want to say that in comparison to how much I enjoyed the other aspects of this case, these issues seem so insignificant. But I am at foremost a judge and a nit-picky Nancy at that, so I will point them out anyway.
There were a few typos here and there, sometimes missing closed brackets during thought dialogue, a lack of shakes, improper use of fading that failed to consider foreground objects, one character's nameplate changes from ??? to their name before they are properly introduced and one piece of evidence lacked any kind of description.
The music choices in this case were just so peculiar but somehow so perfect at the same time. BadJoe uses a mixture of rap, jazzy lyrical songs, epic orchestral tracks, and some very campy music. But despite how conflicting these genres are they somehow synergised perfectly?? I have to admit that sometimes reading the dialogue was difficult when at the same time my brain was trying to focus on the lyrics of songs but after a while I got used to it and it was no longer a problem. I recently got into the Persona series and have kinda gone down a hyper fixation rabbit hole with it and the use of lyrical songs in this case reminded me of the series I love so dearly that I couldn’t help but be ecstatic by the similar audio choices used.
As I’ve already said this case only uses canon characters and none of their sprites have been altered in any way nor have any extra poses added. Normally I am a sucker for OCs but the lack of them in this case… just really didn’t matter to me because the characters' personalities felt original enough.
But this case isn’t completely devoid of custom assets, oh no no no. There are a few custom backgrounds used that are very nice and I assume they were sourced by BadJoe from one of the numerous amounts of free to use background packs online… but I have to say both these backgrounds fit the style of Ace Attorney really well, not being too realistic or cartoony nor too oversaturated or undersaturated with items that can oftentimes make examine sections difficult.
Ok… I may have lied a littol… There is one ‘character’ in this case that is not canon… but it’s complicated as they’re not exactly… a person. You see, in this Takumi-Verse Godot is an inventor, (think inspector gadget) famous for creating various gadgets and gizmos including an incredibly charming artificial intelligence called G.H.O.S.T.I. Being an AI, GHOSTI’S physical form is limited to appearing on a TV monitor that displays nothing but their emotions with amateurishly drawn but very cute expressions that are very reminiscent of commonly used internet emoticons that I am personally a huge fan of including UWU, -_-, T-T and XD. Although this is in no way outstanding in terms of custom assets, I still found GHOSTI’s portrayal to be incredibly charming with a LOT of personality.
Gameplay: In its submitted state, this case is purely an investigation. Like I said before, the mystery hasn’t had the chance to be fully introduced yet, so the gameplay itself was mostly all flavour text, but did such an excellent job at worldbuilding and setting up the characters. In the first section of the case there’s flavour text for every single piece of evidence/ profile that you can present for two different characters which was all incredibly funny and really just AHHHH gave so much backstory and charm to the characters. There is also a lot of examining dialogue that was all really well written and decently long without feeling like it dragged on. Now, I will say after this first part the flavour text is more sparse, but this doesn’t feel like an unnatural shift because for at least one of the instances, there’s a super valid reason why you can’t present to the person or examine the area and for the other instance it did just feel unnecessary to present as if Apollo was trying to be professional I guess (one thing I will say is that for one of the characters, the default dialogue of Apollo being like “You dumbass! I shouldn’t be presenting this now!” is said out loud for some reason… I don’t think this was intentional…). But overall, the lack of flavour text in the latter part of the case can be forgiven because it is so smartly dealt with that it comes across as incredibly natural in the moment.
As for a new game mechanic BadJoe invented a creative new use for Apollo’s bracelet that instead of giving him the ability to perceive when others are lying, allows him to store his own memories in a way that if he is presented with information that contradicts one of these memories, even if he doesn’t fully recall it, his subconscious affects the bracelet in some way causing it to tell him that there is a contradiction. I’d describe this mechanic as almost like a ‘Spidey sense’ for short-term memories that have been stored, but we can’t fully consciously recall. Now, the bracelet doesn’t work perfectly so you get shown a bunch of memories that may create a contraction, some of which literally have nothing to do with the statement (which served for some extra humour), but one or two that do, so it’s your job as a player to use those deduction skills you’ve honed after playing so many Ace Attorney cases to choose the memory that contradicts the statement. I really liked this new mechanic despite its simplicity and I also loved the explanation and how clearly it was presented. Although this mechanic only comes up once in this case so far, it is clear that as the story continues it will be a recurring feature.
Theme Relevance: Despite having to debate with myself over theme relevance with a lot of these entries, in this instance the decision was easy. This case is perfectly theme relevant. It reimagines characters in a way that ranges from quite different to extremely different from their canon counterparts in terms of personality and profession in some cases, whilst still having the vibes of the original characters that we all know and love… but in this case, I think I liked these characters more than their canon counterparts.
As for the gameplay side of things I’ve already gushed about the game mechanic enough, so I think the conclusion that this aspect of theme relevance is achieved is already abundantly clear.
PROS
One of the best things I’ve ever played on AAO.
Actually made me cry real tears after playing.
Incredibly well-written and funny dialogue with a bunch of flavour text.
Absolutely awful characters that I loved, even more than their canon counterparts.
Really well explained, creative and nicely presented game mechanic.
CONS
Some presentation issues.
Mystery aspect of this case is yet to be fully fleshed out.
Too short… I WANT MORE!!(If you don’t continue working on this case after the comp is over and I never get to find out what happens I will find you and I-)
Spoiler : Screenshot :
Ahahahaha… that’s so silly… imagine that…
Spoiler : Synopsis :
Defence attorney Apollo Justice is presented with his latest case, defined by his boss Godot as a ‘Level 5 mission’. This mission, once he chooses to accept it, entails defending a university student on the suspicion of killing a teacher. But being a level 5 mission… something that Apollo has never faced before, this defendant is no normal university student of course… he is in fact secretly the heir of a crime family. Apollo may have to leave his laid-back lawyer attitude at the door for once if he doesn’t want to feel the wrath of The Scarlet Foxes...
Spoiler : Review :
Story: I have to be completely transparent about my feelings on this case because if I don’t… well I feel like I might just explode.
This is one of my favourite things I have ever played on AAO.
I had no clue what to expect from this case with BadJoe being a veteran member of AAO who had never released a case before. At the beginning of this competition, he was quite active on the AACD discord server but after a while, he appeared less and less and I got worried,,, I made the assumption that he was just gonna be another one of those users who out of the blue sign up to a comp only to drop out at the end after not really doing anything. After not hearing from him for a while I then got a DM from him apologising about how he hadn’t been working on the case because of laziness and I wholeheartedly empathised with this sentiment, (being too lazy/busy to finish working on any of my projects oops) at this point though, to be frank, I was expecting a half baked, half-assed case…
…but this couldn’t be further from the truth. I absolutely loved it. Talk about a dark horse.
Now, I will say the mystery is on the weaker side of things, only really being a set-up so far, but a good set-up nonetheless. What makes this case shine so blindingly though, is the amount of flavour text, fluff and character building that sets up the characters of the universe so incredibly well that I was immediately hooked from the beginning and this interest only increased and increased as the case went on, to the point that I actually cried real tears when the demo ended… I don’t know if these were tears of joy, sadness or just utter shock and awe at what I just played (or maybe the hot chocolate coffee abomination I drank last night had some side effects…), all I know is that this case made me feel things.
Characters: I absolutely loved every character in this case. But the funny thing about this is, that I didn’t like them in the usual way you would expect. These characters are so unlikeable, they are either incredibly pompous, rude or lazy jerks and all absolute LOSERS, but they are written so well and are so silly that their unlikability just makes them charming beyond my comprehension. The character writing of this case absolutely oozes with rizz and I feel like by saying that I’m still not giving it enough credit. There are very few characters introduced in this case but they are all so rich with personality, so vastly distinct from one another that there didn’t need to be a huge cast because they have enough character combined to make up for it. And you know what the best part about all these characters is… THEY ARE ALL ALTERED CANON CHARACTERS. I KNOW RIGHT??? LIKE WHAT??? BadJoe took some of the most bland ass characters from the infamous Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney and gave them life with his writing and I can’t believe I'm saying this, but I prefer all of these characters to their canon counterparts. Apollo is a protagonist that I normally find incredibly boring but I absolutely loved BadJoe’s characterisation of him being a laid-back slacker who stays up late to binge-watching kid's TV shows and openly complains to his boss about how terrible he is. Some of these canon characters have been changed to less of an extent (still for the better in my opinion) but some of their personalities have been flipped completely on their head but I don’t want to spoil them by talking about them because I was just so utterly taken aback that I want people to have the same reaction I did. I loved all these characters a lot and picking just a single screenshot for this case was incredibly difficult as there are just so many incredible lines and funny moments that made me laugh out loud so hard that I felt delusional and couldn’t believe what I was playing.
Presentation: The presentation of this entry is by no means perfect but I want to say that in comparison to how much I enjoyed the other aspects of this case, these issues seem so insignificant. But I am at foremost a judge and a nit-picky Nancy at that, so I will point them out anyway.
There were a few typos here and there, sometimes missing closed brackets during thought dialogue, a lack of shakes, improper use of fading that failed to consider foreground objects, one character's nameplate changes from ??? to their name before they are properly introduced and one piece of evidence lacked any kind of description.
The music choices in this case were just so peculiar but somehow so perfect at the same time. BadJoe uses a mixture of rap, jazzy lyrical songs, epic orchestral tracks, and some very campy music. But despite how conflicting these genres are they somehow synergised perfectly?? I have to admit that sometimes reading the dialogue was difficult when at the same time my brain was trying to focus on the lyrics of songs but after a while I got used to it and it was no longer a problem. I recently got into the Persona series and have kinda gone down a hyper fixation rabbit hole with it and the use of lyrical songs in this case reminded me of the series I love so dearly that I couldn’t help but be ecstatic by the similar audio choices used.
As I’ve already said this case only uses canon characters and none of their sprites have been altered in any way nor have any extra poses added. Normally I am a sucker for OCs but the lack of them in this case… just really didn’t matter to me because the characters' personalities felt original enough.
But this case isn’t completely devoid of custom assets, oh no no no. There are a few custom backgrounds used that are very nice and I assume they were sourced by BadJoe from one of the numerous amounts of free to use background packs online… but I have to say both these backgrounds fit the style of Ace Attorney really well, not being too realistic or cartoony nor too oversaturated or undersaturated with items that can oftentimes make examine sections difficult.
Ok… I may have lied a littol… There is one ‘character’ in this case that is not canon… but it’s complicated as they’re not exactly… a person. You see, in this Takumi-Verse Godot is an inventor, (think inspector gadget) famous for creating various gadgets and gizmos including an incredibly charming artificial intelligence called G.H.O.S.T.I. Being an AI, GHOSTI’S physical form is limited to appearing on a TV monitor that displays nothing but their emotions with amateurishly drawn but very cute expressions that are very reminiscent of commonly used internet emoticons that I am personally a huge fan of including UWU, -_-, T-T and XD. Although this is in no way outstanding in terms of custom assets, I still found GHOSTI’s portrayal to be incredibly charming with a LOT of personality.
Gameplay: In its submitted state, this case is purely an investigation. Like I said before, the mystery hasn’t had the chance to be fully introduced yet, so the gameplay itself was mostly all flavour text, but did such an excellent job at worldbuilding and setting up the characters. In the first section of the case there’s flavour text for every single piece of evidence/ profile that you can present for two different characters which was all incredibly funny and really just AHHHH gave so much backstory and charm to the characters. There is also a lot of examining dialogue that was all really well written and decently long without feeling like it dragged on. Now, I will say after this first part the flavour text is more sparse, but this doesn’t feel like an unnatural shift because for at least one of the instances, there’s a super valid reason why you can’t present to the person or examine the area and for the other instance it did just feel unnecessary to present as if Apollo was trying to be professional I guess (one thing I will say is that for one of the characters, the default dialogue of Apollo being like “You dumbass! I shouldn’t be presenting this now!” is said out loud for some reason… I don’t think this was intentional…). But overall, the lack of flavour text in the latter part of the case can be forgiven because it is so smartly dealt with that it comes across as incredibly natural in the moment.
As for a new game mechanic BadJoe invented a creative new use for Apollo’s bracelet that instead of giving him the ability to perceive when others are lying, allows him to store his own memories in a way that if he is presented with information that contradicts one of these memories, even if he doesn’t fully recall it, his subconscious affects the bracelet in some way causing it to tell him that there is a contradiction. I’d describe this mechanic as almost like a ‘Spidey sense’ for short-term memories that have been stored, but we can’t fully consciously recall. Now, the bracelet doesn’t work perfectly so you get shown a bunch of memories that may create a contraction, some of which literally have nothing to do with the statement (which served for some extra humour), but one or two that do, so it’s your job as a player to use those deduction skills you’ve honed after playing so many Ace Attorney cases to choose the memory that contradicts the statement. I really liked this new mechanic despite its simplicity and I also loved the explanation and how clearly it was presented. Although this mechanic only comes up once in this case so far, it is clear that as the story continues it will be a recurring feature.
Theme Relevance: Despite having to debate with myself over theme relevance with a lot of these entries, in this instance the decision was easy. This case is perfectly theme relevant. It reimagines characters in a way that ranges from quite different to extremely different from their canon counterparts in terms of personality and profession in some cases, whilst still having the vibes of the original characters that we all know and love… but in this case, I think I liked these characters more than their canon counterparts.
As for the gameplay side of things I’ve already gushed about the game mechanic enough, so I think the conclusion that this aspect of theme relevance is achieved is already abundantly clear.
Spoiler : Overall :
PROS
One of the best things I’ve ever played on AAO.
Actually made me cry real tears after playing.
Incredibly well-written and funny dialogue with a bunch of flavour text.
Absolutely awful characters that I loved, even more than their canon counterparts.
Really well explained, creative and nicely presented game mechanic.
CONS
Some presentation issues.
Mystery aspect of this case is yet to be fully fleshed out.
Too short… I WANT MORE!!(If you don’t continue working on this case after the comp is over and I never get to find out what happens I will find you and I-)
), but to be fair, I did overreact a little bit and the experience wasn’t as bad as I thought (though my short attention span didn't help...). The concept of this case being entirely text-based is actually really cool and unique, and Madoc and Banned have been able to replicate Ace Attorney gameplay to an extent that is impressive. The story itself is pretty simple and the mystery aspect hasn’t had the chance to completely unravel yet as this project is not finished, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. 
ckers"
(Made by @4getful4444 on Tumblr :3c)