[T][CE] A Turnabout With Too Many Faces ●

[DJJ6800]

It's nice to see everyone having the same reactions Time and I did upon playing this entry. There's a reason Broken Commandments was so difficult to pick a winner for!

I'm just taking what little comfort I can get out of the fact that I had the better protagonist in this comp.

[eerew]

hi

Spoiler : :

This was another certified dwam classic.

There was a good 30 minutes where I had no clue what the hell was going on during day 4 and I think that's a big plus. I was just watching Phoenix in some kind of fever dream say the craziest shit I've ever heard about how everyone and their mother was actual an imposter and how there was two hotels. I didn't know how much of it was actually true but I was here for it.

I can't believe I heard the Fiend say "my dad was a jeweler", went "oh kind of like dahlia", then completely forgot about it until the end lmao. Writing was good, characterization was great outside of the obvious out of character moments, some of the jokes weren't for me but they were all silly and wacky. I don't really have much to say other than that it was all around good, it's hard for me to go into detail about why I like something. This case was even more bananas than Curtain was and it was great. And that was probably the best breakdown I've ever seen in a fancase.

The fake penalty on the Gumshoe present does admittedly make me want to punch you, but it wouldn't be a true aao case without one. Also some of the presents seemed kind of weird, like the mask present on gumshoe's testimony, and one of the prompts in the last testimony doesn't state the question that you're supposed to be answering so I forgot it, but it's just me being dumb and we're all save scumming anyways so who cares lol. The only one I feel strongly about enough to talk about in detail is the first testimony with Angel.

After the initial contradiction where you suggest Angel could've done it and get some more evidence before it throws you back into the testimony, I tried presenting the protective case on the statement angel made that went something like "when i checked the mask again at 9:45, i realized it was gone" because it implies she only realized the mask was gone by seeing it not in the case, and not from hearing the alarm. While the "press further and then say that something isn't important because they didn't actually answer the question you asked" is a classic, there doesn't need to be a new statement in the first place to present this contradiction, in my opinion.

anyways now that you've done mind court can you do ghost court next pretty please

[bigwins]

just spent the last couple hours going through this one. so dense with twists and canon references and jokes and nested mini-mysteries, as always. extremely, extremely good.

Spoiler : :

you know who being some sort of eldritch being at this point

was just one of like a hundred great ideas you could pick out of any given part

[AquaAce72]

a certified dwam classic

[Hesseldahl]

Omg, I need to play this, I already have a lot of cases to go through, but this is for sure on my list.

[drvonkitty]

Will echo that this is a "certified dwam classic"!

Spoiler : :

I've had my issues with some of your past cases—though "Strangers in a Land of Turnabouts" is one of my favorite fancases of all time, and I love Cascade Theater despite its flaws lol—but imho this was a perfect synthesis of my favorite parts of your others. Fitting, giving the competition theme and the return of so many AAO powerhouses! Am I correct that you broke every single one of Knox's rules here? Because that was impressive... I imagine it would be very easy to get bogged down in "YES THIS IS THE RULE I'M BREAKING NOW LOL" but instead each and every one felt like a natural part of the story's progression.

And what a story it was! The mystery, while being as convoluted & messy as I expected, was compelling throughout and there were never any twists that left me feeling frustrated and clowned. The twist with Phoenix (and thus the player) being bamboozled by the Fiend the entire time could have so easily gone wrong, but you executed it such that I felt genuinely tricked instead of suckered. Every time I play one of your cases, regardless of how I end up feeling about it, I always wonder how the heck you come up with this stuff. (I couldn't recreate the mystery of "The First Turnabout" if my life depended on it lmfao)

Of course, my favorite part of your works has always been the character writing, and this was no exception. I was drawn in from the beginning and kept in through the finish. I laughed out loud at many points (the 'explode' meme present got me), and I even cried at the scene where Phoenix tells Trucy how much he loves her. Your writing of their dynamic has undeniably inspired my own, and I loved it here even if it was brief. The scene where they sit around and casually break down the locked room was wonderful. Indeed, many of the scenes in this case were wonderful. Dare I say the whole case was wonderful!

Also, because I'd be remiss not to mention it, Edgeworth with the 'knight in shining armor' schtick at the end of the trial was excellent and had me rolling. I'm glad they get to watch their DVD. Maybe they'll even... h-hold h-h-hands.... no..... unless....?

Anyway, I don't have any critique to share, I just felt like gushing for a bit about how much I loved the case.

Ninja edit: Was there any mention given to whether or not we decided to accuse Gumshoe? It comes up a few times and he's upset at us, but I was curious if there's any changes based on that decision. I chose not to accuse him but didn't notice much acknowledgement. Possible I missed it, tho!

Ninja edit 2: Wait, you definitely didn't break all the rules because of the competition rules. 1, 2, 4, 5 (as in mysterious outsider), 6, 8, 9, and 10 are definitely broken, I think? But in retrospect, I don't think 3 was broken. I'm not sure about 7, since we also *kinda* play as the Fiend? But either way, extremely impressive!

tl;dr dwam case very epic, very pog

[Dylan Dog]

Aside from stating this case was an absolute beast, I have a question that came straight out of my fridge logic:

Spoiler : :

Wouldn't Starr, Strange, Basil and even poor Vera have become addicted to Mnemosyne with disastrous results? They consumed preposterous amounts of it in the span three days, after all.

[eerew]

hi eerew

Spoiler : :

Wouldn't Starr, Strange, Basil and even poor Vera have become addicted to Mnemosyne with disastrous results? They consumed preposterous amounts of it in the span three days, after all.

hi

Spoiler : :

I don't think it was inherently addictive, Desiree repeatedly used it because they wanted to forget Ron's death. If she didn't have something she wanted to forget I don't think she would've been addicted.

[Igniam]

https://youtu.be/nhlpccIc5Ik

video

(at the end of the video I'm like "where did my badge go" hahaha, but there was no attorney's badge at the start, I just I M A G I N E D it - this sentence is not a spoiler)

Spoiler : :

really cool case. that 'incorrect' blue was an actual AAO case thing and I was questioning it so bad. didn't expect it would go there either. there were a few 'orly?' present moments, especially trying to get something across that isn't available to answer (for example, having to present Mnemosyne to Desiree that one time, because I thought there was no point in doing so, as Phoenix couldn't prove it was a contradiction)

also when I thought "I know who has the mask" was too vague because dead Ron definitely does not have the mask

also no idea what happens if you try to take a second Mnemosyne while you are in the 6 hour window. nothing really confirms this?

i was definitely led down the main path to get tricked at the end. the whole timing and potentially-parallel-potentially-not-parallel nature of the switching perspectives was not really resolved to the end so I had to try to unscramble and scramble that. basically it isn't real, I guess, and that's why the drawing/stain 'details' are made up too. so the player has a chronologically separate timing of this (i must assume canonically that these flashbacks are given to Phoenix all at once when Phoenix meets with Fiend, but the player sees these flashbacks in parallel before this info, so there must be some unscrambling the player has to do where these 'flashbacks' are no longer objective), which basically makes the basis of the hidden passage thing. Does the story even say where the other end of that passage is? I thought it was literally proposed to be "the hotel" which implies no one knows where that leads. although it could maybe just be outside, and then nearby is the hotel lol.

I do remember trying to present the Two Hotels theory by using the other hotel in the evidence.

also enjoy "Payment" and "Severe Cold" taken out of their context to make a different point. do wonder about how Severe Cold's "blackouts" never were involved, I thought you could theorize they took out security footage or something

some typos:

hotel reservation:
"As planned before taking Mnemosyne, I got to the The Parkview Avenue Hotel at around 8 PM and reserved a room. I was found there by the police after the crime."
also there was another typo that I do not remember anymore... spOoOky

walkthrough says "Present Elias Strange's Profile" when I don't think that person is ever called or named Elias
also walkthrough says "Statemnet"