[T] Fragments of a Turnabout ●

[ikuzonos]

This case was originally made for the Broken Commandments competition hosted by TimeAxis and Awesome2464. I was forced to drop out due to extenuating circumstances, but I have since finished the trial! Mild spoilers for the last case of AA4.

Part One
Part Two

Spoiler : Screenshots :

Spoiler : Walkthrough :

Part One:
Talk: 1
Move: Detention Centre
Talk: 2
Move: Clare Skies Publishing
Examine: Body outline, windows
Talk: 3
Move: Security Room
Talk: 2
Move: Morgue
Talk: 1
Move: Lobby > Detention Center
Present: Switchblade, Buzzer Record
Talk: 2

Part Two:
Press: Statement 6
Present: Buzzer Record
Answer: Other means of entry
Present: Grace's Profile
Present: Heidi's Profile
Present: Autopsy Report OR Art's Affidavit
Press: Statement 5
Present: EN-3 Incident Report
Present: Heidi's Profile
Answer: No

Spoiler : Credits (Minor Spoilers) :

Writing: ikuzonos, with assistance from trialdude
Sprites: SuperAj13 (Grace), DragonTrainer (Shay, Heidi, Norre), Silver Glas (Nat), Greeny (Arthur), Hesseldahl, TheDoctor (Ema), Tear (Leste)
Other Art: June-pie (Crime scene), 300 bg pack (Clare Skies, Morgue), Starora (switchblade), Court Records (Additional Assets)
Special Thanks: trialdude, TimeAxis, Awsome2464, and you for playing!

[TimeAxis]

And when I thought I was free, suddenly DLC content. Glad you were able to finish this, though. I'll look forward to trying this one and give it a proper review (for whatever that's worth) once I have time.

[applekitty]

I played this case in VC with a few other people and enjoyed the fact it was short and sweet. I enjoy easy contradictions and this case has got them just for me.

Spoiler : :

I was pretty happy to see the continuity of Watch following up on Apollo asking for his number as well. Quite sweet!

[Awsome2464]

This was definitely a nice little case that feels right at home with the Broken Commandments comp!

Spoiler : :

I'd say my only real criticism is the pacing, as I feel like a lot of scenes, especially the "final showdown" go on just a little too quickly to properly understand what's going on. But other than that, the broken and followed commandments were clear while playing, which is a plus, and the story was very enjoyable. (Also, the bit where Nat's hemophobia is revealed got a laugh out of me.)

[trialdude]

I helped out with the outline of this case, and I can confirm that you should play it. It's real good. Glad that it managed to see the light of day!

[Bannedfrom7]

Spoiler : :

What a phenomenal case ! It's short but sweet! I really like all the twists you pulled with the relationships and the status of the autopsy report, they were really clever! Thanks for sharing it!

[Trybien]

What pleasant case. Thanks for finishing and sharing it ikuzonos.

Spoiler : :

Those badge presents were top tier.

[ikuzonos]

Thanks, everyone! Replies in blue.

I played this case in VC with a few other people and enjoyed the fact it was short and sweet. I enjoy easy contradictions and this case has got them just for me.

Spoiler : :

I was pretty happy to see the continuity of Watch following up on Apollo asking for his number as well. Quite sweet!
Glad to hear it! I'm definitely prone to writing easy contradictions, because they're the only ones I can figure out. And nice, you got the secret moment! The whole mini-plot was a spur of the moment decision, but I found it too funny/charming to cut.

This was definitely a nice little case that feels right at home with the Broken Commandments comp!

Spoiler : :

I'd say my only real criticism is the pacing, as I feel like a lot of scenes, especially the "final showdown" go on just a little too quickly to properly understand what's going on. But other than that, the broken and followed commandments were clear while playing, which is a plus, and the story was very enjoyable. (Also, the bit where Nat's hemophobia is revealed got a laugh out of me.)
That's understandable! Actually, I confess that after toiling over this case bit by bit for months, I finished most of the trial in a single day during a fit of mania. I think I'll definitely go back and stretch things out a little more in the future, but I really wanted this case out of my system lol. Glad you liked the hemophobia bit, I love writing jokes.

I helped out with the outline of this case, and I can confirm that you should play it. It's real good. Glad that it managed to see the light of day!
I don't think this case would've made it out alive without your help. Thank you so much!

Spoiler : :

What a phenomenal case ! It's short but sweet! I really like all the twists you pulled with the relationships and the status of the autopsy report, they were really clever! Thanks for sharing it!
This case started with the idea of a forged autopsy, way back before the competition, so I was really excited to finally put something together. I'm glad you enjoyed the twists! I think those are always very fun to conceptualize.

What pleasant case. Thanks for finishing and sharing it ikuzonos.

Spoiler : :

Those badge presents were top tier.
I really appreciate hearing it! I love funny badge presents, whether writing or reading them, so I'm glad these landed well.

[XavierWright]

Gotta say, I loved this. The story was pretty neat, and the characters were pretty awesome as well. (I'm sorry if this sounds awfully basic, I suck at giving feedback )

Spoiler : :

One thing I loved especially was the concept of a forged autopsy. I used something similar before, and the way it was used here really intrigued me. Well done. My only problem, as mentioned before, is that some of the scenes feel fast paced. Other than, it's quite lovely.

[Mlvluu]

The case becomes stuck immediately after the first door sound in Part 1.

[ikuzonos]

The case becomes stuck immediately after the first door sound in Part 1.

That's odd. It works just fine on my end and there's genuinely nothing in the editor that would cause this. Is there a chance this is a local browser issue? I'm using Firefox, for the record.

[Mlvluu]

The case becomes stuck immediately after the first door sound in Part 1.

That's odd. It works just fine on my end and there's genuinely nothing in the editor that would cause this. Is there a chance this is a local browser issue? I'm using Firefox, for the record.

I tested it with Edge. The problem appears to be on Chrome/

[ikuzonos]

The case becomes stuck immediately after the first door sound in Part 1.

That's odd. It works just fine on my end and there's genuinely nothing in the editor that would cause this. Is there a chance this is a local browser issue? I'm using Firefox, for the record.

I tested it with Edge. The problem appears to be on Chrome/

Hm. I did a cursory check with Chrome, but I didn't have any issues. Again, I can only assume that this is a local problem, so there isn't much I can do to help. I'm really sorry about that! I wish I had a better answer.

[TimeAxis]

Played through this and had a good time. Here's my review:

Spoiler : :

Fragments of a Turnabout by Ikunzonos

Spoiler : Review :

Story:
This was a pretty solid premise for a case, and the story was well executed. It broke the mold for Ace Attorney in some ways, while staying true to the formula in others. The way the ending twist was revealed was very out of the ordinary for Ace Attorney, but I quite liked it. I'm not sure if it was intentional, but this case gave very heavy Rise from the Ashes vibes in terms of its set-up and its characters. If there was anything lacking in the writing, I'd say that there wasn't much of the more wacky side of Ace Attorney games. Aside from the particularly silly name puns, it felt a lot more down-to-earth in tone than most cases in AA, without any real comic relief. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it leaves the case feeling a little lacking in tonal variety.

Characters
As far as canon characters go, Apollo felt nice and in-character, for the most part, if a little more subdued than usual (although with Trucy, Phoenix and Athena not there to aggravate him, that seems totally fine.) Ema also felt exactly as I would have expected, and while their roles were more brief, Payne and the Judge also felt comfortably in-character, although if anything, they never did much to stand out.

The more memorable characters in this case would be the original characters. Shay did a good job filling the assistant role, while in the context of the Broken Commandments competition, doing a good job of having an air of intrigue and suspicion about her as well. Grace was good as the defendant, although she felt a bit at times maybe too much like Lana Skye (again, not sure if the parallels were intentional). Initially I felt that her hiding her motive when it was something clearly critical to the case that the prosecution was sure to bring up (even though they never did, for some reason?) was a little annoying. But once that flashback at the end happened, I changed my mind on that. It was cool to have a coroner as a character, and for them to play into the mystery in the way they did. The only character I didn't feel much for was the security guard. He was pretty forgettable, and his connection to the backstory of the case felt a bit tacked on, although not to a huge degree. Oh, and Arthur only showed up for like 5 seconds but I liked him. He was cool. Overall, the characters were probably one of the stronger parts of this case.

Presentation:
This case's presentation was solid. I had no real complaints. At most, there'd be a few very minor things, minor inconsistent uses of fades or other Ace Attorney conventions, but they were few and far between. I didn't really notice any typos or grammatical errors. The graphical choices were good. I wasn't the biggest fan of the music choices, and the timing of the music was not always on point, but none of them bothered me at least.

Gameplay:
The gameplay in this case was very simple. But, again, no major complaints. I did run into one minor progress-stopping bug if the player takes certain actions during the investigation, though. After getting the Autopsy Report and the door log, when you're supposed to return to the defendant center, the game lets you go back to the Crime Scene. If you do that and talk to Ema again and let her leave and send you back to the lobby, then you're stuck and can't return to the Defendant Center. You can get there again by collecting the door log and autopsy report again, though, but it would probably make more sense to just not allow the player to go back to the crime scene at that point, or not have Ema be there if they can.

As far as case logic and contradictions go, I'd say it was almost too easy. There was very little evidence to pick from, and the contradictions were pretty obvious for the most part. But at the same time, everything made sense and flowed smoothly, so I can't really complain too much. Examine and present dialogues during the investigation section were fun, although I found myself wishing characters would comment on more things.

Theme Relevance:

Spoiler : Broken Commandments :

7. The detective must not themselves commit the crime.
If you count the Coroner as a "detective" in this case (being a part of law enforcement), and the "crime" being the framing of the defendant, I'd say this one counts.
8. The detective is bound to detail any clues upon which they may light.
This one I think was broken in a cool way, by having Apollo solve the case off screen and then reveal the clues to us after the fact. I thought that was executed well.
9. The sidekick of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal any thoughts which pass through his mind.
This is probably an intended rule break as well, with Shay lying to Apollo at the start.

Spoiler : Followed Commandments :

3. No more than one secret room or hidden passage may factor into the mystery.
I think that's the one that was meant to be followed here, since they were building up the vents as a possible secret passage and then that turned out to be a red herring.

I actually really liked the way this case incorporated the theme. The rulebreaks were noticeable and worked well within the story, and it still made for an enjoyable mystery. There may not have been a murder, in the end, but there was still a "crime", and uncovering the nature of that crime was still interesting. This was a pretty simple case, but that may have been to its benefit, since it doesn't bite off more than it can chew. It gets to the point, does what it sets out to do, and I think it does it pretty well.

Spoiler : Overall :

PROS

• Very nice use of the contest theme
• The intrigue surrounding the characters was enjoyable

CONS

• While the mystery was good, the case logic was very simple
• A little lacking in the more wacky Ace Attorney flavor

And here are the notes/SoC I took as I played through it:

Spoiler : :

ok right off the bat, wow, loud music, ow
wordwrapping bonus: not achieved
Seems like there's two unrelated conversations being shown at once. An interesting choice
The intro did a good job of setting the tone. I'm intrigued.
and looks like it's gonna be an Apollo case.
Seems like this is set after AA4 but before 5.
Shay Fulle. Trying to understand the pun... Closest I can think of is maybe "Shameful"? Maybe it'll be more obvious as things go on.
oh I bet, since she mentioned a sister, the sister's gonna be the one with the more obvious name pun. Calling that one now
I'm enjoying the Examine dialogue
presenting herself to herself yields no results, unfortunately
there it is. Grace Fulle
now you've got me thinking about what the Wright Anything Agency's website would look like
Remy Fulle. Don't get the pun there either. I'm guessing Grace got her name first and the rest were afterthoughts.
okay hold on. I need to check something, and if this turns out to be the case, that is brilliant. Making a save and starting over.
aw
when you present your Attorney's Badge to Grace, Shay mentions that you presented it to her too. Initially I did. But I went back and tried not presenting it, and she says it either way. Would have been cool if it actually tracked that.
I mean there's not much point in her hiding her motive when the prosecutor is obviously going to say it in court. But it fits for Apollo to be a bit too meek to point that out.
looks like Shay's going to be following us around as our Maya/RftA Ema stand-in.
and speak of the devil
feels like all the effort for present dialogue went into presenting the badge. I'm not complaining, lol.
Would be nice if Ema had some dialogue about the various people in the case though.
Ema bringing up the potential conflict of interest of having the Defendant's sister investigate the murder scene. Ironic, but true. I'll be looking out for potential signs of her tampering with anything.
we got a locked room mystery :Narupogo:
weird that she's bringing up DNA found in the doorway. What kind of DNA exactly would they have found? Skin flakes? Hair? If we're going with that, they should also know who's been in the room unless someone cleaned it.
oh I bet the security guard will be larry, maybe.
actually wait, nevermind, if this is set after AA4, he'd be Laurice at this point, so it'll probably be that one male security guard from the random characters thread
10th floor, so windows are probably not a possibility, unless the culprit is spiderman
ah, and they don't even open
drop by the morgue, huh. that's a first.
Shay already lying to us.
Presented the Switchblade and she's being evasive about it.
ah, new character for the coroner. I was half hoping for the lady from AAI2
I forget what that teeth marks on the badge comment is a reference to. But I know it's a reference to one of the cases in AJ. Can't quite remember which character did that though, but it rings a bell.
since this is a Broken Commandments case, I'll have to consider the coroner a suspect too
I wonder if they're using the word Decedent here instead of Victim because it's unclear whether it was self defense or not. But then again, this is the prosecution's evidence, so I don't see why they'd be that mindful.
Stabbed twice, but it doesn't say where. Presumably both in the neck. Second one was after death. Doesn't say how long between the stabbings, so there could be some shenanigans here.
ah, there we go, she knew the victim. Suspect-radar is intensifying
so far this is really straight-forward and to-the-point, and I'm enjoying it
oh this wasn't the sprite I was expecting for the guard.
I guess there are multiple
I guess Ema mentioned airducts and I didn't pick up on it. Nice to get a reminder at least.
okay, so thinking back to AA1-5, maybe somebody went in with the Victim when she opened the door with her keycard, and was hiding there the whole time, under the desk maybe. But then how did they get out? That's the tricky part.
yeah I guess we also have to consider the possibility that Nat is behind it and manipulated the security data, but that possibility will probably be dispelled in court.
okay, so what Hope Leste saw might end up being more critical than Nat. I hope we get to talk to them
uh I think I got stuck somehow. I can only go to the security station and morgue and the lobby, but I've talked to everyone and done everything there
I was able to leave before but I somehow locked myself out of being able to. I think this is a bug
yeah walkthrough says you have to go to the detention center from the lobby but that option's no longer there for me
I think it's cause I went back to the crime scene and did Ema's 3rd talk option again, which might have screwed with something
well, I'll just load a save
okay, managed to reproduce the bug. If you go to the crime scene from the detention center before talking to Grace again, and then talk to Ema again, she'll leave again and send you to the lobby, and you'll lose the ability to go to the Detention Center. But luckily, it's fixable if you go back to the Security room and get the Buzzer Record again.
apollo's really going hard with this vents/secret passage theory, which makes me doubt it. But maybe the vents will be how they got out, rather than how they got in.
oh shit, Shay is a big fat liar
Nice part 1 so far. Aside from that little investigation bug, no complaints.
Actually come to think of it, I wonder why Apollo's bracelet didn't act up when Shay said she was Trucy's friend
and now Shay's being really pushy about being on the bench. I'm pretty suspicious of her, but it might be a red herring.
oh, apollo's got a secret weapon. Not revealing his full thoughts to the player, I see.
oh wow, Payne is the prosecutor. We've got this in the bag
I wonder when Apollo heard about the whip
So they're saying an adult can't fit through the air ducts, which only leaves Shay
okay now I'm thinking maybe Shay Fulle is somehow Grace's daughter?? The ages just barely work
I think we're gonna have to argue suicide next but I know that's not possible because she was stabbed a second time after death
I like this flashback reveal. It's neat. Not typical AA formula, but neat
there we go, I was right. She is her daughter
I'm guessing we're gonna get Coral on the stand, then.
oh what in tarnation who is this guy
Arthur Opsee. These names take no detours, lol.
okay time to read the case file
hmm, so it's a he said she said. We can't necessarily take Arthur's word as 100% proof the autopsy report is fake
well at least I know the contradiction here
ohh, if there was no autopsy, then we don't know she's dead. clever.
well that definitely changes things, but I feel like there were some possibilities unexplored so I might end up going back and making other choices if this is the real answer
went back and checked, looks like that's it.
well that was a fun trial. very simple, but I enjoyed it.

Glad you were able to get this finished.

[ikuzonos]

-snip-

Thank you! I really appreciate that you went to the effort of writing a whole review when I wasn't able to get this in initially. I'll see what I can do to fix that bug you found, but I genuinely don't know how that happened since the player shouldn't have access to the location at that point. Something to look into when I have some spare time. As for the music, I actually was trying to turn it down because AAO's volume bugs me and I'm wondering if I made it worse by accident. Again, I'll poke around and add some touches later on: I mostly wanted to get this case out of my system. Glad that you enjoyed the case nonetheless!