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Review of Dai Gyakuten Saiban 2 -Naruhodou Ryuunosuke no Kakugo-

SubjectDai Gyakuten Saiban 2 -Naruhodou Ryuunosuke no Kakugo-
ByHelpfulness: 1
Vote: 8.6
flvbycjctnheheh on 2021-08-05
ReviewI'd say that this is a really enjoyable game with the potential to be a masterpiece, but, in the end, it lacks something essential. Definitely superior to its direct prequel, GAA2 continues its overarching plot and ends in a truly epic fashion. Unfortunately, I've suspected the true mastermind's identity even while playing the prequel and then their identity became apparent at the third trial. Don't get me wrong, this game does have some "aha!" moments and nice plot twists, but there are too many "misses" when a supposed mystery isn't a mystery at all. On the bright side, it has some of the most emotional moments in the series and the overarching plot gives you the real sense of story progression, but murder mysteries themselves aren't "mysterious" enough and some minor inconsistencies that you can't really call actual plot holes make it harder to suspend your disbelief.

Here are some things that bothered me. First of all, the big baddy Strongheart could have prevented his "fall" just by not allowing Naruhodo to come back as a lawyer. I understand why he allowed biased Kazuma to get the case (though it wasn't that smart, either), but he definitely had a way to prevent the best and most impartial attorney out there to get the cases that could lead to him. Strongheart also had the complete right to do this legitimately (then again, it was kind of stupid that an attorney got reprimanded for helping his client, even if he was then proved to be guilty, he wasn't aware of the false evidence, after all). In the end, the main antagonist dug a hole for himself by helping those two Japanese throughout the story. Another thing that bothered me was the fact that it was never properly explained why Barok stopped taking cases 5 years ago, I assumed that it was related to some kind of big case, but nah, no details were given, though, considering the influence of the Reaper rumor it should have had a big impact on the society. The last big thing that disturbed me was the way the last case ended - with Deus-ex science fiction plot device that didn't make much sense. I mean, wasn't it supposed to be a story in the past of the original AA world? Why instead of paranormal elements of the original trilogy we get some science inventions that didn't even exist in AA? Though I personally would prefer nothing of sorts like in Kenji (as far as I remember it didn't have anything that didn't exist IRL).

Maybe I would have liked it more if I started the series from this duology, but I didn't. Still, it still had taken third place in my personal ranking of the whole series - Kenji 2 > Ace Attorney 3 > GAA 2.
1 point
#1 by mrjeffy
2021-08-05 at 16:21
< report >Glad to see this one seems better, I'm having a hard time finishing the prequel and I'm in the last case.
#2 by flvbycjctnheheh
2021-08-06 at 04:00
< report >@1 Yeah, this is kind of boring when you know who's the culprit and how he did it, but you need to convince a bunch of idiots who can't see the obvious, lol.Last modified on 2021-08-06 at 04:01
#3 by mummykun
2021-08-15 at 00:29
< report >True, it was way too obvious who would turn out to be the final boss. And Sherlock's hologram in the end was also very unnecessary. If he had just used a machine to transmit the recorded sound with what was spoken in the court it would have worked just as well.
#4 by TrueAsian
2022-03-27 at 15:08
< report >The hologram thing was likely done only to add some extra flair and make the ending more triumphant. The more realistic approach would've been to have the sound be recorded over the telephone. But that wouldn't be as fun as what we got lol