Hallo, alle miteinander, and welcome back to Wright Wednesday. This is where we recap, analyze, and review the cases of the Ace Attorney series, and today we're covering the last day of investigation for the second case of the second game. I'm Roy, and I don't like going to the hospital.
I'm Sam, and I don't mind hospitals as long as they have actual doctors in them.
Now that the trial has ended, Phoenix and Maya's cousin Pearl Fey head back to Kurain Village to investigate. Talking about the trial with her has Pearl ask Phoenix about what a prosecutor is, since Franziska seemed so mean to the young girl. She brings up the possibility that maybe she's nice deep down inside, but Phoenix rejects that idea, saying flat-out that all prosecutors are cold, heartless monsters who only care about winning, and even if Edgeworth was starting to change, even he died to his foolish pride.
Which is a hell of a way to drop that apparent development.
When they talk about who could have possibly actually killed the victim, Phoenix wonders what Pearl was actually doing during the murder, and when he asks he directly she obfuscates, revealing Psyche-Locks hiding the truth. There's also a bunch of gruesome evidence you can try to Present to her, such as things with blood on them or the pictures that Lotta took, but if you try Phoenix immediately rethinks this and doesn't do it. It's one of those funny things where the game is just like, "No, why would you do that? You're a monster."
I mean she already saw the bloodied costume, but yeah, I guess showing her more stuff related to the murder isn't very considerate.
Heading to the Channeling Chamber has Phoenix stumble into Morgan have a conversation with a photo of someone, a very sinister sounding conversation, and the picture is of her sister, Misty Fey. Talking to her reveals that, since Misty has been missing for almost seventeen years, it isn't long before she's considered dead by the village, at which point her title will pass down to Maya. But of course, that can't happen if Maya's in prison for murder at the time, something that Phoenix notices Morgan doesn't seem too upset about.
Don't worry, it of course takes Phoenix an embarrassing amount of time to realize how obvious this implication is.
After showing Pearl the key that proved vital to the trial earlier, she tells him again that she found it the incinerator. Heading back to the Winding Way reveals Ini Miney hiding something in the same incinerator, and covering for it badly. Specifically, all that Phoenix can find in the burner is a scrap of purple fabric with blood on it
That's fairly telling, in any case, but telling of what is unclear at this point.
Ini tries to dodge what Phoenix saw her doing by bringing up the history of Kurain, how even the urn sitting nearby is actually a sacred relic. It's supposed to contain the soul of Ami Fey, founder of the Kurain Channeling Technique. Examining the urn reveals it is severely cracked and, for some reason, says "I AM" on it. Maybe Descartes was the sculptor?
Yet one must ask, does the vase think, therefore, is it?
Asking Ini about the murder has her be really cagey, and asking about her sister reveals Psyche-Locks. Heading from there to the Detention Center has Phoenix come face-to-face with Maya, who is still down in the dumps. She feels like she just causes Phoenix trouble, but is very complimentary of his performance in court. When the question of her guilt comes up, Phoenix reveals why he's certain she didn't do it, leaving her to wonder how anyone else could have done the deed. Phoenix says he isn't completely sure, but he thinks she was drugged before the channeling. This idea is brought up several times throughout the case from now on, with no evidence to back it up, despite it being the sort of thing you usually need to prove in this series.
It's definitely kind of a jump in logic. Silly Phoenix, only the prosecution gets to do that!
Since Pearl is still Psyche-Locked, Phoenix asks Maya for advice, and she tells him that she usually spends free time playing with a ball, and that she normally keeps that ball inside the clothing box in the Side Room. Not only that, sometimes she hides in that box. Heading back to Kurain Village has Phoenix run into Lotta, which starts this weird sequence where every time you enter an area with her in it there's a scene where she yells and runs away.
She seems to be ashamed, and frankly Lotta could stand to feel a little shame.
Chasing her down leads Phoenix to the Side Room, where Pearl's ball is now on the floor, ready to be added to the Court Record. Lotta was hiding inside the clothing box, and she runs away, calling herself human trash. Heading back outside allows Phoenix to use the Magatama on Pearl. On the question if what she was doing during the crime, Phoenix thinks she had to have been in the Winding Way, since every other part of the manor was occupied. What was she doing? Playing with her ball. Why was she hiding it? She smashed the Sacred Urn and had to put it back together, which is why it now says "I AM" instead of "AMI", since Pearl is young and not great at spelling.
Once Pearl's secret has been revealed, we finally run into Lotta again, and she seems to suspect Ini Money is the real killer. She mentions that Ini herself was hospitalized once, and suggests it might be tied to all this. She gives Phoenix the info for the hospital so he can investigate it herself, since it seemed like too much work for an investigative journalist like herself to do.
She also says at first that, despite how "guilty" she said she was feeling, that the info would cost him...and then gives it to him for free anyway.
My relative appreciation of Lotta continues, but it's only relative. She's okay instead of awful. When we get to the hospital, we talk to a man who…is probably not the director, but claims he is. And he's the only person we have to talk to, so rather than seek out actual hospital staff Phoenix just asks this director (who is definitely not just a random patient) about Ini. The guy is…very creepy about it. He even has a sprite like he's pretending to grope someone? I really dislike this character.
What? You dislike Weirdo McGropy? I am shocked and appalled.
He says Ini was transferred there from another hospital because she needed some pretty intense surgery. But he can't tell you any more because it's illegal to divulge that kind of information. But in a rare move, the game requires the player to present Phoenix's lawyer badge, at which point the guy tells him his secret: he's not actually the director. What a twist.
I was surprised.
But he claims to know everything that goes on here, especially where young female patients are concerned, because he's such a creep can we please stop talking to this guy. He explains that Ini came in wrapped in bandages, severely injured from a traffic accident. They had to use plastic surgery to completely reconstruct her face based on her driver's license photo, which this random creep kept. Just the photo, somehow, not the actual license.
With this character, the less we know, the better.
Also, Roy, I would like to take this opportunity to say that if I ever get my face destroyed by an accident, please for the love of God make sure they use any picture but my driver's license picture. That is the scariest thing I've ever seen in this series.
Don't worry, I'll give them a picture of the Squinting Fry meme instead.
I...well okay, that'll do. According to a new article clipping the creepy guy has, Ini was in the passenger seat when the car crashed, and she barely managed to escape the wreck at all. She was discharged half a year ago. And with that helpful information that we'll just assume is all accurate despite its source, we can finally leave this guy and go back to talk to Ini.
Lotta ends up catching Phoenix first and mentions something about Morgan stealing the Master's seat. Turns out Morgan is Misty's (Mia and Maya's mother) older sister, and traditionally would have been the one to take the title of Master due to the eldest sibling usually having more spiritual power. But this time Misty happened to have more power than Morgan, so she became the Master and Morgan was subjected to all kinds of gossip and disgrace. This is why Morgan's family branch is secondary to Maya's.
Clearly this information is entirely innocuous, completely unrelated to the case.
Now it's finally time to confront Ini, which is easily enough done now that we have all the relevant information. She tries to distract and avoid the issue, but Phoenix eventually establishes that she was in the car with her sister when the crash occurred (though I suspect there's more to the story still). Phoenix muses that this gives her a credible motive for murder, and at this point she becomes more openly sinister, saying it will be hard to catch her and she's going to serve Phoenix some humble pie.
There is literally no reason for her to say that and it clashes with her ultimate character and motive so much it's ridonkulous.
It definitely seems like the game just wants to tip its cards here for some reason, and Ini is a slave to the narrative. Back at the entrance, Morgan and Gumshoe appear to be leaving. Pearl is very concerned about it, but offers no context, instead telling Phoenix to go see Maya. He does, but is greeted instead by Mia. She says that everything will be on Phoenix's shoulders, and whether Maya is found innocent or guilty it will be a heavy burden to bear. Phoenix, remembering that Mia had some Psyche-Locks of her own before, sets out to find out everything he needs to know.
Ugh, this bit has so much potential but I do not like the execution one bit.
It's...kind of weird. Mia offers the information that Ami Fey was responsible for creating the technique that changed the channeler's physical form into that of the person they're channeling. She says Ami was given a certain fate through her name, from the day she was born, because she was named after one of the Bhuddas: Amitabha. She dismisses the soul jar thing as a fairy tale though, which understandably confuses Phoenix since he's currently talking to her spirit through someone else's body and "fairy tale" seems an appropriate word for this whole affair.
Later canon makes this conversation more interesting, and raises the question of who Ami Fey was more explicitly.
Finally, it's time to break her Psyche-Locks. Mia essentially walks Phoenix through the details of the case, specifically with regards to casting suspicion on Morgan Fey. Ultimately it leads to a pretty solid conclusion: Morgan and Ini worked together to commit the murder and frame Maya. But they don't yet know how, and what's more, Phoenix doesn't know why Morgan Fey would murder Dr Grey (despite her ulterior motive being way more heavily broadcast than most of the clues we've had to find in this segment). But that's all we know for now, and with that, the segment ends.
So...Sam...let's talk about this segment. Analysis. Begin.
Well, this is one of those segments that's more about developing the mystery than advancing the story's meaning. We find out more details about what happened and understand the plot better, but thematically the story is in pretty much the same place as before. I think the biggest development is that the extra details about Morgan and the Fey family clarifies some of the story's meaning regarding family hierarchies and power structures. Obviously we'll be getting to how those things tend to poison people, but the game doesn't seem to want us to realize that yet so that's for later.
I mean, doesn't it? Even if we don't know the full story, it's pretty clear that Morgan has some hand in this murder, and her motive for doing so is wrapped tightly in what we've learned about the Fey family. More and more the title of Master seems to be more of a curse than a boon, something that tears people apart and leads to murder. Aside from the spirit channeling, it's not too different from the stories of scheming nobility or royalty we see in many other areas of fiction.
That's fair. But Phoenix does specify at the end that he has no idea why Morgan would do something like this. It's obvious, like super amazingly obvious, but I have trouble imagining the game intentionally keeps Phoenix in the dark while also intentionally making sure we know more than him. Knowing more than the protagonist in a mystery story is not generally a good idea. Those themes are absolutely here, I'm just not convinced the game is getting to them yet on its own terms. Even if it totally is nonetheless.
If themes only counted in Ace Attorney when Phoenix Wright saw them, there would be none. Speaking of Morgan, want to talk about the whole thing with Mia and her Psyche Locks?
Yeah...yeah, good idea. It's weird. The Psyche-Locks treatment is for when there's a secret close to someone's heart that you have to drag out of them, but Mia is just sort of...not telling Phoenix key information that would save her sister. Presumably it's because she's protecting Morgan, but 1) why, 2) why to Maya's detriment, and 3) the process of unlocking it plays more like she's walking you through to logical conclusions she wants you to reach. The whole thing is just a really weird use of the mechanic considering its place in the story.
It's a befuddling situation, for sure. What makes the most sense to me, and what would be the most interesting, is that Mia doesn't want to believe that her aunt is responsible for this murder and is trying to avoid that conclusion. But she doesn't act that way, like you said she basically hand holds you to that conclusion, and the familial bond between her and Morgan is weak as presented to the player. I wish the game actually made us care about that tie, where we felt like Mia genuinely felt broken up about this. But we don't, in fact we barely know anything about how they related to each other what their bond was. The same is true of Maya: all information, what there is of it, of how Maya and her aunt got along is secondhand. They shared one scene, and they didn't actually interact in it.
It's almost like they intentionally avoided connecting anyone to Morgan in any tangible way, which is a huge missed opportunity.
Wanna talk about the creepy guy pretending to be a doctor?
Not really.
How about I say this? It isn't his last appearance in this game. And this isn't his last game in the series.
Fu-
Did I not know that? Did I forget it? Why would they do that? This character is just genuinely unpleasant. I did not enjoy his time in this case and have no desire to see him in others.
Did you have anything else to discuss for this week? Perhaps how the investigation segment played for you?
Well mostly...nothing new. This cases investigation sequences have both been pretty bad about smooth progression and logical, intuitive next steps. This one felt more haphazard. I sometimes found myself just wandering around and trying random stuff to see if I could progress, which is kind of a necessary evil of this genre in general but isn't much of an issue when the games are at their best.
I'd agree, for the most part. My issue is that I feel like the meet of this case could have been better paced, and for all we learn during this segment, little of it hits on the stuff this case actually does well. Once again we're left with little to say, but I doubt that will be the same next time, when we finish this case and wrap it up with a review. Auf wiedersehen.
Goodbye everyone!
No comments:
Post a Comment