case by case: 2-2: (heavy sigh) 50 shades of grey
Welcome back once again to Case by Case, the weekly series delving into every case in the Ace Attorney series (ish), which exists 20% because I thought that title was clever. Last week we saved someone with an unusually spelled name from being framed for murder; this week, we get to commune with the dead. Let's dig in, with spoilers, after the ol' clicky thing below.
A very angry doctor man, Doctor Grey who wants to get his name cleared of a malpractice incident that killed 14 people at his clinic shows up and asks us to go hang out with Maya, which we do; he then gets murdered immediately so fortunately we don't have to hang out with him much. Nice! Maya is the only suspect--less nice.
This is the case which introduces us to the magatama, and thus to psyche-locks, which is I think my favorite investigation gimmick in the series. It really enhances the investigation segments, providing short-term goals (find the evidence that will open the psyche-locks) which guide the overall investigation, as well as helping give more of a sense of structure to them narratively--clearly defined rising and falling actions as we learn about them and then resolve them.
Other than that, for a case about spirit channeling, there is surprisingly little here, except for Mia showing up again. She does show up to save the day, as is her wont, but mainly I think she's here because this one is about the Fey family, and it's setting up for future cases (if memory serves, the climax of the third game?) in which Fey politics become a big deal and spirit channeling is once again in the limelight.
I'm not sure I like the big "Ini is actually her sister" twist in this one. It's not really well telegraphed; you don't really do any investigating to find out about the past case, you just visit some creep at a plastic surgery clinic and he gives you the information after you show him your badge. (Regrettably I don't think this is the last we see of the aforementioned creep.)
The ending also feels a little abrupt (the murderer doesn't even have a breakdown animation that I recall; Morgan Fey barely appears on the witness stand and gets arrested entirely offscreen), giving this one something of an unfinished feel. But pretty much everything prior to this final segment was solid and memorable, and there were some great little character moments for our main cast, which is always nice to see.
And of course this is where we meet Franziska von Karma and her whip, and we learn that Edgeworth is dead and definitely won't come back later. At the moment I don't remember where that particular bit of foreshadowing leads; the only thing I know is that our next case takes us to the circus. So . . . look forward to that, I guess? I'll see you here next week, friends.