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So yes -- the little pieces work. What, however, do they become when you put them together? Well, the answer is: something else entirely. When you put togetherthe little jigsaw puzzle of the first case, you end up with a picture that looks nothing like the mystery of one disgruntled student murdering another. How the game manages to fit destiny and a demon-possessed schoolgirl into a simple murder case, don't ask me. It does so, however, in true manga fashion. At least forty times during that first case, Chihiro -- ever-plucky Chihiro -- whispers to herself (in blue text!): "This is it, Chihiro! This is clearly the end!" This is usually happening just as the player is stepping off the train to switch lines. When he turns the GBA back on, the case suddenly and violently explodes into something else entirely; it gives him a feeling like the exact opposite of when one episode of the Dragon Ball Z manga ends without anyone doing anything except charge a super move.
Which is to say: this game is pure manga, and thanks to magic moments like the one described above, it is full of enough moments to qualify it as a gorgeous, contained, succinct, joyous manga we will read from beginning to end in one sitting if given the chance. And unlike longer, unfocused manga, we can jump into part three in this series without ever having touched parts one or two. As this game is a game, and designed as such, and filled with original characters acting out an original story written for the purpose of that game, it has all been planned out beforehand, unlike the manga that suddenly gets popular toward the end of the author's vision, and is then paid to drag on for seven more years. It's not the author's fault that some manga end up sucking; it's the fault of everyone on its production team that Gyakuten Saiban 3, complete with MegaMan-inspired 8-bitty music during questioning scenes, compels from beginning to end with a freight-train momentum.
I wanted to pass some of this momentum on to a friend of mine. She likes lawyer shows. She is, I think, a qualified obsessive-fan of a particular Japanese television drama about a lawyer, and she always says how her company office is a lot like the law office in the American television show Ally McBeal, "So full of strange, quirky people. Like, everyone at our office, the boss hired because we mentioned on our résumés that we were in rock bands at some point. The boss was never in a rock band, and . . . we're a web-design firm! How wacky is that?"[2]
They also have a two-stall unisex bathroom, yes.
She sat, silently, and played through most of the first case in the well-lit basement of the Ikebukuro West Exit Subway restaurant. She got to a part just before The Sneeze. She lost. She put the GBA down. I had been talking to my good friend on the woman's cellular phone during this time. I picked the GBA up, and got her the right piece of evidence. I wanted her to see The Sneeze. She got to the part where she had to pick the evidence. She picked the right one. She played clear through to the recess, saved the game, and turned the unit off. She slid the GBA across the table to me.
"Well?" I asked her.
"It's cute," she said, with a flick of her hair.
"That's it?"
She rolled up her eyes, deep in thought. She was thinking of some deeper level of criticism, a level I've avoided using in this review so that I can use it right here:
"You really shouldn't use this game to study Japanese -- the dialects are too weird."
I slapped my hands on the table like Ryuichi Naruhodo about to point my finger and scream "OBJECTION!" I didn't scream "OBJECTION!" I merely realized what was worth realizing:
Despite its accessibility within the context of its own universe and its medium, the game is not, however, for everyone. It is for who it is for, essentially. If you read this, and get some kind of strong feeling, then the game is for you. If not -- then either I've done an insufficient job of explaining, or the game really isn't for you.
* *
Now I'm going to talk about something else, which shall segue into a summary of the points of this review. I'll start by saying that at one point I began to behold my father's obsession with Ally McBeal with a slight desire to introduce him to Cowboy Bebop. I never did this -- my father wouldn't dare watch Cowboy Bebop, because Cowboy Bebop is a cartoon, and a Japanese one, at that.
I say more often than too often, "if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, revision is the highest form of imitation." I mean to say that here, too: Gyakuten Saiban 3 is a fun game, and one that is, on at least a few levels, a revision of the American comedy-drama television series Ally McBeal.
The first piece of evidence, and it's a clear one, is in those speed-line zooms in the courtroom, which Ally McBeal uses pretty extensively. Also used pretty extensively in Ally McBeal are strange, if stupid, computer graphic effects which make characters' heads fly off or tongues fly out or some shit. Gyakuten Saiban 3 has scenes where triumphant MegaMan music plays (hopefully you're wearing headphones) as your character points his finger at the prosecutor and delivers a revelatory statement; the prosecutor then jumps back as the screen flashes as if Ryu just shinkuu-hadokened Ken to finish off a round of Street Fighter Alpha 2. The dialogue box reads "KYAAAAAAAAAAA!" This is clear-cut stuff: wacky lawyers. The world never had so many wacky lawyers before Ally McBeal came around. Unless you count those real-life lawyers on that new Law and Order show, which I watched precisely twice when on vacation in Los Angeles and just about died with how much I loved it. This -- the "wacky lawyers" comment -- takes us to our second piece of evidence.
This one requires a bit of imagination: the producers of Gyakuten Saiban 3, at some point, must have thought, "Hell, Ally McBeal kind of starts to suck once Ally's surrogate daughter shows up and she falls in love with Bon Jovi, and everything becomes about her new life in her new house." This accounts for the game's action never leaving the courtroom or the law office. This inversely accounts for the wackiness of the game's lawyers and witnesses being visible in their designs: Ryu's pink hoodie and white facemask are complimentarily ridiculous, Chinami's butterflies (which fly away when she's confronted, and return once she puts the sweet act back on) are a post-manga joke John Grisham could probably appreciate, and the . . . well, let's just say one of the other lawyers happens to wear two-thirds of a red pinstriped suit . . . Grandia II-looking gray beastman hair, and a damned science-fiction visor on his face.
AND THE COFFEE CUP NEVER LEAVES HIS HAND.
[Next: Golden Sun really does suck, doesn't it.]
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