The Great Ace Attorney finally offers a version of Sherlock Holmes who isn’t a massive pain in the ass
Capcom’s Great Ace Attorney Chronicles is a worthy prequel to the Phoenix Wright games, including its handling of one Herlock Sholmes
Games Features Sherlock Holmes
Every Friday, several A.V. Club staffers kick off our weekly open thread for the discussion of gaming plans and recent gaming glories, but of course, the real action is down in the comments, where we invite you to answer our eternal question: What Are You Playing This Weekend?
I’ll be honest: Despite being a fairly voracious devourer of detective fiction (including interactive detective fiction), I usually run pretty cool on Sherlock Holmes. Sleuthing’s resident coked-out pretty boy has had many incarnations over the last century, all operating at different levels of the “he’s a loose cannon, but he gets results!” school of brilliant-but-troubled deduction mastery. But while the attendant smugness that hangs around Arthur Conan Doyle’s franchise monster can often reach toxic-or-worse levels—looking at you, Cumberbatch—Holmes’ real flaw, for me, has always been the ease with which he typically solves crimes. There’s no real sense of fair play in a classic Holmes story; the master detective spots five pertinent details within the first four pages, figures out the whole thing, and then he’s off to the races while the rest of us follow along like a collective group of bumbling Drs. Watson.
Which is just one of the, well, great things about Capcom’s new The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, a re-release of two prequels of the long-running Ace Attorney franchise that arrived this week in English, after years of Japanese exclusivity. Besides simply being great examples of the humor, character, and sometimes brain-bending logic that make the base series such a delight, Chronicles also features that rarest of things: A version of Sherlock Holmes—or, rather, Herlock Sholmes—who’s actually tolerable to solve a mystery with.
The most important element of this deductive redemption story is probably also the simplest: Sholmes isn’t the hero here. That role instead falls on would-be lawyer Ryunosuke Naruhodo, a Japanese student who somehow keeps getting accused of murders, and has to deploy logic, reasoning, and his powers of observation to clear his name. Sholmes is, instead, operating somewhere in the space between a sidekick, a mentor, and a mild antagonist: Already a world-famous detective, with numerous investigations and gadgets to his name, this lawyer-friendly version of the Great Detective nevertheless has a bad habit of jumping to incorrect conclusions drawn from his meticulously collected evidence. It then falls on the player, as Ryunosuke, to correct the flaws in the logic, with these “Dance Of Deduction” sequences making up a major part of the games’ play.
What makes these sequences work—and what makes Sholmes a far more tolerable character than the factory-issue model—is the glee with which he accepts, and then builds on, the corrections from this impromptu Watson-ing. Every time Ryunosuke (and, thus, the player) brings a new problem to the character’s attention, he leaps on it with the same glee with which he made the initial pronouncement. It’s buffooinsh, yes, but also surprisingly winning, at least in part because it’s hard to imagine almost any other incarnation of the character taking so many corrections in such obvious, encouraging stride.
This subversive take on Doyle canon isn’t the only thing making these games great, of course. There’s also a surprising amount of real-world subtext running through its cases—including, shock of shocks, some actual discussions of racism in its treatment of the relationship between the U.K. and Japan at the dawn of the 20th century. And it’s also just nice to get out from under the huge weight of inside jokes and references that Ace Attorney has built up over two decades of Phoenix Wright and Apollo Justice games (as comforting as those repeated gags can be). Twenty years in, this series is still some of the best playable detective fiction out there—and it’s nice to see it get a great version of a Great Detective to match.
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Still working on the second case of the first game. Loving it all.
Same here, and just for the reason the author said – Sholmes just keeps happily rolling with your corrections. Also the whole dance of deduction things is pretty fun, what with how the people being accused are surprised by a sudden spotlight on them.
This is the part of the summer where the games I really want to buy start rolling out. Like many people, I had an experience with the first three Ace Attorney games 15 years ago. No matter how on-rails it was, cracking cases made me feel like a damn genius, and witness breakdowns never fail to entertain.I’m so deep into Stardew Valley right now that it doesn’t even sting that I’m staying on the backlog grind instead of constantly throwing money at Steam and Nintendo. I’m well on my way through the 1.5 content now, a lot of the things I’m working on directly tying in with achievements, but a lot of it all just because I’m enjoying living in this world right now. It’s scratching the itch Animal Crossing did for others last year.But the real gem of the week for me was last August’s Operation: Tango. I didn’t even know this game existed until two weeks ago, and when I checked in with my midweek game night buddy, she owned a copy she got for free and never had the chance to play it before. And it’s so fun! If you ever played Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, it’s the same basic concept – generally, you and your partner are looking at different sets of information, and the two of you have to communicate what you’re looking at to see if one of you has information that will solve a puzzle the other’s looking at.Except, instead of just having the entire game revolve around bomb defusal, that sort of gameplay is wrapped around a Hackers-meets-Mission: Impossible spy story, keeps throwing new types of unfamiliar situations at you that you have to figure out from scratch, and you go back and forth on who’s got the critical information and who’s following instructions. As my buddy’s playing on a free copy and I’m riding along on a Friend Pass, I keep expecting the game to end abruptly after 2, 3, 4 missions, but we got through five missions in a couple hours and it seems like the world map has plenty more space for missions. It’s way surpassed the point where it would’ve been worth paying price, but getting to play this for free, with PS5/PC crossplay? *chef’s kiss*But I think Stardew’s going to be the story of my weekend. It’s not exciting in the way that Operation: Tango is, but it’s the perfect cure for the stress of working in healthcare right now. I’ve got three more characters to max my relationship with, a bunch of items to craft and dozens of crafting recipes I haven’t even found, a few more artifact to dig out of Skull Cave, this whole new v1.5 area to explore, and at some point, I should probably settle down, get married, and have kids with one of the 12 people I’ve been leading on all game.I grew up on Harvest Moon games, and my interest started falling off after Harvest Moon 64, though I kept buying new entries periodically to see if they captured the magic of playing SNES Harvest Moon for the first time in high school. I thought I just grew out of the whole “return this farm to greatness” genre, but My Time at Portia and Stardew Valley really did make the concept feel fresh again. I may have to check out Rune Factory when I get the hankering for another game in the genre to see how much these newer indie games owe to Harvest Moon’s spinoffs. But for now, my god, there’s just a ton still to do in Stardew, and I love it.
Rad as Stardew is, I can never really relax in it because of the time constraints. Maybe I should see if there’s a mod to slow it down.
There is a bit of that in the early game, but the crafting recipes you get as you level up your skills do a lot to help you overcome the feeling that you only have enough time to plant your crops, water, sleep, and repeat. Once I started getting tools to automate my daily chores (e.g. sprinklers to do all the watering for me), I really started feeling like there’s more than enough time in the day.
But if it’s still an issue after that point, the modding community is extremely active for the game. I’m sure if you can imagine a quality-of-life feature, there’s probably a mod for it. It’s worth a look.
This is great! I hadn’t played my switch in ages, and like you I had been hoping Animal Crossing would scratch my old Gameboy Harvest Moon itch. But by about the end of May beginning of June 2020, while sitting around laid off and playing ACNH, I was decorating my in game house and suddenly thought “Uh, why don’t you get up and start doing the super long list of projects for your real house you’re sitting in!” So I hadn’t played the Switch much since.Then this past weekend I saw the headline for this article and thought “Man, I used to LOVE Ace Attorney, that sounds like a fun time time killer” so I downloaded it. A funny thing, I had never played my Switch out of the docking station, I always played it hooked to the TV. I was going down to my Dad’s for the weekend and figured I’d bring the Switch to play while we watched the Rays game Saturday night, it was awesome. I was digging through the online store today, they always have some great, cheap indie games and I was immediately drawn to Stardew Valley. I added it to my wishlist but now I might buy it, because you guys make it sound quite cool.
If you want another choice in the same vague genre of sleepy small town simulation, My Time At Portia is like a Harvest Moon game where you play as the tinkerer/carpenter/mechanic instead of the farmer. It’s in 3D, there are some basic combat mechanics and even a handful of boss fights, but at its heart it’s really just all about settling into a cozy little post-apocalyptic society and getting your business running as the newcomer.
Kinja deals showed that Stardew Valley was on sale for $10 on Amazon today so I just snagged the digital code. I canceled a trip so I have a completely free weekend and this will be a nice addition to that!Also I’ve been playing Ace Attorney Chronicles all week and that is a total kick. Turns out it is also the perfect game to play while watching baseball. Go Rays!
“There’s no real sense of fair play in a classic Holmes story; the master detective spots five pertinent details within the first four pages, figures out the whole thing, and then he’s off to the races while the rest of us follow along like a collective group of bumbling Drs. Watson.”This is absolutely written by someone who’s seen some TV adaptations but has no familiarity with actual written Holmes. ‘A Scandal in Belgravia’ would like a word, at bare minimum…
1. Playing Chernobylite. I dismissed it heavily during its early access period. It was buggy as fuck, very janky, it ran like molasses on a decent rig and it felt just like a STALKER cosplay made irrelevant by both the latest Metro and the announcement of 2.It doesn’t help it has one of the worst openings to a video game I’ve seen. Bad dialogue aplenty, a quick introduction of the premise which puts it in the hallowed video game genre of “dude looks for dead wife”, a pretty bad stealth segment capped off with a fucking “not great, not terrible” reference…Fortunately, it’s actually pretty fun! STALKER is a bad point of reference, because while this game is open-ended as well, structurally it’s more of a roguelite. The basic premise is that you plan to return to the Chernobyl power plant to perform a heist, except you need folks for that. You can start right away, BotW-style, but it’s going to end in an inevitable clusterfuck. So instead you visit the different regions of Chernobyl looking for clues, allies, resources and performing quests. There’s also a fairly far-reaching system of consequences and it’s surprisingly involved, since even a single quest can do a bunch – one decision unlocked an entire quest chain, a companion and really pissed off another.The regions themselves are always the same, Monster Hunter-style, but they get altered over the course of the games. Patrol routes appear and change, monsters begin spawning, or you might get chased by the Black Stalker, a Nemesis-like figure who haunts you throughout the levels. By planning accordingly, you can avoid most of that stuff, including hiding machines in the maps that lower the level of radioactivity or disturb the science-magic that lets the Black Stalker in. At base, you maintain relationships with your crew, make sure they are fed and prep your gear.The gunplay and stealth is aight – while there’s not much to either, they are perfectly solid in the game proper and the game maintains a solid tension from resource management and the fact that most things can kill you. It’s not scary per se, but it does maintain a fairly creepy vibe consistently. It’s more atmospheric than literally anything by Bloober Team.Overall – a melting pot of a variety of influences, but it comes together into a pretty fun time so far. Particularly since it tickles my lizard brain’s most basic pleasures – a Days Gone/TLoU2 resource hunt. I’m about 10 hours in and I’m liking it despite the terrible first impression, but we’ll see.2. Knockout City continues to be a great time. I was dreading this game would die in a month, but I have 0 problems getting a game and the longest I’ve waited was like 5 seconds.3. Cris Tales is incredibly pretty and overall charming. The main gimmick of “you see the past on the left, present in the middle and future on the right” never gets old, especially since the game gets pleasantly dark with it – nothing like seeing a small child in the present only for it to blatantly not exist in the future to establish the stakes.The story’s alright: seemingly predictable, but there’s indications that the lovely, shy protagonist might be going a little bit feral with power. It feels like an homage to jRPGs of the ‘90s in a way that doesn’t feel pandering – no abundance of references and the seeming simplicity seems very much by design.My biggest worry is the combat. It has a great gimmick – you can manipulate the position of enemies in time to, say, make all of their DoTs from poison hit all at once or you push back an opponent to the past so they have less HP – but so far it’s been fairly limited. Powers arrive hella slow, the boss fights are very guided about how you should use the powers, which is fine. The problem is that in regular combat, the enemies are such beefcakes that setting up such combos is almost too dangerous – so far, it was safer for me to just stab a bitch old style before they manage to kill me. Hopefully that’s just early game hell and the game won’t discard its gimmick by virtue of balance.
Was Chernobylite shown at E3? If it’s the game I’m thinking of, I recall it catching my eye.
It was, at the PC Gaming Show. It’s been in Early Access since 2019, but for a long time it wasn’t having a great time in EA, largely due to tech issues (Ultra crashed constantly but… it had a more consistent framerate than even LOW settings). It’s out now and works fine, with some bugs though.
I object to that headline! Herlock Sholmes is ABSOLUTELY a pain in the ass.It’s just that it’s not ‘insufferable asshole’ pain, it’s ‘astoundingly stupid’ pain.
Oh shit, Fred Durst is unveiling his new look because he’s the voice of Herlock Sholmes! It makes sense now.
Former Wilco bassist Fred Durst
Gotta busy weekend between work and chilling with some family, and while I’ve been working on fixing-up my truck, it’s going to be too humid to paint…soooo, I bought Forza 7: Ultimate Edition and plan on cracking-open a couple cold ones and screwing around with that for awhile, unless I can’t cram it on my teeny-little 500GB drive.Otherwise I’m going to have to wait until next week for my 2TB replacement drive and SSD duplicator to get here; so I might dig into my recent backcatalogue with some Spintires or finally get around to getting Zero Caliber setup with my Google Cardboard.After that, I’ll probably nod-off tinkering with configuring RecalBox on my Pi4 and finishing the last season of Kim’s Convenience.
People really have a flawed idea of how much Holmes is an insufferable-genius-prick in the original stories. While he’s not exactly humble there’s loads of bits where he freely admits that what he does isn’t some massive superpower of genius or anything, that it’s largely a result of him spending time paying attention to things that most people don’t bother noticing, and that anyone could do what he does if they just focussed a bit more. He’s also not entirely the anti-social asshole you’d assume if your only point of reference was Benedict Cumberbatch, he can actually be pretty charming and personable. That said, his style of mystery definitely works a lot better in short story format than longform. Aside from The Hound of the Baskervilles the novels are kind of average IMO, not least because they usually end up going on massive flashbacks so Conan Doyle can make it clear he’s really a historical-adventure writer and doesn’t really care for all this solving-mysteries malarky.
To be fair, the “self-effacement” on display isn’t quite so self-effacing in reality. He’s doing amazing things that no one else in the English speaking world seems to be able to do, save perhaps Moriarty, all while claiming it’s all actually rather easy and obvious. This makes him come off not as humble, but as completely unaware of the privilege of his indeed unique preternatural awareness. It’s less “You can do it too!” and more “Let them deduce cake”, hehe.
Part of this, of course, is the fact that Holmes is British, a culture that can make any self-effacement ironically come off as snooty elitism.
Oh yeah, that’s absolutely true, but I didn’t say he actually was self-effacing and humble, to be entirely fair. Just that he does point out that it actually is something that can be learned, it’s not actually the magic superpower people seem to treat it as. Loads of times, whenever he points out the clues that led him to deduce something about the person bringing him the case of the week they end up conceding that it actually is kind of obvious once he explains it, they just didn’t notice or think about them.
A lot of the portrayals of Sherlock Holmes in TV and film tend to be closer to Mycroft, who in the books is the real anti-social genius weirdo.
I made a start on Nier Automata since a few of my friends are into it and it’s very inventive, but I find the gameplay a bit of a drag? I’m gonna persevere a bit more then maybe set it to easy mode so I can see the story, which seems interesting.
I also got Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights, which could absolutely be a Smashing Pumpkins album, and I’m excited about, it looks very sad and pretty.
I also got a PS5, somehow. I figured that Q4, anything that could be considered pre-christmas, demand would get even crazier, so refollowed a stock tracker. Disc versions still seem pretty impossible but I got a discless and it is taller than my tv
There’s really not a lot coming out over the next week that I’m super excited for. I think I need to take a games break this weekend. There’s a big chunk of releases in late summer/early fall that will be really hard to catch up with. Might just clear out my backlog until then.
I’m playing Resident Evil 7 for the first time, since 8 just came out and I wanted to catch up on the Ethan Winters saga (so far it seems to involve being grievously injured a lot by mutant hillbillies). I absolutely adore just how over-the-top and ridiculous it gets. After all, this is the game wherein our protagonist gets his hand hacked off with a chainsaw (which you then can pick up as an inventory item)…within the first hour of gameplay!I have come to the conclusion that I am not that good at this game (and really, most FPSes, as well). Trying to fend off the Molded in the basement of the main house with a handgun (it becomes a lot easier once you get a shotgun) was proving to be very fatal (it didn’t help that I kept missing shots), so I restarted the game on Easy, which has helped. I suppose playing in VR might be easier still, but I’m pretty sure I would get nauseous playing it that way.I have to really hand it to the environmental design on this game, specifically just how good the game is at hiding items in plain sight. When I picked up my first psychostimulant (an item that highlights nearby items for a short time), I scoffed, think it superfluous. After all, I’ve been playing games for a long time and I know to thoroughly search for hidden items. Then I took one and I was shocked at how much stuff I missed.If there’s one issue I have with RE7, it is the fact that it is a very dark game. If even the slightest hint of light hits the screen (it doesn’t help that there is a missing slat in my living room window blinds), it gets very murky. I’ve fiddled around with the gamma/brightness/contrast settings, but the only thing that really seems to work is to play it in absolute (or as close as I can get to it) darkness. I may have to invest in blackout curtains before I get to 8.
Every single one of the comments here says practically nothing about the topic of the article and it’s weird.
Sure, but you figure a few would offer some commentary on the original article.
first day on the internet?
Playing Gears 5 because some friends were looking for some co-op action. Playing the campaign solo on Insane to begin with, and it’s… less insane and more frustrating. With so many of the attacks being one or two hit kills at this difficulty (reasonably so!), the need for competent allies watching your back becomes far more paramount, especially considering the tactical openness of most levels. Yet your AI controlled teammates are utterly incapable at informing you about what they’re doing behind you, or if anything is coming from behind at all. Prominently, the final battle sequence for Act 1 Chapter 3 puts you in a circular dais above a courtyard that has two entrances, and while MOST enemies will be coming from one direction at a time, the enemy AI is good enough that one or two of them will try and flank you from behind, and the level layout prevents you from really seeing them make the attempt. So you end up dying a LOT to The Swarm’s sucker punches that your AI companions just watch happen. Just a lot of “Ok, I think I’ve got the turret trained on everyonewoopsshotguninmyanus” restarts. Thank god the checkpoint loads are fairly quick.
A single remotely competent human ally would probably solve most of these problems, mind you. I just haven’t been able to get with my friends yet, and boy, I REALLY need them, hehe.
Still playing the Future Connected epilogue of Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition. I find that I’m actually gaining levels faster in this game than in the base game, so there’s a lot less mindless grinding. I still don’t find the combat system as engaging as it should be, but I prefer this relatively relaxing experience to the absurd difficulty spikes of the main game.
Naruhodo is Japanese for “Indeed” or “I see”, so excellent name for the student detective.
That’s the family name. You can see why the localizations changed his descendant’s last name to “Wright.”