=I really like the way you write charaters, you really make them unique, each with some individual characteristics . I really liked the friendship between Apollo and Clay. Although I feel like Apollo could have made a bit more jokes about Clay liking/dating the defandant(and he felt a little less sarcastic than he should be...but maybe that's just me ). I also kinda liked the fact that the defendat wasn't totally innocent, it gave her a very realistic feel. She felt like a real person, not just some damsel in distress(albeit, there is nothing wrong with a good damsel in distress...that is just a classic ).

=This case was like a modern version of waiting for Godot. But in this case, Godot actually showed up by the end. . I'm really interested in seeing how this - mentorship will end up developing.

=The cast was maybe a little longer than a first case should be, but given the fact, that you had to set up your alternate universe, that is understandable .(Anyway, it's not like I'm complaining, longer case = more content ).

=One thing that I found quite peculiar were some of the objections. It's not that they were hard, but I just felt like they used some strange logic . Maybe you could include some inner monolouge of Apollo with some hints as to what the player should focus on...although tha is just a suggestion on my part .

=To sum up, the case did a very good job of setting up the alternate universe and I look forwand too seeing more of it .

And that is pretty much all I've got for you. Hope it helped/helps in some way

- The characters are all very well written. The canon characters are, but what I want to focus on is the original characters. For example, Edwin Sharp is a very good Case 1 culprit because he has a surprising amount of depth to his character that helps you understand why he did what he did, while also just making him more entertaining. His "acting smart" gimmick not only makes for some fun dialogue, but also ties into his character of wanting to be accepted and feeling rejected due to his inexperience and inferiority complex - which ALSO ties into his motive of faking that whole research scandal. The little details like the way he enunciates words when he's feeling stressed (ex-cla-ma-tion) just really bring it all together. You remember that each character has their own motivation behind them which influences not only what they focus on in their testimony, but how they testify. Hal Seasons is a good example as his desire to 'stick to old traditions' and protect Pearl leads to him spinning a story that helps the defense, even if it is ultimately useless. It's more entertaining than if he were to just testify against you begrudgingly like 'normal' witnesses.

- The writing in general just strikes a nice balance between not being detailed enough and being too detailed. There's banter between characters that doesn't go on for too long, exchanges that serve to add little bits of personality, etc. It knows when to speed up and knows when to slow down. There's humor and there's heart and there's tension and there's real emotion, like the exchange between Clay, Medina and Apollo at the end of Case 1.

- When the high difficulty works, it works. Generally, difficulty in AA ranges from "contradictions that involve pointing out basic inconsistencies" (easy) to "contradictions that involve actually working out logic or theory crafting" (hard). This makes sense as you go from gaining footing by tearing the prosecution's case apart to going on the attack by building your own case. When you puzzle something out that isn't officially stated in the evidence, but it is something that should be realistically possible and is supported by the evidence, then present it, you feel really smart. Like, nobody even considers the possibility O'Ryan was pushed from the stairs, but it's something you could conceivably come up with. Even with the easier contradictions, I don't think there's anything super simple like using basic time contradictions simply because the canon games do. The problems you point out to push your case forward feel inventive.

- This is a technical nitpick, but I really don't like how almost entire sentences are highlighted in orange. In the original game, this is usually only done with singular, important/strange words or short phrases to draw attention to them. It's distracting when you do it to an entire message, and so frequently. For example, at the end of Case 2, Maya says, all in orange:

But you could easily get away with...

And it would've gotten the same point across without sticking out so much. This happens a lot, too, so it adds up.

- Testimonies are sometimes redundant. For example, Hal has two statements at the end of his first testimony that ultimately amount to the same thing - that someone was running away from the train station. Those two could easily be combined into one. I noticed it most often from Perune. For example, the last two statements of her third testimony basically amount to "This plan is too risky", then "Why would I enact such a risky plan?", both of which could realistically be objected to with the same thing(that's a press all testimony, but the point stands.) Her second testimony is the most problematic, as it contains two statements that both say "Getting onto the train is impossible", and then at the end three statements that all just say "I couldn't be in 2 places at once". That last one is especially annoying as you could realistically present the relevant evidence to all 3 of them, but only the second statement of the three works. I get in some of these cases it's IC (Perune mocking Apollo) but it makes them feel somewhat poorly constructed.

- When the high difficulty doesn't work, it doesn't work. Some of the testimonies and logic leaps are just a little obtuse. I think the one that sticks out to me the most is the knife contradiction, where Apollo claims that the way the knife is positioned on the floor is proof of foul play. However, I just couldn't wrap my head around this. The knife is very small and could've landed any number of ways regardless of how it fell. It could've bounced a little as it hit the ground and faced a completely different direction, like if it landed on an end. It just reminded me of when I drop something on the floor like a remote and it somehow ends up all the way on the other side of the room. It just feels like too flimsy a point to build a case on. As well, at the end of the case it pulls one of those "Here's THE definitive piece of evidence!" moments. When a game gets vague like this, I tend to dislike it as it starts to feel like I'm no longer trying to get into Apollo or the killer's head, but rather the case maker's head to try and discern what weird clue they want me to present(especially if there's more than one point you could think of). Those moments are why AA created Revisualizations and I will be forever grateful. The final point in Case 1 is a lesser example as the player is expected to figure out the car is how O'Ryan got those bruises. It's a realistic conclusion to draw, but the game doesn't tell you that Clay's car is acting strangely in the sense that it bumps up and down until after you try to deduce it, only that it is acting strangely - and if the player knew this I don't think the point would feel any less satisfying to figure out.

First of all, the AU you've set up is really interesting. It's uncanny (in a good way) to see how similar yet differently things have turned out for the characters.
I love the way Godot is portrayed, and it's interesting to see a world where he can't blame Phoenix for his woes, and ultimately never resolves them, causing him to still live a painful existence.

The first case was pretty good! Ticked a lot of the boxes you'd expect from a tutorial case, but kept me interested all the way through. While, it doesn't seem it'll have that much of an impact on the story overall, it was good to see how ruthlessly pragmatic Godot was in court, and the consequences of said pragmatism.

Now for the meat and bones, 'Turnabout on Rails'. While on the whole I appreciated the case, there were regions in terms of the plot that could've been improved upon. I feel Perune being a bitter branch family member was kinda just strung upon at the end of the case, and felt a bit jarring - although her ulterior motives were brilliant when shown, and I loved the breakdown, that was fantastic.

It's good seeing the Fey clan again, I'm always more than happy to play stories based on them - and you've set up a good 'mystery box' for future cases, with Godot and the rejuvenation of the clan at large.

Overall, I'm pleased to say I really enjoyed the narrative you've woven so far. My money on what caused the 'timeline split' which made this AU was Phoenix not existing at all, and this is events playing out without the main man himself.

To be honest, this was the roughest part of the package for me. There were several times in both cases where there were pretty severe jumps in logic, almost like you just wanted the player to get to the conclusion without really figuring it out for themselves. Also, relying on diagrams as heavily as you did can get overwhelming for the player, so in future cases maybe try and cut that down. There was a little too much logistics for my liking, and a lot to remember can make you feel a bit detached from the logic of the case.

My biggest concern with the gameplay was how 'on rails' (pun totally not intended) the trial segments seemed to be story-wise. Perune even acknowledges how frankly useless Sebastien is at times, and his 'buddy buddy' dynamic with the defense fell flat for me, as I never really felt the tension and push-back you should usually expect from an Ace Attorney prosecutor. If you wanted a more chilled out and rational prosecutor, I can see the merit in that, don't get me wrong. But see Klavier in AJ. Despite being pretty relaxed, I'd argue from a gameplay standard he's probably one of the most challenging to go up against.

With the detective, prosecutor and even Judge at times being so lenient to Apollo with his theories (most of which should've been shut down due to a lack of any evidence) The game can feel kind of a pedestrian.

The investigation segments were where the case shined, the characters were well written and I never got lost, so that's a huge huge plus for me. If you work on the trials, you can get even better.

This is a mixed bag, for me, personally. I'll get the bad out of the way first:

A lot of my gripes come down to textbox usage. (I'm a stickler for this, so don't take this too seriously)

It's a pet peeve of mine when people don't utilize what makes the AA games so great - how dynamic their textboxes are! Almost every line is spoken at a different speed, and there are many many pauses in between punctuation. This really helps the characters feel ALIVE, and not just like they're spouting exposition at the player. Please try and use more of the {f}, {s} and ESPECIALLY {spd}/{delay} commands. It's a rule of thumb in sound design there should never be an action without a responsive sound, and the opposite also applies. With any sound effect, the screen NEEDS to animate. I'd recommend again looking at footage from the canon games, and this should give you a deeper understanding of what I'm referring to.

As well with textboxes, the spelling is good - I didn't notice any mistakes, (although that could be down to how BAD I am at spelling...) with that said, you're missing wayyy too many commas, and sadly this also contributes to a lack of pacing with the characters, where it seems like it's just reading a script instead of emoting. PLEASE also use {p30} or there abouts after full stops/periods. It helps the dialogue flow way better, and breaks it up so it's easier to digest for the player. You're also cramming the textboxes too much, try and split sentences up between textboxes. I tend to always start a new line after a sentence. Again, this makes it easier for the reader to digest.

Now onto the good - The art assets, including the ones you've made yourself are fantastic. The game looks great, really. I'm excited to see what else you bring to the table! (Although Seb does look a bit off due to him using the AAI perspective, which makes him look a bit too big and close to the camera, but that's a minor gripe.)

After I've examined everything in Hal's house and exhausted all Talk options with him during the first investigation, he gives me something to give to Pearl at the detention center (forgot what ), but after that, there is no Move option to go to the detention center, and examining anything in Hal's house again at this point will result in the game crashing and me being taken back to the PyWright title screen.

In order to head to the detention center at that point in the investigation you need to trigger a specific scene at the train station first. If nothing new happens when you enter the train station, try going back to Gumshoe- since you need to collect a few flags from that scene to progress, and you might not have them if the scene isn't showing up. The steel beam and the straphanger both need to be investigated, but there hit-boxes are close to each other, so that's what you might've missed there?

You should be able to progress, even without the updated version. Just make sure you go back and finish Gumshoe's scene, and then return to the train station. That should trigger what you need.