OBJECTION!

Well, you don't actually say anything nearly as dramatic as an Ace Attorney game, but this game by Sketchy Logic is quite a fun adventure. Drawing inspiration from French history and Ace Attorney, Aviary Attorney combines the two by adding its own twist: it's a visual novel/investigation game about birds. More specifically, about animals who happen to have the body of humans. Yes, it does look quite wacky, and no, nobody really brings up the strangeness in the situation.

The game follows the adventures of a defense attorney named Jayjay Falcon, his assistant Sparrowson, Falcon's prosecutor rival Cocorico, and an eclectic cast of characters, all set against the backdrop of 1840s France. Surprisingly, there was quite a bit of research involved with this game, and it manages to make a period of France that isn't as well known really fun to explore. It also uses this period in order to frame a unique narrative that expands across four acts, where the ending actually changes based on the choices made in the game.

This VN uses a blend of traditional choice-based narration and investigation gameplay. During investigations you go around and explore different places in Paris in order to obtain enough evidence to help your defendant walk away with a "Not Guilty" verdict. Unlike Ace Attorney, however, the game doesn't give you the opportunity to collect every piece of evidence. You are limited in the amount of days you have before the trail date, and red herring evidence appears to throw you off. As a result, when it comes to the court case you may very well be underequipped to defend your client. During the trial you are able to press on witness testimonies and present evidence as a counterargument in order to convince the jury, but as I mention earlier, you can easily miss vital pieces of evidence or obtain red herrings. This makes all the trials exciting as there is no fail state - the story continues regardless of the outcome. If you fail to obtain enough evidence, you fail to present a convincing argument to the jury, and in turn your client is declared guilty and hanged. This leads to some pretty grim stuff in the story, if you fail.

The writing is excellent, with distinct character voices with each character in their dialogue and witty lines that make it really enjoyable to read. It's funny and serious at the same time. The plot progresses in a manner that it's difficult to say how things will end, and there are really engaging twists that occur throughout the story. In fact, the game shows it doesn't follow traditional visual novel/investigation style gameplay as seen with the games it's inspired by very early on, and this surprised me as someone who has played Ace Attorney and several VNs. Choices do matter in this game, and they especially influence the ending you get. The choice is presented at the end of act 3 where your choices decide which ending you get - choose to defend Cocorico, stay silent, or fail the trial will result in either of the three endings available. The save system is slightly different from other VNs, where instead of having a save file Days are saved at a time. If you want to redo a choice you have to reload the day where the choice occurred. Of course, if you failed to get the right evidence, you would have to redo the investigation starting at the earliest point of evidence collecting.

The art and music heavily rely on public domain works. This is very similar to the game Four Last Things, and much like that game this game is able to synthesize all the works together into a novel piece. Everything was pleasing to look at in the game, and I think helps to give it its own unique visual style.

If I were to give any cons to this game it would have to be the editing. Many times typos appeared in the game and many lines would be grammatically incorrect. This would have been merely a passing comment in any other game, but for a VN game this is quite important to note. VNs rely heavily on their writing, and thus with errors occurring in the text it takes away from the immersive experience and can become annoying to read. For writing that is so strong, the lack of editing is quite annoying to read.

This game is worth the read, especially if you enjoy investigation type games like Ace Attorney or Danganronpa. It also has a great story, so even if you've never played an investigation game before, if you enjoy whimsical writing and unique scenarios this game will be right up your alley.

[b][i]OBJECTION![/i][/b] Well, you don't actually say anything nearly as dramatic as an Ace Attorney game, but this game by Sketchy Logic is quite a fun adventure. Drawing inspiration from French history and Ace Attorney, Aviary Attorney combines the two by adding its own twist: it's a visual novel/investigation game about birds. More specifically, about animals who happen to have the body of humans. Yes, it does look quite wacky, and no, nobody really brings up the strangeness in the situation. The game follows the adventures of a defense attorney named Jayjay Falcon, his assistant Sparrowson, Falcon's prosecutor rival Cocorico, and an eclectic cast of characters, all set against the backdrop of 1840s France. Surprisingly, there was quite a bit of research involved with this game, and it manages to make a period of France that isn't as well known really fun to explore. It also uses this period in order to frame a unique narrative that expands across four acts, where the ending actually changes based on the choices made in the game. This VN uses a blend of traditional choice-based narration and investigation gameplay. During investigations you go around and explore different places in Paris in order to obtain enough evidence to help your defendant walk away with a "Not Guilty" verdict. Unlike Ace Attorney, however, the game doesn't give you the opportunity to collect every piece of evidence. You are limited in the amount of days you have before the trail date, and red herring evidence appears to throw you off. As a result, when it comes to the court case you may very well be underequipped to defend your client. During the trial you are able to press on witness testimonies and present evidence as a counterargument in order to convince the jury, but as I mention earlier, you can easily miss vital pieces of evidence or obtain red herrings. This makes all the trials exciting as there is no fail state - the story continues regardless of the outcome. If you fail to obtain enough evidence, you fail to present a convincing argument to the jury, and in turn your client is declared guilty and hanged. This leads to some pretty grim stuff in the story, if you fail. The writing is excellent, with distinct character voices with each character in their dialogue and witty lines that make it really enjoyable to read. It's funny and serious at the same time. The plot progresses in a manner that it's difficult to say how things will end, and there are really engaging twists that occur throughout the story. In fact, the game shows it doesn't follow traditional visual novel/investigation style gameplay as seen with the games it's inspired by very early on, and this surprised me as someone who has played Ace Attorney and several VNs. Choices do matter in this game, and they especially influence the ending you get. The choice is [spoiler]presented at the end of act 3 where your choices decide which ending you get - choose to defend Cocorico, stay silent, or fail the trial will result in either of the three endings available.[/spoiler] The save system is slightly different from other VNs, where instead of having a save file Days are saved at a time. If you want to redo a choice you have to reload the day where the choice occurred. Of course, if you failed to get the right evidence, you would have to redo the investigation starting at the earliest point of evidence collecting. The art and music heavily rely on public domain works. This is very similar to the game Four Last Things, and much like that game this game is able to synthesize all the works together into a novel piece. Everything was pleasing to look at in the game, and I think helps to give it its own unique visual style. If I were to give any cons to this game it would have to be the editing. Many times typos appeared in the game and many lines would be grammatically incorrect. This would have been merely a passing comment in any other game, but for a VN game this is quite important to note. VNs rely heavily on their writing, and thus with errors occurring in the text it takes away from the immersive experience and can become annoying to read. For writing that is so strong, the lack of editing is quite annoying to read. This game is worth the read, especially if you enjoy investigation type games like Ace Attorney or Danganronpa. It also has a great story, so even if you've never played an investigation game before, if you enjoy whimsical writing and unique scenarios this game will be right up your alley.