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Nirvana Initiative is a different beast then the first game. It has gotten more streamlined as much as it has gotten more ambitious, which is especially seen in its elaborate plot and its numerous twists. It improves on the first game in its gameplay but takes more risks with the story, which hurts the introduction of new characters a bit. The writing is still as sharp as ever until it needs to account for the plot. Playing the first game left me guessing until it started tying up its knots, while playing Nirvana Initiave can left me mostly in the dark until it rolled down the curtain.

If this review is very vague, well, it is hard to talk about Nirvana Initiatives true flaws (and true strengths?) without going into spoiler filled ramblings, but I think the best way to put it is this: I enjoyed the first game more, but Nirvana Initiative gave more to think about when the credits rolled. For that reason alone, this sequel is worth playing.

Murder By Numbers is a puzzle game with light detective mechanics that aims to marry to concepts of Picross and Ace Attorney into a mostly cozy but satisfying detective story of a former-actress and a robot with amnesia. I enjoyed my time but there were definitely some flaws that I want to talk about.

I will be going certain story spoilers that won't ruin the game for you but still are worth mentioning.

One thing that was really noticeable during my playtime was the inconsistent pacing and tone. While on a pure story pacing the entire game is fine, as it follows the Ace Attorney Investigations like gameplay style of discovering evidence to acusing a suspect to finally blowing the case wide open, however every evidence that you collect needs to be decoded by playing a picross game. This puts the story on pause to complete a puzzle and these can come with really unfortunate timings. While these picrosses can give some nice breathing room to think about the story, it can also be quite dumb when you are in a tense, dangerous situation and welp, guess I gotta play picross with cheery music after I learned horrible news. The music is quite great but the shift from serious and sad to cheerful and happy can cause major tonal whiplash that takes me out of the story.

The story and the dialogue itself is quite decent but nothing spectacular, and it has little inconsistentcies that I can write a list of that are not dealbreakers but can bring me out of a story. Like when the robot SCOUT learns to lie earlier on in a case but then is completely oblivious when Honor is obviously lying. The characters can also act irrational at times, one extreme example of Honor being held at gunpoint by a character, and after narrowly escaping the situation Honor logically ofcourse goes to the house of that character to find them. I can name more but that would be overkill at this point.

Lastly, Picross is the only challenge when it comes to this game. The investigation sections are a complete cakewalk with no penalties. Every time you make a wrong awnser, they say "oops, well here try again" with no penalties. This adds to the coziness of the game but really strips away any stakes the game is trying to have.

But those are my major, or I guess minor, gripes. There is plenty that I like. I love the character designs, they are gorgeous and really memorable. I like the ace attorney-inspired visual novel style, which gives enough flair to keep it interesting. Some of the character writing is really good, like the conversation SCOUT has about robot gender or one character in specific which does the great job of hating him with my freaking guts (and his downfall scene, while dumb, being really satisfying). The Picrosses are genuinely challenging with a good difficulty curve. And again, the music is really good.

Definitely recommend it, but keep in mind that you should play it for the picrosses more then its story.

The main thing that sets Tyrion Cuthbert apart from its very obvious influence of Ace Attorney is its fantastical world. While Ace Attorney is no stranger to magical-like elements, Tyrion Cuthbert firmly plants intself in the fantasy world of dragons, elfs and magic, and it does so quite gracefully.

The main things it brings to the Ace Attorney formula are deductions, interegations and magic itself.

- Deductions are questions you need to assemble awnsers for, similar to Tangled Towers. They are frequent and are a neat way to try to keep the player on their toes of developments, but it can sometimes be ludicriously difficult that I at points after I figured out the awnser went "How was I supose to know that???".
- Interegations are mini-court room sections where you have to persuade and disarm the one you are interregating, kinda like Psyche Locks but mixed in with the Mood Matrix and logically deducing what type of response you need to give. These are quite fun, as they spice up the investigation sections and are quite involved, although a tad too easy at times.
- Magic plays a big part of the story as individual spells are basically evidence of itself. This may sound like it is quite a slog to check more evidence during trials, but the magic spells actually add a ton of intrigue, red herrings, fore shadowing and great twists that spice up the story a bunch.

There are some other minor mechanics that I won't spoil, but overal a good selections that makes the formula just different enough to give Tyrion Cuthbert its own identity.

The story itself is quite good, as is the dialogue. Plenty of chekhov's guns that are well place and not too obvious, a strong theme of classes and fate which gives the game a good strong core, a nice progression in the cases themselves and a final case that is fittingly bombastically bonkers, even if this final case can be quite confusing as the timeline of events become very important. The music is also awesome, absolute beautiful tracks that I had stopped me from playing the game to just vibe to it. The graphics on the other hand are decent, but compared to Ace Attorney there is sadly a lack of personality in animation. While the character designs are strong and memorable, the fact they are so detailed leaves little room for personality and flair, which loses a bit of the Ace Attorney-fun which makes the game look generic at times. The game also had a few bugs and visual glitches here and there, but overal it was nothing game ruining.

In conclusion, and obvious thumbs up. A damn good game that is faithful to its influence but brings enough of its own spin on it to make it worth digging into, even if this spin brings its own small flaws with it. Definitely recommend it.

A slow start but after the acordeon bit this game turns into one of the most charming games you will ever play.