While PW:AA is a gem, and the amount of GOOD can never justify posting a negative review for this trilogy, to ignore the low lows would be unfair, and let me tell you, in some episodes the mental fatigue gets rough.
The first game had a really strong start:
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[*][b]The ol' classic vibes were immaculate;[/b][/list]
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[*] [b]The cheekbones were hurting;[/b]
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[*][b]The new quirky characters were always fun to meet and get to know;[/b]
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Plus, the investigation parts awakened the [b]Trigger Happy Havoc[/b] nostalgia (I know it should obviously work the other way around, but well, I played Danganronpa series first, and why not glaze Kodaka for drawing inspiration from Shu Takumi and crafting his own extraordinarily creative series?)
Then there's the localization/translation with the name puns included, worked wonderfully! A polished English script up to a certain point (some grammar made my brain go boom in some later cases, which was not ideal, with how boom my brain was already getting with the growing complexity of the cases).
Then, the tricky parts and questionable logic here and there start throwing you off a little. The difficulty feels super random, sometimes you breeze through the case, and sometimes you need to present some really obscure evidence to establish a connection and reach as hard as you possibly can. Frustrating, but more often than not those end up making sense.
Sometimes it feels like you have the answer right in front of you, your theory ends up being right, but the journey to get there is so suffocating it genuinely feels upsetting how unfair the in-game world is to our beloved protagonists.
Some suffocation and frustration felt worth enduring, but the amount of time spent in the gutter definitely affected the experience in a negative way in some cases. Hours of grasping at straws under constant pressure really do cook the player, as well as the character we're playing as. Definitely felt like too much for too little payoff sometimes.
That became apparent in 1-5, the burnout started hitting really early in this case.
The drowning, the desperate search for tiny holes in vague, intentionally misleading testimonies was not fun. If the previous cases focused on finding the truth and justice, here - hours of trial gameplay were dedicated to breaking a lying weasel.
The massive case with unreliable testimonies, filibustering, and picking apart the statements by finding tiny inconsistencies felt like it was deliberately stretched to advertise longer playtime, while to get to the actual meat and talk about the substance took way too long, with so much time wasted on meaningless yap.
Looking back at the notes I was taking at the time - I was cursing the wench who deliberately hid details in her testimony, didn't present all the important evidence. Got me feeling completely blindfolded and laughed at, as the investigation parts were practically devalued.
Even though the 1-5 ending was cinema indeed, I honestly don't hear enough criticism about how sluggish and brain-melting the dragged-out trial routine can get in this game. And with how great the high highs are, I feel like these annoying parts get swept under the rug. My expectations were way too high for AA, I'm not gonna lie. I thought this Father of all the brilliant 2000-s era mystery visual novels would be a clean experience, but it's certainly pretty rough around the edges.
The examination of evidence in 3d though? The fingerprinting minigame? - great new additions, big improvement of the investigation parts. Unfortunately, the script length and pacing are something I have complaints about.
Speaking of gameplay changes, a new minigame (dialogue-focused, but still) is introduced in the second novel, which definitely helps spice things up and make things more interesting. However, Justice For All was hit or miss for me in terms of enjoyability. Here's why.
Similar stuff to 1-5 occurred in 2-2: the plot was very intriguing and the murder mystery disentanglement - exciting, however the cross-examinations once again made me lose my sanity with the amount of red herrings, curve balls, genuinely lame tactics and yucky crime motives. The absurd levels of reaching and dealing with unwell individuals in 2-3 though - Tops everything, Bigly. I mean, at least it's universally deemed pretty bad, and in retrospect it's fascinating how after that lowest point of the series Takumi locked the ♥♥♥♥ in and wrote straight cinema 2-4, into peak Trials & Tribulations.
Although I should probably mention how tough 3-2/3-3 felt back to back as well: I loved how the cases resolved, but the way they were constructed drained the energy out of me, the marathons were interesting, but understanding the logic with this noggin of mine was quite challenging. Had to take a break before the final case, getting a mental reset and cooling off my overheated brain.
Reading through every dialogue, presenting every piece of evidence to every character, and checking all my surroundings was my FOMO in this game, and I felt like sometimes in order to get some character development you really just need to present every stupid piece of junk in your inventory to your pal. I like sniffing around every corner, but I'd definitely just rather make the trials shorter and the bonding longer, personally. And not just by clicking on 15 pieces of evidence, maybe.
Feels kinda bittersweet in the end, not really knowing where things stand with some fellas. The deep bonds and brotherly trust formed with some of the allies after mutual support in the most vulnerable moments feel genuine, deep, meaningful, I was very happy with where some of the bonds ended up after all three games. But honestly, I would've loved to connect to these characters even more, and perhaps under less stressful circumstances.
