Socrates Jones: Pro Philosopher

Fun introduction to common philosophical arguments of morality in an ace attorney like fashion.

ダンガンロンパ的なゲーム。 面白いしよくできてるとも思うけど、 もう少しストーリーにスリルが欲しいなぁ、と思う。 例えば最初のシカおじさん、 チュートリアルとしてはけギャグ寄りで楽しいキャラなんだけど、結構長く引っ張るから終始あのノリなのかな、と思うとお腹いっぱいになっちゃう。 でも嫌いになれない。

Played it ages ago, and just replayed it, and still enjoyed it just as much as when it first came out. An enjoyable, accessible way to experience various foundational philosophies and their critiques; with a cute story to go with it.

Perhaps there are people with no philosophy background to whom this game will appeal - maybe child nerdlingers whose parents play with them. But mostly it's for people with an analytical bent and a college philosophy course or two, so they can feel the satisfaction of having a game made so specifically for them, of recognizing concepts they know and getting the jokes. And that's not a bad thing! The game is fun! It's reasonably funny! If you're my kind of nerd, it's well worth the money. The most fun I had with it was actually all the ways I thought it was wrong. You argue with five historical moral and political philosophers, but it's a Phoenix Wright-alike, so the arguments you can make are limited and scripted and even when you've identified the argument you're supposed to be making it's anyone's guess exactly which proposition you're supposed to counter with which vaguely opposed thought. Your options for objections can't be too clear about the point, because that would give away the game; but without clarity it's hard to guess what prompt will elicit the point you know is waiting to be made. Disagreeing with wrong answers gave me the same combination of fun and frustration I felt studying for the bar, where I would often read the prep company's explanations for my wrong answers and still think my answer was better. The other thing that is simultaneously fun and frustrating is that the rails the game is on aren't necessarily the right ones. Like, there are at least a dozen reasons I think Hobbes's social contract theory is wrong, but I don't think the "who sovereigns the Sovereign" objection you're forced to present is one of them. The response is explained in the dialogue, even! Here I was focused on we can justify coercive force based on consent when the consent in question has been manufactured by the state, and my stand in character is worried about how we make sure the sovereign holds up his end of the bargain. With guillotines, obviously, come on! Keep up, Socrates! I demand a sequel, and I want to fight at minimum an idealist (probably Plato, but perhaps Aristotle), a hard anarchist (Nozick?), John Rawls, Sartre, an any-means-necessary communist, a post-structuralist, and if you really want to make me happy, Bernard Williams.

A wonderful Ace Attorney clone. The writing is funny. And I suppose it also gives you a crash course in ethics. It is 4 hours long and free. You are guaranteed to enjoy.

erm actually the game 2