Tyrion Cuthbert: Attorney of the Arcane

Disclaimer: I love VNs. I have played a ton of them. Though, all the "official" ones. I usually try to steer clear of games like "these", where it seems its literally just someone like me that thinks "Hey, I liked that game. Lets make a game like that myself." I have replayed every AA game at least twice (bar investigations 1 and 2. DGS only once) and am a gigantic fan. Its the first VN I have played, I think when I was 10. My expectations were high, because that is the quality I am used to. I tried this game because I saw good reviews about it, and it cost 5 euros on sale. Due to that, I may judge this game a bit harsher than it may or may not deserve. I am not going to ignore the obvious fact that this is basically an Ace Attorney fan-game. But with a price point of almost 30 euros!! It deserves the criticizm of an actual, whole "Ace-Attorney-like" VN. I am going to compare it a lot with Ace Attorney. No spoilers until later down. I think the game is incredibly mediocre and the pacing and actual gameplay is what kills it. If you can make it past the obvious self-inserts what you are left with are shallow "mysteries" with poor pacing, poor detective work and a non relatable protagonist. Tyrion, the main character and the defense lawyer you play as, never really struggles to find out the mystery and certain plot points. It never feels like you are fighting with him to uncover the next big contradictions. Multiple times in the story, he just advances and blurts out plot points all on his own. Never are you backed into a corner, with proper pacing, and you feel like you have to just make up something up. You dont feel like you are Tyrion, it feels like you're watching him be a lawyer. I have never, ever, felt like this in AA (Ace Attorney). AA always takes its time to show in what a bind Phoenix is. Sometimes, you say stuff like "I know what to present" when its obvious that neither you nor Phoenix know what that is yet. Tyrion seems to always know. And if you dont? Well, get to it! Tyrions waiting. This isnt necessarily a writing issue in itself, but it is 100% a pacing issue. AA goes out of its way to prolong Phoenix's thought process and his desperation to find smth. It seems like in TC (Tyrion Cuthbert) someone was always rushing the writer to just get on with it. The game gives itself no time to give Tyrion time to think, ponder, bluff. I'm going to mention pacing a lot. It really is this games worst flaw. I'm aware that this is an indie game and there's only so many funds to go through. But a lack of budget should never be the reason or excuse for a lack of quality. You get no breathing room between story beats. Youre just pushed and pulled through every single examination of crime scenes. Not even the music resets. AA fixes this a lot with the "green text" that gives you location and time when you move to a new location and there is a new event happening. It slows the game down and completely stops the music. You get a moment to introduce a new character or a new beat. That is good. It takes you the absence of exactly that to notice how vital it is to pacing. You're talking to one character, find some stuff out, and just a second later youre talking to the next character and are flown back into something else. It is so incredibly suffocating that I can not believe that no one working on this game has noticed it. This doesnt stop in the examination segments. Trials are frustratingly horribly paced. You really dont notice how important "Hold it!" is when you press a statement. Neither do you know how good the banter and conversations are between cross-examinations. Finally find the real culprit, and now you have to prove it? You get them on the stand and two cross-examinations later, they're guilty and its over. Animations. I cant believe I miss them. Characters in AA have animations that stop everything and make you watch them while they happen. These are good for pacing. It slows you down and are there to actually show you impact. Witnesses in TC do not break down. I cant believe they dont have that. There are no "big" animations that show you that a character is now going to be different or that you've dealt a "big blow". I know this is an indie game but with a price point of 30 Euros I do expect something. Pacing is this games number 1 issue and it ruins the entire experience. If you're thinking about buying TC, I can not recommend it. Even at 5 Euros I'd rather you spend your time with a good book, or a better VN. The rest of this review WILL HAVE SPOILERS AND I WILL FREELY WRITE ABOUT THEM WITH NO FURTHER DISCLAIMER. DO NOT PROCEED IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE SPOILED!!!!!!! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Images. Visuals. Half the part of a VN. Its been a while since I first replayed the first AA. But, I will never forget images like this: https://gyazo.com/778bff0000913b5e416d0103174f5402 And images like when you reveal the killer of 1-3: https://gyazo.com/d21db4faca043e5eba6630f029482367 These images make the experience so much better. These are not only used to move the plot forward, but to also give you actual evidence to look at and find contradictions in. The reveal of the actual murder gives you great "closure" and a sense of accomplishment. Finally getting to the bottom of it, and seeing it happen. I would never make an AA game without at least showing the murder. Without at least having a flashback to it, seeing what the people said, and did. TC does not have that. You finish every case without such images. I would have loved a scene like that for the actual murders/deaths of Case 2 and 3. (For 1, you get to see it when the murder happens.) Especially in Case 2 you dont get to see what they actually talked about. You hear the Arcanum say the order, but why the ♥♥♥♥ is there no flashback to when it actually happened?? hello?? I cant believe that that is missing. It is such a huge oversight and such an easy fix. But its not just the actual deaths that are missing. There are no illustrations, other than the background when you're examining stuff. You dont get to see images or even crime scene photos (bar the first case which is basically just the tutorial contradiction). "Oh, its an indie game." You know what? Almost, almost fair. (I'm sure they could have squeezed out SOME) BUT!! THEY HAVE THESE IMAGES. BUT NOT FOR THE EVIDENCE OR MURDER. NO. THEY MAKE FULL SIZE IMAGES OF THE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ROMANCE BETWEEN TYRION AND HIS ASSISTANT CELESTE. URGHHHHHHHH. It is so frutrating to play through case 3, missing any sort of actual images and visuals to look at, only to be greeted by a full-size drawn Celeste sleeping in bed next to you. That is actually offensive. And then the art of them dancing? Kissing? Sigh. We didnt even get to see Pierces body after he killed himself. But apparently it is vital that we show our protags kiss and dance. The mystery? Plot? who cares about that. Lets just make sure our OCs kiss. I hate Tyrion as a protagonist to play as. He knows everything. He doesnt fumble. Doesnt stutter. Sure, he is a bit unsure in the first case. At the start. Then its all easy. I want him to fail. I want to run into a wall. Where is the struggle?? Wheres the fight? And because that doesnt happen, the prosecution is an idiot. They miss glaring contradictions. Their cases suck. Aria is presented to be a genius or something but she would lose to Winston Payne. A big part of that is how the evidence in this game works. You dont really find evidence. Half of your court record are testimonies. Almost every "contradiction" is just "I went there at 2 PM" and then you just go "nuh-uh, he said it was at 1:40 PM" and everyones shocked and confused. AA has plot and characters because they want to present their mystery. TC has a mystery because they want to present their characters and make them kiss. Im out of characters

[i](Reviewing the 2026 version, not Classic)[/i] Giving Tyrion one aggregate Yes/No score is complicated - I've gone for negative here in answer to 'would you recommend this game?' but that doesn't mean it won't have value for people. Mechanically, I found it to be more nitpicky than its inspiration (Ace Attorney) especially in later cases, having to choose one piece of evidence when 2-4 are related to the point, and not always being sure whether we were going step-by-step though an event or if gearing up to make big leaps of logic. Luckily the game isn't very punishing, so there's not a lot of save-loading, and I don't think I was ever stuck at anything (bar one or two instances in the last case) for too long. In terms of its UI and audiovisuals, it was pleasing and easy to play. (As is often the case in anime-style games, I wish the characters were more diverse, and that the female characters' clothing had fewer skirt slits/highlighted cleavage/etc, but it's not the worst offender of its kind). ...But the biggest issue I had with the game was narratively. I was really excited at the start of the game - your character is literally taking noble houses to court for their abuses of magic and power! But as the game went on, and especially in the last two cases, I felt the game completely undermined its own points. We circle all the way back to keeping the status quo and having those with power be the ones deciding what should happen. A little more info (keeping it as broad as I can, but some spoilers are inevitable): [spoiler]There's a weird mix of 'shades of grey' excuses for the powerful villains while saying others can only ever be evil; claiming the aristocracy and royalty misuse their powers but resolving it by swapping bad apples with 'the good ones' atop the same flawed system; the only way to change things is from within (see previous point) and anyone trying to change things outside the system is shown to be selfish/just a murderer; nominally caring about the common man but making decisions for them and lying to them in the press so as not to 'cause panic'; way too much focus on bloodlines and passing down of power within one's family because the 'good ones' will use the power well.[/spoiler] I could talk about other aspects of the story, but the above made it feel so bad for me, nothing else seems relevant in comparison. So you might still enjoy this game, I enjoyed it at first, but depending on where you stand narratively, I would give it a miss.

Dude I fricken loved this game. You'll quickly find you keep a lot of evidence, some of it is basically reminder text though I feel like I would have had a harder time with the game overall without it there, it just made sifting through things a little harder. The art feels like it could be a little inconsistent at times... some characters felt off model almost at some points? I think several, but not all, of Tyrion's sprites need the most improvement in a sequel for sure. Minor gripes considering how much I enjoyed playing this game though.

Overall it does very well as its own take on a Ace Attorney style game and in its own mysteries and story. [spoiler]Up until the very last part of the last trial, at least.[/spoiler] Good music, the overarching villain was delightful, the judge of the fifth trial was great, and there were some compelling side characters. I got rather attached to the Frega daughters across the cases they were involved in. The protagonists feel very overpowered at first, but that gets less grating as the game continues. The UI can become a bit janky in places.

"Tyrion Cuthbert: Attorney of the Arcane" is a fantastic "Ace Attorney" clone set in a fantasy world with magic, dragons and demons. I bought this game on sale for 6 € and expected a mediocre wannabe "Ace Attorney", only to binge through the five cases in 25 hours and loving every second of it. It left me longing for more content and I'm looking forward to the sequel. I would even go so far as to say that this game is better than some of the original "Ace Attorney" games. So if you are a fan of the AA franchise, I definitely recommend to buy and play "Tyrion Cuthbert". There may be some confusion about the fact that the developers reworked and overhauled the game in 2026 (release was in 2023), especially case 3. I don't know the original version (you can still play this through a free DLC) and only played the overhauled version. What I liked: + likable and charming characters with deep personalities and plausible motivations, especially the culprits and antagonists are believable and do not suffer from the clichéd "I'm evil just for the sake of being evil" (there is only one exception, but it still makes sense for this particular character); I really got attached to some of the characters and look forward to see them again in the sequel + anime tropes and quirky, exaggerated characters are toned down compared with "Ace Attorney" - without losing its sense of humor + perfect pacing; none of the cases feel bloated and the game doesn't suffer from repetitive dialogues or cutscenes like some of the "Ace Attorney" games + each case is interesting and had me hooked; all cases are part of one well written overarching plot; plot has no plot holes or other glaring issues + the world setting feels coherent and immersive + art style is beautiful; I love the character sprites especially (looks of the characters, clothing...) + good music with a couple of catchy songs + takes all of the "Ace Attorney" strengths so you feel right at home and adds its own ideas and identity to it so it doesn't feel like a cheap clone + no punishment system if you pick the wrong evidence or answer (only exception are the arguments) Neutral points: *very few of the backgrounds are reused for different locations, probably for budget reasons, and disrupted the immersion a bit * English is the only language; fan translations are supported by the devs in the Steam Workshop, but as of now there are only a few languages available (English is fine for me, but maybe this could be a problem for you) What I disliked: - I played on both PC and Steam Deck and while the PC version had no bugs, the "A Button" on the Steam Deck sometimes randomly was unresponsive and only saving -> returning to main menu -> reloading helped to fix this - difficulty is inconsistent; the game sometimes holds your hand too much and points your nose right at the correct evidence although it's very easy to find the solution yourself; on the other hand, there were moments where a witness basically said the same thing in five statements or two pieces of evidence referred to the same thing, but the game would only allow one specific combination and left me frustrated; especially case 5 got confusing with tons of evidence, spells, vague statements and stuff I can't spoil... so sometimes I had no idea what the solution was at all

Can't play and enjoy this game unless they increase the text size. Why design a game that is all about reading using such a small text size? And not adding an option to increase it?!

An Underrated Masterpiece This game quickly immersed my through its overarching story and interesting cast of characters. Every character in the game is unique, well written, and teaming with personality from dialogue to characters sprites. The hard magic system adds an interesting element to investigation and courtroom segments. Using the in game magic system to form your defense just further immerses you into a world that is simply just a visual novel. Additionally the use of a fantasy setting and the prevalence of noble influence in the story helps to combat the main criticism people tend to have toward games like Ace Attorney where it models itself after a western justice system, yet seems to adopt a guilty until proven innocent mentality and allows for frequent dishonest testimony, tampering of evidence, and misuse of legal procedure. The world also justifies its aggressive and quick prosecution of magic crimes by reasoning that magic crimes tend to create civil unrest and that magical evidence disappears after three days. Also the fact that magic is mainly a power of the nobility helps to explain the outside forces that plague the justice system portrayed in the game. In the story the exclusivity of magic among the nobility juxtaposes itself with the magicless main character who's supernatural abilities helps him to peer into peoples minds, representing his undiscriminating sense of justice. Lastly, the game's soundtrack is simply a masterpiece. I listen to a lot of video game music in my free time and I can say this is some of the best I've seen from an indie game this small. I am familiar with the main composer insaneintherain, yet I wouldn't call myself and avid fallower of his work. However, this game has made me a big fan. The soundtrack is comprehensive and played a big role in my experience. The composing and arranging is diverse and covers a wide range of emotions and situations. "Attack of Opportunity" which is this game's version of "Pressing Pursuit" is amazing and in its own way surpasses Ace Attorney's own track. Insaneintherain's use of real instrument sampling and the contribution of violinist Pit Tan help to elevate this track to levels of quality uncommon in indie games like this. In particular, the tracks for the analysis and deduction portions would often give me with literal chills. Overall, this game is a must play if you love mystery and fantasy and want to play something relatively short yet dense in story. I feel like had this game released on a popular platform like the Nintendo Switch, or been played by a popular content creator, it could have made it big. It really is one of the those hidden gems that fell through the cracks and from what I've read of the developer's future plans could have the ability to evolve into an insanely popular and iconic IP.