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[AlleeCat]

I'm a huge fan of the Phoenix Wright series, and playing Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright has given me a hankering for some good old fashioned Ace Attorney action, so I decided I'd do a little Let's Play.
It'll be all screenshots, with some gifs, and some music from the game. I won't do any videos, since there aren't really any big cutscenes in this one, and there will be quite a lot of transcription and fancy forum formatting, along with my commentary cut in, like so:
Get to the good part, already!

Alright, alright.
For those who don't know, Phoenix Wright is a game about being a lawyer. This might not seem all that interesting, but it tends to skip all the boring legal procedures in favor of "high stakes courtroom action!" I like to think that it's the Japanese equivalent of Law & Order. Really, it has just about enough gameplay elements to not be considered a visual novel, (and some people still consider it to be one) but I really enjoy trying to piece together each case like its own mystery novel. It's really fun to go through, and I encourage you to enjoy it with me!

Mostly, the thread will just be for game discussion and to point out details I or others might have missed. I'll try to be thorough, but I might miss a few easter eggs, and I encourage you to point them out in the thread when they come up. Other than that, !!NO SPOILERS!! No talking about anything in the game unless it has already come up, or I've skipped over it. This includes other games in the series as well, as I will likely be doing LPs of those after this one. (If I even finish it. >_<)

Also, yes, I will be doing the bonus case in the DS version. That is all.
So, without further ado:

[AlleeCat]

E1P1: The Butz.

[RangerCado]

Well, the games get easier the more of them you play i've heard since you learn how everything works after the first one. Still a fun game to explore.

[Arcvasti]

PTW

[Tiruin]

PTW

[Graknorke]

Well, the games get easier the more of them you play i've heard since you learn how everything works after the first one. Still a fun game to explore.

Yeah, the same elements do tend to come up. How many times a gun was fired is near-guaranteed to be relevant in any case with a shooting. Also something to do with the order of events, which will end up being different to how it seems at first.

[AlleeCat]

We open on this screen. No intro, just the Capcom logo, and then this. I already have a savegame but we're starting this from the beginning, so we're hitting New Game.

Each episode is a different case, with its own little summary picture. Almost looks like a movie poster, doesn't it? When this game got ported to iOS, the episode pictures got severely cut down, which was disappointing, but also kinda necessary. Let's get into it, shall we?

Music: Prologue
Well, right off the bat, things get a little dark... and I don't just mean the black background.

Is that really the first thing you think when you've just committed a murder? "Jeez, I gotta go frame somebody else for it, now."

Ah, yes, HIM. Wait, who is HE?


No time to answer that question, we have to go to A WAITING ROOM. Looks like it'd be pretty comfy if not for the two burly guys watching the couch.
Phoenix: (Boy, am I nervous!)
Introducing: Phoenix's inner monologue! Any text in teal and parenthesis is Phoenix talking to himself in his head. Or under his breath, it's not really explained too well. Sometimes other characters seem to respond to Nick's inner monologue, but most of the time it's generally safe in his head.
Mia: Wright!

Music: Courtroom Lounge

Spoiler: Profile - Mia Fey (click to show/hide)

Generally, every time we meet a new character, (besides Phoenix, of course) we get a Profile for them in the Court Record. We'll go over the Court Record later, but Profiles are rarely ever used in this installment of the series, so I'll point them out now, since they don't matter much.

Phoenix: Oh, h-hiya, Chief.
Don't worry, Nick. I'd probably react that way too if someone who looked like that started talking to me.
Mia: Whew, I'm glad I made it on time.
Mia: Well, I have to say Phoenix, I'm impressed!
Mia: Not everyone takes on a murder trial right off the bat like this.
Mia: It says a lot about you... and your client as well.
Wait, does it say good things or bad things about him?
Phoenix: Um... thanks.
Phoenix: Actually, it's because I owe him a favor.
A favor, huh? *wink wink nudge nudge*
Mia: A favor?
Mia: You mean you knew the defendant before this case?
Phoenix: Yes.
Phoenix: Actually, I kind of owe my current job to him.
Phoenix: He's one of the reasons I became an attorney.
Mia: Well, that's news to me!
Phoenix: I want to help him out any way I can!
Phoenix: I just... really want to help him. I owe him that much.
Phoenix Wright: Noblest of defense attorneys.

: (My life, everything, it's all over!)
Mia: ...
Mia: Isn't that your client screaming over there?
Phoenix: Yeah, that's him.
He's certainly taking being framed for murder... well...
: (Death! Despair! Ohhhh!)
: (I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna die!!!!)
Yea. Definitely taking it... good...

Spoiler: Profile - Larry Butz (click to show/hide)

Yes, his name is really Larry Butz.

Phoenix: Hey. Hey there, Larry.

I have to admit, Larry has some pretty great sprites, though.
Butz: Gimme the death sentence! I ain't afraid to die!
Phoenix: What!? What's wrong, Larry?
Ya know, his profile says "likeable," but so far, I'm not really sure...
Butz: Oh, it's all over... I... I'm finished. Finished!
Butz: I can't live in a world without her! I can't!
Butz: Who... who took her away from me, Nick? Who did this!?
Butz: Aww, Nick, ya gotta tell me! Who took my baby away!?
Phoenix: (Hmm... The person responsible for your girlfriend's death?)
Well, now I feel like a jerk for teasing him...
Phoenix: (The newspapers say it was you...)
PLOT TWIST.

Phoenix: Here's the story:
Phoenix: My first case is a fairly simple one.

Phoenix: The guy they arrested was the unlucky sap dating her:

So, yea. tl;dr: Larry is in trouble for supposedly killing his girlfriend, and asks his good buddy Phoenix Wright, Attorney at Law, to defend him in court. This would all be fine and dandy had Larry not taken into account that Phoenix literally just passed the bar last week
Phoenix: Our school had a saying: "When something smells, it's usually the Butz"
Did he just never bathe? How could you stand to be around that all the time?
Phoenix: In the 23 years I've known him, it's usually been true.
Phoenix: He has a knack for getting himself in trouble.
Phoenix: One thing I can say though: it's usually not his fault. He just has terrible luck.
Usually. Sometimes he actually murders people. He tries not to make it a habit, though.
Phoenix: But I know better than anyone, that he's a good guy at heart.
Phoenix: That and I owe him one. Which is why I took the case... to clear his name.
Phoenix: And that's just what I'm going to do!
Indeed, you are! Next time! (Seriously guys, this one alone took me like 4 hours, and I need to get some sleep.)

Also, a question: Do you guys like the transcript, or can I just start image-dumping every text screen? The latter is easier and less time-consuming for me, but will take up a helluva lot more space. Also also, Does anyone have a way of making a .gif that doesn't get compressed to crap despite the source video being hella small to begin with. The only way I found was to make the image way bigger, and even then it was still pretty compressed. (As you can see above)

[Graknorke]

The transcripts are probably for the best. Huge posts of images generally aren't very friendly to browsers, or slow internet connections.

And I think .apng might be a better format than .gif, but it's not as widely supported. Firefox does and safari does, out of the larger browsers. Chromium/Chrome can support it but need a plugin.

[birdy51]

I think you've done well. I am enjoying what you have right now. Bear in mind though that you may still develop efficiency. The first case is also where you figure out how you would like to run things, and as far as I know there isn't any manual for that!

[Glacies]

Formatting is good.

[Tawa]

I like the way you're doing it. Clean and concise. The fact that you're highlighting your commentary in pink is particularly nice, coming from somebody who has played every case in the original series at least twice aside from 3-4 and is mostly here for somebody else's take on the games.

...playing Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright...

I remember that one. That one was awesome.

[AlleeCat]

Sorry for the week+ gap between updates, but I was figuring out how to make better .gifs.

Spoiler: The process, for anyone who cares (click to show/hide)

I've been using DesMu's built in screenshot/video capture, since it's pretty much lossless and super easy to set up. Problem is, if I want to make .gifs, I have to either use Adobe Premiere, which makes me end up with those crappy huge gifs in the first update, take screenshots of each individual frame and layer them correctly in GIMP, or convert all the .avi files that DesMu records into .mp4 so that GIMP can actually use them. I've opted for the latter option.

Update is on the way, either today or tomorrow.

[Tiruin]

The transcripts are probably for the best. Huge posts of images generally aren't very friendly to browsers, or slow internet connections.

This. You can also put a lot of ideas in words (and I like the humor you present in brevity ) compared to pictures in this context.

...And I'm biased on the orange part. Because gifs take forever to load here. (ok...weeks [ok...fifteen minutes tops {more like minutes, but anyway.}])