I understand he’s an attorney, but what’s the basis of the game? Do you play as him and have to make decisions for prosecuting? Select questions for witnesses? I’m intrigued.
From what I understand of the game you tend to get a little preview of the crime. phoenix does some investigative work (along with a coworker/friend) which involves talking to witnesses and gathering evidence.
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Then you usually go to trial, where you have a chance to cross-examine the witnesses, try to catch them in lies by asking questions and presenting evidence, all while avoiding being steamrolled by the prosecution and judge.*
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Sometimes between trials you go back out and collect more interviews/evidence before returning to court. If you push the wrong line of questioning or present the wrong evidence too many times then you lose the case and your client is convicted.
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There is more to it going on in the background, but these are the basic mechanics iirc
*I say steamrolled because the game series was made in Japan and based loosely off their legal system (although iirc correctly the creator stated he had never bothered learning about the law before creating it). Reason for mentioning this is that the in-game trials are often a bit unorthodox, and do seem to lay some credence to the Japanese legal system being horribly bias on the side of the prosecution.
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What this means for gameplay is you'll see the prosecution, judge, witnesses, and even Phoenix (Player Character) doing things you would never expect them to get away with in a real court.
It's just like @xvarnah said.
The thing that makes the game hard is that when you're cross examining a person, you have to find contradictions in their statements and prove they're lying through evidence, but the evidence you have to prove they are lying isnt always obvious.
When you have evidence, the game gives you a very tiny description of the item. Those descriptions have very minute details that are the key to catching contradictions.
You have to pay attention to all the little details and quirks of the one you are questioning.
Shit can get very hard very fast
Quirky is definitely a good word for it haha. Especially in some of the character names and in the storylines.
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But it should keep you on your toes.
You'll encounter some of the higher ranked cases where the prosecutor will literally tell the judge:
>"Nope, you're not making that decision"
>and the judge is just "I'm not?"
>"Nope."
>"Oh okay then."
And you have to try and find a new way forward
.
Then you usually go to trial, where you have a chance to cross-examine the witnesses, try to catch them in lies by asking questions and presenting evidence, all while avoiding being steamrolled by the prosecution and judge.*
.
Sometimes between trials you go back out and collect more interviews/evidence before returning to court. If you push the wrong line of questioning or present the wrong evidence too many times then you lose the case and your client is convicted.
.
There is more to it going on in the background, but these are the basic mechanics iirc
.
What this means for gameplay is you'll see the prosecution, judge, witnesses, and even Phoenix (Player Character) doing things you would never expect them to get away with in a real court.
The thing that makes the game hard is that when you're cross examining a person, you have to find contradictions in their statements and prove they're lying through evidence, but the evidence you have to prove they are lying isnt always obvious.
When you have evidence, the game gives you a very tiny description of the item. Those descriptions have very minute details that are the key to catching contradictions.
You have to pay attention to all the little details and quirks of the one you are questioning.
Shit can get very hard very fast
.
But it should keep you on your toes.
You'll encounter some of the higher ranked cases where the prosecutor will literally tell the judge:
>"Nope, you're not making that decision"
>and the judge is just "I'm not?"
>"Nope."
>"Oh okay then."
And you have to try and find a new way forward