Space Attorney

Space Attorney has a brief description that doesn’t tell you much about it on purpose. Well, you obviously get that it was inspired by the Ace Attorney series, which I haven’t played, but heard enough about to decide it would be a fun game to play. I certainly didn’t regret this decision.

Storyline



Something interesting about the five Swap in the middle with you games I’ve played: you would expect some truly radical changes to occur as one developer hands over to another, yet 3 of them managed to stay reasonably consistent. August and the Abyss certainly had a radical, and a pretty well-executed plot twist, but it’s nothing when compared to just how much Space Attorney changes in every single way once the initial developer, Superstroke, hands over to Riderx40. In fact, to say much more about that second half would likely spoil all the funniest parts: I suppose I should just pique your interest and say that it includes a medal-awarding sequence straight out of the original Star Wars, complete with the music.

Before that, though, you are defence attorney named Eris, who helps the dead souls fare better in the cosmic court and avoid being plunged to Hell. You have a colleague named Demeter, as well as an antagonist in the form of a new prosecution attorney whom you can name personally. (I chose the name Romine, in reference to a recently concluded legal case in our shared industry.) In the two cases you’re involved in, he lists the charges in court, and you decide whether to plead guilty or not guilty, and then argue either for freedom or for leniency through dialogue choices. The game opens with a word on how your choices affect the story, only to quickly admit branching storylines are largely impossible in a two-week game, and then to contradict it again in the image above. I think that while the overall story will continue either way, losing the two court cases you are presented with in the first half of the game is entirely possible, before the second half renders it moot.

As it is, however, the game’s first part has that nice blend of both silly humour and darker themes that’s a little reminiscent of The Maid of Fairewell Heights, though while that game was mainly silly, but shot through with notably dark patches here and there, the ratio is inverted here. It begins seriously, the suspects are wholly believable, and the questions you can ask are much like a real court. After you finish the first case, there’s also a dream attempting to detail Eris’ tiredness of his job and struggle to hold onto his purpose. That said, the game literally has the “Consult Brain” function, which gives you somewhat relevant information, along with implications your character doesn’t actually do that all that much, instead relying on his Attorney Jacket powers somehow. In one scene, his speech is literally slurred until he remembers to put it back on. Meanwhile, Romine has a fedora, which he regularly tips in response to new counter-arguments, though he seems less mentally reliant on that. And of course, asking to consult evidence case file (or whatever that was) in a case about supposedly stolen scrap metal gives you this.



An encyclopedia entry (Wikipedia copy-paste?) which hilariously goes on for several screens.

Gameplay

Other then the dialogue and investigation process above, this event happens in the game too:





Due to this rushed nature, the battle itself is unbalanced and doesn’t offer much challenge, even if the 35HP looks scary initially. After all, Romine has the same health, and you’re given a very good range of various legal terms to use as offensive and defensive moves. I accidentally used a healing one at the very start, but then I probably managed to get a paralyzing one in, since Romine hasn’t made a move afterwards. Then, of course, Superstroke handed the game over and its second half began, which features some on-map movement, along with other (mostly non-interactive) things.

Aesthetics (art, design and sound)



The above is one image from the second half of Space Attorney, where the game bursts into full colour, using what was apparently assets from Konami and SNK games (along with some recoloured rm2k RTP) to create some wild sequences. Before that, the game has cool black-and-white images of the kind you’ve already seen above. Notably, some of them are animated, too: Dharma, for instance, has the animated mariner’s wheel always turning behind it, which you can barely make out in the screenshots above. There are also animations of a gavel, complete with a sound, Romine’s hat tips, and other such details.

Conclusion



Being the stickler for detail, I’m not sure if I can legitimately give the game which includes this at the point when it switches over from one developer to another more than its current score. Or indeed, a game which was made by “developors” according to its credits page, and whose latter half often has ~2 typos on every screen as poor Riderx40 clearly rushed as hard as he could to complete the thing. Nevertheless, I can still recommend you the game for the wild fun it is.