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keltenaMy brother and I recently finished the first Great Ace Attorney game. It was generally delightful! The characters and writing are great (aside from the not-very-special episode about wacky domestic violence), the gameplay is fun and a definite step up from Dual Destinies imo, and the visuals and music are fantastic. I also liked the more free-form structure of the episodes, once I got over my surprise; Case 5 could really have used an extra day to make it drag less, but the pacing from Case 1 through the opening of Case 4 was really effective.
It is very obviously the first part of a series, not a self-contained story – the current state of the overarching plot is an entire coatrack of bare hooks – but since we're playing in compilation form, that's not a problem. We've spent a couple hours over the past few days hashing out our best guesses at how it all fits together. What we've got so far:
There's obviously an international government conspiracy behind everything. We don't know the exact nature of it, but we know Chief Justice Damon Gant and Minister of Justice Hell are involved if not at the top of it. Presumably the four names in the intercepted telegram are their agents in the field: we already knew Kazuma's "mission" was part of this, Gregson is wrapped up in top-secret government work, and the game opened with John Wilson getting murdered for still-unknown reasons by an obvious undercover assassin with government ties. Not sure yet who "A. Shin" is—could be Japanese, could be someone with a name like Sheen or Sim or something?
The whole game has hammered hard on the "but prosecuting our new ally's citizens would be political suicide" angle, so that seems like the most likely motive—the details of a major crime (or crimes) were covered up, an innocent scapegoat was probably executed for it, and both British and Japanese law enforcement have been doing their level best to keep it all secret.
Since Wilson seems to have been assassinated with both governments' approval, he must have gone rogue at some point. We don't know exactly what he was doing for them in the first place, but presumably either medical care or research (maybe related to poisons, since the first case highlights that as a possibility?). And given that Iris's father has apparently been out of the country for almost a decade, it seems strange that Mikotoba was able to contact him normally just a few years ago anyway—we think it's more likely that he reached out for help while on the run, and "I invited him to come teach at Yuumei" is a cover story for his presence. (Theoretically, it's possible that even their prior history is just part of the cover story—I doubt anyone would be the wiser if Mikotoba passed someone else off as his British friend—but that seems less plausible.) Presumably Jezaille Brett, IF THAT IS EVEN HER REAL NAME*, was sent after him because he knew too much; possibly also because he was working against them in a more active way, but either would be sufficient reason.
* It is absolutely not her real name. (Actually, it's possible she's "A. Shin"; it would make sense for her to be on that list.)
If Mikotoba was sheltering a friend from the government for three years, he probably isn't a big fan of whatever they're up to, especially not after the whole murder thing. But the day after the murder, he was adamant that Kazuma's trip to Great Britain must proceed as planned. This makes me wonder if Kazuma was sent to secretly work against or gather intel on the their operations or something?
The journal entries Iris wrote The Hound of the Baskervilles from must be at least a decade old, and presumably Sholmes is keeping it under locks because it's related somehow to the whole conspiracy thing, so we're guessing that Wilson got involved with all this around a decade ago and left the country on classified government business. If the story is in some way about that, it would explain why Sholmes can't let it get out—even if it's completely innocuous to a layperson, it would probably reveal to anyone aware of the context that Sholmes knows about it too, not just Wilson. We're assuming Wilson and Sholmes managed to pass Sholmes off as an uninvolved bystander to protect him and Iris, as well as to allow Sholmes to keep an eye on things without arousing government suspicion. (Being a famously nosy and eccentric amateur detective is a great alibi for that kind of thing!) Since Susato knew Wilson, she might well have learned the story's title from him directly, or from her father. She's already a big Sholmes fan when we meet her, so she must have known the author's name before Dr. Wilson was murdered; presumably she either asked if he was the same John H. Wilson or was introduced to the stories through him.
Van Zieks is clearly not in on any of this. But before he retired 5 years ago, someone was using his reputation as cover to extrajudicially execute anyone he couldn't handle for them through legal means. Quite possibly it started as a lucky coincidence: van Zieks prosecuted multiple high profile defendants they needed silenced one way or another, the ones who escaped were quietly assassinated, and when it sparked superstition about van Zieks they realized it was a convenient cover for them.
(...You know, wasn't The Hound of the Baskervilles also about someone passing off their murders as a spooky curse? IIRC we've seen an excerpt from the story that includes the dog, so it's probably not directly related in-universe unless Wilson made a habit of journaling about state secrets in elaborate animal metaphor—which, admittedly, sounds exactly like something Sholmes would do—but it occurred to me while typing.)
Most likely this is related to why van Zieks retired—he found out something about what was going on. Probably not everything, unless he's done a very good job of hiding it, but enough to seriously shake him. Given van Zieks' own vague comments on his tragic backstory, presumably the one (1) other Japanese man he's ever known was a key part of how this went down. Not sure yet who said Japanese man was. If, to avoid complicating the plot with an additional Unknown Japanese Person X, we assume it's someone we know, then the only character it could plausibly be is Mikotoba. That seems entirely possible (we know he spent time in Great Britain, after all), but we don't have much to go on yet.
We're very proud to have solved the entire plot and can't wait to be proved hilariously wrong.
It is very obviously the first part of a series, not a self-contained story – the current state of the overarching plot is an entire coatrack of bare hooks – but since we're playing in compilation form, that's not a problem. We've spent a couple hours over the past few days hashing out our best guesses at how it all fits together. What we've got so far:
There's obviously an international government conspiracy behind everything. We don't know the exact nature of it, but we know Chief Justice Damon Gant and Minister of Justice Hell are involved if not at the top of it. Presumably the four names in the intercepted telegram are their agents in the field: we already knew Kazuma's "mission" was part of this, Gregson is wrapped up in top-secret government work, and the game opened with John Wilson getting murdered for still-unknown reasons by an obvious undercover assassin with government ties. Not sure yet who "A. Shin" is—could be Japanese, could be someone with a name like Sheen or Sim or something?
The whole game has hammered hard on the "but prosecuting our new ally's citizens would be political suicide" angle, so that seems like the most likely motive—the details of a major crime (or crimes) were covered up, an innocent scapegoat was probably executed for it, and both British and Japanese law enforcement have been doing their level best to keep it all secret.
Since Wilson seems to have been assassinated with both governments' approval, he must have gone rogue at some point. We don't know exactly what he was doing for them in the first place, but presumably either medical care or research (maybe related to poisons, since the first case highlights that as a possibility?). And given that Iris's father has apparently been out of the country for almost a decade, it seems strange that Mikotoba was able to contact him normally just a few years ago anyway—we think it's more likely that he reached out for help while on the run, and "I invited him to come teach at Yuumei" is a cover story for his presence. (Theoretically, it's possible that even their prior history is just part of the cover story—I doubt anyone would be the wiser if Mikotoba passed someone else off as his British friend—but that seems less plausible.) Presumably Jezaille Brett, IF THAT IS EVEN HER REAL NAME*, was sent after him because he knew too much; possibly also because he was working against them in a more active way, but either would be sufficient reason.
* It is absolutely not her real name. (Actually, it's possible she's "A. Shin"; it would make sense for her to be on that list.)
If Mikotoba was sheltering a friend from the government for three years, he probably isn't a big fan of whatever they're up to, especially not after the whole murder thing. But the day after the murder, he was adamant that Kazuma's trip to Great Britain must proceed as planned. This makes me wonder if Kazuma was sent to secretly work against or gather intel on the their operations or something?
The journal entries Iris wrote The Hound of the Baskervilles from must be at least a decade old, and presumably Sholmes is keeping it under locks because it's related somehow to the whole conspiracy thing, so we're guessing that Wilson got involved with all this around a decade ago and left the country on classified government business. If the story is in some way about that, it would explain why Sholmes can't let it get out—even if it's completely innocuous to a layperson, it would probably reveal to anyone aware of the context that Sholmes knows about it too, not just Wilson. We're assuming Wilson and Sholmes managed to pass Sholmes off as an uninvolved bystander to protect him and Iris, as well as to allow Sholmes to keep an eye on things without arousing government suspicion. (Being a famously nosy and eccentric amateur detective is a great alibi for that kind of thing!) Since Susato knew Wilson, she might well have learned the story's title from him directly, or from her father. She's already a big Sholmes fan when we meet her, so she must have known the author's name before Dr. Wilson was murdered; presumably she either asked if he was the same John H. Wilson or was introduced to the stories through him.
Van Zieks is clearly not in on any of this. But before he retired 5 years ago, someone was using his reputation as cover to extrajudicially execute anyone he couldn't handle for them through legal means. Quite possibly it started as a lucky coincidence: van Zieks prosecuted multiple high profile defendants they needed silenced one way or another, the ones who escaped were quietly assassinated, and when it sparked superstition about van Zieks they realized it was a convenient cover for them.
(...You know, wasn't The Hound of the Baskervilles also about someone passing off their murders as a spooky curse? IIRC we've seen an excerpt from the story that includes the dog, so it's probably not directly related in-universe unless Wilson made a habit of journaling about state secrets in elaborate animal metaphor—which, admittedly, sounds exactly like something Sholmes would do—but it occurred to me while typing.)
Most likely this is related to why van Zieks retired—he found out something about what was going on. Probably not everything, unless he's done a very good job of hiding it, but enough to seriously shake him. Given van Zieks' own vague comments on his tragic backstory, presumably the one (1) other Japanese man he's ever known was a key part of how this went down. Not sure yet who said Japanese man was. If, to avoid complicating the plot with an additional Unknown Japanese Person X, we assume it's someone we know, then the only character it could plausibly be is Mikotoba. That seems entirely possible (we know he spent time in Great Britain, after all), but we don't have much to go on yet.
We're very proud to have solved the entire plot and can't wait to be proved hilariously wrong.
