(not sure if reviews are visible to the public but in case it is, this does contain spoilers)

I've not actually delved much into visual novels at all, i've joined itch.io recently and saw this and gave it a shot.

It's honestly come out to be not only a great VN but my most favorite Itch.io game as of current. there's a lot to bring up which I feel works in the game.

as preface, I've not played ace attorney / danganropa which I believe this game takes inspiration from, I don't know how "original" this game is in comparison to those but I do naturally believe for the narrative and plot to be original if nothing else. I also came in to it without reading much of the description to keep my experience blind to what i was getting into.

the first chapter is a great introduction into the general mechanics of the world at play here, and also the mechanics of the game, and it's what hooked me to complete the following two which are also unique in their own ways. every murder had a twist to it that kept the mystery on fire and acted as a constant motivator to continue onward with the narrative. the 2nd and 3rd chapter started to introduce developments with the characters present which I felt helped skew the moral and logical assumptions a player may make on a character at the time, which could affect their choices during the assertion / debate phases.  i remember sitting there for a while genuinely trying to figure out what the flaw in the 4th image clue of the 3rd chapter (if you know you know) and the fact that the real answer is that there wasn't any and exposed a major secret of a character was an actual surprise, and adds so much to the ending of that chapter, the fact it was brought up in the midst of a murder too made it so unexpected.

with tropes being overplayed, it gets harder to write characters or plot points that the end player can't predict. compare movies from the early 2000s with now for example, you'll see tropes that are extremely obvious in older movies whilst newer ones try and employ techniques to obscure your rational, this game kind of does the same thing funnily enough. on the second chapter i was trying to figure out ahead of time how the potential thief could've escaped and the game keeps hammering on about the wall in a subtle but relevant way that basically has your mind say "it'd be illogical for someone to try and scale the wall" by default, but piecing hints together and you figure out it isn't so white and black.

the game also kind of punishes thinking ahead. i'm not sure if the dev intended this but the clues are so vague that you might be thinking of something that actually DID happen ahead of time but you still can't prove it. this isn't a bad thing though, it's actually extremely well-done and feeds into the whole point of you needing to actually PROVE someone of being guilty instead of trying to make up a story against them by linking pieces of evidence which aren't relevant yet. I also like how insight might also change what the alibi for a character is which further encourages the usage of that mechanic. I remember being stuck on a hint because i knew what to use but the alibi didn't actually make the clue fit in yet, which encouraged me to use the mechanic more which indeed made some alibis stand out as more flawed. in the 3rd act, when the humming bird asks why the lemming might've been motivated to have the gecko take their place, I was CERTAIN it was because of the blackmail note which i thought the gecko wrote, but I was so far from the truth. I tried to piece the murder together ahead of time which put me in a false sense of belief that I was correct, when I didn't even consider other evidence. the fact that it was actually the 3rd picture had me so surprised but then thinking back to the lemming and how OTHER people talk about them, it would've actually added up. the gecko even insinuates the persona of the character as being extremely emotional, literally HINTING towards you the cause of the switch. I loved the revelation I had at that moment, which is something the game had a few times.

artistically, I was first not really feeling it, but the style grew a charm by the second and third act, and it's actually something i'd like to see maintained for this game. i also like the character designs for some of the later characters like the chicken character being a literal headless chicken, and the cyborg in the third act. it really hammers on the weirdness of the world and I'd love to see how else the dev explores that.

my only "gripe" (it's minor if anything) with the game is the 8 hour timer, I'm not actually sure how this works? RJ never elaborates on what happens when it hits 0 and i've never had it hit 0 before, so i'm lost on its function. is it scripted? i'm assuming everyone loses if it hits 0 which actaully introduces a minor problem of players being unable to learn about characters out of fear that they might run out of time if they delve into details. I remember skipping dialogue about character profiles from other characters purely out of fear that the time might run out if I did that. during chapter 3, I actually finished it with around 17 minutes remaining, despite skipping all the dialogue characters would have if you showed them profiles of the other characters. if it's scripted then i have 0 problem with this. If it's a real-time 8 hour timer then I'm also fine with this, my problem comes with not knowing which one it is, though it should probably be obvious to be honest, i'll just assume it's real time since i do spend a good amount of hours on each chapter.

i've wanted to wait a few days before writing this so I prevent my comments from being extremely biased, same for games i don't necessarily like, and i can still return and say that I've loved every aspect of this game, I can't think of anything i would've disliked.

The last Dev post was 20-23 days ago so it looks like you're still working on this, I really hope you get to pursue this game to the ends of your desires, to take it as far as you want it to go, because you've really got something really well made here, it's extremely interesting and the narrative works so well with the game as well, i'm hooked!

thank you for putting your work out here, it's been a privilege to play your work, yours and those of others too.