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There's a whole form of playground sign language in Japanese using sounds and gestures to translate to syllables. The one that most immediately comes to mind is clapping one's hands, "pan"; holding up two fingers for "tsu"; making a circle, "maru"; and pretending to look at something in the distance, "mie". That runs together into a sentence that means "Your underwear is showing." Seen that one in two different contexts. There's also a mini-language using the pronunciations of numbers to spell words. Japanese has few enough syllables (and enough different ways to pronounce numbers) that it's possible to do all sorts of things. But yes, the court system in this game, and the court systems in the wider series, are very antagonistic toward defendants. I don't want to give too much detail, since that would be leading the witness - er, player - but I'm reminded of a very, very old Doctor Who episode where one of the characters was subjected to a "guilty until proven innocent" court system. He was found unconscious at a murder scene, and so was presumed to have been the murderer. Even when the actual murderer was tricked into confessing in court, and was then assassinated by an unseen individual before he could testify, the court held the defendant until he could prove that he wasn't the one who'd hired the killer. Logic was pretty flimsy in early Doctor Who, but that episode really stands out.
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Jul 17, 2022 15:14
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| # ¿ May 11, 2024 18:16 |
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That's just one finger. And it's not the one Phoenix points with.
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Jul 18, 2022 01:46
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That, and the pacing is going to be pretty sad for you if you stop to do polls for every testimony. Audience speculation about where the contradictions are can be fun, but stopping at every choice to take votes is going to establish a slower pace than you might be comfortable with.
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Jul 19, 2022 17:45
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I don't think that kind of conflict of interest applies to the defense - after all, you're allowed to defend yourself, which seems like the biggest possible conflict there could be. If the defendant approves them, and they're qualified, it's hard to imagine anyone in the judicial system objecting to it. It definitely exists for most of the other courtroom positions, though, and is at least a potential disqualifying factor for jurors, in universes where juries exist.
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Aug 6, 2022 03:36
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As I understand it, this case was originally developed and scripted to be the game's first case, so while it lacks the tutorial elements, it's still geared toward a first-time player making mistakes (or seeing what they can get away with). The first case was added later, likely to give Mia some introduction so the audience would care more about her, and also presumably to shift the tutorial into a shorter part of the story. I don't have a handy source to cite for that, though, particularly one that wouldn't spoil anything else about the game.
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Aug 25, 2022 04:40
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Dirk the Average posted:Is it just me, or is calling something a run-through in a case about a murder victim being stabbed to death somewhat concerning? I'm going to say that's probably just you, or one of the many unfortunate coincidences in the English language. On one hand, it makes for a nice variety of puns. On the other hand, a perfectly cogent term for a rehearsal (an event where the performers "run through" the scene they're going to perform) sounds like a different action altogether. You either accept things like this, or 日本語を習ったら日本のバージョンを読めばいい。
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Oct 22, 2022 20:31
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Presumably, since the Steel Samurai photo was #2, the photo of Cody would have been #1 and would have been taken earlier.
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Dec 5, 2022 02:46
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DKII posted:You know, I keep trying just in case, but it just never seems to go anywhere. Must be a running joke or something. I think starting a series with as much future history as this one has must be something like trying to get into any other long-running, popular series in the Internet age, wanting to share your experience with people who've seen and done it all, and discovering that the community will use you as a means to share the things that make you not yet part of it, often (apparently) oblivious to why you're not enjoying all the in-jokes. If you tell people you've just discovered this charming little game called Undertale, they'll tell you you're gonna have a bad time, offer you some spaghetti, and start humming Megalovania. Mention that you're trying to get into Doctor Who chronologically, and it's a toss-up whether they'll ask you to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow for a jelly baby or go straight to the "wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey" quotes. Bring up that interesting Jojo series that looks like they're going to be introducing vampires, and if any one of your friends doesn't immediately shout "ZA WARUDO!", please introduce me to them, because I need a new group of friends. Over time, any series develops enough self-awareness to pick up on those community jokes about itself and integrate them in some way, bringing the whole thing full circle (another Doctor Who joke, or just coincidence?) and making those jokes indistinguishable from the series proper, blurring the distinction even further for people who may want to encourage new fans, but don't seem to know how. It's one of those consummately human things that I hate, and the reason I've learned to finish doing anything before I let anyone know I've started it. That said, I've been enjoying reading this, I appreciate the extra effort to show the outcomes you miss in a normal playthrough, and I don't comment much for fear of becoming the thing I've spent most of this post complaining about.
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Dec 19, 2022 11:44
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NeoRonTheNeuron posted:Remember, the initial audience for the game was Japanese, so the bottom half of a "2" might not be so obvious to them. Japanese people use Arabic numerals frequently enough that this isn't likely to be a concern. Honestly, I think the issue is that because this is a visual novel, and so much of the story is straightforward, there wouldn't be much gameplay left if the obvious things like this weren't made interactive. There's always a point when any sensible person would be able to collect all of the facts and arrive at an answer that's borne out by the available evidence, but if the game reaches that point, then it's no longer a game. Hence the "please point out to the court which of these shapes goes into the round hole" busywork.
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Jan 4, 2023 23:29
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raifield posted:This part of the case always seemed a bit strange to me. Why couldn't they have just eaten the steaks and tossed the bones in the incinerator? There being nothing on the plates doesn't actually prove anything. It's all about doubt. Why would they eat the steaks and then throw the bones in the incinerator?
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Jan 25, 2023 03:52
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DKII posted:My mouse has been randomly double-clicking when I press down lately, probably time to replace it after too many years. I would've thought SA wouldn't let a double-post through like that, though. Mine's started doing that again, also recently, despite the program I downloaded to correct the problem the first time it happened years ago. I'm pretty sure it's Windows updates, strange as that may sound. I continue to be surprised at how many of the choices this late in the game don't carry penalties, especially when the answers are obvious.
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Jan 31, 2023 13:26
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DKII posted:Now that'd be a twist, our client from the first episode turning out to be the killer in the finale. It's a neat idea from a fictional perspective, but this isn't out of the question in real life, either. I've been called for jury duty precisely twice in my life (at least, in instances when I still lived in the jurisdiction that called me), and between those two cases, this is almost precisely what happened. The victim in the attempted murder case where I was a juror was then the defendant in a murder case a few years later. It presents an interesting legal issue, actually, that might offer a bit more insight into some of those little-known aspects of the judicial system. To put it as briefly as I can, there's a process called "voir dire" for jury selection, where more than the required number of potential jurors are gathered for a trial, and the lawyers for each side interrogate the candidates and dismiss some of them based on whether they think those people would be biased unfavorably. Some dubious legal advice you might find online may offer ways to guarantee your dismissal, and I don't recommend following any of it, but one juror in the first case got dismissed by saying "I know he done it, just by looking at him." The first case was a slightly smaller affair than you might expect for attempted murder. I just missed the twelve juror cutoff, but they retained me as an alternate juror thirteen, in case one of the main twelve became unable to serve. Indeed, one juror failed to show up on the second day, so I was promoted. The lead prosecutor for the case got sick after the first day and handed the case over to her assistant, so the case probably wasn't presented as well as it could have been, and it ended with a hung jury. That's all the information that's public about the jury deliberations - they put us in a closed room with no recording devices to deliberate, ordered meals for us as needed, and told us that what went on in that room was as confidential as we wanted it to be. We were allowed, but not compelled, to discuss it after the trial. The second case I was called for was a big one that had been in all the local newspapers, so it was a tough job finding people who didn't already know details that might prejudice them. I was one of the rarities who didn't read the newspaper, so I hadn't heard of the case at all. However, like I said, I knew the defendant from the prior case, so I disclosed that in the paperwork. The voir dire went on for more than a day, as they called each juror into the courtroom individually to interrogate them, probably to avoid spillage of information and tainting more potential jurors. When they finally got to me, they asked about my participation in the earlier trial, including what my vote on the jury had been. When I asked the judge whether I was required to answer the question, he said that he'd never encountered that issue in all his years on the bench. He ruled that I didn't have to answer it, so I didn't. The conclusion of the story is sadly anticlimactic - while they didn't dismiss me that day, I was tied up long enough to miss the hours for the local walk-in clinics, and I was sick enough the next day to get a medical dismissal. At least, that's what I assume happened. I also remembered some more prejudicial information from the first trial that I disclosed in my note asking for a medical dismissal, so that may have been a factor. In any case, while there's not usually as much flash or excitement in real courtrooms as in fictional ones, the process is still pretty interesting. It just tends to be far more interesting in retrospective summaries than actually sitting through it.
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Mar 25, 2023 16:13
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The way this world has been set up, either answer is equally plausible.
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Jul 29, 2023 02:08
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| # ¿ May 11, 2024 18:16 |
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Evidence law in this game is as loose as the rest of the law in this game. In the real world, even if Phoenix weren't allowed to inspect the DL-6 evidence himself, he would have a very solid case for prosecutorial misconduct when the available evidence didn't match the police record, and von Karma was known to have been in the evidence room tampering with it. Obviously, I'm not a lawyer, but I know that the prosecution is required to disclose potentially exculpatory evidence, and surely some kind of adverse inference applies - if the defense can show that the evidence existed and that the prosecution destroyed it, and can make a viable claim about what it would have shown, the court can accept the claim as fact by virtue of the prosecution's misconduct - in other words, if the evidence weren't against them, why would they have destroyed it? Accusing someone of a crime seems to be about all it takes for the police and prosecutors to arrest someone and take their guilt as a matter of fact in this world, and a supportable accusation against someone seems to be a condition of any Not Guilty verdict. So the idea of "You must submit the bullet inside you as evidence, or the accusation against you will stand" seems to be perfectly in line with this game's legal theory.
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Aug 1, 2023 17:14
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