Ah, yes. My continued “play of the Devil” propaganda posting.
I want to put a disclaimer at the beginning here for the “Ace Attorney 5” (AA5) fans in the chat: I don’t hate AA5. I have a lot of qualms in AA6 in particular, but I think with time, I’ve come to terms with some of the aspects I disliked in AA5 and ultimately decided that it’s not as bad as I initially thought.
However, you and I both know that the way they handled the “dark age of the law” concept in AA5 could’ve been handled so much better. It’s like a mystical concept that is nothing more than a jester in a wolf’s costume, dancing around like it means anything more than it does because what do you mean it’s the dark age of the law now? HOW is this different from previous games?
But, I digress. I will try not to spoil any of the events in of the Devil for those interested in checking the game out after reading this, however, I will spoil many events of the Ace Attorney series as a whole, as it’s hard to talk about the plot of the 5th game without understanding the plot of every game prior, including and not limited to Ace Attorney 1 through 5 and Ace Attorney Investigations 1 and 2. If you haven’t played any of these games and want to remain oblivious, I suggest skipping this post.
What is Of the Devil?
Let’s start simple. I’m sure if you’re coming here as an Ace Attorney fan, you might not even know what of the Devil is (or maybe you’re more locked in than me). Of the Devil (also stylistically written “of the Devil”) is an up and coming visual novel, point-and-click adventure game in a similar vein to Ace Attorney, where you play as a defense lawyer trying to get your clients acquitted. It’s set 60 years in the future, where all crimes are recorded and the culprit is easily found and jailed accordingly.
Of course, when all culprits are easily caught, what purpose does a defense lawyer serve? When a string of murders committed with an old-fashioned pistol occurs, the first serial killer in generations is born named the Heartbreak Killer. No one knows how to handle this information, and fear is elevated in the public. The player, playing as the killer defense attorney Morgan, must acquit a man accused of the murder of his girlfriend and the accusation of being the Heartbreak Killer.
There’s only two episodes out as of this post, with a third episode releasing on December 18th, 2025, so it’s a great time to get into the series right now, if you’re interested (and if you’re an Ace Attorney fan, you should be interested). The entire first episode, Episode 0, is free to play right now. So, what are you doing here? Get playing!
Of the Devil’s Dark Age of the Law
Now, of course, in such a setting, it’s easy to see how law and legal proceedings have entered a “dark age” so to say. Out of obligation, an individual’s right to a lawyer still exists, though most defense attorneys in this world don’t really find defending their clients—fighting tooth and nail for their acquittal—fully necessary. Many simple trials in court are overseen by android judges and are quick to come to a verdict.
In many fashions, this future of court proceedings seems very realistic. Nth Circle Studios does a phenomenal job crafting a futuristic world that doesn’t feel far off from our own, and in many ways, expresses the high stake nature of defending a client in such a world.
One of the ways such high stakes are expressed in of the Devil is through the gambling mechanics of the game. For starters, there’s many opportunities in the game to garner credibility, visually expressed through “credits” you achieve through various conversations, articles, and exploration. This credit system functions as a point system, and if you don’t have enough points by the time trial rolls around, you won’t be able to properly acquit your client.
You can lose credits if you make the wrong push in a statement or gamble on the wrong points to bring up in a cross examination, thus creating a situation where you’re gambling your credibility as a lawyer. Ante up on a point you think is right, and it ends up being wrong, and you could lose up to 10 points of credibility, and no longer be able to continue the trial. This mechanic is crucial to the game, occurring in various manners throughout the entire game, and expresses the “dark age of the law” that the world in of the Devil experiences.
On top of this, the story’s plot is crucial to of the Devil’s “dark age of the law” as well, contextualizing the gambling mechanic of the game and the general air of corruption in the legal system. Like I said above, of the Devil’s story surrounds a concept of a corrupt legal system, in which having a lawyer virtually doesn’t matter because your every waking moment is recorded, or accessible by a camera in some capacity. Not only that, but even the weaponry purchasable in such a state is tagged and can be easily connected to the culprit when shot. This dystopian society claims that it helps keep the streets safe by being able to watch a crime happen and convict the correct criminal nine times out of ten, but what happens ten percent of the time when a person is convicted of a crime they didn’t commit?
That’s the question that of the Devil seeks to answer. It’s ingrained in every question of morality in the game, every conversation you have, and the game fundamentally wouldn’t make sense if this corrupt system was not put into place.
Comparatively, “Ace Attorney 5: Dual Destinies” barely creates a realistic or high stakes world for such a “dark age of the law.”
AA5’s Dark Age of the Law
Over the course of AA5, players are introduced to the idea of the world of Ace Attorney being in the throes of a “dark age of the law.” Supposedly, the “dark age” started after Phoenix Wright presented fabricated evidence to the court at the beginning of the seven year gap, losing his badge in the process.
This “dark age of the law” consisted of the time period of 2020 to 2027, where lawyers and prosecutors no longer cared about finding the “truth” of the crime committed, and rather sought out winning by any means necessary, which included fabricating evidence and resulted in many false charges.
The Flaws of AA5’s Dark Age of the Law
If you’ve ever played AA5, hell, if you’ve ever played the trilogy, you should know exactly what I’m about to say. How is the period after Phoenix lost his badge considered a “dark age” when winning by any means necessary was Von Karma’s entire shtick in the first Ace Attorney game?
I cannot stress this enough: the “dark age of the law” that AA5 claims to have begun at the beginning of the seven year gap—after Simon Blackquill was falsely proven guilty of murdering Metis Cykes—has been the state of affairs in the Ace Attorney world for many, many years prior to this event.
Hell, if you’ve played the Ace Attorney Investigations duology, you should be more than aware of the fact that the “dark age of the law” where trials only occur for three days and lawyers are dedicated to winning by any means necessary started after the events of IS-7! Which is bonkers to me because Ace Attorney Investigations was written before AA5, and written by the same writer! Why did that writer essentially retcon his own writing only two years after writing it? I truly don’t think we’ll ever fully understand.
By creating this new “dark age of the law,” the plot of AA5 manages to make its own “dark age” essentially pointless. It makes everything we know about the Ace Attorney judicial system up until this point unnecessary, creating Phoenix this messiah of justice when in actuality, Phoenix Wright was a defense attorney for a measly three years. What does this “dark age” matter if the judicial system has been like this canonically for 20 years up until this point? How did Blaise Debeste, or whatever his name is in the official English release, gain control of the Prosecutorial Committee? How did Von Karma manage to have a 40 year reign of perfectly won cases? How did Gant manage to become the Chief of Police?
Do you think they did it legally? NO! Then what the F!CK is AA5 talking about when it claims that the “dark age” only began after UR-1? (censoring because I’m not sure if Substack likes swear words). And the worst part? You still have to understand the plot of Ace Attorney 1-4 to understand how we got here, which is exactly what the developers of AA5 wanted to avoid!
I cannot stress this enough: the insistence on calling the seven year gap in AA5 the “dark age of the law” not only makes the plot of AA5 annoyingly stupid, but retcons the existence of a “dark age” prior to AA5. If you’ve played any of the previous Ace Attorney games before AA5, the entire plot of AA5’s “dark age” is nothing more than a long-winded, overused joke. Which, frankly, I don’t think is very fair to the plot of AA5! The plot of AA5 is such a unique story with such interesting characters that have such intense backstories on par with the main trilogy cast. It’s a story that hasn’t really been appreciated by the fandom in the last few years. Yet, it is so incredibly unfortunate that its story is bogged down by annoying attempts to make AA5 a game you can play separate from the rest of the series.
Should You Play Of the Devil?
Yes, plain and simple, regardless of who you are, but especially if you’re an Ace Attorney fan. If you liked AA5 and what it was trying to convey with the “dark age of the law” and a corrupt legal system, I definitely think you should give of the Devil a chance. I think it handles the corruption much better than AA5, and makes it much more integral to the plot of the game. If you disliked AA5 or found the “dark age” annoying, then obviously try of the Devil out.
I think it’s definitely worth trying out the free case to see what it’s about, especially if you are interested in the game but want to wait until it’s fully released. It gives a great insight into how the game will play going forward, and leaves enough room for you to question how the plot will progress from that point onward. And, it’s free. Can’t go wrong with that.
And that’s it! Thanks for reading my simultaneous review on of the Devil and rant on why I struggle to like AA5. Lemme know your thoughts on the manner in the comments to this post, I’m super open to other opinions on AA5. Maybe you can convince me to rate AA5 higher.
And I know I’ve been mostly game posting lately, but I’ll have more book/writing posts coming up soon. Very hard to come up with opinions on books that people haven’t already said comparatively. Plus, if you’re coming from my Bluesky or Tumblr, I pretty much only post about games there as well, so I feel like my audience gets it.
Next week should be an update on how Nano went for me (can you believe it’s almost December already?). Into December proper, I’ll have another post on Ace Attorney, specifically the community and its silly holidays, so stay tuned for that.
And, as always, see you next week!
No comments:
Post a Comment