case by case: AAI 1-2: walking the twisted rhoda of murder
All right, we are back once again with more murder! Last week our murderer killed a man for reasons we aren't entirely clear on yet; this week we're on an airplane! Spoilers below.
This case takes place two days prior to the previous case. You may recall that some questions were left unanswered after that one; I don't think we'll be getting answers for those soon, though. Instead, we're being given a glimpse into Edgeworth's first encounter with an international criminal organization. Franziska is here, too, working with Interpol, and today's victim is an Interpol agent.
We're two cases in and so far both cases have involved a key being stolen. I can imagine some people being bothered by this, but it actually really pleases me because key control is pretty universally the weakest point in a security system. While so far unauthorized key duplication hasn't happened, it was mentioned as a possibility last time, and also last time the murderer social engineered an authorized user into letting him into the room where he did the murder. All of these are very plausible, and while I am prepared to forgive things for not always being plausible in a murder mystery game, it is nice. It makes the cases feel more organic.
It does make sense that suspicion would fall on the keyholder, as it does in this case--our accuser turned helpful assistant becomes a suspect fairly soon after we are able to clear ourselves of suspicion, at first just because it turns out she was in the area where we thought the murder took place and then subsequently because she was, for some reason, the only person who had a keycard that could go to the actual murder.
The actual murderer in this case is a dead-eyed narcoleptic flight attendant who uses her multilingual skills to forge documents to allow smugglers to ship, for example, fake art pieces; she had the unfortunate pleasure of being the crew member the victim decided to ask for help in his investigation into her crimes, so she did a little murder and tried to frame her coworker to cover it up.
This is the introduction proper to this game's meta arc, while also being the first "real" case. Given that I know about as little as it's possible to know about the meta arc I can't really comment on how effective it is, but it seems, given how these arcs usually go, effective enough. We know about the smuggling ring, we've arrested one of their less important members. We will likely get more tidbits of info over the next few cases, a few questions answered, and then a final case or two focusing on bringing it all together.
Personally, I like that formula. The cases are at their best when they have room to breathe and stand on their own. And this one does a pretty good job at that. There aren't a lot of huge twists--murder weapon wasn't what we thought, crime scene wasn't what we thought--but I think that makes more sense for a game focused on the investigation. A twist happens when someone has come to an incorrect conclusion, which usually means the investigation itself was faulty somewhere; Edgeworth's more cautious, fastidious approach doesn't generally lend itself to that sort of thing.
Instead you end up with nagging questions and details that don't make sense, bothering you for the whole case until you finally find the bit of information that makes it lock into place. So far it's a pretty satisfying experience.
Anyway, that's all for this case! This week I'm posting a case every weekday, because I think I'll be able to get through AAI 2 before the end of the month and that feels like a much more satisfying way to go out. (And also, because I'm writing this last paragraph in the future after I've finished AAI 1, because I am really enjoying this.)