Aviary Attorney
Became a lawyer-detective in 19th century France, in a theatric styled anthropomorphic animal world.
I really like mystery games. Especially those, that are thought through and are not “completing themselves” flawlessly. As you play as a lawyer (but also a detective of sorts), you will have a couple of leads to follow and it’s on you which one to pursue - and your time is not unlimited! You need to trust your gut, or get baited into some dead ends ;) In terms of investigation and court room mechanics, Aviary Attorney does one of the most important things in this kind of games. It’s very easy to make a game like “you have unlimited time, go everywhere, click everything, and then the game solves itself”. Not this time. It’s not only about to go to proper places, but also ask the right questions, provide proper answers and use your evidence when needed - accusations without evidence can lead to a failure! Your actions need to be explicit, which makes your job very real and satisfactory. I think on mechanical level, it’s a great mixture of investigative game and a visual novel.
The main thing in mystery games should definitely be the story - and it’s surely the case here. To not spoil too much, you’re a defense lawyer in 19th century Paris and the story leads throughout couple of cases you got involved into. The writing is really good and thought through, especially considering that the story is nonlinear! It’s a great feature for investigative game - nothing worse than failing something and just because the story is linear, you will still get the same result with some “unnatural twist”, just to save the plot. No sir, how you will play out the story will change what will happen next. There are also couple of unexpected developments and turns, and it definitely keeps you interested. One could argue it’s rather short, only 4 hours of gameplay, but I think it would be artificial to lengthen it, and it ties up perfectly!
But good investigative mechanics and a great story is not the only thing that this game has to offer. Because the general art style and design is really quite unique - and well done! First of all - it’s 19 century France alright, but the world consists of anthropomorphic animals. And the way it’s done, and how it connects to the art style, is not at all weird or disturbing. It actually fits perfectly. I would even say the way that this idea is used is quite marvellous - like attaching a specific animal to a specific role in the story. All the action is done in a quite theatrical way - all the art looks like monochromatic pictures from old books, but very detailed. Backgrounds are still, and most of the time so are the characters - some of them having a couple of poses, with very simple animations (which are mostly just movement of static images), but mixing that with a dialogue style interactions, it really gives a theatrical impression.
And when it comes to theatrics - dialogues are were the game truly excels. The writing is really good, expressing the characters well and very natural - and the amount of humour there is really brightening it up. The game topics are quite serious most of the time, but the humour parts are always there - making word puns, animal puns (especially with names of the characters, which made me chuckle couple of times) and even some with relation to modern culture. Truly giving a comedic accent.
What also gives the theatrical impression is the music. Most of the time we’re accompanied by classical music, perfectly fitting to the art style of the game. It also accents important moments in the game, by changing and becoming more prevalent, when needed. There is no voice acting in the game, although the dialogues are so amazing that they are defending themselves easily. But one funny thing about that - when the text is displayed, there is this “beeping” sound as the letters are showing (reminding me of some old, gameboy like games). But there is one small detail - depending on which character is “talking”, the tone of those beeping sounds is different. It’s that small detail, that really makes a difference and shows that the authors cared about those kind of things too.
I think this game really surpassed my expectations - I had a lot of fun, felt like I wouldn’t be a perfect investigative lawyer and I was charmed by the unique art style, that was very well thought through and pieced together. I recommend for everyone that appreciates good art, great story and dialogues, want to solve some mystery and get a little of laugh too ;)
My rating: 8/10
Playtime: 4h
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Aviary Attorney on Steam