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My Little Investigations Review: The Sloppy Case File

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Investigations

My Little Investigations, a game made by fans of the My Little Pony TV Series is freeware released in April 9, 2014. The game is made as a love letter to fans of the Ace Attorney Investigations spin-off series, detailing the “Unspoken adventures of Twilight Sparkle”, and contributing to fan-canon lore.

The game promises a fluid and passionate voice cast, incredible writing, a completely original game engine, and much more. But can it actually deliver on the experience and be a game that can be played regardless of whether or not you’re a brony? Let’s kick off #MLPMonth as we discuss My Little Investigations.blank

STORY AND NARRATIVE: THE INVESTIGATIONS OF A THIEVERY CASE.

Let’s start by the basic premise of the game before moving to the gameplay. The Ace Attorney series has been known for having intricate and complex plots that stem from seemingly simple cases. My Little Investigations actually offers an equally appealing plot that expands beyond an “open and shut” case.

The game’s story thrives a lot from its plot and characterization. One of the main cast characters, Rarity, was the victim of a robbery of jewelry and her cat. However, it seems like the pony who committed the crime was none other than the young pegasus, Scootaloo.

When Twilight Sparkle arrives at the crime scene, she finds out that there’s an “Investigative Team from Canterlot” who is going to take the investigation duty. After Twilight describes how utterly incompetent they are, she decides to take on the case by herself.

The characterization is downright spot-on for the entire cast of ponies that appear in the game. Twilight Sparkle and company feel like they were taken straight from the show into a detective game. They also made the game’s narrative structure tame but interesting regardless. It’s an incredible effort that must be commended.

The writing pretty much shows how much dedication the lead writers had to making a great and enjoyable game. And the narrative aspect allows players to feel like they are solving a mystery with accessibility to magic and other tricks a Human Prosecutor wouldn’t have.

The story is engaging and emotionally impactful for the gamers willing to try another Ace Attorney spinoff fangame. This game sports an original story with well-crafted characters that doesn’t need a viewing of the original source material to understand. Everything is explained for newcomers and the case contains itself. Overall, it was a great writing performance that puts a great deal of writers to shame.

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MECHANICS: Confrontation and Interrogation.

First, we have the open world exploration sequences. Players are able to talk with witnesses or present evidence to them to open up new dialogue options. However, some character dialogues can be hidden with Interrogation sessions and sequences.

Interrogations are presented in the same way as previous Ace Attorney games are. With a row of statements that can be disproven with evidence. However, you can actually opt out of these interrogations in case you don’t have sufficient evidence to expose contradictions. There’s no penalty for getting answers wrong, however.

Then we have Confrontation Sequences, which players will come across during story sections. Similar to Interrogation sequences with the difference being that you have a set number of mistakes (5). Each time you present the wrong piece of evidence, you’ll lose 1 Hit-Point, if you present a right piece of evidence, you’ll hurt their counter by 1 point. These sequences can’t be opted out from and can lead to a game over, so be careful with the evidence you present.

Finally, we have the Partner mechanic, which has been improved drastically over Ace Attorney: Investigations. Partners in My Little Investigations have a set purpose and can actually aid Twilight by having Active and Passive abilities. Take Apple Bloom for example, she allows Twilight to openly speak with Cutie Mark Crusader members and enter the CMC Clubhouse without an issue.

The partner mechanic is only used in two different character and in different situations. However, it will be great to see how the game develops with multiple partners correlating in different scenarios. It certainly would be great to see the feature progressing.

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GAMEPLAY AND CONTROLS: Let’s get the investigation Moving!

The gameplay of the game is one of the greatest aspects in My Little Investigations. The engine that was used for this game didn’t have any glitches or bugs that would break my progress. You can control Twilight Sparkle with the Keyboard or you can play the game entirely with your Mouse. Personally, I’d recommend Mouse controls because it feels like the game was constructed with these in mind.

Controller support is also mysteriously absent. Which is flabbergasting because the game comes from a series that was almost entirely played with a Controller. However, it’s nothing to lose sleep at because, once again; the game was constructed around Mouse Controls and it just feels better and more natural.

The controls are responsive and the game runs at a wonderful 60 FPS with 1080p resolution. Incredibly enough, many computers can handle it no problem despite the image quality. Which is a commendable thing in its own right, especially considering that powerful computers are needed for PC gaming.

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PRESENTATION: The Image and Sound Behind the Mystery.

The game’s soundtrack is hit and miss, I’ll give you this much. There have been instances where the music becomes painfully annoying and repetitive. I don’t want to hear Ponyville’s theme song ever again in my entire life. And then there’s the game soundtracks that actually have me praising the game’s composer, Trot Pilgrim. The best example being Suspense – Your fate awaits.

The graphics are another highlight from My Little Investigations. Every sprite is made with vectors and as such, they look exactly like the original TV Show counterparts. However, there are also some drawn cutscenes that portray specific moments in the game, and they look equally gorgeous.

I must say that the voice acting is nearly close to that of the Original Source Material. You will never hear voices so close to the actual show’s cast. I like the voice of Twilight Sparkle and hope to see her in future cases. However, some performances like Sweetie Belle’s are a bit Too enthusiastic. Since these issues can be fixed easily however, it’s not a big deal.

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GAMEPLAY PROBLEMS: This piece of evidence is a Red Herring!

No game is perfect. Sadly, My Little Investigations has some issues that can’t go without being addressed. First off, there’s the Evidence Combination mechanic, which feels completely unnecessary to begin with. The basic premise is that players can combine two pieces of evidence to update it like Logic in the Investigations spin-off games. This mechanic is used twice in the game and it’s often really easy to figure out. Sadly, this mechanic really doesn’t have much to do here besides those two applications.

There are a LOT of instances where you find yourself going back and forth. Not because you don’t know where to go, but because the pacing is all over the place. There’s a lot of “Go here, then go there and then go over there” in My Little Investigations… And it gets incredibly boring.

This, combined with the times where the game will throw you into a boring piece like that cursed Ponyville theme makes for very repetitious pacing. However, when the game has its moments, it shines a lot and makes you feel like playing an Ace Attorney game.

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CONCLUSION: You’re Cornered!

My Little Investigations is a magnificent attempt at reinventing the formula given by the Ace Attorney Investigations sub-series. However, its execution falls flat on its face sometimes and it really is noticeable. While the innovative gameplay mechanics are great, they aren’t used to a bigger extent.

Can I recommend this game to a non-brony gamer? Definitely. This game has the same level of writing and characterization that made the Ace Attorney games so great. So, if visual novels are your thing, this game is going to be great for you.

I always wanted to be a journalist who listens. The Voice of the Unspoken and someone heavily involved in the gaming community. From playing as a leader of a competitive multi-branch team to organizing tournaments for the competitive scene to being involved in a lot of gaming communities. I want to keep moving forward as a journalist.

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Ubisoft says that future Assassin’s Creed games will need more time to be made

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As Assassin’s Creed Shadows is about to sneak up on people in November, Ubisoft says that the time between developing games needs to be longer to find the “right balance.” Shadows has been in development for four years, longer than any other game in the series up to this point. That includes the huge open-world epics Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.

Shadows lead producer Karl Onnée (thanks, GamesIndustry.biz) says that the latest AC game took 25% longer to make than Valhalla. He says this is necessary to keep the quality of the series that it is known for: “It’s always a balance between time and costs, but the more time you have, the more you can iterate.” You can speed up a project by adding more people to it, but that doesn’t give you more time to make changes.

Onnée says this has as much to do with immersion and aesthetics as it does with fixing bugs and smoothing out pixels. This is because the development team needs time to learn about each new historical setting: “We are trying to make a game that is as real as possible.” We’re proud of it, and the process took a long time. In feudal Japan, building a house is very different from building a house in France or England in the Middle Ages. As an artist, you need to learn where to put things in a feudal Japanese home. For example, food might not belong there. Get all the information you need and learn it. That process takes a long time.”

You’ll have to wait a little longer for Ubisoft to work on each game. Are you okay with that? In what part of Shadows are you now? Is it interesting to you? Leave a comment below and let us know.

 

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You can now pre-order Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP on PS5

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You can now pre-order Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP, a remaster that Dragami Games and Capcom both created. You can now pre-order the PS5 game on the PS Store for $44.99 or £39.99. If you have PS Plus, you can get an extra 10% off the price.

The company put out a new trailer with about three minutes of gameplay to mark the start of the pre-order period. Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP is a remaster of Grasshopper Manufacture’s crazy action game from 2012. You play as Juliet, a high school student who fights off waves of zombies.

The remaster adds RePOP mode, an alternative mode that swaps out the blood and gore for fun visual effects. It also adds a bunch of other features and improvements that make the game better overall. You can expect the graphics and sound to be better as well.

The game will now come out on September 12, 2024, instead of September 12, 2024. Are you excited to get back to this? Please cheer us on in the section below.

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This Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 zombies trailer is way too expensive

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Is there really anyone who is following the story of Call of Duty’s zombie mode? We’ve known about the story in a vague way for a while, but we couldn’t tell you anything about it. It looks like the “Dark Aether” story will continue in Black Ops 6, but we don’t really know what that means.

For those of you who care, here is the official blurb with some background: “Requiem, led by the CIA, finally closed the last-dimensional portal, sending its inhabitants back to the nightmare world known as the Dark Aether, after two years of fighting zombie outbreaks around the world during the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War timeline.”

Wait, there’s more! “Agent Samantha Maxis gave her life to seal this weird dimension from the inside out.” Even worse things were to come: senior staff members of Requiem were arrested without a reason by the Project Director, who turned out to be Edward Richtofen.

Black Ops 6 will take place about five years later, and it looks like it will show more about Richtofen’s goals and motivations. The most important thing is that you will probably be shooting an unimaginable number of zombies in the head. This week, on August 8, there will be a full reveal of the gameplay, so keep an eye out for that.

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