Burden of Truth

Overall a fun game so far, I've only completed the first trial but it's a good game and something worth picking up if you're a fan of these kinds of Visual Novel style investigation games. TL;DR: In the end I'd recommend it, it's not that expensive, and if you're looking for something to scratch the itch of a VN investigation games like Ace Attourney, definitely worth picking up and giving some time. Though it might be worth picking up the first game first, or at least reading a summary because this game does throw you into "Chapter 3" of the story so it feels like you need to play the first one to fully understand what's happening. It took a different direction some from similars games I have played previously, so it was nice to see a game that is able to kind of do it's own thing. The whole plot of "Trials have become televised events" alternate reality of how the game treats it's setting is nice because it kinda helps give that suspension of disbelief when things are kinda game-y and/or don't line up with expectations of how trials work IRL, though I'd like to see that aspect actually leaned on a lot more in the story. Maybe the occasional "News report" or "Last time on Courtroom Chaos" TV segments that really remind you this is a televised event would help enhance that, but it works overall I like the art style a lot, it was something I was drawn to when I first saw it, I like the character designs though I think they could maybe be exagerated a bit more to give them more personality, the main character is good, but some of the witnesses seem kinda "stock" character. The big thing is that compared to the previous game(Which I haven't played as of writing) the change to using Cel-shaded graphics was a huge step forward, and really makes the game look significantly nicer, and I'd be curious if the cel-shaded graphics could be easily back ported to the first game as an update. The music was okay, It did it's job well and managed to not be annoying even after listening to it for 15-20+ minutes while writing this review hahaha. There was a 'compressed' feel to it the whole time that made it seem like it was using low quality samples/synths or something, not sure what exactly it was but I think that's the main thing that I noticed. Now while the game does it's absolute best to push you in the right direction, my biggest hurdle so far has been that I hit a few of the open ended sections(the cross examination) that felt ambiguous and needed specific answers even when more than one thing felt like the right answer, and/or ignoring seemingly well established evidence to solve some of the puzzles that can feel like trial and error because a witness may say several things that I have evidence against but only one is valid so I have to try a few things before I can find the right one. It's not a huge issue in the end, you just need to save before every cross-examination and it mostly isn't an issue. Example: [spoiler] Middle-ish of the prologue trial the witness said she heard a noise and went to see what it was and found the victim on the ground. However there was a blackout around the same time and the game and all characters have been treating the blackout as if the blackout was SO dark nobody could see ANYTHING. So I spend a while showing evidence about the blackout, since I assume what it's looking for is like "How could you have seen the body if there was a blackout!" or somethign to that effect. The hint here is "We covered a few basic facts about the murder" and that there "Might be more she shoud've seen" which again is weird because the game had been treating the blackout as absolute darkness. In the end you're expected that you present the evidence that if she could see the body, the knife in her chest should have been obvious. Which would be totally fine, but it was pretty ambiguous which just was mildly frustrating as TECHNICALLY my inquiry was valid. If the game had mentioned "Okay yes, but there's something else" and didn't ding me for asking about it, then It would have gone smoother, but I was sure that was the right evidence. [/spoiler] The only long term solution I could see would be to remove the fairly arbitrary health bar system The inclusion of a health bar that decreases when you get a guess wrong may be a staple of this kind of game, but IMO all it does is push people to save scum, which makes the inclusion of the feature pointless anyway so why have it and worsen the experience? This could also be said of the limited hint system, every time you loop through all options it could just give you the hint as well the second time, with the hints being limited, I found myself eyeing save scumming more and more to avoid using the hints at all. In the end I would still say it's a fun game, and I'm looking to seeing where the story goes!

Ace Attorney fans, play this! This is a huge improvement over the original Burden of Proof, everything has a glow up from the graphics, character models, music, etc. Trials are exciting and new mechanics like evidence metadata (aka who presented the evidence originally) are cool things to have to connect. Dev is receptive to changes and added a camera centering function for me. LLM hallucination jokes and timeline jokes considering the original came out like 7 years ago are funny. And thankfully clues are much easier to find, no getting stuck because you didn't examine a gun in a flower pot in the first game. And the lake investigation hidden achievement thumbnail is a good hint.

Burden of Truth had a lot of fun callbacks to Burden of Proof, so definitely play that first (it’s…difficult…to get through but it only gets better as the game goes on). I recommend BoT but if I’m being perfectly honest, the second to last case long outstays it’s welcome. It’s just a string of witnesses perjuring themselves all the way through, which I guess is what Ace Attorney does, but when coupled with the fact that there is no relief from the overarching plot, it’s not the most engaging. Repeated references to conspiracies and shadowy bad actors (which Ace Attorney is definitely guilty of) left me conspiracy-numb. I just did not care anymore and wanted the trial to be over. It didn’t help that the same characters showed up to testify in many of the cases, making the slog feel even longer. I ended up putting down my steam deck and just not playing any games for a few weeks because I insisted (to myself) that I had to finish BoT before playing anything else. Ultimately not a smart choice because the last case was great, it’s just that second to last one that was tedious and in such large portions. Literally the diamond mining meme. 99% of comrades give up before they get to the great finale. Bummer to write because if you had caught me before the second to last case I was very loudly on this game’s cheer squad. The clues and the cases are solid and manage to avoid swiss cheese logic. The game helpfully anticipates “almost” evidence and nudges you along without penalizing you. I enjoyed the infrequent but well-timed fourth wall breaks. Really no criticisms besides the second to last case shattering my will to pick up my steam deck, final rating: a modest 12/10

Neat indie game with cool story moments. Developer's insane for composing all the music themselves, sounds awesome!!

A much better game than the first. While there are still some issues with the visuals (I don't like the way the eyes blink on everyone), the visuals are appealing and stylized enough to be easy to look at. But what matters most is the writing. Each case is more compelling and interesting than the first game. There are some quirks that require you to not think too much about the physics of the murder, but it not enough to break the mystery. The core of each mystery does enough to give depth. The demo contains the first case and is a good way to judge the writing. My only issue with the writing is the 4th breaking and self-aware jokes. But I also don't care for it in Banjo Kazooie and Yooka-Laylee, so this could be a personal thing. Never in my life did I ever expect to see "poggers" in a murder mystery game, but this game did. I haven't finished it, but I do want to replay the first game just to see how the two connect.

Oh my God So I just completed this game after streaming this for 4 straight streams. I played Ace Attorney & other inspired games before including Burden of Proof, so I'm definitely experienced with this awesome genre. I thouroughly enjoyed my time with this game while thinking super hard at finding the contradictions, and I made it even more fun by playing the Ace Attorney music during a lot of the court moments. At the second to last case you got me with the false ending which was a nice surprise. BUT THEN, at the final level, just when things starting to heat up, the game did something I NEVER thought possible: IT ENDED WITH A CLIFFHANGER! NOOOOOOOOOOOO I WANT TO SEE HOW THIS STORY ENDS!! I have never played another Ace Attorney esque game that ended before it finished the story before! Please let me know when I can expect the final - final chapter, I must see how this epic story concludes DX

I loved it. Conrad Cross is too good for this world.

Polished up follow up to Burden of Proof mostly focusing on the chapter that sorta gets glanced over there.

A technically intermediary between the events of the first game, this primarily a single case that spans across multiple trials and events, making it quite different from similar games. The same dry humour and fourth wall-breaking events as the last game, and just as fun to play. The graphics even got upgraded from "comically bad" to "slightly above a knock-off mobile game" which is nice. Most rooms are still far larger than they ever would be irl and act more as facsimiles to give the impression of a real-world space rather than trying to be one themselves, but it's fun.