I guess I should put this here... all of these reviews will have SPOILERS!
For the first case of the franchise we deal with Phoenix's friend, Larry Butz. Already you can tell the names of the many characters will be full of puns. To start it off is Larry Butz which is dead obvious and this will not be the only time we shall meet him. So what has happened to poor Larry? He is on trial for being the suspect of murdering his girlfriend Cindy Stone. Larry is a defense attorney's worst nightmare as Larry is screaming it is all over and that he will just turn himself in. This guy is just trouble in one package as there is a saying for this guy, "If something smells it is usually the Butz." Now since this is Phoenix's first trial, his mentor, Mia Fey is here to help him. Phoenix took this case because of his friend and even though Larry is essentially screaming his is guilty, Phoenix knows he is innocent,,, or at least until he starts to get tricked. I loved how Wright started out, he is a bit dumb and just starts to buy any story he hears, but luckily Mia is around to smack some sense into him.
The first ever prosecutor Phoenix has to tango with is Winston Payne who is known as the rookie killer or at least he was. Payne already starts out playing hardball by getting Larry to burst out. He display the facts that Larry's girlfriend was actually not that loyal to him and to be frank they have already split up, even though Larry is in denial. Cindy has been known to have some sugar daddies and Larry was not happy hearing about this and even says the next time he sees her he is going to make sure to he finds everything out while yelling, just great. Then Payne brings his eye witness to the stand, Frank Sahwit and if you have played the game already or at least seen the first episode to the anime, we already know that this is the true culprit. So with that knowledge that he is the killer, it is up to the player to direct Phoenix to making sure this man is arrested. At first though he buys his story about seeing the body, way to go Phoenix!
Thanks to Mia who gets Phoenix into cross-examining the witness, we find out a flaw in his testimony. This is the meat of the game, looking at the statements of the witnesses and seeing if we can break them down or simply add more information to them. Frank says he say the body at 1 PM and that is already a lie! The time of death was 4 PM and presenting this information gets Frank to think of more lies. Again thanks to how we already know this guy is a criminal gets you thinking of how to break his case. Then if you get one lie, the lies will keep coming. To prevent getting caught, Payne tells the court that he heard a television say the time which is why he thought it was 1 PM, but again this is not possible again. There was a power out during the time of the murder so there is no way he could hear any television! Frank now says that a clock told him the time and it was right on the table, but there was no clock! There only thing on the table was the murder weapon itself, the statue of The Thinker! This little statue will be a major player for another case which I am surprised how much this was used in the story. Catching someone's lies is extremely fun at this point because you just keep breaking someone down and just waiting for him to commit his crime, but everyone is so stubborn in this series!
For once Payne himself actually says something that actually helps him at this point and reveals the statue is actually a clock. When the head is turned, it will tell the time. So this is actually a clock and who made it you ask? Larry Butz of course! Still there is one big problem with this knowledge. First the clock itself was three hours slow and how could Frank know it was a clock. This is when you start dealing the big blows to his testimony and start fully accusing Frank as the murderer! The only way one can know it was a clock was to use it, which means Frank was in the apartment. Then with the time being three hours slow, Frank must have heard the clock when he used it as a weapon which left an impression to the murderer. With those blows Frank loses it and throws his toupee at Phoenix and starts screaming about this accusations. Frank saves himself though by saying there is no proof that the clock was behind three hours on the day of the murder and with that, Phoenix case is broken, or is it? The final showdown now occurs as Phoenix finds evidence that the clock was actually ahead and not backwards, why because of Cindy Stone being a traveler! Cindy was in Paris and had the clock with her during her travels which means the time zones were different. The clock was actually nine hours ahead and she did not adjust it when she got back and by presenting her passport, it reveals everything! Frank starts to foam from the mouth, passes out, and is quickly arrested.
To end things off, Larry is still sad by all that has been revealed. Larry's poor heart is broken, but thanks to Phoenix presenting the clock to him it does actually shed some light. Cindy must have thought Larry was someone at the least because she carried around this big clock around with her. With that Larry feels a bit happier and already hits on Mia (oh Larry!). Larry even gives her a present which was another Thinker clock that he had made. With all done, Mia starts to wonder about Phoenix's past with Larry since Phoenix has said because of Larry and another friend of his, he owed them for helping him out and it was what soon had him thinking of taking this career path. Phoenix does not to get to tell the story yet and will he ever get that chance to begin with?
Even if the first case is extremely easy compared to everything else the series will throw at you, this is still an extremely fun case. It plays with the basics extremely well to get anyone the feeling of how things will go done, Usually if someone is on trial there will be hidden information and if you are defending someone, you should be defending them. Having Larry be the first one to defend is fun and annoying at the same time. Larry has some great funny lines, but imagine being his defense attorney, that would be a nightmare to deal with. Then there is already good amount of humor being thrown around, like the toupee for example. Then the heart racing feeling of catching a criminal along, just makes you want to scream "Objection!" There are even some great lines like "Well Mr Sahwit, or should I say Mr Did It!" I will say the only flaw would be how the prosecution did not even stand a chance, Payne is weak compared to anyone else you will face, but that he is why he is tutorial case material. Overall it is a fun first case that gets the huge fundamental of objecting presented and shows of these trials will be going from here on so it gets an A.
Next Time: Husbando Alert!
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