finished the last case and this game managed to hurt me one last time with those credits

dgs 2-4 spoilers!

maestrom stronghart has been one of the strongest proponents of the justice the Reaper does.

holy shit game is laying down answers and throwing punches. swan lady who killed wilson and was a fake visiting medical student to japan was actually asa shinn (which is an oddly not british sounding name) who was the assassin of the collective known as the Reaper who Gregson was orchestrating hits for. im starting to think genshin asogi was framed too. oh asa shinn assassin haha i get it. a jp code name would be in line with all the secret communication codes being is japanese.

aw the gang might be splitting up. at least its 2 good choices. return to japan and help form a judiciary system or stay in london and continue practicing british law. neither is a bad option. this also signals ryunosuke's first major decision of his own not just chasing kazuma. both options could help japan and his career.

we still havent gotten an explanation as to why barok took a hiatus from prosecuting (5 years?) and only returned in case 1-3. i still dont get the connection between all the names at the end of 1-5 kazuma asogi, asa shin, tobias gregson, john wilson. the connection is that they were all announced dead. but it cant be a hit list because kazuma's "death" was an accident by a third party and it cant be people who are dead because at the time asa shin and gregson were still alive. and whats it doing in a government correspondence. "this is all four" all 4 of what.

strange how with how prevalent fathers are in this duology we know nothing about ryunisuke's father or family

kazuma and ryunosuke desperately need a heart to heart.

so while amnesiac kazuma sneaks off a ship and then plots a voyage to the other side of the globe in a city where im asumming he's communicating in english so like this is all being done in a second/ethird/etc language with everyone involved. he hopped ports as a sailor. bruh... yeah that "tenacity" alright. that letter is suspicious af. when did he get that letter. the previous sentences imply it was after entering yumei and kazume was aquainted with jigoku already. that puts a very fast timeline since kazuma was only a second year during case 1-1 and would mean that his mother died rather recently. months before 1-1.

there's an interested dialectic here about justice as individual action vs. justice as a system. Kazuma here sees the legal system made up of people and thus is the justice system is individuals each seeking justice. susato refutes that justice is greater than on person and is the laws everyone is held accountable to. and they're both right.

kazuma and ryuunosuke, i wonder which is the one that truly has changed? each thinks it is the other but... and this relates back to the clothes discussion i had last? post where kazuma has had a wardrobe change, and should ryuu? kazuma's demeanor and goals seem to have changed from ryunosuke's perspective but this is all stuff he was carrying with him before, we just didn't see the weight of it. but he has changed in that he's let his quest for revenge consume him where as before it was not or it was still a distant thing instead of something right in front of him. and ryuunosuke has changed, the core of him is the same but over the course of the games, he's discovered himself, he's gained confidence in his beliefs, ability, and in himself.

DGS2 afterthoughts

I posted this on twitter already, but I’ll post it here too. Huge spoilers ahead, obviously.

→ Plot I think most of the big reveals were either really predictable or really unexpected. But even the predictable things came as a surprise because they were revealed in quite shocking ways. Things I expected: - Jigoku and Hart Vortex were suspicious as fuck - Gregson was gonna die - Masked man was so obviously Asougi - The case from 10 years ago was connected to Asougi somehow - Asougi Genshin was actually a good guy - Barok will be the defendant so Asougi has to be prosecutor (after the reveal in case 3, I was expecting this to happen for case 5. I didn’t think it’d happen right after) Things I did not expect and hit me in the face: - Jezail was A. Sasha - I… really liked Dr. Shisu and didn’t expect her to be a murderer… I was really sad when I had to accuse her - I never would’ve thought that Gregson was working under shinigami and was in denial even after it was revealed - Mikotoba Yuujin was the real aibou - Iris Watson was Barok’s brother’s secret child. What the fuck. I don’t think ANYONE could’ve seen this coming. - This is a smaller thing but Petencci was actually alive and when he stood up and started moving it spooked the shit out of me Things I predicted very wrong: - Jezail was murdered and silenced - Gregson is actually Everyday Mitelmon (I was about 15% because Mitelmon was disguising as Gregson in secret) - “Maybe the K. Asougi on the disc was referring to Asougi’s dad and not Asougi Kazuma?” this quickly got debunked when I found out Asougi’s dad’s name was Genshin - The game kind of led you on to think this, but for a while I thought Iris was half Japanese and Yuujin and a love affair. I started suspecting things when Susato mentioned that her family went through problems when she was first born and also when Yuujin said something about “Watson” being a common last name. But I’m glad that Iris turned out to be who she is. - Maybe Asougi Genshin is still alive somewhere!!! Thanks to Level-5 I don’t believe in dead dads but this theory got debunked pretty quickly too. A couple small things I’m curious about… - How did Barok get his scar? I guess it’s not that important though. Maybe during that encounter when Genshin got attacked? - Why did Susato hide Asougi’s diary from Ryuu? I initially thought it was important for plot but it’s not an important detail. I can headcanon this a lot anyway so I don’t really care. I think they did a really good job of solving all the mysteries leftover from DGS1… I can’t think of anything big that was left unsolved. When I was in the middle of case 5, I was a little worried that they would rush explanations since a lot of huge mysteries were still unclear… but they revealed everything at the right time. I was worried the game would be rushed but it was surprisingly well paced for a game with that much content… It was just surprise after surprise after every case. They tied all the cases together so well too, it was amazing. Unfortunately, you can tell that they crammed two games worth of content into one because this entire game was so plot-heavy. I’m actually really sad that DGS didn’t end up being a trilogy… I think I would’ve liked DGS to be spread out among 3 games because we would’ve gotten more character development, but I’m satisfied with what we got. I am a little sad that Shisu and Guroine didn’t get as much screen time as they could have if there was a 3rd game… I really liked their characters, but they. Because we had DGS1, we got tons of character development for the old characters, but the new characters in DGS2 didn’t. Asougi isn’t really a “new” character, but he has I would’ve been willing to wait another two years for a trilogy, honestly. ...Maybe it’s just my bias and I’m only saying this because Asougi is alive and I want to see more Asougi development. A DGS3 is... possible, I guess, but it would be more like an omake to the first two games rather than interlocked stories. Same characters, same settings, just different mysteries to solve. → Other things Okay I know I talked about this before already, but I really love the little details they put in the game. You can tell how much effort and love went into its development. Things like… all the English newspapers and a completely random nonsensical German song that plays for just 5 minutes of the game. I asked a German friend and she told me the lyrics are well-written (grammatically). All of the English newspapers . There were many side articles in them as well, and you can tell some thought was given into writing them. They could’ve easily cropped the newspapers to not show that many side articles, but they didn’t. I also appreciated other little historical things like… using feet/inches as height measurement. And all the little cultural things in London... The OST was amazing. A lot of tracks were reused, but the new ones were all REALLY GOOD. In particular, I really love pre-pursuit theme, new objection theme, and all the Asougi ones (さすがに). But honestly, DGS has the best game OST, hands down. → Things I didn’t like My only complaints are… - Breakdowns for case 2-4 were a little lacking, but the case 1 and case 5 ones were great - How the fuck did they make a hologram device and how was everyone so calm about it → Asougi Okay, let’s talk about my favorite character Asougi. First of all, I just want to say prosecutor Asougi is the best thing this game has given me. I think he originally wanted to go to London to find out the truth behind his father. He lost his father when he was 14 and then his mom a year later… He probably went through a lot of trauma, and dedicated his life to going to London so he can find out the truth. Going to London was his dream for 10 years, so he reluctantly agreed to the assassination mission (although with no intention of actually carrying it out). He has a strong sense of justice and also loved his father very much. What originally was his desire to seek the truth got turned into a desire for revenge after his encounter with Gregson. As soon as he found out forged evidence was used against his father, he became enraged, which is understandable. From that point, his hatred just… took over. He was always portrayed as this cool, flawless, honors student, but in the end he’s still a human with emotions. Before the trial even began, he already knew about the darkness in his heart. He pleaded Ryuunosuke to be the defense lawyer for this case. He wanted Ryuunosuke to be the defense attorney for that case no matter what because he knew he could count on Ryuunosuke to bring him back to his senses. He had a strong sense of justice, but he also knew he had his demons. He wanted to fight them off, and I really love that about him… After Ryuunosuke slapped him awake, he fixes his behavior and acknowledges his mistakes. I’m really proud that he knows exactly what he’s done wrong and apologizes for it!!! He’s still the same Asougi I know and love and I couldn’t be more proud of him… Not gonna lie, for a second, I almost doubted Asougi when I found out that he was involved in this assassination plan. But then I thought to myself “No. Asougi would never do that. I have faith in him.” and kept playing. He feels so much guilt from what happened that he gives Karma to Ryuunosuke to keep and stays in London to make up for everything???? Since he finally accomplished his mission at London, I’m really happy that he found a new path to start walking down too. This game just made me fall in love with Asougi all over again. Looking back, Asougi cut the wax figure of his dad because he thought it was disgraceful, huh. → The verdict DGS2 gets a 10/10 from me. I loved it. Other than the little things I pointed out, I can’t think of anything I was unsatisfied with about this game. ...I have a lot of things to say regarding ships as well, but that can come in a separate post.