Bird Brains of the Law

When the Steam sales roll around I usually attempt to whittle down my wishlist and have at least a small measure of success.  I've also realized that I have a habit of purchasing at least one game, usually for under $5 (and, in this case, for the odd price of $3.74) because it seems vaguely interesting and, hey, it's cheaper than a fancy coffee!  It's still a bit of a gamble, but oddly it has a tendency to pan out in the form of something non-traditional but entertaining in its own way.  My bargain bin purchase of the 2018 Steam summer sale was the visual novel/detective/lawyer/animal....erm...it's a tad hard to describe..Aviary Attorney.

I had noticed Aviary Attorney when it first came out, but it didn't quite have the draw to end up on my wishlist.  It looked novel (I've made two non-intentional puns and I'm not changing them!) but I wanted to wait until it was cheaper, so I completely forgot it existed.  It was completely by coincidence that I stumbled onto it several years later in the unlikeliest of place...my nemesis, the Steam discovery queue.  I loathe the Steam discovery queue but force myself to suffer through its ridiculousness so I can harvest the three free trading cards from the sale (which is probably the absolutely worst time to use it).  Why do I loathe it?  It seems to just randomly chuck games out and 99% of them look like garbage; it is slow and refuses to load correctly during high demand times (like sales...the only time when I suffer through it); it still puts games into my queue even after I've untagged certain descriptors (like "anime" and "nudity"...it really wanted me to buy weird Japanese girlie games for a long time)...I just don't like it.  Buuuuut, Aviary Attorney popped up one one of the queues I was exploring!  I wouldn't have remember it save for the stupid discovery queue...I guess I should cut it a little bit of slack.

Aviary Attorney is the story of an 1840's lawyer in France.  Oh, and this lawyer and all the other characters in the game are supposed to be animals--they have animal heads and names, but the rest of their bodies are human.  The main character in the story is a JayJay Falcon, an experienced attorney who resides in the city of Paris.  He is assisted by his bird brained little buddy, Sparrowson, who helps him investigate crimes and carry out trials.  The game/story consists of JayJay learning about a crimes, choosing where or what to investigate, gathering evidence, and then participating in the trial.  It's a little bit like a "choose your own adventure" story--you can choose where JayJay should investigate and what questions he should ask.  Sometimes your choices are great and you are able to gather some solid evidence and sometimes your choices are horrible and you glean absolutely nothing--pushing someone too hard when you're questioning them could mean that they run off and give you nothing.  After a certain number of choices/days, the trial starts for the crime that JayJay is investigating.  At the trial your main goal is to use the evidence (that you've hopefully found) to convince the jury of the innocence of your client.  As witnesses testify you can choose what part of their testimony you want to challenge and using evidence you can start to poke holes in their story.  This sounds easy, but since you have a limited amount of time to investigate crimes, sometimes you don't have much evidence (especially if you pick completely wrong locations).  The story still moves on regardless of the outcome of the trial.

Pros:
--Art style.  The entire game is drawn like an antique pen and ink drawing.  The settings change throughout the game and are extremely detailed.  The characters are decked out in 1840's style clothing and all of them are unique.

--Choices.  You get to choose where you want to investigate, which questions to ask, and what strategy you want to follow during trials.  These choices do appear to have some impact on the outcomes.  The story has several endings that are based upon decisions that you make during a certain part of the game.

--Humor.  There is humor sprinkled throughout the game.--there are lots of bird jokes.  Sparrowson is a source of comic relief and plays the role of the goofy sidekick.

--Story.  For a game that only cost $3.74 the story wasn't at all what I expected.  There's a deeper story than just the courtroom antics and investigations.  I found it intriguing that you could completely botch the trials (me) and the story keeps moving on.

--Soundtrack.  The soundtrack is a combination of clips taken from classical works and music composed for the game.  All of it works well with the story, characters, and events in the game.  I enjoyed it.

--Short.  I'm going to say this is a pro, but it's a nice, little short game that you can finish in a few hours.  There is some replayability related to the choices that you make (I failed at almost all of the investigations and definitely want to go back and make some better choices).

Cons:
--Investigations.  They are a little like a "hidden object" game but you have to randomly hover over stuff to find it.  It can be difficult to pick up on every piece of evidence at certain places.  I was frustrated at one scene because I found the trigger to move onto the next part first and didn't get the chance to look for more evidence.

--If you're missing evidence there's no way to just simply say that you don't have it, you have to proceed through clicking the wrong evidence and listening to the negative dialogue several times before someone (or the jury if it's a trial) gets frustrated.

--Blackjack is rigged.  I swear.  I don't know if this is true, but I only won a single game.

--It's a visual novel.  I know that some people don't find that exciting and that reading is the devil.  I like reading, so I don't mind.   If you're someone who doesn't enjoy reading in games...skip it.

If you're looking for a short, unique little game that can be found really cheaply, Aviary Attorney is a good option.  I enjoyed the story, characters, soundtrack and art style in the game.  It has a unique vibe that works.  It's also French, and we all know that anything French is automatically too cool.