Devil’s Attorney Review and Suggestions

If you don’t know about Devil’s Attorney yet, then you should read a review and buy it. Actually, just buy it. For $3, you will be hard-pressed to find better entertainment. This game gets a clear 1/1 from me; I beat it twice. That being out of the way, we all know that I am a critical person, especially when it comes to movies and games. This game is nearly perfect; it could have been perfect. I hope they read this review and take what I say to heart. I don’t want this game to suffer from a case of wasted potential like so many 9/10 games do. The good news is, the developers can release a patch!

Becuse playing on normal is for pussies,
that’s why.

One minor problem with this game is the randomness. It is a minor element of the gameplay and, unfortunetely, only does damage to this game. Notice, in the screenshot below, the skill “Interrogate” deals 1-5 damage. Problem is, I can be 100% sure that it will do 4 or 5 damage whenever I need it to. How can I be sure? Because I can restart the case every time I don’t like the result. The game doesn’t care how many times you lose or retry a case so I can always get the highest roll on any given skill.

This was a tricky case
It required some “luck manipulation” to win.

This exploit only dawned on me because I was, literally, forced to do it in the above case. Notice how I lose this case if the witness, evidence, or prosecutor attack me. In order to survive this first round I need “discredit” or “interrogate” to deal 3 damage to the coach and the expert. Anything other than that two times results in me losing. I had to just keep losing and retrying until I won. Granted, it is very rare that you are forced to play this way, but it did make this exploit stick out like a sore thumb. This turns cheap high-variance skills into just cheap awesome skills. I don’t feel the range of damage on skills adds enough to the game to justify the ability to cheat in this way. I present two solutions.

The preferred way to fix it, is to simply remove variable damage from the game. That would require some rebalance but I think it’s the optimal solution. Otherwise, track player case losses. If I restart a case 20 times, that would count as 20 case losses. Then the game presents a final score with wins-losses that would expose the exploiters. Either way, it is a minor problem in a very fun game, but there is room for improvement here.

The real problem with Devil’s Attorney is that it ends. No, I am not just being sappy. The game is very fun and I wish it was longer. However, beyond that, I want some kind of endless mode. There is no reason for the game to be over once you complete the storyline. There should be a case randomizer where players can continue to play and earn money fighting random assortments of witnesses, evidence and prosecutors. Especially considering the last case includes exactly that: the prosecutor brings an endless stream of randomly selected junk to keep the pressure on. That last case was a blast to play. I wish I could just play that over and over.

The way this game currently stands, you can get two solid play-throughs out of it and then you have no reason to ever go back. Don’t get me wrong, those two plays will be more than worth the $3 price tag but then what? The story is the same every time. You can get different skills which makes it feel a little different but for the most part the fun is over. Let’s get a patch in here real quick guys. Dare I say a paid in-app purchase for endless mode?