History VideoGame / CriminalCase

* OneSteveLimit: Actually {{Averted}}! The huge amount of characters that get introduced each season pretty much makes it impossible to play this trope straight. For example, there are two characters who have the same first and last name (Hugo Mercier, one is a minor suspect in a ''Pacific Bay'' case and the other is one of your partners in ''City of Romance''). In another example, there are seven characters named George across the series, and ''four'' of them come from the same season, ''Mysteries of the Past'': Officer George Buchanan, media tycoon George Buchanan, historian George Okamoto, and a baby named George [[spoiler:Dupont]].

* OneSteveLimit: The huge amount of characters makes it impossible to play this trope straight. There are 2 characters who have the same first and last name: Hugo Mercier from Pacific Bay and Hugo Mercier from City of Romance.

* KickTheSonOfABitch: Due to the fact that the number of victims who ''aren't'' {{Asshole Victim}}s could be counted on one hand, both this and its sister trope PayEvilUntoEvil are extremely common occurrences throughout the game. Murder is still almost always treated as a prison-worthy offence in-game, though.

* PayEvilUntoEvil: Due to the fact that the number of victims who ''aren't'' {{Asshole Victim}}s could be counted on one hand, both this and its sister trope KickTheSonOfABitch are extremely common occurrences throughout the game. Murder is still almost always treated as a prison-worthy offence in-game, though.

** [[Creator/FoxNewsChannel Fox News]] = Wolf News

** Website/YouTube = [=TrendVid=]

** Website/TikTok = [=QikQok=]

In mid-2023, the game was suddenly removed from Facebook without explanation, though the mobile version was still available, but all progress is supposedly lost since the game was no longer sync-able with Facebook.

* TheUnreveal: In some chapters, one of the suspects suddenly confesses their guilt or someone says that they have found the criminal. You need some stars to open the next part of the chapter, and then find out that the crime won't be solved that early (for example, if a member of the team announced that they know the identity of the criminal, it will be just an over-the-top way to announce another new clue).

** Apple = [=iPear=]

** [=TikTok=] = [=QikQok=]

*** Upon returning to Grimsborough, while the player reunites with friends and co-workers both old and new, he/she must also look into a stolen shipment of amlodipine that seems to be the WeaponOfChoice of a SerialKiller in '''Fairview'''.

** Case 12 of World Edition, ''[[UpToEleven and how]]''. [[spoiler:After Ambassador's Stern's son is kidnapped, he is taken to war-torn Iraq where the player and Carmen find a nomadic tribe leader dead by The Sword's hands. After finding Andrew Stern, things start going downhill for the team; Jack is incapacitated by Asal Hawaa, Dupont is poisoned by The Sword, Benjamin Scott turns extremist briefly, and Marina is accidentally taken hostage by Jonah Karam. When the team finally find out who The Sword is, he tries to kill Carmen and the player too...until Jonah saves them by shooting him in the head. Jonah is awarded a place in the Bureau for his merits by none other than ''Chief Ripley, who faked her own death to manipulate SOMBRA''. And it all ends with Marina's mother sending the team a secret video to come to Russia.]] The ShockingMoments in this episode are through the roof.

** '''Supernatural Investigations''': An looming threat of demons about to lay waste to the world.

* NeverSayDie: While victims die all the time, there is no death penalty in the ''Criminal Case'' world [[spoiler:(at least not in the present day)]]. A few suspects are killed before they go to trial.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: To say that Criminal Case has a lot of characters would be an understatement. With 7 seasons and over 300 cases, this has lead to a ton of suspects, victims, team members, and even minor characters. As an example to highlight this, the very first district of the game (Industrial Area) has '''48''' unique characters involving the suspects and victims. The total character count is very difficult to fully tally at this point.

** Case 12 of World Edition, ''[[UpToEleven and how]]''. [[spoiler:After Ambassador's Stern's son is kidnapped, he is taken to war-torn Iraq where the player and Carmen find a nomadic tribe leader dead by The Sword's hands. After finding Andrew Stern, things start going downhill for the team; Jack is incapacitated by Asal Hawaa, Dupont is poisoned by The Sword, Benjamin Scott turns extremist briefly, and Marina is accidentally taken hostage by Jonah Karam. When the team finally find out who The Sword is, he tries to kill Carmen and the player too...until Jonah saves them by shooting him in the head. Jonah is awarded a place in the Bureau for his merits by none other than ''Chief Ripley, who faked her own death to manipulate SOMBRA''. And it all ends with Marina's mother sending the team a secret video to come to Russia.]] The HolyShitQuotient in this episode is through the roof.

** '''Travel in Time''':
** '''Supernatural Investigations''':
** '''City of Romance''':

** Not as obvious as other examples, but Trevor Finn of Pacific Bay is apparently created as a tribute to the ''Criminal Case'' {{Lets Play}}er, LetsPlay/{{Pitchingace88}}.

* TheArtifact: All cases are about a murder. When you find clues in a crime scene, texts always turned illegible and objects are always broken in pieces. Initially, this framed the stories of each case in a specific pattern, but as plots became more complex some of those ocurrences turned out to be a bit forced.

** '''Grimsborough''': [[spoiler:Milton Grimmes]], the leader of the Crimson Order--a notorious secret society that has been controlling Grimsborouogh for many centuries, and has murdered anyone who tries to uncover them.

** '''Mysteries of the Past''': TheBigBadShuffle between the Concordian Police Department, the Irish and Italian gangs, and the Rochester family, with each of them being the villains at some point in the season. [[spoiler:Their actions lead Justin Lawson - the newly elected mayor of Concordia and ally of the Concordian Flying Squad - to set up a dictatorial regime in the city to end criminal activity]].

** Pacific Bay: Amy and the PlayerCharacter [[spoiler:managed to save Pacific Bay from Albert Tesla, but at the cost of Frank Knight's life]]. Afterwards, the Bureau recruits the PlayerCharacter.
** World Edition: The Bureau [[spoiler:defeated SOMBRA for good, but not before Armand Dupont gave his life to protect the player and Jack. And since the Bureau was created for the sole purpose of taking down SOMBRA, their defeat means that the Bureau family has to part ways.]]
** Mysteries of the Past: The Concordian Flying Squad [[spoiler:put an end to Justin Lawson's tyranny, but lost Charles Dupont along the way.]]
** The Conspiracy: [[spoiler:With Ad Astra and [[BigBad Denise Daniels]] dead, and the latter's neohumans on the loose, [[HeroicSacrifice Rita sacrifices herself by using a super-powered, but lethal, version of the Berzelium to defeat them.]]]] Six months later, [[spoiler:Jones manages to recover from his near-death experience, Cathy is expecting her second child, and the team attend Amir and Jasper's wedding.]] At the end, [[spoiler:Jack Archer from 2029 appears and sends the player character to the future to join the Temporal Crimes Division.]]

** The murder investigation of Adam Bentley in Case 51 qualifies, as the case involved 8 suspects (instead of the usual 5). Also, none of the suspects is a new character. All of them are well-known from previous cases. This impressive lineup included Tony Marconi (convict), Alden Greene (former convict and corrupt businessman), Howard Johnson (Mayor of Grimsborough), Serena Johnson (Politician, Howard's mother), Martha Price (Politician, Howard's rival), Lola Vallez (celebrity), [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed Zack Holden]] (CEO of Friendnet); and, later, even [[spoiler:Chief King]] got mixed up in the whole affair.

** The case with [[spoiler:Chief King]] as a suspect shows that even members of the PD are not exempt from becoming suspects themselves. In fact, all members of the Pacific Bay PD except Amy have been flagged as suspects in at least one case by the end of Season 2. Case 56 of Pacific Bay illustrates this with 4 out of the 5 suspects[[note]]Frank, Russell, Hannah, and Roxie[[/note]] being members of the police department. [[spoiler:It's Frank.]]
** Similar to the above example, all 5 suspects of Case 42 of World Edition are members of the Bureau.[[note]]Jack, Carmen, Chief Ripley, Angela, and Elliot[[/note]] [[spoiler:It's Angela.]]
* EvilIsPetty: Several murderers have motives that are eye-rollingly petty, if not [[InsaneTrollLogic crazy]] or ForTheEvulz. [[spoiler:Case in point, the murderer of Case 58 from ''Mysteries of the Past'', who claims that it was unfair that her victim got a promotion in the telegraph office and had a rich husband while she had not despite supposedly being "better than her" and who turned to murder in order to "fix the personal injustice in her life".]]

** Barbara Pickley is more unusual. She's a man-hating feminist who had only one son, who she simultaneously loves but despises, letting him grow up to be a manchild (because she doesn't think men can be more than that), and lavishing all her attention on her daughter-in-law Susan. She introduces Susan to feminism, and [[spoiler:murders her after she deviates from her narrow definition of it.]]
** Marina Romanova's mother Natasha was hinted to be corrupt by her own daughter, who was nearly killed while uncovering a corruption scandal in the past. [[spoiler:Marina's suspicions were confirmed when Natasha had Yelena Tereshkova kill Vitaly Borodin and launch a satellite that will disrupt the world's electronics infrastructure on behalf of SOMBRA because she wanted to control the Russian government.]]

** Rozetta Pierre's mother, [[spoiler:Denise Daniels]], who turns out to have influenced her actions during ''The Conspiracy.'' [[spoiler:Not only did she abandon Rozetta at the age of ten after declaring her a "failed experiment" in creating a new race of superhumans (and thereby leaving her lonely, prompting her to create Ad Astra to make friends and set off the titular Conspiracy to gain her mother's approval), but when she does succeed in creating her neohumans, she treats them like they're beneath her and one of them, Otto Kessel, was subject to physical, mental and even sexual abuse from her.]]

** Velma Bannister of Ivywood Hills is a beautiful seductress who charms men into giving her what she wants. She once seduced Frank to get the police off her back when she was suspected for murder in Case 34 of Pacific Bay, uses her much-older-husband's wealth and influence to bail herself from arrest when she was convicted for dealing with stolen goods, and later seduces Trevor Neuman into giving her [[spoiler:a modified version of the Utopians' brainwashing tape to brainwash the whole world into worshipping her beauty forever]].

** [[spoiler:Milton Grimmes,]] the leader of The Crimson Order, claims to be the god of Grimsborough. During his trial, he angrily declares that they should be worshipping him instead of locking him away.
** Likewise, [[spoiler:Albert Tesla]] insists that he was that he is the creator of Pacific Bay, as his scientific advances has allowed the city to transform from a barren wasteland into a paradise. His whole plan revolves around [[spoiler:trying to raze the city back into ashes so that he can upload all the citizens' conciousness into a digital world where he reigns supreme]].
** There is a non-BigBad example in ''World Edition''. [[spoiler:Ayush Patil]] believed that it was his calling to do something about the overpopulation of India, [[spoiler:so he stole a deadly virus from a lab and unleashed it onto the public.]] When he's arrested, he smiles manically and continues to insist that a new era is born thanks to him.
** ''The Conspiracy''[='s=] Ad Astra believes themselves to be superior in every way to the rest of mankind and their EvilPlan is to [[spoiler: manufacture a superhuman serum to help them take over]]. Unfortunately for them, [[spoiler:they're manipulated by the true BigBad who shares their delusion and seeks to take over the world with a new race of neohumans at her command]].

** The screen turns black when [[spoiler:Chief King]] shoots himself in Case 51, and scene pans to a shocked looking Jones afterwards.

** [[spoiler:Solomon Grimmes]] in Grimsborough. The Crimson Order is currently led by [[spoiler:his descendant, Milton Grimmes, but Solomon is responsible for its foundation.]]

** Rozetta Pierre and her company [=DreamLife=] are the main antagonists for the first half of ''The Conspiracy''. Then it turns out that Rozetta is the leader of Ad Astra, a group comprised of four recurring characters ([[spoiler:Julia Brine, Christian Bateman, Joe Warren, and Louis Leroux]]). However, [[spoiler:Rozetta is merely a DecoyLeader, with TheChessmaster of Ad Astra being her own mother, Denise Daniels.]]

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: To say that Criminal Case has a lot of chracters would be an understatement. With 7 seasons and over 300 cases, this has lead to a ton of suspects, victims, team members, and even minor characters. As an example to highlight this, the very first district of the game (Industrial Area) has '''48''' unique characters involving the suspects and victims. The total character count is very difficult to fully tally at this point.

** '''World Edition''': The Bureau investigates various cases that is linked to the international terrorist organization called SOMBRA. In fact, [[spoiler:it is revealed that The Bureau was specifically created to wipe out SOMBRA, as Chief Ripley was [[CreateYourOwnVillain the one who helped create SOMBRA in the first place]]]].

* OneOfOurOwn: Occasionally, a member of the Police Department you work at will become a suspect. Special mention goes to [[spoiler:Case 56 of ''Pacific Bay'', Case 42 of ''World Edition'', and Case 60 of ''Mysteries of the Past'']]. In these cases, all but one suspect, or even all the suspects, are members of the the season's respective PD.

** [[spoiler:Margaret Littlewood]] holds the distinction of being the first murderer who killed more than 1 victim in a single case. The first victims were Molly Robinson and her dog, then followed by the murder of James Savage's husky, Gertude Picadilly's pug, and the attempted murder of [[spoiler:Jones]].

** [[spoiler:Erikah Mabayo]] from Bayou Bleu has killed several prostitutes working under her.

** [[spoiler:Duncan Young]] killed several young women as the Night Walker, before murdering Roberto Vasquez for [[HeKnowsTooMuch knowing too much]].
** Similar to [[spoiler:Erikah Mabayo]], the Scarlet Slayer preys on prostitutes in Sinner's End.

*** '''Jazz Town''' covers Cases 18 to 24, and deals with two distinct plots -- one involving a man-made hurricane which has destroyed a large portion of the district and threatens to strike a second time and completely annihilate the town, and another involving the renewed activities of a SerialKiller called the Puppeteer -- who had, in the past, murdered Yann Touissant's parents.

*** The PlayerCharacter joins a wave of Irish immigrants in entering '''New Haven''', in the City of Concordia. However, someone is planning to take advantage of these immigrants, and somehow a mysterious fire at the local police station seems connected to it...

*** At '''Capitol Peak''', Concorida's newly inaugurated mayor plans to rid the city of all crime, with [[KnightTemplar questionable methods]].

*** '''Fantasy''', covering Cases 1 to 5, has Carrie and the player settle into their new jobs while looking for the former's long lost brother. Meanwhile, the famous fashion brand Chior is set to open their fashion house soon.

*** '''Jealously''', '''Separation''', and '''Engagement''' all share the story arc covering Cases 14 to 17, where Antoine continues his plans despite being put behind bars, and a wedding is set to unfold...

* SympatheticMurderer: Some killers from all throughout the game have some rather sad reasons for committing their crimes. [[spoiler:Such as Case 6's killer, an honest cop, who was forced to kill his corrupt partner in self-defense after failing to convince him to turn from his evil ways, and Case 28's killer, a bereaved mother who murdered her husband because his negligence had caused the death of their infant child and he'd tried to cover it up.]]

* VirtualPaperDoll: You can make your character avatar male or female, and adjust their hair, facial expression, and clothing as you see fit. Some hairstyles, facial expressions, and clothing accessories can be unlocked when you level up to a certain extent, some have to be purchased with in-game coins (which you earn from each crime scene you investigate), and others are gained as rewards for finishing the side-quests associated with each case.

** Case 51. [[spoiler:Chief King is revealed to be the case's killer, and kills himself after being found out]]. This permanently changes GPD's team configuration, and changes the usual case formula of having him introduce the chapter to the player.
** Case 84 (or Case 28 of Pacific Bay). [[spoiler:Bobby Prince]] is convicted as the killer, when almost everyone expects him to play a significant role in the district's final case.
** Case 112 (Case 56 Pacific Bay) has half of your team members flagged as suspect, eventually culminating in [[spoiler:Frank Knight, one of the player's partners, being convicted the district killer]]. During the trial -[[spoiler:his ex-wife arrives and helped him escape arrest]], perhaps marking the very first time in Criminal Case history where the killer remains a fugitive by the end of the episode.
** Case 58 of Pacific Bay is ''full'' of this. [[spoiler:Karen Knight is found murdered, and the killer is none other than ''Alden Greene'', who escaped prison in Grimsborough and made it into Pacific Bay. Right before the player arrests Alden, Frank kills him and reveals the reason Karen wanted the plutonium in the first place. Right after that, Albert Tesla's interface is revealed to have created Pacific Bay as an experiment, and is perfectly willing to destroy it for the same reason.]]
** Case 6 in World Edition. The player character had just successfully thwarted the Prometheans' plan to take over Europe and the team was celebrating their achievement. Suddenly, [[spoiler:Chief Ripley was shot with a poisoned arrow and died]].

* WhoMurderedTheAsshole: Many of the murder victims were ''not'' well-liked by a number of the people they associated with because, quite simply, they were douches. For example, Case 7's victim was a crooked building contractor who tore down a church to erect a new building project on the land, an act that earned him a lot of anger from other people; while Case 29's victim was a perpetual drunk who stole money from the Scouts he led and also [[DomesticAbuse beat up his girlfriend]]. In particular, [[spoiler:The Rorschach Reaper]] gets killed about twenty cases after being imprisoned; the judge says the individual, while a monster, still deserves justice for being killed. This does not abate even in Pacific Bay, particularly in Case 5, where the victim tormented a street performer and tried to get passers-by not to pay him, tried to ruin the social life of a lifeguard, and tormented a waitress until she cried. Her motive for all of these actions was pure spite. [[spoiler:Ironically, none of them murdered her.]]