Line #24 VideoGame/DevilsAttorney


1	''Devil's Attorney'' is a turn-based strategy game for iOS and Android mobile devices starring Max Mc Mann, a shamelessly AmoralAttorney for hire, and is set in an bright and affectionate parody of TheEighties. Max is a slick, smarmy and self-centered egotist who'll happily defend any client for the money, and the game has you represent a wide range of petty criminals and public nuisances, using your courtroom skills to tear apart the opposing prosecutors, their witnesses and their evidence while defending your case and your credibility as a lawyer.
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3	Between cases you can use the money you earn to upgrade your apartment, choosing furniture from the 'Materialism', 'Decadence' and 'Vanity' categories which unlock new courtroom skills that you use to attack your opponents, reduce the impact of their own attacks and strengthen your case - allowing you to tailor your moveset to your favoured strategies. While the game is in no way an ''Franchise/AceAttorney'' clone, fans of the AA series will appreciate the colourful clients and especially the voice-acted pre-courtroom banter with the opposing prosecutors.
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5	It also has an ''excellent'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ubp9sWTcns theme song]].
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8	!!This game provides examples of:
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10	* AmoralAttorney: Max, of course.
11	* AnalogyBackfire: Half the conversations in the game.
12	** SidetrackedByTheAnalogy: And this is the other half.
13	* AndYourRewardIsClothes: One of the ways of spending money to upgrade Max's wardrobe, which grants certain skills.
14	* AndYourRewardIsInteriorDecorating: You upgrade Max's skills by using money from his cases to buy him furniture, wallpaper, and carpeting for his apartments.
15	* ArchnemesisDad: The final prosecutor you will face in the game, defending [[spoiler:yourself]] against charges of immoral conduct, is [[spoiler:Max [=McMann=] Senior]].
16	* BelligerentSexualTension: Max and Susan Maple have either this or FoeRomanceSubtext, depending on how you want to look at it.
17	* BlatantLies: Basically all of Max's attempts to present his client's crimes in an innocent light.
18	* ButNotTooEvil: The criminals you're defending are fairly petty on the whole, about the worst of them being personal theft and bar-room brawling; this is presumably in order to keep Max likeable. Some criminals are obviously being charged with much more serious crimes, like hacking into the Department of Defence or nicking a fighter jet to attack a foreign nation, but in those cases it's always implied that they never did serious damage; Matthew Mitts was implied to have done the former only to see if he could, and Cody Mastrelli is implied to have done the latter because he's a MilitaryMaverick type dude who'd be the HeroOfAnotherStory.
19	* BunnyEarsLawyer: Pretty much every voiced character, with the possible exception of [[OnlySaneMan Susan Maple]].
20	* ChewbaccaDefense: In some pretrail banter scenes Max outlines his general defense strategy, and it is always this. Special mention goes to Charles Shine's trail, where Max says he intends to [[InsanityDefense plead temporary insanity]]. But not just the standard insanity defence and all the negatives that might come with it; no, Max intends to ''plead that his client's car caused him to become temporary insane'', complete with a schematic of the brain showing "the insanity spreading from the car to the frontal lobe of the brain" that was drawn by a talented artist and looks "extremely scientific".
21	* CoolOldLady: Margaret Jones, in a sort of way. She was a hippie in her youth, is the one of the few prosecutors without any major personality flaws, and is also one of the few where Max has to consistently win the pre-case banter via ObfuscatingStupidity rather than outsmarting his opponent.
22	* DodgyToupee: Much fun is made of Roger Mansel's toupee. Max compares it to "smuggling a gopher on his head" and a "small furry hat".
23	* FelonyMisdemeanor: In retaliation for her spreading around the fact that she turned him down for a date, Max starts a rumor that Susan Maple is... ''Canadian''. She was even overheard talking about ''free healthcare''. The other lawyers act genuinely horrified.
24	* AFoolForAClient: [[spoiler:The final case.]]
25	* {{Foreshadowing}}: Implied to be [[InvokedTrope invoked]]: In Dave Lee's pretrial banter between Max and Margaret, she mentions that Max's dad is a prosecutor, and this exchange happens:
26	-->'''Margaret:''' "[Max's dad] is probably the best prosecutor in town."
27	-->'''Max:''' "Yeah, but that doesn't take a whole lot though."
28	-->'''Margaret:''' "So you think you can beat him?"
29	-->'''Max:''' "What? Of course I could beat him. But why would I?"
30	-->'''Margaret:''' "Interesting..."
31	-->'''Max:''' "What do you mean?"
32	-->'''Margaret:''' [[BlatantLies "Nothing, Max."]]
33	** [[spoiler: Sure enough, Max [=McMann=] Sr is the prosecutor in the final case, and Max [=McMann=] Jr is the defendant. Given that it's established that the prosecutors frequently communicate with each other, it's likely that Margaret knew that Max [=McMann=] Sr was preparing a case against his own son, and couldn't resist hinting at such to Max.]]
34	* FriendlyEnemy: Despite the fact that [[spoiler:[=McMann=] Sr is trying to get you jailed for immortal conduct]], he's entirely pleasant and friendly towards Max, and tells him that he's welcome to come round to Sunday lunch [[spoiler:with his parents if he manages to win his freedom]].
35	** After a couple of cases, most of the other prosecutors are like this to Max as well.
36	* GameWithinAGame: The Mega Lazer game, which involves you controlling a stationary turret shooting down bombers in the sky and defending ground objects. To play it, you have to buy the arcade machine in the third apartment, then tap on the arcade machine (if you purchased something else in the same furniture slot, [[PermanentlyMissableContent sorry, you'll have to start a new game if you want to play it]]).
37	* GoodLawyersGoodClients: Inverted!
38	* HeroAntagonist: The various prosecutors that Max faces.
39	* LanternJawOfJustice: Lampshaded by Max when he tries telling Margaret Jones that he's the protagonist that the audience is rooting for, and points out his jaw as being a classic hero's jaw.
40	* LetsPlay: [[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLREnb8MtIYWE1KE0hohV54Wq02QSARsMb Sadly without any of the excellent voice acting]], but it lets you at least read all of the dialogue.
41	* MeaningfulName: Every single name in the game is a PunnyName, a ShoutOut, or ThemeNaming.
42	* MemeticBadass: In-universe, Creator/SunTzu gets this treatment from Richard and Wayne, where they talk about how quoting him has potentially universe-shattering power.
43	* MiniBoss: Richard Brooks and Wayne Walker act as this, the former appearing at the end of act 1, the latter at the end of act 2, and then both of them show up one last time in that order as the two penultimate cases. Both have credibility in the double digits, are flanked with high damage witnesses/evidence, and have really annoying abilities (Richards reduces the number of ability points you get per turn by a not-insignificant amount, while Wayne's damage output is inversely proportional to his health, so if you don't take him out in one turn or use an objection on him and take him out in two he'll likely OneHitKill you).
44	* MultipleEndings: Three of them; Max can decide to [[spoiler:go into politics with Susan as his trophy wife, give up legal work to become a professional wrestler, or be inspired by Susan to become a better person.]]
45	* NumericalHard: All the difficulty does is change how much starting case credibility and ability points per round Max gets: on easy, Max gets 10 of both starting case credibility and ability points per round, normal takes two points off the former and a point off the latter, and hard takes an extra three points off the former and another point off the latter. Everything else, from ability costs to witness/evidence credibility and damage, remain the same. Since the numbers involved were already small to begin with, this is enough to make a significant challenge.
46	* RainbowPimpGear: Your apartment will inevitably be decorated in the equivalent of this, if you focus solely on unlocking certain skills instead of getting the furniture to match. You can also buy suits, ties and wear a few ability-enhancing items, which show up on Max's screen model.
47	* ReversePsychology: One of the possible moves, which causes the person you use it on to attack themselves.
48	* SchmuckBait: The ending choice warns you that the 'bad' ending is really bad and that it doesn't understand why anyone would even choose it. Naturally, it's the most hilarious of the three.
49	* SeriousBusiness: Creator/SunTzu quotes, to Richard and Wayne. Even quoting him apropos of nothing makes the [[TheStoic normally unflappable Wayne]] completely lose his shit.
50	* ShoutOut: Many of your clients are shout-outs to or thinly-veiled versions of 80's celebrities, and fictional characters from movies of that era.
51	* SimpleCountryLawyer: Jack Bourbon seems intended to invoke this trope, with his name, Dixie-esque suit, and psuedo-Texan accent.
52	* SlapSlapKiss / DatingCatwoman: Max's relationship with Susan Maple in a nutshell.
53	* SpinningPaper: Every time Max wins a case, you get one of these as a closing comment, complete with PunnyHeadlines.
54	* TooDumbToLive: Jack Bourbon shows this occasionally, but Roger Mansel suffers from this all the time, with Max constantly talking him into things that are really bad ideas.
55	* TrashTalk: Every single pre-case conversation is Max and the prosecuting attorney trading insults and/or bizarre analogies.
56	* UnexpectedlyRealisticGameplay: [[spoiler: No matter how well prepared you are for a case, and no matter how much evidence or witnesses you have, you don't have an infinite amount. If you keep on eliminating [=McMann=] Sr's witnesses and evidence and don't get wiped out by ScratchDamage (most likely by using Great Posture), eventually [=McMann=] Sr will run out of witnesses/evidence and you're free to [[CherryTapping patronise]] him to discredibility.]]
57	* VillainProtagonist: Well, you ''are'' defending a bunch of confirmed criminals for the money.
58	* WorldOfPun

Context VideoGame / DevilsAttorney