Video Game / Criminal Case: World Edition

Ready to save the world?

"Criminal Case: World Edition" (also known as Save the World, 2015) is the third game of the Criminal Case series.

The player is invited by Jack Archer to join The Bureau, an International Law Enforcement agency that deals with various crimes from all over the world. The Bureau discover the existence of SOMBRA, an Nebulous Evil Organization with global cells, and are tasked with dismantling them. The season shifts to a world tour premise, taking place in nine regions —Europe, the Sahara, Eurasia, South Asia, East Asia, Oceania, Africa, South America, and North America.

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Tropes

• Aborted Arc: Several character dialogues seemingly set up certain plot lines, which never goes anywhere.
  • In the God Save the Prince, Marina criticises Jack's mommy issues when the latter tries to flirt with her, which might tie into Jack's Mysterious Past. Not only is Jack's backstory never established, the Eurasia arc shows that Marina is the one with issues with her mother.
  • Likewise, when the party meets Lily Karam in Going the Distance, her cold and standoffish behaviour can seem quite troubling, especially compared to how friendly she had seemed in Kicking the Bucket. When she tells the player that she's heading to Brazil, it is hinted that she may have a larger role to play in the story. However, when the team did go to Brazil in Cheaters Never Win, Lily is nowhere to be found, and her story arc never continues. However, she does appear in Utah at the 7th season, Supernatural Investigations.
  • One could consider the season has turned into this. After finishing the final case in Mysteries of The Past, the player goes straight back to Grimsborough with no goodbye at all to the World Edition team. It's not even stated why or how the player has come back to Grimsborough.
• Anime Hair: Suzuki Sakura. Just look at her hair and notice how it stands out from any other character, let alone suspect.
• Arc Words: In East Asia, many characters say "The weak die." It is a Madness Mantra said by those brainwashed by SOMBRA.
• Artistic License – Biology: Many of the scenes in Ice Rage feature polar bears, one also has a husky. The case is set in Antarctica, where neither of those species exist.
• Artistic License – Geography: The South Asian cases make you hop around New Delhi, Agra, and Shimla like it's nothing, and even have a kid offering elephant rides from one place to another, even though these areas are hundreds of kilometers away from each other and would need nothing short of a plane to quickly travel around the place.
• Attractive Bent-Gender: In Up in Smoke, Lars Douglas waxes poetic about a dressed-in-drag Jack Archer's eyes without even knowing that it is Jack in drag.
• Bears Are Bad News: In Fast Track to Murder, Carmen and the player character nearly get attacked by a bear before Vadim shows up and saves the day by wrestling the bear.
• Blessed with Suck: A position in the Bureau is shown to be like this. Everyone else knows them as the highest authority worldwide, with Jack implying that people have actually killed for a job there. Throughout World Edition, it's shown that being in the Bureau can be very life-threatening, as the members have to investigate under even the most treacherous circumstances (i.e. natural disasters, wars, epidemics) while the criminal organization they're trying to investigate is constantly toying with them. They also have almost no time to take breaks, due to the safety of the entire Earth being in their hands.
• British Stuffiness: The first suspect we encounter in God Save the Prince is a banker who is well acquainted with the murder victim. When Jack demands why he doesn't seem fazed by the victim's death, he explained that his British stiff upper lip dictates that he don't fuss over something as trivial as murder, unlike Americans.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: The Bureau's members have strange and distracting quirks, but they were all recruited to be in the world's top police forces. This is often Lampshaded by Chief Ripley and Jack early on.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • North America has several suspects from past regions return unexpectedly, which coincides with the new El Rey being someone The Bureau's met before.
  • After Angela is revealed to be SOMBRA, you need a new coroner. The replacement character is Grace Delaney, the lab technician from Grimsborough.
• The Comically Serious: Several members of the main cast, with the most prominent being Judge Adaku, Elliot, Carmen, Jonah, Dupont, and Michelle.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: After she mentioned about leaving for Brazil at the end of Chapter 41, Lily is never seen or ever mentioned again by the characters.
  • She turns up again in Criminal Case: Supernatural Investigations.
• Create Your Own Villain: It is later revealed that SOMBRA owes its existence to Chief Ripley, then a CIA agent, who offered to fund Arsenio Castillo to attack a small country so that the USA could "save" the nation and gain access to its oil. Unfortunately SOMBRA grew too strong for the CIA to control and became a powerful terrorist organization with a near-worldwide influence.
• Darker and Edgier:
  • World Edition is certainly this compared to the other two seasons. It begins with the player being told quite bluntly that the world is in danger, and that several areas in Europe have been defiled because of suspected foul play. Many of the murders in this season are connected to an organization bent on world chaos rather than personal reasons, and said organization DOES NOT hesitate to directly attack the Bureau at every opportunity. In addition, the Bureau also helps countries during natural disasters, and are sometimes caught in the middle of one themselves. As a result, the main characters are more exposed to danger than ever before and so far, more than half of the Bureau members have been seriously injured while doing their jobs.
  • East Asia is looking to be this compared to the other regions, with children being hurt and disappearing as well as Lars and Angela fearing for the safety of their own daughters.
• Faking the Dead: Die by the Sword reveals that Chief Ripley is still alive, and that she was only pretending to be dead to trap The Sword.
• Filmi Music: In "Case 22: Bloodywood", one of the killer's traits is that they listen to Bollywood music.
• Fractured Fairy Tale: Only Truth Remains has a parody of Don Bluth's Anastasia, and features the titular Duchess trying to prove her identity which turns out to be a delusion she invented to cope with her past. After learning the truth, she is saddened but thanks the Bureau for helping her.
• Friend to All Children: All of the Bureau's personnel are shown to be kind and helpful towards the children they meet, particularly during East Asia's child crisis.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: In the additional investigation of Case 36: Out of the Blue, you have two hours to investigate before a volcano erupts and sinks the island you're on. But two of the evidence analyses take longer than that, unless you pay money to skip the timer.
• Grief-Induced Split: The reason for Ingrid's frostiness is revealed in "Case 49: Day of the Dead." She had given birth prematurely, resulting in the baby's death. She became an Ice Queen, while her husband Ramon turned to the bottle. Marina convinces Ingrid to make amends with her ex-husband, allowing them both to grieve properly. From this point on, Ingrid's hair reverts to its natural blonde and she swaps out her cold wardrobe for a sunnier look.
• High-Class Call Girl: One of the suspects in Moscow Mole, Liam Hall, turns out to be one of these when Jack and the player character find evidence that he was charging 200,000 rubles (3,000 U.S. dollars) to be the victim's "friend".
• Honor-Related Abuse: The killer in Bloodywood murdered his cousin because he wanted to restore honor to his family and felt that Priya brought dishonor by getting pregnant by the movie director.
• Interface Spoiler: In the mobile version, you can have other team members as partners who give extra hints. There's also the high score lists on each scene. Angela is missing from both of these. She turns out to be a SOMBRA member, and ends up being arrested.
• Lovable Alpha Bitch: Arsha Raju is a sharp-tongued Bollywood star who doesn't even bother remembering the Bureau or anyone she works with most of the time. However, when the player visits her in the Additional Investigation of Bloodywood, she's shown to be much nicer than she lets on, such as giving a signed photo to a street boy and inviting Dupont to play in the Cricket Gala. She's also grateful to them for fixing one of her dresses.
  • East Asia has a male version, K-pop star SILVERee. He has a ditzy and snobbish demeanor, but can be surprisingly down to earth when it's needed-like when he helps the player recover the memories of children who have been brainwashed by SOMBRA.
• Mistaken Nationality: While speaking to The Bureau's Historian, Armand Dupont, Jack assumed that he was French, especially due to his pompous behaviour and use of French phrases. Armand angrily corrects him that he's from Switzerland.
• Ms. Fanservice: One of the suspects in Murder by Proxy, Asal Hawaa, is a very pretty and very scantily dressed Sultry Belly Dancer who makes her first appearance giving the player a sexy dance. Unsurprisingly, Jack is more than happy to interrogate her.
• Multinational Team: The player's main team in the Bureau has characters from the US, UK, South Korea, Australia, Switzerland, and Russia. While Ingrid's origin is unknown, her surname implies that she's Nordic (her first and last names are of Scandinavian origin, and her necklace has a snowflake, a symbol often associated with Nordic or Scandinavian culture). Later on, the team gains Jonah Karam and Michelle Zuria, who are from South Africa and Singapore, respectively.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The only reason SOMBRA was able to become so powerful was because Chief Ripley, as well as the CIA, have funded them. However, CIA's reasons for funding SOMBRA, to infiltrate smaller countries to gain control of their oil, are not exactly seen in a heroic light.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Eccentric wildlife maniac Vadim Efremov turns out to be a MGB field agent.
• Opposites Attract: Lars and Angela Douglas, the Forensic Expert and Coroner of The Bureau. In their character profiles, Lars is described as a laidback joker, while Angela is described to be organized and perfectionist.
• Otaku: Yelena Tereshkova is a space-obsessed loony who can't seem to say anything outside wanting to go to space and whining about being rejected as an astronaut. Her obsession allowed her to be manipulated by Natasha into murdering someone with the promise of finally going to space.
• Please Put Some Clothes On: While in Germany, the player met a nudist who was also a fat, balding old man. Naturally, the first thing Carmen did was tell him to wear some pants on.
• Poor Communication Kills: And how. The Bureau was solely founded for the purpose of eliminating SOMBRA, and Chief Ripley refused to tell anyone about that, not even Ingrid. She did discuss her plans with the head of Mossad, who only pressed for her to keep her secret hidden. This even extends to the Bureau's interactions with Asal, who also had no idea of that discussion and honestly thought that searching for SOMBRA was just a game. When the truth is revealed, the Bureau is able to communicate more clearly with Asal, and all of the team members are upset with the Chief for hiding so many things from them. Elliot even laments that Michelle might still be alive had they known the truth all along.
• Putting on the Reich: In The Murder Games, Child Soldier recruits are ordered to wear red armbands.
• Put on a Bus: The whole team. Unlike previous seasons, there's no sendoff from the past police force to the next one. The player comes back to the present and is immediately thrown into Grimsborough, while the player has no idea of the fates of the World Edition team or how they were called back.
  • Jack and Marina later return in Travel In Time three seasons later, and while he doesn't appear, there's a few mentions of Jonah by Marina.
• Rape and Revenge: Murder by Proxy turns out to be this. The victim raped his ex-fiancée, who killed him in retaliation so he won't do the same thing to other women.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: An atypical example in the form of Brother Klaus, a nefarious monk who's hostile to the player, and whose albinism causes him to have naturally red irises.
• Relative Error: When Marina digs through Jonah's history and finds another woman in a photo with him who has the same last name as him, she explodes and thought the woman was Jonah's wife. When the woman is revealed to be Jonah's half-sister though, she's clearly embarrassed about her outburst.
• Remember the New Guy?: World Edition has many cases of this, due to many non-Bureau characters appearing outside of the region they debuted in.
• Royal "We": The player gets to meet the Queen of England in God Save the Prince, and she speaks of herself using "we" or "us", even when talking to her own family.
• Rule of Symbolism: The victim in Plagued by Death, the patient zero of a plague killing hundreds in Bangalore, was found in a temple of Shiva, the destroyer within the Hindu trinity. The killer believed killing millions will solve the world's overpopulation problem and usher a new era.
• The Runaway: Benjamin Scott is the Circus Runaway type, who believes he's entitled to prance around in the exotic Sahara region because his parents embarrass him, not bothering to consider how worried they are about him and how much trouble he's causing the Bureau by getting involved in various murder cases.
• Save Sat: Subverted in "Case 53: Politically Incorrect". After President Hewett requests proof that SOMBRA exists so he can consider taking actions, Elliot tries to bring BØB out of space and use its hard drive full of SOMBRA information to prove it, but unfortunately it gets hacked and taken away from the Bureau before it can touch ground.
• Self-Immolation: In the AI of When Shadows Fall, Brother Klaus chooses to set himself on fire rather than tell Carmen and the player character anything about the Promethians.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Agrafena Raskolnikova, a Russian young woman who went from a slightly messed up-looking rights activist into a clean and neat-looking Senior Assistant of Unified Nations. Lampshaded by Carmen.
• Shipper on Deck: In North America, the other Bureau members playfully tease Jack and Lars about being together, despite their repeated denial. Even Asal wishes Jack "Good luck with Lars" in her last appearance.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: Plagued by Death was chock full of Nightmare Fuel from the beginning, but the case truly takes a dark turn when Lars falls deathly ill.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: A sub-plot in the East Asia arc involves Tsukada Chieko's search for her long lost brother, who was taken in by SOMBRA. In the final chapter of the district, she finally found him, as the murder victim, that is.
• The Social Darwinist: SOMBRA's motto is "The smart rule, the strong command, the fast work, the weak die."
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Ambassador Stern from Murder by Proxy is a rather extreme example. She's very harsh when talking with Jack and the player, but immediately does a 180 degree and turns into a sweet Doting Parent when her son is around.
• Surrounded by Idiots: The other characters' dialogue occasionally implies that the Player Character sometimes has this feeling towards their Bureau colleagues.
• Take That!: In Murder by Proxy, one of the suspects, Jessica Stern, says she doesn't care if the victim had "been tarred, feathered and dragged into a chorus line of Mamma Mia!" when confronted about the embassy shutdown by Jack and the player character.
• Third-Person Person: One of the suspects in the first case, Count Rupert, refers to himself as "one".
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: The murder victim of When Shadows Fall, Father Pietro Agnelli, is fondly remembered by all as a very kind and saintly man. The ones who openly show distaste towards him are the maliciously ambitious Cardinal Salieri (who is the second-in-line after Agnelli as the Pope's successor), and those who disagree with his political views. Indeed, he was murdered for political reasons rather than someone actually having a personal grudge on him.
  • To a lesser extent, the victim of Bad Medicine. Although she did some questionable things to help the earthquake victims of India (such as stealing and selling valuables to get medicine), her heart was ultimately in the right place and her killer had murdered her because she disagreed with forcing victims to pay for treatment in a disaster.
• True Companions: World Edition puts a lot of focus on how the main characters interact with each other and their relationships. This only adds to the devastation of discovering a traitor in the Bureau.
• Tuxedo and Martini: One of the suspects in I Spy a Mummy, Jean Connerie, is an homage to James Bond, except he is more obvious with his spying techniques. His name is even a French version of "Sean Connery".
• Upper-Class Twit: Poo-pert — er, Rupert — is a member of the British royal family who seems to think that this automatically makes him better than anyone else. He tries to get Jack and the player character arrested for not respecting him (i.e. treating him as a murder suspect, which he is), and persists on continuing the arrest even after they solved the crime. Thankfully the Queen is more a Reasonable Authority Figure and quickly dropped the charges.
• Volcano Lair: SOMBRA has one of these on their island in Out of the Blue.
• Walk Like an Egyptian: At the beginning of I Spy a Mummy, Jack does the walk like an Egyptian dance.
• We Are Everywhere: SOMBRA. Think the criminal organizations from previous seasons are bad enough? They are just in America (as far as the game tells), SOMBRA is global. They can even be one of your close friends in the Bureau.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Chief Ripley died after just six cases into the season. This is perhaps the shortest-lived team member we've ever had. Her death was later revealed to be faked in Die by the Sword.
• Weak Boss, Strong Underlings: Conversed in the ninth case, "Killing Spring". Omar Bahir, aka The Sword, accuses the victim Hamza Bousseif of being this trope — that Hamza can put at risk the life of the protestants he leads in order to overthrow the Sultan but is too cowardly to do the same with his own life. Omar also encourages Hamza to become Cannon Fodder to demonstrate what a great leader he is.
• Western Terrorists: The Promethians of the Europe arc are a centuries-old terrorist organization seeking to dominate Europe into one country, starting with an attempt to blow up many of Europe's famous landmarks. They're also in league with SOMBRA, the antagonists of the entire season.
• Wham Episode: Considering World Edition is much Darker and Edgier than the previous seasons, it has several of these:
  • The Impossible Dream: Just when the team thinks that they've straightened things out in Europe, Chief Ripley is shot with a poison dart and seemingly killed, forcing the team to start their quest around the world.
  • Killing Spring: It's revealed that instead of defeating individual district villains like previous seasons, this season will focus on a global organization called SOMBRA, and that they'd already had a run-in with them via the Promethians.
  • Die by the Sword: The suspects in this case put several Bureau members' lives at great risk, especially the killer. For the first time ever, a former suspect becomes an official member of the main police force, and Chief Ripley is revealed to have faked her death to trick The Sword.
  • Plagued by Death: Lars nearly dies in the line of duty, and the case's killer is an Omnicidal Maniac who unleashed a plague on thousands of innocents because he wanted to play god. This is normally what would be expected for a district finale, but it happens midway through this particular district. This shifts the tone for later cases, hammering in the point that the Bureau members are in constant danger just for doing their jobs.
  • The Killer in the Rice: SOMBRA is on the move again, and this time they're targeting orphaned children to further their sick plans.
  • The Murder Games: A SOMBRA agent kills a child with their own hands, and the Bureau discovers that the orphans who survived SOMBRA's plans for them are taken to "The Next Level" as teenagers. Also, Carmen becomes the legal guardian of Sanjay Korrapati, causing him to start traveling with the Bureau as well.
  • A Stab in the Dark: The team catches a SOMBRA agent two episodes into the Oceania district, and said SOMBRA agent doesn't hesitate to take Elliot hostage, then badly injure him and Jack. On their mission to save Elliot, the player uncovers what SOMBRA is doing with the "Next Level" recruits: brainwashing and experimenting on them against their will.
  • Crash and Burn: The entire Bureau is nearly killed in a plane crash even before the case begins, and the reason was an act of sabotage-by someone within the Bureau.
  • In Plain Sight: The SOMBRA mole is revealed to be Angela, and the player only finds out after the morale of the team had been thoroughly broken, especially Lars's. Also, Michelle Zuria is officially accepted into the Bureau, and becomes the player's third partner for this season.
  • Ice Rage: Grace returns as a new member of the Bureau.
  • Murder, He Wrote: Lars is still in a broken state from Angela's betrayal, and threatens to kill himself midway through the case. When digging through the history of SOMBRA, the team finds the name "El Rey", who is rumored to be the one who started SOMBRA in the first place.
  • Total Eclipse of the Heart: Asal returns, and Lars tries to arrest her in his still-broken state. Later, she reveals that Mossad had given her a new assignment: to chase down El Rey before the Bureau does.
  • The King's Shadow: Michelle is suddenly killed by El Rey, who reveals that SOMBRA has a new leader now, and that they'll soon step out of the shadows. He also reveals that the new leader is someone that the team's already met.
  • Politically Incorrect: US officials are completely oblivious to the problems caused by SOMBRA, so the Bureau seeks proof through taking down the hijackced SOMBRA satellite that had been helping them since Eurasia. As soon as it enters the Earth's atmosphere, it gets re-hacked by SOMBRA, rendering it unusable by the Bureau.
  • Operation Spyfall: After crashing the satellite, the team arrives at the scene to find Jean Connerie dead, and the killer turned out to be former Bureau ally Anya Ivanova, who also attempted to kill Asal to prove her worth to SOMBRA.
  • Down to the Wire: El Rey's successor is found and arrested, but he reveals that SOMBRA had been created by Chief Ripley, who confirms that he's telling the truth. During her days as a CIA agent, the Chief had made a deal with SOMBRA (who were still a band of intellectuals at the time) in order to allow the US to invade smaller nations for oil. The US kept using SOMBRA for this purpose until one day, they turned on the organization and ran it into the ground. When SOMBRA resurfaced as an evil cult, Agent Ripley created the Bureau in the hopes that they'll be able to stop it once and for all. No one knew about this except for the Chief, El Rey and the head of Mossad, who refused to allow Ripley to tell anything to her team. Apparently he also refused to say anything to his own agents, leading Asal to believe that the hunt for SOMBRA was just some game, clearing up her conflicts with the Bureau. Before anyone could ask her anything else, Chief Ripley steps down from her position and disappears from the Bureau. Then the President of the US is kidnapped...
• William Telling: In The Murder Games, June, a six-year-old girl, tries to pull this stunt off with her sister April serving as the "target". Thankfully, Jonah steps in and catches the arrow mid-air before either of them got seriously hurt.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The CIA tries to invoke this on SOMBRA, by using them as means to infiltrate other countries, and attempting to shut them down after they are no longer useful. However, it didn't work. By the time the CIA realizes how dangerous SOMBRA is, the latter have gained enough resources to slip into the shadows and wreak havoc from behind the scenes.