The Aggie Awards – The Best Adventure Games of 2021 page 2
Best Story: The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles
With a fresh start in a time period set well before the rest of the series, The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles sheds a lot of baggage in terms of recurring characters and other lore. But rather than stop there, it also takes the opportunity to leave behind some worn-out storytelling crutches: the judges are more competent, the arguments from the prosecution are more reasonable, and the investigative assistance from “Herlock Sholmes” feels rather more natural than any of the other things that have replaced the magatama over the years (though certainly a bit larger-than-life). These changes complement a story that would have been able to stand on its own without them: plot threads that start in the very first case won’t be fully unraveled until the end is in sight, with plenty of twists and much foul play along the way as the political interests of two empires are often at odds with the protection of the innocent. By tightening its narrative act, Capcom has given us an impressive new demonstration of what the Ace Attorney series is capable of, and for that it takes home the Aggie for Best Story.
Runners-Up:
The Forgotten City
Minute of Islands
Lacuna
Backbone
Readers’ Choice: Strangeland
Wormwood Studios’ highly anticipated follow-up to Primordia tells a strange story in a strange place, so it comes by its title honestly. Strangeland is unrelentingly dark and grim, and all the more compelling because of it. Like an interactive nightmare, you’ll find yourself stuck with no memories in a twisted carnival on a floating island filled with disturbed (and disturbing) creatures – and that’s before reality shifts to something even bleaker, more distorted and grotesque. The story involves trying to solve the mystery of a young woman you witness plunge to her death down a well, even as you're confronted with your own mortality over and over again. (Oh yes, you will die.) Everything here is connected somehow, but what it all means is never clearly spelled out, leaving the narrative open for interpretation. Many clearly love this sort of tortured ambiguity, as Strangeland becomes the first winner of the reader Aggie Awards.
Runners-Up:
The Forgotten City
Backbone
The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles
Life Is Strange: True Colors
Next up: Best Writing – Comedy... the envelope, please!