Soccer Judge III: Redemption

sergiocornaga's picture
SoccerJudge3.png
Game File: 

This next thrilling instalment in the Soccer Judge franchise sees the action move off the soccer court and into a court... of law.

Made by Liam and Sergio, with vital unspecified creative contributions by Lucy!

Source available here.

Made For: 
An event

Comments

atuun's picture

This is a pretty brave

This is a pretty brave direction for the series to take, and I appreciate the exploration of the Soccer Judge lore. I also liked defending the burglar, who gets a short shift in most of the games he's in for some reason.

Also, my headcanon is that this is a prequel. It just feels like one for some reason!

sergiocornaga's picture

Given that the first Soccer

Given that the first Soccer Judge game was inexplicably subtitled 'The Revenge', interpreting the series as being out of chronological order seems wise! My own headcanon of the second game is that it's a dream sequence (nightmare?) experienced by the judge at some point. But that doesn't really fit with the subtitle 'The Inciting Incident'… unless the judge's prejudices all stem from some random dream he had? OK, that's my headcanon now.

I'm not sure I want to make more Soccer Judge games, but there are clearly parts of this story left to tell.

thesycophant's picture

If this were a soap opera, it'd be "The Bold and the Beautiful"

Because it is bold and it is beautiful. Some phenomenal writing. I don't know that this will be my game of the year 2017, but this one moment could well be my screenshot of the year: [SPOILERS, obvs].

Great soundtrack, too.

I agree with atuun, this seems like this could be a prequel, which would leave future entries in the franchise all kinds of new directions to explore.

With so much new Soccer Judge content in such quick succession after the original seven years ago, this is kinda feeling like Glorious Trainwrecks's own Twin Peaks moment.

sergiocornaga's picture

Game of the year contender?

Game of the year contender? I'm in awe.

I'm glad you enjoyed the soundtrack, I couldn't have assembled it without VGMusic.com. Since I included two Chrono Trigger MIDI transcriptions, "Kingdom Trial" might seem to be a more obvious choice for courtroom music… however, I was inspired to go for Yoshi's Island instead, thanks to "The Wrongful Conviction of Mister Trenton", a 2005 People's Remix Competition 2nd Place Winner. It unsurprisingly seems to have disappeared from the internet, so I rescued my copy off an old hard drive and have uploaded it for posterity.

fizzhog's picture

Loved this

Like an episode of Perry Mason scripted by Groucho Marx and Jean Genet.

sergiocornaga's picture

This is higher praise than I

This is higher praise than I ever expected this game to receive. Thank you.

everythingstaken's picture

Damn, I cried! This is

Damn, I cried! This is beautiful, I really enjoyed playing some soccer

clyde's picture

I really enjoyed being able

I really enjoyed being able to admit the truth as the burglar rather than staying silent or crafting a more believable story in hopes that it would lead to a verdict of innocence.
The only character I find myself ambivalent about is the prosecutor. The other three seem dishonest and schemey. But it just happens that abuse of authority is the greater sin. The happy ending seems to come not because of trust in the justice-system, but because all the characters are passionately motivated to move forward on their own agendas. The burglar wants to speak the truth and be found innocent, the defense attorney wants to scapegoat anyone or anything that is not the defendant, the prosecutor wants to serve justice, and the judge wants to use his power to confirm his biases. When it all comes together in this story corroboration, we as the audience get to enjoy watching more complex truths reveal themselves out of this cluster of motivated paradigms.

quasiotter's picture

backdrifters (yet again)

my roommate came in to ask me if i'm okay because i was laughing hysterically

i think the stremgth of it comes from the lore. i'm being serious. i think the fact that you're upending expectations from events that have been conditioned to work in certain ways (according to laws and logic) and changing that around to something absurd is what does it. i mean the cartoon graphics that are somewhat relistic but with more pink set it up as a more serious thing, and that creates those expectations. but even those like myself that have played the first two installments expecting a sort of tone are experiencing something that makes sense canonically (in terms of tone), but still unpredictable. the universe here is close enough to the real world but nudged a metre away so that anything can happen, really. it's actually what i'm doing in the writing i'm trying to do, so this is pretty much right upmy alley. also i love unexpected romance