The Case of the Bleeding Radio

(20:55:47) David Newton: I had dismissed him before because... he's a radio. (A radio that sweats blood when stressed - that was an unusual motif.)
(20:56:07) Kjorteo: Oil. I suppose you wouldn't know, but it's not red. :)
(20:57:34) David Newton: Oh, isn't it? That was an extra treat for me, then. What is it really?
(20:58:52) Kjorteo: Sort of light greyish brown...kind of like motor oil, I think.
(20:59:20) Kjorteo: probably not motor oil because it's a radio, but...you know...some sort of oil/lubricant of some sort.

I can't actually remember the last time my colourblindness caused me to completely misinterpret something. Usually it's something that I don't even consider an abnormality because variants of it are so common, with the only real disadvantage being that I can't play Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo or other games where colour is a crucial feature with absolutely no secondary backup. But this time it caused a scene from near the end of the second Phoenix Wright game to become positively Shining-like.

I've now finally completed it, after a couple of months - lupineangel, you really weren't kidding when you said that the last stages of it turn everything on its head and make you feel amazingly guilty if you do anything wrong. The above conversation was something that happened shortly after I admitted it had done me in by seeking advice for getting past the final decision of the game, because I didn't have the heart to do it by trial and error. I don't think I've been anything near that tense about a game before - even though there are no time-crucial sections it feels like things are going too fast to keep up. There's a decision shortly before it that would be of sheer Granstream Saga levels of cruelty if it wasn't nullified shortly afterwards, and the bad ending is positively tragic... at least, it would be if they hadn't managed to suddenly ruin it all with the mangled line "The miracle never happen", a quality of English translation that hasn't been seen since the early 90s.

In fact, that's the one complaint that I have about the second game compared to the first - it's peppered with sometimes very jarring typos and spelling mistakes, sometimes dissolving scenes that are meant to be tense into accidental comedy. Otherwise, I'm half glad that it was slightly shorter, because after going through the end sequence and enjoying the sense of relief that it had finally given, I decided that I could do without the stress of it for a while.

And as soon as I had typed exactly that, Whitney handed me this from the library, in a bout of incredible irony. I don't think I've read a graphic novel since Tintin and Asterix, and it's quite a mental challenge having to read text from left to right while reading panels from right to left and often pages from top to bottom. It's like reversed controls for your eyes.