If Trigger Happy Havoc had a mode where you play as Kyoko (let’s call it Kyoko Mode), what do you imagine the gameplay would be like in a Kyoko Mode?
(This feels weirdly familiar. Like someone might've asked something similar before at some point... ? But I've been doing this blog for like five years now so who the hell knows... )
Realistically, it probably wouldn't be that different from the existing Investigation Mode. You'd click around an area and look at things, she'd draw conclusions from them (the text would keep the exact details of what she was understanding vague, with her thinking things like "This means... !" and such, to maintain a sense of mystery about the eventual trial), you'd click on characters to question them - she'd just have different dialogue and would be far quicker to understand implications than Makoto was - regardless of whether her internal monologue actually shared the details of her conclusions.
Ideally, Kyoko would get closer-up views of the things she's investigating that would allow her to click on and notice more fine details than what Makoto sees. Getting to see those additional details might make the sequence of events at a murder scene more obvious to the player than they'd be if you were playing as Naegi... or maybe not. It kind of depends on how well you pick up on the contextual clues her mode adds.
In Class Trials, I think she'd be dropping hints to the player about the correct answers just in her own internal monologue; Naegi does this frequently, but sometimes the hints come from outside of him via Kyoko, whereas Kyoko would always be able to pull hints from her subconscious, y'know? I'd also expect certain obstacles to not really exist. Maybe her gameplay mode wouldn't include the "noise" lines during Non-Stop Debates because she's focused enough to never be distracted by side commentary. And she'd blow right past Hangman's Gambit because she'd just know the proper term or concept without having to think deeply about it. (This could be an opportunity to just have the player choose from a multiple choice list of words to illustrate her formulating the answer faster.)
So I guess I see "Kyoko Mode" as a comparatively easier mode vs. being Naegi, who has to work harder to draw the same conclusions.
