Published by Square-Enix and from the same studio (h.a.n.d.) that developed the recent NEO: The World Ends With You, but on a totally different kick. It's a murder-mystery-adventure type thing with lashings of live action FMV!
Trailer with gameplay elements here, but also a warning for some mild spoilers.
The plot centres around Haruka Kagami, an author of mystery novels. She's invited to the family estate of a regular consultant; it's built around a huge manor which is steeped in tradition and tragedy, with a series of connected deaths dating back 100 years, the complexities of which she's been asked to help unravel on the sly. There's goings on in the present, but she also gets access to written accounts of some of these past events which form the basis of some chapters, where she projects herself and Eiji (the consultant) onto the protagonists of these events.
Each chapter is usually opened with 30 mins or so of story scenes, where new characters get added to a list, and points of interest prompt you to press a button and build a bank of clues to sift through and ponder while everything unfolds, typically culminating in someone turning up dead and everyone else then turning up slack-jawed to give their alibis. After this you retreat into your 'cognitive space' to connect questions to clues (don't worry, you get access to all of them if you fell asleep in the story bit and missed the prompts) which in turn creates hypotheses - some right, some wrong - for you to ponder on. The connecting questions to clues bit is less trial-and-error than you'd think on account of it being done on via a big grid of hexagons that have patterns in their segments which can be used to match instead, but then after you've satisfied enough questions you can proceed to the grand finale. There's a bit of a recap just before this where you can bounce questions off Eiji, and then it's on to navigating through the multiple-choice gauntlet to prove you've got the right of it, and and can correctly prove who's the murderer.
It is very much low-budget J-drama Poirot. Everything looks nice enough but the drama is hammy daytime TV fare, and while I'm not one of those who intentionally wants to pick holes in story telling for the sake of looking smart, hoo boy are there are some plot holes. You can still have lots of fun with it, but do be prepared to overlook some pretty wild logical inconsistencies.
I've spent about 10 hours with it so far and I'm pretty sure I'm nearing the end. But have I enjoyed myself? Yes, a lot. It takes itself far more seriously and is less prone to earth-shattering twists than something like Phoenix Wright, but it follows a similar structure while also being well presented and a bit more compact.
Trailer with gameplay elements here, but also a warning for some mild spoilers.
The plot centres around Haruka Kagami, an author of mystery novels. She's invited to the family estate of a regular consultant; it's built around a huge manor which is steeped in tradition and tragedy, with a series of connected deaths dating back 100 years, the complexities of which she's been asked to help unravel on the sly. There's goings on in the present, but she also gets access to written accounts of some of these past events which form the basis of some chapters, where she projects herself and Eiji (the consultant) onto the protagonists of these events.
Each chapter is usually opened with 30 mins or so of story scenes, where new characters get added to a list, and points of interest prompt you to press a button and build a bank of clues to sift through and ponder while everything unfolds, typically culminating in someone turning up dead and everyone else then turning up slack-jawed to give their alibis. After this you retreat into your 'cognitive space' to connect questions to clues (don't worry, you get access to all of them if you fell asleep in the story bit and missed the prompts) which in turn creates hypotheses - some right, some wrong - for you to ponder on. The connecting questions to clues bit is less trial-and-error than you'd think on account of it being done on via a big grid of hexagons that have patterns in their segments which can be used to match instead, but then after you've satisfied enough questions you can proceed to the grand finale. There's a bit of a recap just before this where you can bounce questions off Eiji, and then it's on to navigating through the multiple-choice gauntlet to prove you've got the right of it, and and can correctly prove who's the murderer.
It is very much low-budget J-drama Poirot. Everything looks nice enough but the drama is hammy daytime TV fare, and while I'm not one of those who intentionally wants to pick holes in story telling for the sake of looking smart, hoo boy are there are some plot holes. You can still have lots of fun with it, but do be prepared to overlook some pretty wild logical inconsistencies.
I've spent about 10 hours with it so far and I'm pretty sure I'm nearing the end. But have I enjoyed myself? Yes, a lot. It takes itself far more seriously and is less prone to earth-shattering twists than something like Phoenix Wright, but it follows a similar structure while also being well presented and a bit more compact.
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