Everlasting

いくつもの糸もつれあう中

僕たちは繋がっている

 「Everlasting」（B'z）

Even among these entangled threads

We are still connected

"Everlasting" (B'z)

I hope to do at least one other mystery videogame review before the end of the year, as the Tantei Jinguuji Saburou prequel Daedalus: The Awakening of Golden Jazz will release in December, but I can't make any promises (depends on how long the game is.

The private investigator Amagi Kojirou hasn't seen a single client in the three months since he had to open his own office, but a friend brings the womanizing detective in contact with Stoleman Kou, director of the Yale International School. Kou wants Kojirou to locate a small painting for him, which he needs for a service to commemorate his wife who died three years earlier. The painting has gone missing, but Kou has no idea whether it was stolen or simply mislaid in his house while he was abroad. Meanwhile, government agent Houjou Marina is assigned to a special undercover mission: she is to protect Midou Mayako, daughter of the Eldian ambassador to Japan. The Republic of Eldia is a small, multi-ethnic Middle-Eastern country that has developed tremendously lately, but is also torn by internal struggles between pro-monarch and pro-democracy factions. It seems Mayako has become the target of some group to put pressure on her father the ambassador, so Marina goes undercover as Mayako's personal tutor to protect her from danger. As Kojirou and Marina work on their own respective jobs however, they uncover an international plot involving the future of the Republic of Eldia and a mysterious serial killer "Terror" who always seems to be one step ahead of the two detectives in the PlayStation Vita/Windows/Nintendo Switch game EVE burst error R (2016).

EVE burst error is a famous graphic adventure game developed by C's Ware originally released in 1995 for the PC-9800 system (a kind of PC for the Japanese market). As you can gather from the summary above, it's a mystery adventure game, but it should also be mentioned that the original EVE burst error is an adult graphic adventure. Which means the game also contained nudity and explicit sex scenes. Explicit adult content is a big no-no for home console releases though, so in later ports and remakes for home console systems like the SEGA Saturn and PlayStation 2, the adult content is removed or rewritten. EVE burst error has been remade several times, and EVE burst error R is the most recent version, released on PlayStation Vita, Windows and Nintendo Switch (EVE burst error A, a version of R which does include the explicit adult content is also available on Windows). There exists an official English translation of the older Windows 98 release of EVE burst error by the way, though I played the Nintendo Switch which was released recently. As far as I know the main story is the same across all the versions (though newer versions may contain scenes not found in the original 1995 version), and while the non-adult versions don't feature the sex scenes, you have still have plenty of flirt scenes featuring skimpily dressed women shot from rather suggestive angles that horribly interrupt the pacing of the main mystery story.

As an adventure game, EVE burst error R is most of the time quite classic. You'll be using commands like "Move", "Check" and "Talk" to interact with other characters and the environment as you move between locations in search of clues and people to talk to to move the story forward. As long as you try all options, it's impossible to get stuck, and most of the time, you'll just be chasing after the story, finding the right characters to talk to. And like in most classic Japanese command-type adventure games, it can be quite irritating to figure out what to do to move the story forward. Luckily, EVE burst error R has an optional mode that gives a visual cue where you have to go next, and I really recommend this, as come on, how am I going to guess I have to first go to the school dorm to activate an inner monologue about something completely unrelated, go back to Central Avenue, and then go to the school dorm again to have character X appear in order to proceed!? EVE burst error R features nice redrawn art, but it definitely feels really like the 90s adventure it is.

Interesting however is the so-called Multi Sight System, which is unique to the EVE series. In the game, you control both Kojirou and Marina in their respective scenarios, and you can switch between the two stories at any time. So you're following two stories simultaneously. While most of the times, the two detectives pursue their own goals, at times we see the two stories intersect, and it's pretty interesting to see some events from both perspectives and it's only by seeing both sides that all the questions are answered, as both Kojirou and Marina will learn things that the other has no inkling about (though there are also times you just see the same events twice, and that can be a bit boring). The Multi Sight System is also used as a rudimentary "zapping" system as seen in games like Machi and 428: sometimes you can't continue in a particular scenario, unless you reach a specific point in the other scenario too. For example, early in the game, you'll hit a stop in the story with Marina unless you swap over to the Kojirou story, and play with him until the point where he discovers a murdered man, after which Marina in her scenario is informed of that same murder and heads out to the crime scene. In games like Machi and 428, you had "zap" between the various characters and make story-changing choices to help the others out (for example, choose to open a certain door with character X so later character Y can use that door), though in EVE burst error R, it's not about making the correct choice to help out the other protagonist, all you have to do is simply reach a certain point in the story, so in a way, it's only a mechanic to make sure you get too far ahead in either scenario. 

Is EVE burst error R an interesting mystery game though, with these systems? Err... I have to voice some reservations. First of all, both Kojirou and Marina are rather passive players in their respective scenarios, with most of the events happening to them, and giving them little space to really go out investigate the various events themselves. Once in a while, both detectives will learn fragments of useful information, but they never really manage to become active agents in their own stories. The Tantei Jinguuji Saburou games are also fairly straighforward in chasing after the main mystery, but at least in those games, you feel more like a detective actively investigating a case, rather than just someone who's the target of event after event. Several murders occur over the course of the story of EVE burst error R, and you slowly learn it all has to do with the Republic of Eldia, but the furher you come, the more the story becomes like a somewhat ridiculous spy story with secret agents and conspiracies etc. At the very end of both the Kojirou and Marina scenarios however, the game suddenly takes on a different form and gives you two options: one is to replay some of the significant parts that involve the various murders (in case you'd forgotten the details), and the other option is to accuse a murderer for each of these murders. Here EVE burst error R presents a rather "classic" take on the detective game, simply asking you to name the murderer(s). As a mystery plot, EVE burst error R has some merits, but also big flaws.

What is entertaining is definitely the use of the Multi Sight System: in order to figure out who the murderer(s) are for each of the murders, you have to combine the facts you learn from both sides. The way these hints and clues are spread across both scenarios is done competently, and gives meaning at the use of two, simultaneously developing stories. On the other hand though, the solution treads into the science-fiction genre, and is not completely fair. Yes, there are events that happen in both scenarios that hint at the solution, but for example the most incriminating clue is shown on the screen literally one second before the game asks you to name the murderer(s), without any context or comment on what you just saw, and that is definitely something from science fiction we had never seen before in the story. Comparing it to WorldEnd Syndrome, which I reviewed a few months ago, I'd say EVE burst error R has more clues that actually point towards the solution, but still WorldEnd Syndrome is more satisfying as the underlying rules were clearer and did a better job at preparing the player for the supernatural background setting of a game, while in EVE burst error, you're suddenly confronted in the solution with something that up to that point, had not been shown as possible in that world in that form.

EVE burst error R is therefore a game I find difficult to recommend as a mystery adventure game. Yes, it is a classic in the history of Japanese adventure games, but it definitely also feels like an old game in terms of storytelling. As a mystery story, the game definitely tries something interesting, making good use of its Multi Sight System, but the story is also hampered by the over-the-top foreign-spy-agents-and-conspiracies backdrop and the ending that's basically science fiction, which would have actually worked perfectly if only the set-up had been better for this reveal, as the main clue as to the actual answer to all the murders now depends on a physical clue that has not been explained enough in the main story.

Original Japanese title(s): 『EVE burst error R』