The Mystery of Magnolia Mansion

"We all change, when you think about it, we're all different people; all through our lives, and that's okay, that's good, you've gotta keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be."

"Doctor Who: The Time of the Doctor"

There's nothing quite comparable to the transformation process of a videogame ported to different hardware, remastered or remade. I mean, novels are published with new covers all the time, but usually the contents remain (mostly) the same. One might be tempted to first think of censorship when it comes to post-publication text changes, but there are of course more reasons: from updating the body of text for later printings to correct spelling/grammar mistakes that had been overseen earlier, or perhaps because to reflect new spelling conventions. Most of the Rampo I've read for example, has been corrected for modern Japanese conventions, rather than the original pre-war spelling conventions (which can be very different). And then there are also the cases where the author chooses to change the text contents-wise, sometimes because there's a special occassion that allows them to go over their writings again (a brand new reprint for example), sometimes because an internal error was pointed out to them and they want to correct that. Ultimately though, these changes across versions of books are incredibly minor when compared how different the same base videogame can be across hardware and versions. The transformation process can be quite varied: sometimes it's a brushed-up version like a remastered, cleaned-up version of a film, sometimes the game has to be built completely anew from the ground up for a specific piece of hardware, which makes it a bit more similar to a remake of a film, but often at the core closer to the original game than a remade film usually is.

The iOS version I played of the Riverhillsoft adventure game Kohakuiro no Yuigon - Seiyou Karuta Renzoku Satsujin Jiken ("The Amber-Colored Testament - The Tarot Serial Murder Case") looks and sounds nothing at all like the original game which was released in 1988 on the Japanese PC-8801/PC-9801 personal computer systems, and even the way in which the player interacts with the game (the interface) is completely different, but the core plot and the progression in the game is basically the same. After the original release, this game has been ported and remade for a lot of hardware, from MSX2 to Windows 95,  Nintendo DS, iOS and Android, often changing appearances quite drastically whenever it arrived somewhere else. It's quite strange to see the same mystery story look and sound so drastically differently, yet be in the same medium (videogame). It's something that I just can't imagine with a mystery novel. The screenshots in this review are from various versions and look nothing alike, but they are also clearly the same core game.

But no matter on what hardware you're playing the game or how it looks, it always starts the same. Kagetani Koutarou was a very wealthy man in the 1920s who made a fortune with the trade in medicine. One day, he was found dead in the garden by his granddaughter and it was determined he had died because of poison. While it didn't seem likely the man would commit suicide, the remaining family members, including his second wife and several sons and daughters in varying ages from both his first and second wife, seem very reluctant to help the police, and the investigation soon gets stuck. The private detective Toudou Ryuunosuke is hired by the Kagetani family butler, who is convinced his master was murdered, but who wants the case to be investigated in a discreet manner, as the murderer is likely someone of the family. Toudou is invited to the Kagetani manor as the author friend of Kagetani Koutarou's nephew and is allowed to stay a few days as a house guest. During his stay, Toudou attempts to lure each of the Kagetanis into revealing what they are hiding about Koutarou's death, but little did he know that the first death was not to be the last.

Kohakuiro no Yuigon - Seiyou Karuta Renzoku Satsujin Jiken ("The Amber-Colored Testament - The Tarot Serial Murder Case") was the first game in the so-called "1920 Series" of mystery adventure games starring the character Toudou Ryuunosuke, but when developer Riverhillsoft closed in 2000, the rights to this series went to Althi, which renamed the series to the current Toudou Ryuunosuke Tantei Nikki ("The Detective Chronicles of Toudou Ryuunosuke") title. If this case this sounds familiar: the same actually happened with the J.B. Harold series, of which I have reviewed the first three games. The J.B. Harold games were also mystery adventure games originally developed by Riverhillsoft and the rights too were transferred to Althi (its current developer/publisher). One name that has to be mentioned to is that of Suzuki Rika: she originally worked at Riverhillsoft, and it was she who wrote both the Toudou Ryuunosuke and J.B. Harold series. She left Riverhillsoft with some other employees to start her own company Cing, which was responsible for a few great mystery-themed adventure games on the Nintendo DS and Wii (the Another Code and Kyle Hyde series), until Cing went defunct too in 2010.

As a mystery game, Kohakuiro no Yuigon basically plays exactly the same like the J.B. Harold games. The story starts in a non-linear manner, as you are free to walk around in the enormous Kagetani manor and you can visit each suspect in your own preferred order (and there are a lot of characters). As you chit-chat around, you'll learn facts about the other characters that will raise your suspicions towards that character (for example, A will say she saw B in the kitchen, or B will say that C hated the victim.) As you talk with each suspect about all the other suspects and other facts, you'll slowly connect the dots and construct a clear profile for each character. Once you have gathered enough information on a certain person, you can confront them, which usually results in you learning a significant fact that brings you closer to the truth. Rinse and repeat and you'll eventually find the killer. Different from the J.B. Harold I've played until now is that the murders don't stop with the first murder of Kagetani Koutarou (who is killed in the prologue anyway). Like the subtitle The Tarot Serial Murder Case suggests, more murders follow as you progress in the game and start poking around, but it's all part of the story and there's no threat of the player running out of time or not being able to solve the game because a suspect's been eliminated. Not much thinking is required on the part of the player, though making the connections yourself does make the game a lot smoother: if you yourself can't remember what line of investigation you're pursuing at the moment, you'll be forced to go around questioning everyone on everything, which can take ages. I can basically quote myself from the J.B. Harold: Kiss of Murder review to summarize my thoughts, as the games are, mechanically speaking, almost identical:

Kiss of Murder's emphasis lies on unraveling the complex ties between all the characters. At first, you'll only have a face and a name, but as you progress, you'll slowly uncover how each of these characters are connected, and most of them will turn out to be quite different from your first impression. As a game it's certainly not a very engaging or thrilling experience, as you're basically only going through dialogue, with everyone snitching on each other. The fun lies in going through this story in a non-linear fashion and making the connections yourself in your mind, as the game itself doesn't explain (for example, the game might tell you need to confront suspect A with their lies now, but you yourself have to remember that a while ago, suspect B and C both provided proof that suspect A had lied in completely different testimonies). At the best times, it does really feel like you yourself are solving this case, but at the worst of times, Kiss of Murder feels like a chore, as you run around asking everyone about everything in the hopes of coming across a clue. 

I do like the 1920s setting though. There are basically no other mystery videogames that use this setting. Almost. A few years ago, I reviewed the PlayStation 2 game Glass Rose. Which was also set in a fancy Western-style manor in 1920s Japan. But if you read the review, you'll understand that this is no coincidence, for Glass Rose was a game written by the same Suzuki Rika, but in her Cing period. It is quite clear Suzuki was also thinking of her older game Kohakuiro no Yuigon when she was working on the 2003 Glass Rose, for there are a few neat references to be found: not only do these games share the same time setting, the protagonist of Glass Rose is also called Kagetani and what was most surprising was that the floorplan of the second floors of both the Kagetani manor and the Kinema Mansion in Glass Rose are exactly the same, only flipped upside down! These are the kinds of inter-work references I really like!

Kohakuiro no Yuigon - Seiyou Karuta Renzoku Satsujin Jiken is not a mystery adventure game I would immediately recommend to everyone. You can tell it's a very dated game from the way it plays. It's very sober in design and the story moves very slowly. It is atmospheric though, and as a fan of Suzuki Rika's work, I simply couldn't skip this one. If you've played games in the J.B. Harold series, you know exactly what you'll get. Considering how similar they play, they are almost interchangeable, but I did find the story of Kohakuiro no Yuigon less engaging than the three J.B. Harold games I've tried.

Original Japanese title(s): 『琥珀色の遺言～西洋骨牌連続殺人事件～』