This Love is Thrill, Shock, Suspense

"They were good days. Yes, they have been good days."

"Curtain"

Hmm, I thought I was doing far too few mystery videogame reviews this year, but I'm actually not doing bad, even better than last year.

Mihate-chou is a small seaside town that lately has gathered some attention through the popular novel WorldEnd. The fantasy-romance novel was based on local Mihate-chou folklore, which says that once in a hundred years, deceased persons will come back to life and roam the town. According to the legend, these "People from the Underworld" will return in the summer, and while they themselves don't realize they are dead, they will eventually become the cause of a horrible tragedy in the town. WorldEnd became a bestseller, and this summer, a film adaptation of WorldEnd featuring the popular idol-singer Nikaidou Rei will be filmed in Mihate-chou. The protagonist of Arc System Work's 2018 videogame WorldEnd Syndrome (Switch/PS4/PS Vita) arrives in the early summer in Mihate-chou as a transfer student. He is soon invited to join the Folklore Research Club of Mihate High School, a new school club created by Kaori Yamashiro, his home-room teacher and also the author of WorldEnd. The club is still just a test, as Kaori hopes to make it an official school club next year, so there's only a handful of students, who also happen to be all girls. A summer of bitter-sweet youth romance seems to be awaiting our protagonist in Mihate-chou with five eligible love interests , but the image of Mihate-chou as a nice seaside town turns out to be nothing more but a facade. A murderer lurking around Mihate-chou has already killed two high school students and this case appears to be connected to the Folklore Research Club. Is it a coincidence that the dead are said to come back to life exactly this year?

When WorldEnd Syndrome was first announced last year, my interests were immediately piqued. It was marketed as a Romance X Mystery Adventure game, which are two game genres rarely put together. The background story of the dead returning to life and mingling among the living also sounded as the basis of a cool mystery story (somewhat reminiscent of novels like Another or Death of the Living Dead), so I really looked forward to this game. I was therefore quite bummed when the game was delayed suddenly from April 2018 to August 2018. The wait was worth it though!

In essence, WorldEnd Syndrome is a dating sim videogame with a mystery theme. I'll probably need to explain the "dating sim" genre to non-gamers here, but basically, a dating sim is a story-driven videogame, that focuses on a protagonist developing a romantic relationship with one of the eligible characters within the context of the story (see also my review of Buddy Collection if - Shukumei no Akai Ito-). By speaking with certain characters or helping them out, you'll raise your affinity levels with them, and certain events will play out between the protagonist and a character if you manage to raise the affinity levels high enough (for example, you unlock an event where the two go on a date). WorldEnd Syndrome has five eligible heroines, from the energetic, strongminded Maimi to the mysterious Miu and the clumsy Hanako and more, and eventually you'll "lock on" a certain route, giving access to exclusive events with a specific girl. WorldEnd Syndrome, like many dating sims, gives you a limited resource (time) to woo your girl: each day of August is divided in three periods (morning, afternoon and evening), and you can choose to visit one of the various locations each period. If you happen to meet up with Maimi at school in the morning for example, your affinity with her will rise, while that also means you won't be able to meet Miu at the restaurant at the same time. There are diverse scenes with all the girls, from rom-com-esque conversations to scenes where the girls open up more to the protagonist. Choices have to be made, and eventually you'll end up with one certain girl for the rest of the story, which will offer some light summer romance scenes with that specific girl (and obviously the other girls become less important once you're locked onto a route). Occassionally, you'll have to make certain choices during story events, that may influence how much affinity you gain, or even change the further flow of the story (I definitely ended up dead because I picked a choice I thought was quite innocent...).

WorldEnd Syndrome is however also a mystery story, though it takes a long time to really get there. The mystery revolves around the murders of the school girls, and the question of whether a Person from the Underworld has really found their way among the living in Mihate-chou, but it's not like the characters are actively trying to solve these mysteries. Each route (depending on which girl you end up with) gives you a different look at the various events that unfold during the summer, and they each offer fragments of the truth: for example, in the case you end up dating Hanako, you'll learn more about the incident with the stalker of the idol Nikaido Rei, while the Miu route will explain more about the folklore surrounding the People from the Underworld (and you hardly hear anything about the stalker case here). You'll have to play through all five routes to eventually figure out the truth behind all the incidents that occur in Mihate-chou: while each route does unveil some part of the picture, it's always incomplete, and they usually conclude with a bad ending. It's only by replaying the game with all five heroines you'll be able to find out what really happened this summer and find a happy ending for all. This does mean that the first half of the game hardly feels like a mystery game: you are not actively detecting anything and you only see fragments of the plot. It's only in the latter half that things start to fall in place in your mind (luckily, you can skip any text/scenes you have already seen, making subsequent playthroughs fairly swift).

In the end, the game doesn't really expect you to solve all the mysteries in advance based on fair-play clewing, but once you've arrived in the final few chapters, you'll realize that there were definitely also hidden clues available and signs of foreshadowing, and there are a couple scenes spread across the routes that suddenly take on a different meaning in hindsight. The sensation of having all the broken story fragments fall in place is pretty good, and I'd say that WorldEnd Syndrome definitely works as a true mystery story, and not just as a dating sim game. For people not used to playing these kinds of games, where you have to replay certain parts over and over with different story outcomes, the story might be a bit confusing, but overall, I think WorldEnd Syndrome is a good example of how to make a mystery story work in this game genre. Even the supernatural background setting of the dead coming back to life works: while there are no "rules" or anything governing the supernatural phenomenon like you usually see in (good) mystery fiction with special settings, there are still scenes throughout the game that make more sense in hindsight once you realize what was going on, and they never feel cheap.

By the way, the backgrounds of this game are really cool, with nice touches like pinwheels moving in the background or swaying light sources. Most of the game is voiced too, which is nice. For a completely original new IP in a rather niche genre, this game was some good production values. There are also a few collectibles spread throughout the game to encourage multiple playthroughs.

The ending hints heavily at a sequel, and as I enjoyed WorldEnd Syndrome, I sure hope that sequel comes. As a game, it definitely feels more like a dating sim game for most of the time, but once you arrive in the latter half in the story and the jigsaw pieces start to fall in place, the game also starts working as a mystery adventure game. The game does a pretty good job at presenting a disjointed mystery story that comes together in the end, but it is really, really slow the first time. But if you'd ask me, "Is WorldEnd Syndrome really a mystery adventure game?' I'd say yes, and a fun one too.

Original Japanese title(s): 『ワールドエンド・シンドローム』

Monochrome Motion

たった一度だけでも抱いてしまった希望

君の手の中に踊るのは

未完成な音色

「未完成な音色」（Garnet Crow）

It was a hope I held on for only one single time

But what is dancing within your hands is

An imperfect sound

"An Imperfect Sound" (Garnet Crow)

Don't you just hate it when an anthology features one story you really want to read, but where most of the other contents are made up out of stories you already have in other publications? Or when a certain book is re-released, but includes some new content, for example a new story, or an updated chapter or something similar? That one story or that little bit of new content is certainly alluring, but does it justify basically double-dipping on certain stories or other books?

Tantei Jinguuji Saburou series 
1: The Shinjuku Central Park Murder Case (1987) [Nintendo Famicom Disk System]
5: The Unfinished Reportage (1996) [Sony PlayStation / SEGA Saturn] 
6: At the End of the Dream (1998) [Sony PlayStation / SEGA Saturn] 
7: Before the Light Fades (1999) [Sony PlaySation] 
8: Innocent Black (2002) [Sony PlayStation 2]  
9: Kind of Blue (2004) [Sony PlayStation 2]  
10: The White Phantom Girl (2005) [Nintendo GameBoy Advance] 
14: Ashes and Diamonds (2009) [Sony PlayStation Portable] 
15: The Red Butterfly (2010) [Nintendo DS] 
16: Rondo of Revenge (2012) [Nintendo 3DS]
17: Ghost of the Dusk (2017) [Nintendo 3DS] 
18: Prism of Eyes (2018) [Nintendo Switch/Sony PlayStation 4]

Novels
The Ghost of Shinjuku (2006)
A Bright Future (2007)

That is the question that sticks with me the most as I played the Switch/PlayStation 4 game Tantei Jinguuji Saburou - Prism of Eyes ("Detective Jinguuji Saburou - Prism of Eyes"), released in August 2018 as the eighteenth main series entry in what might possibly be the longest running mystery adventure game series. As always, the game revolves around the adventures of the ever-smoking private detective Jinguuji, his assistant Youko and the local police detective Kumano as they work on curious cases in Shinjuku, Tokyo. This latest game is basically a series anthology, complete with the usual complaint I have with anthologies: most of the content is already available in other forms. Prism of Eyes contains no less than thirteen different scenarios (stories), most of them about two to three hours long to read through (plus one bonus story). The problem is that only three of those scenarios (and the bonus story) are completely new, original content. The remaining ten stories, thus the bulk of the whole game, are high-definition remakes of select titles from the spin-off series which were originally not released on game consoles, but on mobile phones. While the original services offering the Tantei Jinguuji Saburou mobile phone applications have stopped long ago making them rare games in theory, all twenty-four mobile applications are quite easily available, as they were included (in batches) in previous main series titles. That means that if you have been following this game series since at least the DS titles,  you will already be familiar with about seventy-five percent of this game.

I have been a long-time fan of this series. In fact, I started playing these games just before I started learning Japanese, so to me, the experience of playing these games have always been also a way to measure my proficiency in the language, but that does mean that Prism of Eyes feels rather lacking in content to me, as so much is simply repackaging of old material I already know. The three brand-new scenarios (which are collectively titled Prism of Eyes) do try to do something interesting. Assistant Youko and police inspector Kumano have been playable characters in some of the previous titles, but that was usually in a shared role with Jinguuji, or with each other, with chapters alternating between these characters. Never before have Youko and Kumano, who have been in this series ever since the first title, carried their own story from start to finish. The three new Prism of Eyes scenarios however have Jinguuji, Youko and Kumano each star in their own story. In False Night, Jinguuji runs into Asakura, an old buddy from the university boxing club, who is apparently chased by some suspicious figures. Asakura disappears, but Jinguuji learns that Asakura has stolen a bag from a VIP room in a club run by a shady organization and now everyone is after Asakura and his bag. Detective assistant Youko stars in Gems For the Dead, where a college friend Yuiko, who is now a jewelry designer, asks Youko to model for her. She also wants Youko to investigate her boyfriend, who has been acting weird strangely, and Youko discovers a strange connection between Yuiko's boyfriend and a series of murders happening in Shinjuku, where a gem is left with each victim. In The Truth of the Cursed Mirror, police inspector Kumano is investigating the death of an assistant-professor in archeology in a dig-site discovered at a construction site. At first sight, it appears the man simply slipped and died because of his injuries, but there are some points that bother the experienced police detective, and there are also rumors the assistant-professor's death is connected to a curse enscribed in an ancient bronze mirror found at the site.

As per the current series tradition, these games don't really offer much in terms of interactivity, only allowing you to use a few simple commands like "Move" and "Look" to move between locations and ask witnesses specific questions, and it's impossible to get stuck or even get a game over screen. In return, these games can focus very much on story-telling, and while the core is still a mystery plot, the human drama angle this game series has adapted especially since the entries released on the DS, is very much noticable here. The three stories do play into the strengths of the three characters: Jinguuji's scenario has him dealing with underworld gangs and secret wars, Youko's story is far more focused on the characters, while Inspector Kumano's story has him dealing with red tape and pressure from within the police organization as he tries to solve his case. The three scenarios are rather passive experiences as mystery stories, focusing more on the slow unraveling of the case and events, rather than giving the player the tools to do it themselves, but they definitely work as captivating mystery stories. But, considering these three scenarios are each about two, three hours long each, Prism of Eyes does really feel lacking in content. The scale of these three stories is rather limited. And sure, taken together you might have about nine hours, but as a main series entry, I'd prefered a long, nine-hour story (like in the older games, like series pinnacles Yume no Owari ni and Tomoshibi ga Kienu Ma ni), rather than three shorter stories. Prism of Eyes is the first Tantei Jinguuji Saburou to be released on a home console, rather than a handheld device (DS, PSP and 3DS) since 2004's Kind of Blue, so I had hoped we'd be getting the scaled-up experience this time, with more robust gameplay mechanics like the zapping system, time system or even the train-your-assistant systems of earlier games, but no. The DS and 3DS original scenarios were arguably also rather small in scale, but that wasn't very surprising considering the hardware (Ashes and Diamonds on the PSP in comparison is pretty long), and the inclusion of the mobile phone application games back then was a worthwile addition, as that was the first time they were made available in a physical format, and you couldn't get them anymore on the cell phones.

There are also various minor signs that Prism of Eyes could've used some extra polish. Some of the in-game effects (like sliding assets) are incredibly ugly and the order of in-game commands (like "Look", "Item" and "Move") changes sometimes between the various scenarios. So most of the time, "Speak" follows the command "Look", while for example in False Night, it's I think "Item" that follows "Look" for no apparent reason. So on the whole, I think the new stories are okay, but the whole game does feel like unambitious, and the execution is at times even sloppy.

The ten other scenarios included in Prism of Eyes are as mentioned simply HD-remakes of scenarios originally released on mobile phones, and later made available on DS. To be honest, I don't really like the new HD graphics. While the character designs are done by the same person who did most of them orginally (JUNNY), I prefer the more unique designs of the original versions rather than the ones used for the HD remakes. I'm not going to write something on all of the stories, but to pick a few: The Six Sheets of Crime is a personal favorite, as it has one of the more traditional puzzle-oriented plots of the whole series, with a locked room of sorts and a pretty ingenious way that indicated the murderer. This story was written by Kodaka Kazutaka, who would later create the Danganronpa game series. Prism of Eyes features another scenario written by Kodaka. As Times Goes By... is a HD remake of a what itself was a fairly faithful remake of Toki ga Sugiyuku mama ni..., originally published on the Famicom in 1990. The original Famicom title was the first in the series to focus on human drama (and the first game in the series without a murder!) and was written by Nojima Kazushige, whom most people will know as the scenario writer of mega hits Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy X. The mobile phone remake (on which this HD remake is based) smoothes the story out a bit. The Linked Curse is another HD remake included in Prism of Eyes which was originally written by Nojima (and a personal favorite too) and has Jinguuji investigating the death of a young man who claimed he was cursed. This is actually the one and only mobile phone application game I bought for my Japanese phone when I was studying in Fukuoka, and I have rather fond memories of it. Pretty weird to play this game now in high definition on my television, considered I first played it the screen of on a small clamshell phone!

Prism of Eyes includes a short demo of Daedalus - Awakening of Golden Jazz, an upcoming prequel spin-off game featuring a younger Jinguuji during his time in New York (set before the flashback events of Yume no Owari ni). The gameplay of this "Chapter 0" is quite different from the usual games, and also a bit clunky in this demo, but as the game'll be released later this year, I'll be sure to check it out.

One thing I can't complain about is the music of Prism of Eyes. Seriously, I don't know how, but the music of each and every entry in this series simply rocks. Or to be exact: jazzes. The jazzy soundtrack of this series is absolutely fantastic, and I'm sure to add the new Prism of Eyes tracks to the playlist I use when I'm writing (which is actually mostly made out of Tantei Jinguuji Saburou music, as they work perfectly as non-intrusive background music).

Tantei Jinguuji Saburou - Prism of Eyes is in my eyes a somewhat disappointing game. After the steps taken in last year's Ghost in the Dusk, I was hoping for a grand scale Jinguuji Saburou game like we had in the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 days, but Prism of Eyes is unambitious, with only a few, short new scenarios. If you have never ever played a Jinguuji Saburou before, the thirteen scenarios found in this game (+ bonus story) will definitely offer a varied collection of mystery stories that also provide a good picture of what the series has to offer in terms of characters and storytelling, but for people who have been playing these games for a longer time, Prism of Eyes has far, far too little to offer in terms of original content.

Original Japanese title(s): 『探偵 神宮寺三郎 Prism of Eyes』

『きえないこころ』

Take my revolution　生きて行こう

現実はがむしゃらに来るし

自分の居場所存在価値を見つけたい

今日までの自分を  

『輪舞-Revolution- 』

Take my revolution, let's live on

Reality is closing in frantically

I want to find my place to be, my worth

The person I've been up until now

"Rondo - Revolution"

Maybe it is a bit ambitious to write my very first mystery short story in a language in that is not my mother tongue. Maybe. Not sure why I said I would write something. Ah well, at least I have an idea of what to write now after days of torturing my mind...

Note: I think the hardboiled tag on this blog doesn't differ much in meaning from the Tantei Jinguuji Saburou tag.

Twenty-twelve was the year many game series celebrated their 25th anniversary. Megaman, Final Fantasy, Street Figher and... Tantei Jinguuji Saburou. OK, so the detective adventure games starring hardboiled private detective Jinguuji Saburou and his assistant Youko are hardly known outside Japan (despite, or also thanks to a somewhat failed localisation trip on the DS), but heck, it means something if you manage to still be an active game-series after twenty-five years, especially considering it is an detective adventure, which is certainly not one of the best selling genres in the gaming world. I for one am a big fan of the series and it was just a matter of time (and me getting a 3DS) before I would get to Tantei Jinguuji Saburou: Fukushuu no Rondo ("Detective Jinguuji Saburou: Rondo of Revenge"), the game released in celebration of its 25th anniversary.

The story starts with Jinguuji waking up, only to find himself bound and being used as a punching bag by some gangsters. They seem to want information about a certain something from Jinguuji (and they also seem to have a personal grudge against him), though he honestly has no idea what they're talking about. Jinguuji manages to escape, only to discover that the police found the dead body of an ex-client of him in the trunk of his car, making him the prime suspect in the murder case. Chased by both the gangsters and the police now, the Shinjuku detective has to clear his name and find out what happened.

Maybe I should have figured out something was wrong with this game when after my escape from the gangster, I discovered that Jinguuji lost his cigarettes and couldn't smoke. A Jinguuji who can't smoke (and he stays like that until late in the story!). Heck, the Jinguuji games are probably the only games featuring a dedicated smoke button!

I had heard some complaints before I started with the game, but this is probably the worst Jinguuji I ever played. Definitely not how you celebrate a great history of 25 years of hardboiled detective stories set in Shinjuku, Kabukichou with a jazzy soundtrack. First of all, the game is short. I mean, around 6 hours of gameplay is not what you'd expect from something promoted as an anniversary product. The main scenarios in other DS entries in the series were also relatively short, but those also featured ports of the mobile phone entries in the series and other extras!

Another problem is the story itself. The story doesn't seem to know what it should do: it tries to invoke the anniversary spirit by loosely tying it up to previous games and characters, but for some reason the writer(s?) decided to tie it up to plot points and characters nobody cares about. The new characters on the other hand aren't interesting at all, and the scale of the story feels no different from the stories we usually see in the mobile phone entries in the game. And you'd expect a 25th anniversary game developed for the 3DS to be at least a bit more compelling than a mobile phone game. There is not a lot of detecting going on here and most plot developments happen whenever you finally manage to find a gangster alone to beat information out of him.The plot being about Jinguuji on the run, also means that Jinguuji can't go about his business in his usual manner, resulting in a very different kind of story-telling compared to the previous games.

And it's not like they didn't try new things at all, but none of that really works. There is no need for 3D models instead of sprites if they hardly move and don't blend in with the background. Creating the investigation segments in 3D is a great idea (reminiscent of the 'escape the room' genre), but why connect it to a very strict penalty system for every 'useless' action? How am I going to figure things out if I get penalties for every action I try?! The idea of escape sequences, where you have to run away from your assailants in Shinjuku by selecting the correct choices (mingle with crowd / pretend to buy cigarettes / etc) is interesting, but there has to be some logic between the choices and outcome: how am I going to guess that hiding between the trees will result in me getting discovered, but hiding behind a car not?! (And it was done better and with better music in Ashes and Diamonds anyway...)

The good thing of this game? The music is absolutely fantastic, but most of it is reused from older games. And with most, I mean that I can remember only one or two genuine new tracks.

No, Fukushuu no Rondo was very different from Tantei Jinguuji Saburou - Yume no Owari ni ("Detective Jinguuji Saburou - At The End of the Dream"), an older game released for both Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation in 1998. Yume no Owari ni is commonly seen as one of the best, if not the best entry in the long-running series. I beat the game somewhere in September and was not sure whether I was going to write a review, but when you get confronted with a bad game... Like in any good Jinguuji game, the story starts with a new job for the private detective: this time from Nagata Yuka, a high-school friend of Jinguuji's assistent Youko, who is a master student at Fuminaga university. She thinks someone has been stalking her and wants Jinguuji to find out who it is. Jinguuji quickly solves this stalker case apparently, but Yuka disappears the day after that, leaving her teenage sister Mika alone. Jinguuji, Youko and Mika all start their investigation surrounding the disappearance of Yuka.

And I definitely get why it's seen as one of the better Jinguuji games. The story is fun, with the stalker case being the perfect build-up to Yuka's kidnapping, but that isn't all. This isn't the first Jinguuji game to to feature multiple protagonists and parallel story-telling, but it's done quite well here with four characters (Jinguuji, Youko, Mika and police detective Kumano). There is some obsolete overlapping, but most of time it's genuinely adding something to the story, filling in the gaps that pop up if you stick with one character all the time. The story is also a lot darker than you'd expect at first and for fans of the series, it's also interesting that this game actually tells of how Jinguuji and Youko actually met. Sure, it's not an orthodox detective story, but that is not what I expect of Jinguuji games: I want a slightly hardboiled story set at the borders of the 'normal' world and the underworld of Shinjuku featuring great characters with great music.

Yes, great music. Jazz is what makes Jinguuji tick (Jazz and cigarettes. Copious amounts of nicotine) and Yume no Owari ni has some great tracks. At times, you just let go of the controller to listen to classic tunes like Emotion or Silent Shadow II. I understand why the series isn't that known outside Japan (and even there, it's far from mainsteam), but I wish at least the music was better known! And from the audio to the visuals: Yume no Owari ni is also the game with an art direction closest to the designs made by Terada Katsuya and definitely my personal favorite.

In the end, what makes Tantei Jinguuji Saburou work as a series, and it is very similar to series like City Hunter and Angel Heart in that aspect, is that we have a detective protagonist who can move freely in both the 'light and dark' world of Shinjuku who isn't the main focus of the story: instead the clients he meets and the cases he uncovers are what make his adventures memorable (or not). In these 25 years, the Jinguuji series has hardly changed, but that is because it is definitely an example of a game whose focus lies in its story. Jinguuji is a medium through which you present a heartwarming story. Putting Jinguuji in the center of things, or trying to get him away from his normal working conditions / environment results in a shift in story-focus that just doesn't work. If Jinguuji had an overall story like City Hunter or Angel Heart, you could get away with such changes ocassionally, but it's not likely they are going to introduce something like that 25 years in the series...

Short story: don't play Fukushuu no Rondo. Play Yume no Owari ni. Listen to jazz. Smoke.

Original Japanese title(s): 『探偵神宮時三郎　夢の終わりに』 / 『探偵神宮寺三郎　復讐の輪舞（ロンド）』

「See You in Next Trouble」

『赤い蝶』という詩がある。

光に誘われて飛ぶ蝶の群れ。

その先にあるのは業火・・・・しかし、蝶たちはそれを知らない。

その時、一匹の蝶が群れを離れる

蝶は危険を察し、業火の正体に挑むため果敢に炎の中に飛び込む

その羽は炎に焼かれ、その身は焦がされる

しかし、蝶は羽ばたきをやめない

やがて、その姿は業火の中に消える・・・

そんな情景を詠んだ詩だ。

『探偵神宮寺三郎ＤＳ：　赤い蝶』

There is a poem called "The Red Butterfly"

A group of butterflies, flying towards the light.

Towards the fires of hell.... But the butterflies are unaware of that.

And then a single butterfly separates itself from the group

The butterfly realizes the danger and challenging the fires of hell, dives courageously in the blaze

His wings catch fire, his body burns

But the butterly keeps on flying

Until his body disappears into the fires of hell....

The poem has such a scene.

"Detective Jinguuji Saburou DS: The Red Butterfly" 

I don't know about other writers, but I need background music to write. Preferably vocal-less (or else I'll sing along). And so music from the Tantei Jinguuji Saburou ("Detective Jinguuji Saburou") series is often the companion to the sound of my fingers running over the keyboard. And it certainly isn't a bad companion. Jazz is of course the prefered choice for hardboiled detective fiction / noir fiction and Tantei Jinguuji Saburou luckily has great jazzy soundtracks (though PC classic Grim Fandango has some outrageously fantastic tracks too).

Tantei Jinguuji Saburou DS: Akai Chou ("Detective Jinguuji Saburou DS: The Red Butterfly") is the latest entry in the long, long running detective adventure game series. I'll won't go into too much detail here about the basic settings etcetera, as I already wrote about it earlier. I do want to make a point about that Tantei Jinguuji Saburou is in fact one of the longest running game series ever, having started in 1987. It's really one of the big names and even though the format has changed a lot in all these years (with a considerable amount of Jinguuji games appearing for mobile phones nowadays), the basic premise is still intact: a hard-boiled detective adventure game (with hints of puzzle plots), often strongly connected with social phenomena in the Japanese society. Hai to Diamond ("Ashes and Diamonds") for example featured the problem of city renewal and the involvement of yakuza, while Shiroi Kage no Shoujo ("The White Shadow of the Girl") was strongly connected with coin-locker babies. The game series may have had a very long run, but the stories are often comtemporary and a joy to work through.

Like the previous iterations for the Nintendo DS,  Tantei Jinguuji Saburou DS: Akai Chou consists of five scenerios that were originally released for mobile phones (mobile phone series 16 ~ 20) and one original scenario (15th entry in the main series). As always, the mobile phone games are relatively short, but are often surprisingly interesting, filled with contemporary problems. In Tsubaki no Yukue ("The Whereabouts of Tsubaki"), Jinguuji is asked to find a net-friend of a boy. The boy had been refusing to go to school because of bullying, but this net-friend had slowly been encouraging him to go back to school. The net-friend has suddenly disappeared though and now Jinguuji has to find a person whose name or face he doesn't know. Akenai Yoru ni ("On a Never-Ending Night") is strongly connected with foreign workers in Japan and the way they try to make money to send back to their home countries. The story switches between Jinguuji and inspector Kumano of the Yodobashi police station, a narrative trick first used in the series in the fourth game Toki no sugiyuku mama ni ("As time passes..."), but is still very effective when used with the right story. Kadan no Itte ("The Decisive Move") is more straight-forward story, with a shougi player being blackmailed to lose an important game. His daughter's life is at stake, but the player has one big character flaw: whenever he starts playing shougi, he forgets everything outside the board. When he starts playing, he only thinks of winning. Rensa suru Noroi ("The Linked Curse") was actually the first game I had bought on my mobile phone in Japan and is a pretty neat story where Jinguuji is hired to investigate the death of a young occult reporter. Minutes before he died in a motor-accident, he had called his girlfriend saying it seems he was cursed. Finally, Nakiko no Shouzou ("Portrait of a Deceased Child") starts with a very strange request: Jinguuji is asked to take care of a little boy, but the boy should't be alive actually as his funeral was on TV just a few days ago.

The original scenario is Akai Chou ("The Red Butterfly") probably about twice as long as the mobile phone games and features more 'advanced' game mechanics like the Search sequences (where you have to look for evidence) and the Talk Profile sequences (where you have to try to get information from a witness, not unlike the Logic Chess system from Gyakuten Kenji 2). The titular Red Butterfly was a bomb-terrorist from 20 years ago who fought against the development plans of a city. He was never caught and nowadays has quite a fandom who admire his fight against the corrupt companies. Skip to the present, where the politician Saeki running his election campaign has received a threat call by someone calling himself the Red Butterfly. The only thing the Red Butterfly asks: "reveal the truth". Jinguuji is asked by Saeki's daughter (who is also his secretary) to investigate the case and uncovers a plot that is connected to the events of 20 years ago.

While the Jinguuji stories are at the core lineair hardboiled detective stories, the writers somehow never forget to insert elements in the story that remind more of orthodox detective plots. Akai Chou for example could, with minor rewriting, could have easily been made a classic whodunnit. Kadan no Itte also contains a normal whodunnit plot. Nakiko no Shouzou has an amazing premise and a very strange motive to the whole incident. Is it because the hardboiled detective isn't as big a staple in Japan as the great detective that Jinguuji has both these elements? I don't know, but I know I like the Jinguuji games because they always remain relatively close to the classic puzzle plots despite the hardboiled setting. Combine it with the distinct Japanese setting and you have a game series that always manages to please me, despite it having changed quite a lot in the many years since detective Jinguuji first started roaming the streets of Shinjuku.

I really should look for the novels one of these days....

Original Japanese title(s): 『探偵神宮寺三郎ＤＳ：　赤い蝶』 / 　「椿のゆくえ」 /　「明けない夜に」　/ 「果断の一手」 / 「連鎖する呪い」 / 「亡き子の肖像」 / 「赤い蝶」

「俺は煙草に火をつけた」

「事件が解決して素直に喜ぶものはいない」

『探偵神宮寺三郎：新宿中央公園殺人事件（携帯アプリ版）』

"Nobody is truly happy when a case is over"

"Detective Jinguuji Saburou: The Shinjuku Central Park Murder Case (mobile phone ver.)"

I've mentioned Tantei Jinguuji Saburou here once or twice, but as I've been playing quite a lot of the games lately, why not make a more general post about this awesome hardboiled detective game series?

While not very known in the Western world, Tantei Jinguuji Saburou is actually one of the oldest running game series, having survived many consoles and even development studios, and started in 1987 with Shinjuku Chuuou Kouen Satsujin Jiken ("The Shinjuku Central Park Murder Case") for the Famicom Disk System. The adventure (which featured advanced graphics and sounds for those times) introduced us to the private eye Jinguuji Saburou, a hardboiled detective who operates from Kabukichou, Shinjuku, Tokyo. He's assisted by Misono Youko, a secretary who is fluent in several languages and quite capable of detecting herself. At the beginning of the game, Jinguuji is requested by his old friend inspector Kumano to help solve the mystery of a strangled woman in Shinjuku Central Park.

The game is set in a hardboiled world, with Jinguuji having to confront witnesses in hostess clubs and even the boss of a yakuza group during his investigation. To emphasize his hardboiledness, the game even has a smoke option, which allows Jinguuji to...smoke. And think. But most people just use it to smoke. It's actually one of the hallmarks of the series, with every Jinguuji game having a button solely mapped to smoking, accompanied by "I lit a cigarette".

Despite the hardboiled world though, the plot of Shinjuku Chuuou Kouen Satsujin Jiken actually has more in common with more orthodox detectives, as the biggest mystery is how the culprit managed to leave the body in the park without leaving any footprints. While Jinguuji does solves this using hardboiled methods (including threatening a yakuza boss in his own home!), the case is distinctly orthodox. In later Jinguuji games, the footprints in the snow theme or other orthodox detective themes aren't the focus of the games, but they never really disappear from the games either.

Shinjuku Chuuou Kouen Satsujin Jiken turned out to be quite popular and by now, 15 games have been released in the main series for several consoles and handhelds, as well as about 20 games in a seperate series for mobile phones. Whether he is solving a crime in hometown Shinjuku, neighbouring Yokohama or even somewhere else,  Jinguuji always stays the same though; a hardboiled story that manages to touch you emotionally, great art, great music, GREAT MUSIC and a lot of smoking. Jinguuji even tried to make it to American shores, as Aksys localised the first Nintendo DS game as Jake Hunter: Memories of the Past. He still smoked, but it didn't really catch on. Maybe because the game was now set in fictional Aspicio U.S.A. instead of Shinjuku.　

Because, Shinjuku plays a vital part in the story. A big emphasis is placed on the hardboiled word of Shinjuku on a visual, a spatial, as well as on a social plane in later games. Places like the clubs in Shinjuku as well as other famous places like the Alta TV screen and Central Park are often visited, but the 'shadow' people of Shinjuku like hostesses, yakuza, homeless people and corrupt officals are also often featured in later stories. Actually, a remake of Shinjuku Chuuou Kouen Satsujin Jiken for the mobile phone (as well as for the Nintendo DS) got rid of pretty much all of the plot of the original game, inserting... yes, more homeless people, yakuza and corrupt people in the new story. Whether that's good or bad change, I can't say, but it's certainly different. But in a sense, Shinjuku as a town, as an entity has been a very big factor in the more recent games, somewhat similar to how Shinjuku has played a very big part in Angel Heart. Of course, it's a very romantic image of Shinjuku, the image of dark town with dangers everywhere, which yet somehow charms its inhabitants.

This is somewhat outside the scope of my blog, but the role of environment in games and the interaction with environment is actually quite interesting, be it a totally fictional one (Hyrule of The Legend of Zelda) or like Shinjuku, based on a real location.

Shinjuku as a location also played a very big part in Tantei Jinguuji Saburou Episode Code: Hai to Diamond ("Detective Jinguuji Saburou Episode Code: Ashes and Diamonds") (PSP), the lastest Jinguuji I played. The story begins with the search for the legacy of a recently deceased real estate developer in Shinjuku, but the case will turn out to have ties with kidnapping cases of homeless people, buildings owned by yakuza, corrupt officals and... the infrastructure of Shinjuku itself. A town which has changed immensely since the war and which changes even now and yet maintains its Shinjuku identity. Gamewise, the game features the ingredients you'd expect from a Jinguuji game (smoking! great music!) and this time also features a branching storyline, something I hadn't expected, as the Jinguuji games are amongst the most linear games in existence.

The Jinguuji series will never be the deduction-fest that is Trick X Logic and even something like the Trick game is more orthodox than the Jinguuji series. However, it is The Lady in the Lake in gaming, that is to say, it features well written stories and character, as well as good music and a truly distinctive style make the Jinguuji series something a detective/gamer should at least try.

See you next trouble

Original Japanese titles:　『新宿中央園殺人事件』、『探偵神宮寺三郎Episode Code灰とダイアモンド』

『なぜベストを尽くさないのか』

「時が経つことに怯えて泣いてた変わりゆく人の心に」
 Garnet Crow, 『夢みたあとで』

"Scared of the passing of time and of how people's hearts change, I cried"
Garnet Crow, "After seeing my dream"

Ignoring whether the product is good or not, you'll have to admit that Japanese companies are quite good at cross-marketing their products. When the Detective Conan movie was released, some convenience stores had special Detective Conan promotions, while other chains sold exclusive Conan DVD's. The upcoming Odoru Daisousasen movie is accompanied by a videogame and probably more stuff.

And strangely enough, to promote movies based on television drama, they usually broadcast a special episode, which is nearly as long as the movie they're supposed to be promoting. The previous Trick special was as long as the Trick movie it was supposed to promote, and about the same for the Galileo special and movie. They might as well release two movies. Or two specials.

Anyway, I had seen the awesome Trick movie earlier this week, but the Trick week was still not over as the second Trick TV special was broadcast yesterday. Which was OK. It was definitely a Trick story, even more so than the movie, with a more contained story and less big action scenes. But that was the 'problem' maybe, having seen the grander scale story of the movie, I just couldn't help being somewhat underwhelmed by the special. If I'd seen the movie and the special in reverse order, I would've liked it more. I should've watched it in the special-movie order, I gathered from the dialogue, but that's strange as the movie debuted a week before the special was even broadcast.

And then there was the Trick game for the DS. Having played the horrible, horrible DS game of Galileo, I was kinda weary to purchase this game, until I discovered WorkJam had developed the game, the developer responsible for the current Detective Jinguuji Saburou games. Which are awesome.

So with a relieved heart, I purchased my copy of Trick DS and I am glad I did. As it was truly a fun game. Short, very short, but it was like playing an episode of Trick myself. The dialogue and story, while not written by the original writer, feel like they were lifted out of the series. The music is in fact the same as the series and the game even has the same opening animation. The story progress mimics the Trick tradition perfectly, with lots of problems which are solved one after another in relatively short time, but which together make up one big problem.

And the sleuth system... is actually quite interesting. In my years of gaming, I have seen my share of translating detectives to games. Games like Detective Jinguuji Saburou hardly let you think, but focus on telling a story. A game like Detective Conan - The Mirapolis Investigation tries letting the player deduce the culprit, but fails horribly by being so easy. The Keyword system in Detective Conan & Kindachi Shounen no Jikenbo was OK, but the story progression was not always as good (as well as the Conan-part being longer, but more tedious). The system Trick uses is somewhat similar to the system of the latter game, but a lot more fun.

It works by offering a problem that needs to be solved ("How did the killer get away?"), which can be solved by a combination of key elements (Items, circumstances, location, persons). The cool part is that every time you combine elements, a hypothesis is made. While most hypotheses are just unbelievable, others are at least plausible and thus make you think. You then bring your hypothesis to the confrontation scenes, where you'll have to defend your hypothesis; this being different from the system in Detectve Conan & Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo, as you have no idea whether your ideas are correct until you've actually tested them in the confrontations. In terms of difficulty, the system is somewhere near the Gyakuten Saiban system, the latter being more difficult as it does not offer hypotheses, but it's still an interesting system.

Translating detectives to games is not always easy and while I think the Gyakuten Saiban series does it excellently, I'm very content with this system of WorkJam and I really hope to see it more often in their games. I'm also very surprised to see such a fun system in a game based on a drama, but as I'm a big fanboy, I'm just very pleasantly surprised.

Now make me my Furuhata Ninzaburou game, WorkJam. Do it.　

Original Japanese title(s):　『TRICK 新作スペシャル2』、 『TRICK DS版 ～隠し神の棲む館～』、『名探偵コナンと金田一少年の事件簿　めぐり合う二人の名探偵』、『逆転裁判』

『いにしえの記憶』

許されぬ

時効すぎても
罪は罪
『時効警察』

Unforgiveable
Even if the statute passed
A crime is a crime
  "Statute of Limitations Police"

To connect right to the end of the previous post, it really is a small world after all. As I was playing through Tantei Jinguuji Saburou: Aoi Me no Ryuu ("Detective Jinguuji Saburou: The Blue-Eyed Dragon"), I was quite very surprised to find out that my assailant whom I was tracking down, was to be found in a bar in... good old Ekoda. While locations in Tokyo like Scramble Crossing and in front of the Alta screen are famous sights in media, you wouldn't expect a place like Ekoda to show up... anywhere. Of course, one conversation in Tokyo that seemed to repeat itself every once in a while was that the dance studio in the movie Shall We Dance? was in Ekoda, viewable from the platform at the Ekoda Station.

So as the detective Jinguuji arrives at the virtual Ekoda, you get the following description:

「俺はタトゥースタジオの店長の言葉を頼りに、坂口行き付けの飲み屋へと足を向けた。池袋から電車に揺られ、俺は坂口行き付けの店がある江古田へとやってきた。どこか懐かしさを感じさせる町並み。学生なのか、若者達の姿を多く目にする事ができる。」

"Following the story of the tattoo studio's boss, I went to Sakaguchi's usual joint. Swaying to and fro in the train from Ikebukero, I arrived at the place where Sakaguchi's usual bar was, Ekoda. The sight of the streets and shops somehow gave off a nostalgic feeling. You could see the many figures of young people, maybe students."

Seeing the pictures of the south gate of Ekoda station made me feel somewhat nostalgic too. Especially when the text continued and it described how to get to the bar.

「この近くに「寅弐」という飲み屋があるのをご存知ですか？」
「あぁ、「トラジ」なら、あの角にある本屋を右に曲がっていくと左手にありますよ。店長さんがイイ人でじかなりお勧めっすよ。俺もこの後、行く予定です。」

"Would you know of a bar called 'Toraji' in the neighbourhood?"
"Yeah, if it's 'Toraji' you want, if you go right at that bookstore at the corner, it will be at your left side. The owner is a good person and I really recommend it. I'll be going there too in a while."

Tokyo Pilot people will probably be able to place the bar (it's really there). The impossible-to-miss bookstore also played a role in the game and it seems the developers of the game actually took pictures of the shop. Don't know if the owner really looks like that though.

The only thing that would have make this more awesome (and slightly creepy) was if that little Chinese restaurant at the other side of the tracks had been incorporated in the game.

And totally unrelated, but Kamiya Akira quitting as the voice actor of Mouri Kogorou in the Detective Conan anime? I am actually shocked, as Kamiya is my favorite Japanese voice actor and one of the best in the business. Now I feel obliged to buy The Raven Chaser on DVD as his last great work...

Today's song: 神谷明＆伊倉一恵 (Kamiya Akira & Ikura Kazue)　町中 Ｓｏｐｈｉｓｔｉｃａｔｅ ("A Whole Town Sophisticate")

The Player on the Other Side

「え～皆さんの前に登場してはや5年、これまでさまざまな犯人と出会ってきました。え～、発作的にしろ計画的にしろ彼らには犯罪 を犯すだけの理由がありました。今回登場する犯人はそう言った意味ではもっとも危険なタイプな犯人と言えるかもしれません。ん～、すなわち、犯罪をゲーム としてしか考えていない人物・・・・・手強そうです。」
『古畑任三郎：　最も危険なゲーム・前編』


"Ehm, in the five years I have stood before you all, I have come across all sorts of criminals. Eehm, whether it was done impulsively or planned, they all had some reason to commit their crime. And that's why this episode's criminal could be considered the most dangerous type of criminal. Hmmm, what I mean is, a person who sees crime as nothing more than a game... It's going be tough.",
"Furuhata Ninzaburou: The Most Dangerous Game - Part One"

(Yes, I'm really grasping now with these introducing quotes.)

If you don't want to read the book, you watch the movie. And in Japan, you apparently play the game. As I was having problems getting into Yokomizo Seishi's Yatsu Haka Mura ("The Village of Eight Gravestones"), one of the books in the Kindaichi Kousuke series, I actually bought the Nintendo DS game based on the book to cheat my way out of the book. Of course, this sort of backfired, because it was the most boring game I've played in ages. I love playing adventure games and I really don't mind the lack of interactivity in game series like Phoenix Wright, but at least I have to think there. It makes you wonder why in heaven's sake the developers of Yatsu Haka Mura added a scratch-scratch system (hint system that involves scratching your head till... dandruff falls. Yes. It's a Kindaichi thing), because no hints were needed. Ever. The game also abridged the story slightly, making me want to read the book anyway. So Yatsu Haka Mura failed as a game and as a book. But it did have cool graphics. Of course, anything that resembles Okami in art is just awesome.

The story though, is one of the defining Japanese mysteries and really enjoyable, involving a curse laid down by a party of 8 slain samurai on a small rural mountain village (with Cave Labyrinth(TM)), strange happenings surrounding the heir of the rich Tajimi family and It Was Based On A True Story. The True Story of a massacre in the village of Tsuyama. Be it in a movie or a TV-special, the 32 killings murder spree in the book has brought us one of the spookiest scenes ever involving a man running around with flashlights tied to his head. One phrase from the '77 movie, "Tatari jaa!" ("'Tis the curse!"), apparently ended up being one of the defining words of that year (just like how this year Japan has been defined by konkatsu, 'marriage hunting'). I honestly can't even begin to imagine how a sentence like 'Tis the curse!", a line from a detective, actually made it to being such an important word, but that's Japan for ya.

A much more enjoyable game was Tantei Jinguuji Saburou: Shiroi Kage no Shoujo ("Detective Jinguuji Saburou: The White Phantom Girl"), the GameBoy Advance entry of a long-running, but outside of Japan hardly known detective game series. It's actually a hardboiled detective story, but like I said before: for me, if hardboiled detectives are presented with some music to listen to and not just as plain texts, but with something more to look at, I suddenly love it.

I don't think the detective novel is a very good medium to address social problems, but it happens. Of course, the hardboiled detective can be an excellent vehicle to come across such problems because of his natural habitat (The Less Fortuned Part of Society). Chandler has been known to address social problems in his novels and from the 1950's on, starting with Matsumoto's work, the most important subgenre in Japanese mysteries has actually been the social detective. As such, I was not very surprised to see such problems as bullying, child abuse, homeless people and coin locker babies back in the Jinguuji games. And I really don't mind.

But of course, the Jinguuji games also offer great jazzy tunes and great stories which actually give me the chance to think at times and are at times plotted more like traditional puzzle detectives than a hardboiled detective, so Jinguuji's a bit more of like the best of all worlds. Oh, and no story about Jinguuji Saburou should ever be made without the mention that every game in the series features a button solely, solely for smoking. Yes. You can smoke in Jinguuji. And you will. Just because it's hardboiled.

And yes, even the games I buy to play when I'm not reading books are detectives.

Addendum: Discworld Noir is a great game! I have a bad habit of never finishing games and this was one of those games of which I hadn't seen the ending. I actually started it yeaaaaars ago, but I never got around to actually finishing it, till now that is. Anyway, very witty film noir hardboiled writing and some great sleuthing moments (the use of a notepad instead of a normal inventory system is genious as well as that other system halfway through the game) makes this one very good detective game, firmly set in the world of the City Watch Discworld books.

And yes, the only reason I started with the Discworld books is because of this game. And it's also why I only enjoy the City Watch novels.　

Original Japanese title(s): 『八墓 村』、『探偵神宮寺三郎　白い影の少女』