She Died a Lady

Dance into the fire
That fatal kiss is all we need

"A View to a Kill" (Duran Duran)

Mystery fiction has always thrived on the re-use of concepts. When you read a mystery novel, chances are that the underlying core tricks or ideas behind the mystery plot are not completely original, but a variation of an idea that has been used somewhere before, often by a different author even. This is not a bad thing per se, as a good writer should, and will bring their own originality even if the core concept is old. For example, many classic mystery authors will, ultimately, use some concept used in the Father Brown stories, but a good author will manage to add enough of their own to transform it into something not easily recognized as 'oh, that's from Father Brown, and perhaps even improve on the original idea. Reuse of ideas is also prevalent within the canon of one single author. Agatha Christie is infamous for re-using her own ideas across several works, but she was always careful to change enough of the characters and scenery so you probably wouldn't notice it the first time around. This redressing of older ideas still requires originality though, as you can't just copy-paste chapters or paragraphs of an older book to write a new mystery, right?

Reuse of assets is however quite normal in other mediums, especially in videogames. Graphical assets like characters and backgrounds are very often re-used within series (and even if they're not the same series), as are musical tracks and game engines (the series of back-end programs that actually run the game). A mystery novel isn't likely to use the same written passages from earlier novels in the series, but mystery game series will often reuse these assets from earlier entries in the series. The Tantei Junguuji Saburou series re-uses many background scenes for example, and many of background music tracks are also (remixes of tracks) borrowed from earlier games. The Gyakuten Saiban/Ace Attorney as well as the Danganronpa series do similar things, with recurring characters retaining their graphical and audio assets from earlier appearances for example.

The game Keiji J.B. Harold no Jikenbo - Kiss of Murder, also known as J.B. Harold - Kiss of Murder however has a form of asset re-use I had never seen in mystery fiction before though. This hardboiled mystery adventure game was originally released in 1987 for the PC in Japan, and has seen re-releases on hardware like MSX, Nintendo DS and Switch. It is the third game released in Riverhillsoft's J.B. Harold mystery game series, though it is not considered the third entry in the series. The subtitle of the game is Another Story of Manhattan Requiem, and that is precisely what Kiss of Murder is: an alternative version  of the second game in the series, Manhattan Requiem. Both games start similarly, with the mysterious death of Sara Shields in Manhattan and Liberty Town police detective J.B. Harold being asked by his old friend and insurance investigator Judd to investigate her death, as J.B. became acquaintances with her during an earlier investigation. This is where the similarities in the stories stop though, as Sara's death is clearly a murder in Kiss of Murder, and this time a sapphire called Blue Sorrow which Sara had been keeping for her brother-in-law has disappeared. It doesn't take long for J.B. to discover that quite a few people had some beef with the woman, so it'll take a lot of good old-fashioned footwork to uncover who killed Sara and where the sapphire went.

What makes Kiss of Murder so strange is that it's a parallel world to Manhattan Requiem. Not only are both games about the death of Sara Shields, Kiss of Murder actually re-uses a great number of assets from Manhattan Requiem, most notably its graphical assets. While the stories of both games are completely different, with different characters, both games share character art. This means that the art of many characters in Manhattan Requiem is also used in Kiss of Murder, but for different characters. So while these characters might look exactly the same (as they are the exact same assets) in these two games, they represent different characters, with other names and backgrounds. So some people who supposed to be dead in Manhattan Requiem are alive here, and vice-versa. It's a bit like having the same actor playing different roles, but it's something very seldom seen in games and mystery fiction. It's perhaps similar to how the Nero Wolfe TV series used an ensemble cast that played different roles in different episodes, though at least the actors weren't wearing the exact same hairdo and outfits like in Manhattan Requiem and Kiss of Murder. In the original PC release, Kiss of Murder was a bit cheaper than a regular PC game, but you needed the disc of Manhattan Requiem to play the game (as it literally uses assets from that game).

In terms of gameplay mechanics and story, Kiss of Murder is also very similar to its two predecessors. Once again, the story starts out in a non-linear manner,  allowing you visit most of the suspects in any order you want, asking them about all kinds of manners. Right after the short prologue for example, you could choose to go to Sara's apartment to look for clues there, but also go to her work to ask about her last few da, or visit the library to look up some old files that might have to do with her death. A chat with one of Sara's acquaintances might raise your suspicions about them, making them a suspect, but they might also point the way to another suspect, or tell you something about another person whom you first thought to be completely innocent. There are nearly thirty suspects, and at first you learn all kinds of random pieces of information of them which can be A LOT to process, but as you progress, you'll slowly connect the dots. For example, at first person A might say they have an alibi, but interviews with person B and suspect C might prove that A wasn't where they said they were, making them a suspect too. The game isn't really helpful here though: it will say whenever you have collected enough testimony to consider a person a suspect, but it doesn't repeat what those clues were, so you really need a good memory, or write things down, or else you'll go "Okay, the game now tells me this person is a suspect, but I can't remember why." Eventually, you'll gather enough testimony and evidence to confrot suspects with their lies, uncover their relation to the death of Sara and in the end, solve the murder. As the game progresses, it loses its non-linearity, as you cross off all the possibilities. What sets Kiss of Murder apart from the previous two games in the J.B. Harold series is the chapter structure: Kiss of Murder is slightly less linear as it's actually divided in several chapters, with some characters and events only happening after certain chapters, whereas the previous games had less structure. Knowledge of previous games is not required per se, though Kiss of Murder does adress a plot point raised in the first game, Murder Club.

As a mystery story, there's nothing fancy here: no locked room murders or impossible alibis or anything like that. 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. The division in chapters in Kiss of Murder doesn't help much to help this problem the previous games also had.

If you have played any other J.B. Harold game, you know what to expect from this game. Kiss of Murder does not only borrow its graphical assets from Manhattan Requiem, but the gameplay is also exactly the same. It is a very sober and small adventure game that focuses solely on conversations, with no puzzle-solving demanded from the player themselves, but slowly discovering how everyone is connected can be fun, but only if you pay attention all the time, because the game doesn't want to explain a lot to you. As a game written by Suzuki Rika (known for the Another Code and Hotel Dusk games of the late CiNG), you can expect a lot of focus on the human characters, but Kiss of Murder offers very, very little besides that.

『刑事J.B.ハロルドの事件簿 キスオブマーダー』

Angels Flying In The Dark

残酷な天使のテーゼ

窓辺からやがて飛び立つ

「残酷な天使のテーゼ」（高橋洋子）

This cruel angel's thesis

Will soon take flight out of the window

"Cruel Angel's Thesis" (Takahashi Youko)

 
Mystery fiction encompasses much, much more than just books, and that is why I try to discuss a variety of mediums on this blog. Television and films are of course the usual suspects besides books, but then there's comic books, theater plays, musicals, radio plays and more. These mediums all can offer new possibilities to a puzzle plot mystery, deepening the experience and giving the consumer new surprises. The audio-visual mediums can obviously offer all kinds of passive hints to the viewer without telling the audience. People like to use the phrase show, not tell for almost everything now, but it does explain what for the audio-visual medium can do best: it can show hints and clues without making it too obvious about it. Sure, one can use all kinds of narrative techniques to explain that a character is left-handed, but nothing is more simpler than to actually show it on the screen, for example when making a phone call. The moment the action is described with the printed word, it attracts attention, but such actions are much less obvious on the screen. This obviously also holds for sounds as clues in audio dramas.

But the most exciting medium is the videogame, as it can offer the possibilities of all the other mediums, and even more due to its interactive characteristics. It can be a semi-passive experience like a novel, it can offer the audio-visual stimula of screen or audio productions. It can literally include books or films or anything within the game world, so there's much potential. If one accepts the puzzle plot mystery story as a kind of intellectual game, than the possibilities of the videogame became clear: it's only here where the consumer is actually expected to intellectually engage with the story. The passive nature of the other mediums means that no matter what the consumer does, the story will go on. Sherlock Holmes will explain what happened, even if I myself have no clue whatsover, as long as I read on. I might've missed each and every clue, but Conan will explain what happened at the end of the film. But not so with a game! How this interactivity is implemented is a different topic, but the thing games do best in terms of mystery fiction is actually having the consumer understand the plot and do some detecting themselves.

But interactivity is not all games can do. Games can also present extremely complex elements in an accessible manner. Machi, a game I reviewed earlier, for example has the player juggle simultaneously between eight seperate storylines that occasionally intersect. One could choose the order in which to play these storylines themselves, and the storylines and their interconnections also changed depending the choices the player made, which led to very complex storylines that would be impossible to present in a linear book form. Machi made things clear by having a flowchart function, which showed how each storyline was connected. Of course, diagrams are not unknowns in mystery fiction, but having such things available with just one push on a button is sometimes a true game-changer, and maps, diagrams and the like have much more potential in videogames, as they can be updated on any spot, and one can even have the player add in notes themselves for convenience. Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books have a form of non-linearity too, but the non-linearity as featured there is peanuts compared the things videogames can do.

Non-linearity was what was on my mind as I was playing through the videogame Keiji J.B. Harold - Manhattan Requiem, also known as J.B. Harold - Manhattan Requiem, as it presented a mystery story in a manner no novel, film or audio drama could ever hope to do. The second entry in the J.B. Harold series was originally released in 1987 on the PC, and later ported to other platforms like the MSX, iOS and Nintendo DS, but it remains even now an interesting example of what the mystery fiction genre can do on various platforms. The way the story is told could not work in the same form as a novel and while the execution is certainly is not without its flaws, I think Manhattan Requiem, like the other games in the series, does make an interesting case for non-linear detective stories.

The start of the plot is fairly simple: police detective J.B. Harold learns from his old friend Judd that a beautiful musician he knows, Sara Shields, has passed away in Manhattan. While the police seems to be steering towards a suicide, Judd himself thinks there's something fishy about Sara's death, and he invites Harold to come to Manhattan himself to investigate the case. When Harold arrives in Manhattan, Judd gives you a few pointers as to where you could go, for example Sara's apartment or some friends of hers, but this is basically all the set-up you get in this game, because once you're past this two minute-long prologue, you're free to go anywhere in Manhattan Requiem.

A detective story in most mediums tells its story in a linear fashion. In chapter 2, suspect X is questioned, in chapter 3 they find clue Y and in chapter 4 they learn of the existence of secret lover Z. It is also a passive experience, as even though you might want to know more about suspect X's alibi right now, it might not be investigated until chapter 7. Manhattan Requiem however gives you freedom about who you want to question about what when. There is no set order in which to complete your tasks in the way you want. Short example: after the prologue of Manhattan Requiem, I decided I'd first swing by the victim's apartment, and interviewed her landlady. From her I learned about the victim's roommate and where I could find her, but also about the witness who first found the victim. I then proceeded to the roommate, who in turn told me about her boyfriend, but also about the victim's work and other things. But this was the route I took and it's perfectly able to first start the game by visiting the police first to get more information, or to go to the victim's work to ask about her and her relation with the customers. If I had gone to her work first, the people there might've told me where to find Sara's roommate, as opposed to the landlady. Or perhaps I'd heard about a rumor first, and I'd have gone after that first, rather than first checking up on the people close to Sara. This system is by the way exactly the same as it was featured in the first game in the J.B. Harold series, which I reviewed last year.

This non-linearity can be overwhelming at first, as you'll learn a lot about dozens of characters who all seems suspicious, and you need to check on everybody's alibi and motives with the other suspects. Suspect A's alibi might depend on the testimonies of suspect B and C for example, but A might also give you decisive information about suspect D. There are about thirty characters in Manhattan Requiem, so especially in the opening hour or so, so there's a lot to keep track of. But there's something liberating about being able to choose who you'll go to next, to ask them about what. It changes the detective story in a much more engaging experience, as you, the consumer, are deciding what to check and you decide the flow of the story. It is almost impossible for someone else to have the exact same experience I had, for everyone will decide to follow up on different clues in different orders.

The game does not help keep track of all the clues/accusations you have, so you might want to keep a note on certain important revelations and stuff (it's here where you really have the feeling you're playing an adventure from the 80s). After a while you start to get complete profiles of each character and you might even be able to strike suspects off the list, but in other cases you might gather enough incriminating testimony and evidence that justify a harder approach. Eventually, you'll strike off more and more suspects until you've uncovered all the underlying plots and schemes. Slowly all the loose points will turn into lines, and they'll all converge at one point, so the conclusion of the game is naturally very linear in comparison (you might for example need the testimony of a certain character to 'break' another character, so those need to be done in order). The game is not difficult at all, in theory, as all you do is ask questions, and you can't go game over or get stuck, though it has some really old-fashioned "traps" like having to ask the same question twice to a suspect to get results and things like that.

Non-linearity is also what hinders the story though. Because the game is designed to be played in a non-linear manner, in a way that each player can decide their own route in uncovering the plot, there is very little that happens during the game. In a linear story, you can have plot twists and the ensueing effects of said plot twist to further push the story forward. Manhattan Requiem does not have that luxury, as most of the game is non-linear, meaning that I might uncover information (the basis of a plot twist) in a completely different order than another player. I learned relatively late about the existence of a helpful policeman in this game for example, who would give me an important piece of information, but one could've come across his path very early in the game actually. Information flow to the consumer is what every puzzle plot mystery revolves around, what allows a story to build over time, but as the information flow in Manhattan Requiem is mostly free-form, it does not have the room to feature a plot that truly develops. From the start of the game until the very end, you're just interrogating suspects about each and every subject you can think of, and in between there are very few developments that truly drive the story forward. You're just digging in the alibis and motives of the many characters and it can soon become boring, as you're just talking and talking, with no thrills presented throughout.

Of course, the story and presentation could be rewritten for a linear experience. Just give a proper order of who you get to question when and what. But that would take away the feeling of the consumer of investigating the case themselves, and that is what this game can offer what a normal book can't, and that's what makes this so unique an experience.

The J.B. Harold series was written by Suzuki Rika during her time at the game developing company Riverhillsoft. Later she'd move to the company CiNG, where she'd be responsible for some of the more memorable adventure games on the Nintendo DS and Wii. Interestingly though, her later games are much more linear and also feature more traditional adventure game puzzles (using inventory items etc.), instead of the questioning-oriented style of her earlier games at Riverhillsoft.

J.B Harold - Manhattan Requiem thus forms an interesting, if at times also very flawed example of the non-linear mystery story. It is definitely fun to carve your own path through the mist, to choose yourself where to go and when, and pursuing each lead yourself does give you the feeling you're really investigating your case yourself, but at the same time, the story is rather sober and very focused on simply talking to people because it needs to facilitate for this non-linearity. You have the most freedom in the first three-quarters of the game, which is also perhaps the most tedious part, as non-linearity also means you are often just poking around in the hope of picking up a lead (at least that's realistic!) and there's nothing to really drive the plot. Only at the end you'll make some more engaging revelations, but by then most paths have already converged to a standard linear experience. So perfect, it definitely is not, but I think it's worth looking at. J.B Harold - Manhattan Requiem is available in English on iOS and Nintendo Switch by the way.

Original Japanese title(s): 『刑事J.B.ハロルドの事件簿 マンハッタンレクイエム』

Plot It Yourself

「現場百遍」

Going over the crime scene hundred times. (Japanese saying)

I talk more often about my reading backlog, but I'm even worse with games. I think I bought my copy of this game back in 2010 already... 

The discovery of the body of Bill Robbins in the parking garage of Houlington College shocked the otherwise peaceful Liberty Town. Bill Robbins was the president of the Robbins Company, and his whole family had connections (also by marriage) to all the other major families in the town. And when a man is well-connected, it also means there are a lot of suspects. Was the murderer his new wife, whom he had married only six month ago? His new brother-in-law who hated him? The local physician who has been a family friend for decades, but has no clear alibi? Whoever it was, J.B. Harold, the silent, but methodious police detective in charge of the case is sure to find out whoddunit in the videogame Keiji J.B. Harold no Jikenbo - Satsujin Club, also known as J.B. Harold - Murder Club (Nintendo DS).

J.B. Harold - Murder Club was originally a 1986 PC adventure game developed by Riverhillsoft and written by Suzuki Rika. It did quite good on the market, and was ported to several other systems, from MS-DOS, to Windows, TurboGrafx-CD, Nintendo DS and iOS. It would also spawn many sequels. Riverhillsoft would eventually go bankrupt in 2000, but by that time Suzuki had already left the company to set up developer CiNG, which would be responsible for some of the Nintendo DS and Wii's more innovatieve mystery adventure titles, until CiNG's own bankruptcy in 2010.

The most memorable feature of this game has to be its design as an adventure game. It follows the traditional command-style adventure interface, where you select commands to move around and ask suspects questions. Usually, games that follow this design are fairly linear in their story-telling: you talk to suspect A, which gives you acces to location B and suspect C, which in turn... etc. Once in a while, the story will have some drastic developments, and rinse and repeat. The Tantei Jinguuji Saburou series for example is a classic example of this model.

J.B. Harold - Murder Club however is almost like a non-linear, free-roaming mystery adventure with the command-style interface, which is a rare combination. The prologue of the game shows you how Bill Robbin's body is discovered, and after that, you're pretty much free to do whatever you want, in any order you want. Right from the start, you're able to go to many locations and suspects and each interview with a suspect will result in a new lead: you might want to check up on that alibi the suspect claims to have, or perhaps you want to follow up on that rumor the suspect told you about a different suspect, etc. Because you're basically free to start your investigation anywhere you like, and can choose to follow any lead in any order you want, the game actually gives you a non-linear experience. I for example started with investigating the location where Bill Robbins' body was found, and then questioning his brother and following up on his alibi, whereas you could also choose to investigate Bill's wife, his family-in-law or his business relations first, which would've resulted in very different leads. As you near the end of the game, the story naturally becomes more of a linear experience, as you'll have discarded most red herrings, but especially the first half/three quarters of this game, you're really free to follow up on any suspicions you have.

It's this design choice which makes this a unique game, but depending on the player, it can also be a very boring game. J.B. Harold - Murder Club's story has no real development throughout the course of the whole game. You're just interviewing suspects and then checking up on everything. There's no structure to the game because of non-linearity. Right at the start of the game you're given access to a lot of data, and the rest of the game consists of you sorting everything out. Games like Ace Attorney are designed to keep you on your feet, by feeding the player new information and new story developments every once in a while. This is not the case with this game. In fact, one could simply finish this game by asking every suspect every question and using every available command in the game: eventually you will reach the end. In that aspect, this game can feel very lacking.

If you do really keep up with all the various leads the game feeds you though, you're given a very unique experience. Most mystery games put emphasis on story developments, and the sense of wonder of solving a mystery. J.B. Harold - Murder Club is more 'realistic', in the sense that it puts emphasis on a policeman's legwork: you solve the Bill Robbins murder by good old fashioned questioning of each and every suspect, and checking on their alibis and motives. It's a very minimalistic adventure game, but it works strangely enough. This sober approach is also seen in later in the game: you need to collect enough evidence before you're able to get search warrants from the prosecutor or bring suspects in to the police station for questioning. The overall mystery plot is nothing particularly fancy, but it works in the context of the game, and I found it entertaining.

It's interesting the series is titled J.B Harold though, because J.B. is pretty much non-existent in the game. The character rarely appears on the screen himself, and you never see his dialogue lines, only those of his conversation partners. Bland isn't the right word, it's simply that he appears so very little on screen there's little to say about him.

Overall though,  J.B. Harold - Murder Club is an interesting and original mystery adventure, but it can easily turn into a just-click-on-every-command game, so the player does need to make some effort to keep themselves interested in the story. If you manage to, the game turns into a distinctive mystery game, which really makes you feel like you're slowly uncovering a complex murder case. Some older versions of this game have been released in English, though the version I played, the Nintendo DS port, is not available in English. The sequel was also ported to the DS, so I might pick that game up too some time.

Original Japanese title(s): 『刑事J.B.ハロルドの事件簿 殺人倶楽部』

Il nome della rosa

過去の僕は今いるボクへ

何を残し歩いて来たの？

自分に問いかけて

考えてみれば見えてくる 

「Advance」　（TOKIO）

From my past self to my current self:

What did you leave behind as you walked to the present?

Ask yourself

And the answers will come to you

"Advance" (TOKIO)

Lots of game reviews lately! It's mostly because of the way I plan writing reviews (with games often coming in last in the queue). There's like three, four months between me playing today's game and Net High for example...

The infamous Kinema Mansion Serial Murders happened in 1929, which started with the death of Yoshindou Denemon, former chairman of New World Cinema, a pioneer in film-making. His death was followed by many more, and the murders were left unsolved. An investigation in this series of murders brings journalist Takashi and his companion Emi to the abandoned mansion in 2003. The two only have only set a couple of steps in the great hall, when a mysterious force throws the two back in time. Emi has lost her physical presence and can only occassionally manifest herself as a ghostly figure, but Takashi finds himself, body and all, within the Kinema Mansion in 1929. He has arrived at the mansion the day after the murder on Denemon and strangely enough, everybody seems to be confusing Takashi with Kazuya, the estranged son of Denemon who was invited to the mansion. Takashi decides to solve the mysteries that surround the many strange members of the Yoshinodou family as well as the mansion, hoping that solving the case will send him and Emi back to 2003. Everybody in the mansion seems to have something to hide, but luckily the time-jump also gave Takashi psychometric powers. Can he solve the Kinema Mansion Serial Murders and return safely with Emi to 2003 in the 2003 PlayStation 2 game Glass Rose?

Glass Rose (Garasu no Bara) was the first game by CiNG, a Japanese game developer which specialized in adventure games. CiNG is best known for their innovative works for the Nintendo DS/Wii, such as Another Code/Another Code R and Hotel Dusk/Last Window, which are often praised for their deep stories, believable characters and music. The Fukuoka-based company sadly enough had to file for bankruptcy in 2010, which is still something I remember quite well: I was living in Fukuoka at the time, and had just bought their latest game, only to read the same week that Last Window would actually be their very last game. Anyway, I was long overdue to playing this game.

Glass Rose is a simple point and click adventure at the core, with an emphasis on dialogue-based puzzles. You control Takashi in his investigation into the Kinema Mansion Serial Murders by questioning the varous inhabitants about the murders and occasionally picking up physical clues. There are also three gameplay systems that help give this game its own feel. First is the conversation system. While speaking with the suspects, you can ask about select key words from the conversation partner's utterances. This "Free Word System" allows you to steer the conversation the direction you want and is sometimes used in clever conversation puzzles, where you need to go into several conversation 'branches' before you can proceed with your main line of investigation. A second characteristic of this game is the use of Takashi's psychometric powers. Takashi is able to vaguely read the minds of other people, as well as the 'memory' of objects and naturally, this skill is handy when investigating a murder. Most of the time, Takashi psychometric powers manifest in flashes of objects or locations, which serve as a clue as to where Takashi has to go to next. These segments occur automatically, but during conversations, Takashi can also opt to read the mind of his conversation partner to get a vital clue to proceed (for example, when a person knows something, but wants to keep it a secret from Takashi). This skill is not 'free to use' though, so you must choose to use the skill at the right time. Another characteristic of this game is that the story is divided in distinct time-periods of one hour. Each hour, there are certain actions you have to complete within that time limit in order to move to the next hour (if you fail, you're sent back to the beginning of the hour; fail too often and it's game over). It's a system CiNG has also used in later games like Hotel Dusk and Last Window.

To be absolutely honest, Glass Rose has its share of problems as an adventure game. While the conversation and psychometric power system are interesting, the time limit can be rather troublesome, because the game seldom tells you what you're exactly supposed to do in each hour. As a result, you're often just wandering around the (giganteous!) Kinema Mansion, in search of people and other hotspots to check out. Because of that, the game often feels empty and dragging, as you're just looking for the correct flag to proceed to the next event. Each hour, everything 'resets' in the Kinema Mansion, with people appearing and disappearing from rooms, giving it a very artificial feeling (you usually don't come across people unless it's necessary to talk with them). There are also optional documents to be found within the mansion, which help expand on the backstory, but these too are incredibly tedious to find (especially considering the time limit you have each hour), so overall, I think Glass Rose is a bit disappointing as a game.

As for the mystery story, it can be both great, and disappointing. Disappointing is the identity of the person behind the Kinema Mansion Serial Murders, as well as the path that leads to this conclusion. In the early parts of the game, it's not possible to make a substantiated guess to who the murderer is, while in the latter half of the story, the game basically tells you who it is by suddenly given you information it had been keeping away from you for no reason, leading to a very anti-climatic ending. The fact that the suspects keep appearing and disppearing (as mentioned above) also has a bad influence on the story, as you never really get to feel the fear that should be within the Kinema Mansion, considering people keep getting killed off in a mere three days.

I might sound very negative about this game, but I think that's mostly because I also loved how this game was set-up as a classic Japanese mystery story. A beautifully designed Western-style mansion in late 1920s Japan? Invokes the yakata-mono genre, as seen in Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken and Ayatsuji Yukito's work. The complex family relations and the various, suspicious-looking members who all have something to hide? It was like reading a Yokomizo Seishi novel. The background setting of 1920s filmmaking in Japan, about the decline of silent films and benshi (silent film narrators) and New World Cinema's upcoming talkie remake of their hit silent film Dolls? I absolutely loved this part! While figuring out the main murderer of the Kinema Manson Serial Murders turns out to be not that much fun, slowly taking away the veils that cover up the many, many dirty secrets of the Yoshinodou family and New World Cinema was actually great! The game oozes atmosphere in the early parts of the game, when you're still finding out the backstories of each and every suspect. When the story actually needs to pay attention to the main storyline (the Kinema Mansion Serial Murders), the game becomes less enjoyable and satisfying.

Oh, and for Japanese music fans: Takashi was modeled after TOKIO's Matsuoka Masahiro, who also provided Takashi's voice in the Japanese version, as well as modeling for motion capture. Now I think about it, Capcom (the publisher of Glass Rose) really liked these kind of tie-ups in the PS2 era. Remember the Onimusha series which had protagonists like Kaneshiro Takeshi, Matsuda Yuusaku and even Jean Reno?

So is Glass Rose a bad mystery game? No, I wouldn't go that far. Besides some strange game design choices, it's mostly the conclusion to the Kinema Mansion Serial Murders I find very unsatisfying. But this game has fantastic atmosphere especially in the first half of the story, making use of a model that can be recognized as distinctly Japanese, which should satisfy readers of writers like Yokomizo and Ayatsuji. Glass Rose is not CiNG's best effort (and because Again exists, it's not their worst effort either) and the game can feel a bit too quirky at times, but in terms of atmosphere, I'd say that this is an exceptionally good effort. The first half in particular is really fun, it just didn't manage to keep up that standard all the way to the end.

Original Japanese title(s): 『玻璃ノ薔薇』