Trouble Times Two

Something old, something new

When it comes to mystery fiction, I usually try to avoid reading stories with similar settings/themes in succession, mostly because I'm afraid I'll get burned out on a theme. I decided to discuss the two games of today in one post not only because I played them one after another, but also because they are very alike, both being a retro art style, and both being sequels that ultimately aren't that different from the first games.

Two years ago, I reviewed Ise-Shima Mystery Annai: Itsuwari no Kuroshinju ("The Ise-Shima Mystery Guide: The False Black Pearl"), a mystery adventure released on the Switch, but made to play and look like one of those old 80s Famicom (NES) adventure games. The game was especially inspired by Okhotsk ni Kiyu, an adventure game developed by Horii Yuuji (creator of the cultural phenomenon Dragon Quest) and even had the same character designer in Arai Kiyokazu.  Ise-Shima Mystery Annai: Itsuwari no Kuroshinju never tried to be more than a mystery story that emulated Famicom detective games, also replicating the minor annoyances from games from that period, but all in all, I did enjoy the game as a blast to the past, so I was quite excited when the sequel was announced.

Akita-Oga Mystery Annai: Kogoeru Ginreika ("The Akita-Oga Mystery Guide: The Frozen Loosestrife") was released in the last week of 2020 on Switch (and now on Steam) and presents a new adventure starring the player (an unnamed police detective) and his young subordinate Ken. The story follows the now familiar pattern: the prologue has the two police detectives hunting the boss of a gang of conmen, but when they capture him, they learn that the Tokyo branch of the gang is controlled by a gang in the Akita prefecture, so the player and Ken travel to Akita to roll up the rest of the gang, but while some veteran police detectives are glad to see the Tokyo detectives, some other local detectives don't seem impressed by the city boys and vow to solve the cases themselves. But as the investigation moves on, they realize the gang is desperate to shake off the police and trying to cut off loose ends quickly, as each time the police find their targets murdered in a horrible manner: frozen alive to death. Can the player catch the murderer before more victims fall?

Having already written a full post on the predecessor Ise-Shima Mystery Annai: Itsuwari no Kuroshinju, I have to admit that I don't have that much to add to that, because Akita-Oga Mystery Annai: Kogoeru Ginreika is in essence very similar to the first game. Once again the game is not about having the player figure things out for themselves, but more about presenting the player a dramatic mystery story set around Akita. The focus is on checking out all the mysterious events and suspicious characters dangling in front of you and and being surprised by the sudden story developments. You'll visit a lot of real-life locations in Akita during your adventure (recreated in some nice 8-bit art) and the story is actually quite lengthy: I think it's at least double the length of the first game, and overall, the story does a great job at recreating the atmosphere of a stereotypical two-hour suspense drama show with a lots of twist and turns, which is exactly what it tries to be. If you liked the first game, or games like Famicom Detective Club (1988-1989) and Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken (1985), Akita-Oga Mystery Annai: Kogoeru Ginreika is right up your alley. The music is still great (also listen to the deliciously late 80s pop theme song!!), though I have to say I still don't like the faux 3D maze segments these games always have.

Is it all good? Well, no. Akita-Oga Mystery Annai: Kogoeru Ginreika takes on the form of a Famicom game and that means not much text fits in each individual text box. But it seems the developers forgot that those older games also usually had shorter dialogues, so conversations in Akita-Oga Mystery Annai: Kogoeru Ginreika just go on and on because the writing style doesn't fit the limited text box space. What's even worse when the game forces you through these long conversations that aren't funny: there's a running gag that Ken likes the local food and every other location he tries some local dish and offers his thoughts on it before he remembers he's working: you can't skip these boring sections that's basically the same joke over and over again. Each "day" in the game also ends in a restaurant where they go over the leads they found: for some reason you always have to order food and try out everything (and read their comments) and it becomes really annoying after the second time. I believe Akita-Oga Mystery Annai: Kogoeru Ginreika was developed with some help from crowdfunding and it appears some of the backers were rewarded with appearances in this game: sadly enough these backers were incorporated in the most horrible manner, in segments that feel out of place and feel absolutely unneccessary. For example, early in the game, you have to call a person, but the game forces you to call the wrong number four or five times, and each time you get another small conversation with the person you accidentally called. These conversations were apparantly "rewards" for backers, who were allowed to write in a little bit, but for the player, this section is just a complete waste of time, as you have to go through all those conversations. There's another similar section in the second half of the game, where you're just repeating the same time-consuming action over and over again to force you to talk with all kinds of characters (= backers), even though it should've been over in one go!

Oh, what was interesting was that I played this game immediately after Root Film, and look who has a cameo in this game: Magari (and Yagumo too)! I didn't know about this, so I was very pleasantly surprised to see a very recent mystery adventure featured in a retro-style adventure. Overall though, I think Akita-Oga Mystery Annai: Kogoeru Ginreika was a solid sequel that does a great job at being a charming take on 1980s Famicom adventure games, but that could've been trimmed a bit for a more streamlined experience.

Last year, I also discussed MAKOTO WAKAIDO's Case Files "Executioner's Wedge"  a very short, but entertaining iOS/Android mystery game with a great retro visual style which reminded a bit of GameBoy graphics and also featured great moody music. I was surprised to learn that a sequel had been released in the last days of 2020, titled MAKOTO WAKAIDO's Case Files 2 "Bogeyman's Woods" because it had only been a few months since the first game was released, but you don't hear me complaining! Whereas the first game was set in the city, MAKOTO WAKAIDO's Case Files 2 "Bogeyman's Woods" brings us to a small village in O Prefecture, a setting that is clearly meant to invoke the works of Yokomizo Seishi. The discovery of the dead body of Sendou Tsugihiko in the forest would always have been news, as the influential Sendou clan has always ruled the village and now the family head Tsugihiko had died in a mysterious manner, just like his older brother many years ago. Tsugihiko had fallen, or been pushed from the hanging bridge above, but what makes his death even more musterious is the fact that someone had put the mask and straw raincape of the deity O-Kakushi on Tsugihiko's body after his fall. O-Kakushi is believed to have spirited people away in the forest in the past, resulting in their death. The mask and straw raincape are used in a village ceremony to appease O-Kakushi, and are usually kept locked in the Sendou storehouse. Has the ceremony of the villagers failed and is Tsugihiko's death the work of O-Kakushi?

While the second MAKOTO WAKAIDO's Case Files is very much a Kindaichi Kousuke-inspired mystery set in a small rural village and with family intrigues at the heart of the case, making it feel quite different from the first game, the sequel does play more-or-less the same as the first one, so I refer to that review for more details. Once again, you'll be going around the locations in search for clues and questioning people, and while the game still uses the cumbersome mechanic of having to "set" a testimony or piece of evidence before you start a conversation with a witness to hear if they have anything to say about that, the game at least improves on the first game by just showing with a marker whether a person will have anything important to say or not. It's more streamlined that the first game, but it's still odd you have to "set" your discussion topic first, then start a conversation, then finally ask them about the topic and then repeat the whole process again for another discussion topic. Why can't I just ask about all the relevant topics in one turn instead of having to start a new conversation each and every time for each seperate topic?

The story itself is entertaining enough: it'll only take you an hour or so to go through the whole game, so don't expect some kind of mystery classic that you'll remember your whole life, but MAKOTO WAKAIDO's Case Files 2 "Bogeyman's Woods" has a lot of character and atmosphere, and there are definitely worse ways to spend an hour. And it's free too, and like the previous game, you'll ony see ads if you mess up in the sections where they question you on the clues, so if you're good, you'll never see any ads in the game!

Anyway, Akita-Oga Mystery Annai: Kogoeru Ginreika and MAKOTO WAKAIDO's Case Files 2 "Bogeyman's Woods" were both entertaining, retro-style murder mystery adventure sequels which perhaps did very little to improve on their predecessors, but if you liked the first games in both series, you're likely to enjoy these sequels too. And wow, I have posted more reviews on mystery games than on novels here in 2021!  Let's cherish this moment!

Original Japanese title(s): 『秋田・男鹿ミステリー案内 凍える銀鈴花』,『和階堂真の事件簿2 – 隠し神の森』

Twisted Tale

"Off with his head."
"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"

So the open-world mystery game Paradise Killer is out, which feels like a mix between Danganronpa and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. It's been getting fairly positive reviews, so I decided to get it too... but after I started the game I remembered I'm rather prone to motion sickness with first-person games! Any other perspective, I have no problems and I do play shooters like Splatoon 2, so it's really the first-person perspective that gets to me... I'll eventually get around to finishing Paradise Killer, but it'll probably take a while because I just can't do long play sessions...

And speaking of play sessions that aren't very long, I also remembered I hadn't written anything about MAKOTO WAKAIDO's Case Files "Executioner's Wedge" yet, a very short, but entertaining mystery game by developer Ekke, which was released two weeks ago on iOS and Android. A lot of people spoke very positively about the game on the release day on social media, which made me rather curious, so I got the game right away, and I too found the game very charming. The game features both a Japanese and English title, but I don't believe it actually has an English language option though. The game starts with a grandfather sitting on a bench, telling his grandson about a case that happened back in the early eighties, when he was a police detective. His tale starts with the discovery of a decapitated body hanging from a utility pole, with the mark of a sect drawn nearby. Similar murders had occured two times earlier, though with some interval between the deaths, but it appears this is the third in a series of cult-related murders. As the detective digs into the identity of the corpse and who killed him, he uncovers a rather curious plot.

The visuals are probably what stands out most: MAKOTO WAKAIDO's Case Files "Executioner's Wedge" features some really nice and unique-looking sprite work to portray a stylized hardboiled world of deceit and murder. It kinda reminds me of the sprites in the GameBoy Color game Scooby-Doo! Classic Creep Capers (a game which is much better than you'd ever expect!). The music is great too, and this game is definitely really nice to listen to and look at. 

As a mystery game, MAKOTO WAKAIDO's Case Files "Executioner's Wedge" is very simple though. Each section, you have to collect a number of evidence/testimonies by questioning the witnesses at various locations, like the crime scene or a bar where the victim was probably last seen. Once you have all necessary clues for that particular section, you'll proceed to the "Inference" section, where you'll have to answer a few questions in the shape of walls that block your way which will help you sort out all the information you've collected until then. Answering all these questions correctly will allow you to move on to new locations with new witnesses, and rinse and repeat. It's very simple and ultimately, the game will only take a hour or so to complete, but given you play a cop, the emphasis on questioning people does not feel out of place. I do have to say the system of questioning people can be very cumbersome. You have to "set" a piece of testimony or evidence beforehand and then start a conversation with a witness: if that person has something to say about the set piece, they'll have an extra piece of conversation and otherwise, there's nothing. But you have to set every single piece of testimony/evidence seperately and start a new conversation with a witness each and every time just to see if they can tell you something about that, and after a while it's really annoying you have repeat the cycle of "Set piece of testimony → start conversation → see if there's a new option → end conversation → set other piece of testimony → start conversation" It's a short game, luckily, for this system could've killed a longer game.

The mystery itself is not super surprising, though it is fun to follow all the clues and slowly uncover what has happened as a simple police detective just doing his job. The way the story ultimately ties back to the story device of the police detective telling his grandson about this case gives the game a nice touch, though I have my doubts about a grandfather telling a child about a series of gruesome ritualistic murders! 

The game can be downloaded for free, but it does incorporate a funny income model through advertisements: if you answer one of the questions in the Inference sections wrong, you'll have to watch a 30 second ad. So if you're the perfect detective and get all the questions correctly in one go, you'll never have to watch any ads in this game! Interesting how it 'rewards' good detectives in this manner.

MAKOTO WAKAIDO's Case Files "Executioner's Wedge" may be a short game, but its presentation really make this a memorable experience and while it's not some mystery masterpiece and can even be a slightly weird in terms of mechanics, it's a great way to spend your time if you have a spare hour somewhere. I'd love to see a more fleshed out version of this game!

Original Japanese title(s):  『和階堂真の事件簿 処刑人の楔』