The Laughing Policeman

"Smile, you're on Candid Camera!"

"Candid Camera"

This summer, Nintendo dropped a super eerie teaser video for a new project, which they would announce later on. Never could I have imagined it would be a brand new Famicom Detective Club title: while 2021 brought us Switch remakes of the first two Famicom Detective Club, originally released on the Famicom Disk System, I never expected those remakes to do well enough to warrant a new game, especially relatively so soon. 1997's BS Tantei Club: Yuki ni Kieta Kako was the latest title in the series and while Satellaview games are not likely to see any remakes,  I had actually sooner expected a remake of the third game, rather than a completely original game. But here we are in 2024, with a new Famicom Detective Club game, released on the Nintendo Switch.

Famicom Detective Club: Emio starts with a call from the police to the Utsugi Detective Agency, as Inspector Kamada is working on a case that might have ties to an old case he worked on in the past, and one Utsugi too knows about. The crime scene is a pumping station outside the town, where Eisuke, a 14-year old middle school student, was found strangled. However, what made this crime scene bizarre was the fact the boy was found with a paper bag covering his head, with a creepy smiling face drawn on it. The unnamed protagonist learns that 18 years ago, there was a serial murder case that followed the same pattern: all the three girls found murdered had been wearing such a paper bag with a smiling face on it. Because the police had kept this detail of those murders a secret, it is not likely it's a mere copycat who's behind Eisuke's death, and the people at the Utsugi Detective Agency are asked to look into the connection between the two cases. When fellow assistant Ayumi hears about the circumstances of the two cases, she's reminded of the urban legend of Emio, the Smiling Man, who looks for crying girls in the night, strangles them and puts a paper bag with a face over their heads. What is the connection between Eisuke's death, the series of murders 18 years ago and the story of Emio?

It probably helps the remakes of the first two Famicom Detective Club are relatively recent, but the moment you start with Emio, it feels exactly like a late 80s/early 90s command-based adventure game. The story itself is also still vaguely set in the late eighties like the original games (though with a few time anomalies), though I don't remember seeing something that put this game firmly before or after BS Tantei Club: Yuki ni Kieta Kako. Gameplay-wise, there are no real surprises: you use commands to guide the protagonist to for example talk with someone about certain topics, or to show them evidence you have obtained. Bringing up topic X to witness Y might allow you to move to location A to talk with Z about topic X, which leads to another story development. In the original Famicom games, finding the right commands to proceed in the story could be a bit frustrating because sometimes you have to ask a person the same question multiple times or sometimes a story flag is activated by finishing an action that seems completely unrelated, but fortunately, they introduced a QOL change from the Super Famicom remake of Part II where they highlight newly changed commands in the Switch remakes of Part I and II, and it's back again in Emio. And in order to suit modern gaming conventions even more, this gameplay loop is streamlined a lot more than in previous games, often locking you at a location until you have done everything there. I found this a bit disappointing, as it made the game more on rails than the previous games (and it wasn't like the previous games were offering you that much freedom in the first place), but I guess most modern players would find the old adventure conventions too cumbersome. While the 'detective' gameplay is fairly minimal and there's no real difficulty, as in, you can usually just advance in the story by talking to everyone about everything, the story occasionally asks you questions to check whether you have been paying attention, and at times, you have to manually input answers, so it's not a completely passive experience. But all in all, Emio is very similar to the Famicom Detective Club titles preceding it and in that sense it feels like a familiar place. 

On the audio and visual side of things, Emio is developed by the same team that worked on the Switch remakes of Part I and II, retaining the same art direction and once again, the game is fully voiced, which is a nice touch, with Ogata Megumi (Hinata from the Danganronpa games, Kyuu in the Tantei Gakuen Q anime) returning as the protagonist and Minaguchi Yuuko as Ayumi There's even a rather surprising something awaiting you at the very end of the game, something I honestly hadn't expected and it was a very welcome surprise indeed. The game might play like an old Famicom adventure game (though more streamlined), it certainly doesn't look or sound like one, and I mean that in a good way!

As a mystery story though, I think Emio has some nice moments, but for some reason, it didn't quite manage to capture me as much as previous games. With this being the first brand-new title in 35 years, and with all the developments we've seen in those three decades in game storytelling, especially when it comes to mystery games, and the scale of stories, I found it a bit disappointing the story is actually fairly compact in cast and overall scale. And I understand it's intentional, but I had hoped we'd see a 'bigger' world with a larger mystery, rather than the more human drama-focused approach Emio took. While the game starts out promising enough with the creepy circumstances surrounding Eisuke's mysterious death and the ties it might have with the series of murders committed eighteen years ago, as well as the urban legend of Emio, the first half of the game is very slow, with few story developments going on. There are moments where something interesting seems to come, especially when Ayumi first notices the connection between the urban legend and the murders and Utsugi starts musing about how real-life events could have led to the creation of the urban legend, but then Utsugi disappears to investigate this super fascinating 'reality and folklore' angle of the case, while the player is left to do other things. The game didn't have to go full Hayarigami on me, but it was here where I would have hoped that they'd play up both the horror angle of the urban legend, as well as allow you to dig into the rational background behind the urban legend, in a way for example the first Famicom Detective Club partially did with the curse of the Ayashiros: that game of course had the limitations of the hardware, so I had kinda hoped we'd see that fleshed out more here, but Emio intentionally moves away from that. You are mostly talking to a surprisingly small cast about the same topics for a long time but with little new developments: a lot of the dialogue is there to flesh out the characters, but as someone who's more into these games for the mystery, it feels like a lot of the story just moves around the mystery because there's not enough of that. It's only around 70% of the story, it finally feels like things are moving and a lot of that feels unearned: a few of the most crucial hints are obtained from persons who completely coincidentally happen to be in possession of those hints, and whom the narrator just happens to come across by chance. 

For people who are into the human drama behind a mystery story, or for example Higashino Keigo's work, I do think Emio might be exactly what they are looking for. It's the most dramatic Famicom Detective Club to be released, building on themes of previous games like the importance of friendship and family in the wake of tragic deaths, but in a way you wouldn't immediately expect of a Nintendo-published game. On a sidenote: while they did something different with the culprit this time and I can see why people find this memorable, I do have to admit I like the previous culprits more.

Overall though, I am more than grateful we finally got a new Famicom Detective Club after more than 35 years, and while it isn't my favorite one, it's still a very competently developed game that mostly succeeds in presenting itself as an eighties adventure game, while also being a game created for a 2024 audience. In that sense, I think this is a succesful product. Now I hope we finally get that BS Tantei Club remake...

Original Japanese title(s): 『ファミコン探偵倶楽部　笑み男』

The Good Old Days

 Please Set Disk Card 

(Famicom Disk System boot-up screen)

Remasters, reboots and remakes are quite common now in visual media, ranging from every other movie released nowadays being a reboot or remake and videogames often getting a 'remastered' rerelease just a few years after the original release, and reboots/remakes aren't anything near rare either when it comes to that interactive medium. I don't think it's common in literature though, at least, I honestly can't really think of any good examples right now. It's not like we get a reboot or remake of an existing, well-known series of mystery novels every few years... 

If you have been following this blog since about earlier this year, you might have noticed me mentioning how much I was looking forward to the Nintendo Switch remakes of the first two Famicom Detective Club videogames. The original Famicom Detective Club was released in 1988 on the Famicom (The Japanese version of the NES), the sequel a year later and it was one of the earliest console mystery adventure games. While some might not immediately associate Nintendo with murder mystery, these two games brought classical murder mystery plots, where you played a teenage detective-in-training solving bloody murders in a remote village with a creepy legend about people rising from their graves (Part I) or investigating a murder on a schoolgirl and the victim's connection to the school's urban legend (Part II). The second game, Famicom Detective Club Part II The Girl Who Stands Behind, was remade as an (excellent!!) Super Famicom (SNES) game in 1998 and that was actually one of the first Japanese adventure games I ever played, so I have always had a soft spot for the series. That is also why I wrote a short article on the whole series ten years ago and more recently, I also discussed the two (fun!) choose-your-own-adventure books based on the first and second game in the series. 

When it was announced in 2019 that Nintendo would be making remakes of the first two games, I was absolutely thrilled, because the series had been dormant since 1998 and to be honest, I hadn't really expected them revisit the series again even though for the last ten years, each time Nintendo had one of their Nintendo Direct announcements, I was hoping for something, anything. Naturally, I was a bit disappointed when the games didn't make their original 2020 release, but I was there to pick the Collector's Edition of the two games when they were finally released in May 2021. Interestingly, this was also the very first time these games were made available outside of Japan, introducing a whole new audience to the (nameless) protagonist, fellow assistant Ayumi and the Utsugi Detective Agency. 

So I got the games in May, completed them pretty much right away... and then kept postponing writing a review about them. Given that I had been talking about looking forward to the remakes all this time, so readers of the blog may have been surprised I didn't write about them. Was it because the remakes were bad? No, that wasn't it. The reason was something very simple: I didn't know what to write about. Like mentioned before, I had already written about these games once ten years ago, and it was just a few years ago I read and reviewed the choose-your-own-adventure books, and they too followed the same plots. What could I write about the new releases of Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir and Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind what I hadn't mentioned before? That's one problem with remakes, if you have already discussed the original and there's a fairly faithful remake, there's not really much you can talk about besides making direct comparisons, but that's only interesting for the few people who are interested in both the original and the remake. So for a while, I was considering skipping the review completely.

As you can guess by now, the Switch remakes of Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir and Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind are, all in all, quite faithful to the original games. Yes, the graphics are completely new, fantastic newly arranged soundtrack based on the original and every single line is voiced, even the monologues (Minaguchi Yuuko returns as Ayumi!). So in terms of visuals and audio, the remakes look and sound like modern games, but the plots of the two games, and even most of the game design is still the same as the late eighties originals. Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir starts with the protagonist waking up at a beach with amnesia, only to slowly piece together he's the assistant of the private detective Utsugi and that he had been investigating the death of Ayashiro Kiku, the matriarch of the Ayashiro Clan living in the small village of Myoujin. Her butler isn't quite sure whether her death was natural, and as there's much ado about her will, which has provisions for her three nephews/niece, but mostly benefits her missing daughter who ran away many years ago, the protagonist was asked to look into Kiku's death. During the investigation, we learn of a local legend that says the Ayashiros are cursed and there are even villagers who claim to have seen Kiku rise from her grave. When one of Kiku's nephews is killed however, it's clear something foul is at play. Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind is set a few years before the first game, and has the protagonist investigating the murder on a female high school student, whose body had been dumped in the river. The protagonist is sent to her Ushimitsu High School to investigate her final movements, which puts him on the trail of a ghost story: the victim Shinobu and her friend Ayumi formed a detective club, where they investigated all kinds of stories. In the days before her murder, Shinobu had been investigating the school's ghost story about a bloody female student suddenly appearing behind people, and it's believed this is somehow connected to Shinobu's murder.

The remakes of these two games are on the whole very faithful remakes of the originals, with most of the dialogue lines completely the same as the original (the remake of Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind is based on the 1998 Super Famicom remake by the way, which added some extra features: these are also intact in the Switch remake). There are a few minor scenes changed a bit, but you can basically use a walkthrough for the original Famicom versions and still navigate your way through the remake without any real problems. The gameplay is also rather familar and traditional: you use commands to guide your character to for example talk with someone about certain topics, or to show them evidence you have obtained, and by for example talking about topic X to witness Y, you're able to move to location A to talk with Z about topic X, which leads to another story development, etc. Famicom Detective Club was one of the earliest games to use this format for adventure games and it's been a staple since, so no surprises here. In the original games, finding the right commands to proceed in the story could be a bit frustrating because sometimes you have to ask a person the same question multiple times or sometimes a story flag is activated by finishing an action that seems completely unrelated, but fortunately, the QOL change from the Super Famicom remake of Part II can be found in both Switch remakes, which highlight some commands if something significant has changed. So while the stories are still the same as the originals, these remakes are definitely easier/less frustrating to play (this holds especially for Part I). The games aren't long though, each game probably won't take even ten hours.

As specifically mystery games though, these games are more about atmosphere than really making the player solve a mystery themselves. You're just brought from one story development to another and the best the games do to "challenge" your mental skills is basically just to ask you a question once in a while to check whether you have been paying attention. So don't expect to be actually solving the case yourself by going over the evidence, you're just there to enjoy the ride. Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir is interestingly strongly and obviously influenced by Yokomizo Seishi's work: the story set in a remote village, about a missing heir, convoluted wills, a cursed clan and a legend of corpses rising from their graves doesn't even try to hide its inspiration. So if you like the Kindaichi stories, this might be a fun game to try out as there are few videogames available in English that go for the same vibe (Higurashi: When They Cry I guess...). Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind is interesting now I think about it as it's a murder mystery set at a high school, but the original game was released long before Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo and Detective Conan made the setting popular. So as a school mystery, it predates the big titles with 3, 4 years. But if you like those titles, you'll be right at home with Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind. I'd say The Girl Who Stands Behind is by far the best game of the two, with a story that is also presented with more confidence than the first one, but The Missing Heir definitely has its charms too due to the unique setting and a better set-up to the final confrontation with the murderer.

Just speaking of these games as remakes, I have to say I like the effort poured into them to preserve the original spirit. The V-tuber-esque characters can look a bit weird, especially when compared to the phenomonal sprite artwork in the Super Famicom version of Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind, but the overall design is good. The original games were set in the period of release (the late eighties). This is of course reflected in the story, where nobody has a mobile and you have A LOT of scenes where people use the phones of whomever they are visiting or that people have to tell others where they can be reached. But the artwork of the backgrounds also do a fantastic job at invoking this eighties vibe (the shopping streets especially!) and I'm glad these games still like games from the eighties, even though they are made thirty years later. The remakes also have a very welcome option to use the old soundtracks (so Famicom music for The Missing Heir, and both Famicom and Super Famicom soundtracks for The Girl Who Stands Behind). If they had also included the actual original games too in these remakes, it would have been perfect, but that's perhaps too much to ask.

So as a fan of the original games, I did enjoy the Switch remakes of Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir and Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind, but I can't really call them surprising. They are really just 'what if we gave the original games a new coat of paint' remakes, and in terms of story and gameplay are almost identical to the originals down to the scene and line. For a lot of people this will be the first time they get to play these games though, and they might be a bit disappointed in learning how eighties they really are, and I do think it's best to be aware that as remakes, it's mostly the visuals and audio that changed and that the core is still an old-fashioned, eighties adventure game. I for one hope that these remakes pave the way for more Famicom Detective Club, be it a remake of BS Detective Club or a brand-new sequel, but regardless of what may or may not follow, I had fun with these two games.

Cold Reading

Please Set Disk Card

(Famicom Disk System boot-up screen)

Prologue

Takada Naoya is the young assistant of private detective Utsugi Shunsuke, a man so trusted by the authorities he's called in when the lifeless body of 17-year old Youko is recovered from a river. Naoya discovers that Youko has been strangled before she was thrown in the water, thus making it a case of murder. Because Utsugi is busy with a different case, young Naoya is put on this case, which brings him to Youko's high school. There he meets Youko's friend Ayumi, who tells Naoya that Youko, as a member of the school's Detective Club, had been investigating the school ghost story of "The Girl Standing In The Back": a ghostly figure said to haunt the school by manifesting herself behind people's backs. Naoya suspects Youko's death might be connected to this ghost story, which finds its roots in the disappearance of a student of the school 15 years ago. Whether his investigation in Ikeda Misa's Famicom Tantei Club Part II - Ushiro ni Tatsu Shoujo ("Famicom Detective Club Part II: The Girl Who Stands Behind", 1989) is succesful, is completely up to the reader's choices.
Go to 1.

1

As you read the text on the back of the book, you realize that this is a gamebook. The name Famicom Detective Club and Ikeda Misa sound familiar too. You know remember that you already read a review of the gamebook based on the first game on this series a while back. Where do you want to start your investigation?
Read up on gamebooks and Famicom Detective Club ⇒ Go to 2.
Read Famicom Tantei Club Part II - Ushiro ni Tatsu Shoujo ⇒ Go to 3.
If you have read everything ⇒ Go to 4.

2

You remember that Famicom Detective Club was once a mystery adventure game series by Nintendo. Some might be surprised that this Nintendo series was about murder cases that were steeped in legends, ghost stories and other supernatural backgrounds, but the Famicom Detective Club games used to be a fairly well-known series among adventure gamers, though Nintendo hasn't touched the franchise in decades save for ports of the old games. The first two games date from the late eighties, which was also when gamebooks were popular in Japan. The gamebook Famicom Tantei Club Part II - Ushiro ni Tatsu Shoujo is based on the game with the same title, which was originally released in 1989 on the Famicom Disk System (NES) as the second entry in the series. An enhanced (and fantastic!) remake of this game was also released on the Super Famicom (SNES).

Gamebooks, or Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books, have the reader make choices as they read, which lead to branching storylines. Whereas in a normal novel, the protagonist is destined to take the left turn in the maze, in a gamebook, the reader might given the choice to go left, right or back, each choice leading to a seperate outcome (in a gamebook, each choice will lead you to a different page). Many of the choices will eventually lead to a bad ending, and only the true detective can make it to the end of the case. Famicom Tantei Club Part II - Ushiro ni Tatsu Shoujo has some extra mechanics besides making choices: you also need to collect necessary clues and useful items as you fight against time, because movement between locations, but also fruitless lines of investigation all cost time, and you only have a limited amount of time units.
Go To 1.

3

Famicom Tantei Club Part II - Ushiro ni Tatsu Shoujo is set some time before the first book and details how the protagonist and Ayumi, his later colleague at the Utsugi Detective Agency, first met. The story in the gamebook is a more streamlined version of the one featured in the game, with fewer characters and some changes in how the story develops, but is at the core the same. People who have played the original game might be surprised by the changes that do exist though: some of them I had never expected, but I quite liked them in this version of the story. As a detective story, Famicom Tantei Club Part II has always been an engaging experience, as it mixes the murder investigation at a school with a more ghostly substory involving the rumors of the Girl Standing In The Back amidst a cast of rather unique characters in an engaging manner. In comparison to the gamebook of the first game, the prose of this second volume is more enjoyable, with more text before each choice, which helps fleshing out the story. Because you keep on flipping between pages as you make choices, it's easy to lose track of the story, but this book has several moments where the story gives you a breather, and helps you organize all the facts you have collected. Like in the previous gamebook, the focus lies not on figuring out who did it on your own, but on finding all the relevant evidence yourself. A classic Challenge to the Reader gives you all the hints, and then asks of you to deduce who the murderer is. It's difficult to do justice to that in a gamebook, so while the story will make all the necessary deductions for you in this book, it's up to you to actually find all the evidence needed for those deductions. Your choices will bring you along different routes, and choosing to talk with a certain person at a certain time might result in getting your hands on a crucial piece of evidence (or actually missing out on it, as you're supposed to be doing something else).

This gamebook appears to be easier than the one based on the first book. The mechanics are slightly different, but at least this second book doesn't have red herring pieces of evidence that lead to game overs once you get your hands on them. Though this book certainly isn't easy: there are still some items you absolutely need to find if you want to complete the story and it's easy to miss them. There are also many bad endings. Being taken off the investigation because you didn't find enough evidence before a certain point in the story is one of the better bad endings. In a fair number of them, the murderer actually goes after you and the murderer is rather good at err, murdering. The first book is more challenging, but in terms of overall enjoyment as both a game and a tale, this second volume manages to win.
Go to 1.

4

You have gotten a good idea of what Famicom Tantei Club Part II - Ushiro ni Tatsu Shoujo is. Are you satisfied with this review?
Yes ⇒ Go to 6.
No ⇒ Go to 5.

5

The murderer suddenly appeared behind you, driving their knife inside your back. If only... you had been content with the review.... THE END.

6

 

You have decided that you've gotten all you needed out of this review.
Go to Epilogue.

Epilogue

You come to the conclusion that Famicom Tantei Club Part II - Ushiro ni Tatsu Shoujo is an enjoyable mystery gamebook that does justice to the original game. You are now also of the opinion that this should be the last review written in gamebook format. As mystery gamebooks are fun, they'll probably appear on this blog in the future again, but it'll be in a normal review format then.

HAPPY ENDING

Original Japanese title(s): 池田美佐 『ファミコン探偵倶楽部　Part II　うしろに立つ少女』

Play It Again

Please Set Disk Card

(Famicom Disk System boot-up screen)

Prologue

You wake up in a room to find you have lost your memory. Next to you lies a small pocket-sized book. On the cover are a young man and a girl, with a backdrop featuring a great mansion, gravestones and what appears to be the horrifying image of a ghostly samurai warrior. You look at the title. Famicom Tantei Club - Kieta Koukeisha. While you have no memory of who you are and what happened to you, you do know you can read Japanese and, you interpret the title as Famicom Detective Club - The Missing Heir. The title sounds familiar. Perhaps this book has something to do with your past. The cover also notes this book is part of the Famicom Adventure Game Book series. Flipping the book open, you find out it was written by Ikeda Misa and published in 1988. The introduction explains that this is no normal novel, but a game book, where the reader can choose their own destiny. You are shocked to find out that your own situation mirrors that of the book: a young detective lost his memory after a nasty fall of a seaside cliff, and the only clue he has is that he was investigating the suspicious death of Ayashiro Kiku, head of the Ayashiro clan, in the small village of Myoujin. All of Kiku's relatives appear to have a motive for killing her, but then more murders happen, and the villagers think that Kiku has risen from her grave to avenge her death. As you read on, you become convinced this book will serve as a clue to regain your memories.
Go to 1.

1

You are convinced this book will be the key to retrieving your memories. But in what way? What should you do next? (You can't choose the same option twice).
Find out more about Famicom Tantei Club ⇒ Go to 2.
Find out more about gamebooks ⇒ Go to 3.
Read the book ⇒ Go to 4.
Quit investigation ⇒ Go to 5.

2

You decide to first find out more about Famicom Tantei Club. Luckily, you come across a lengthy review on some random blog on Japanese mystery fiction. Apparently, Famicom Tantei Club was a mystery adventure game series developed and published by Nintendo. While Nintendo hasn't touched this series for twenty years now, it still has some cult status as one of the creepiest games Nintendo has made in the past. In all three games, the young detective protagonists has to solve a murder case related to local legends and ghost stories. The book you know hold in your hands is an adaptation of the first game in the series, which was also published in 1988 with the exact same title. The story of the game, featuring serial murders among a wealthy family living in a secluded village and legends of the dead reviving is obviously inspired by Yokomizo Seishi: in fact, Sakamoto Yoshio (co-creator of acclaimed game series Metroid), who wrote and designed the original game, had little experience with mystery novels and had only read some by Yokomizo, which is why the atmosphere of the game feels so familiar. The gamebook adaptation of the story is largely similar to the game, but there are still some changes that will certainly surprise people who have played the original.
Add (F) to your inventory.
Learn more about the book ⇒ Go to 1.
Quit investigation ⇒ Go to 5.

3

A gamebook, also known as a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book, is a type of fiction where the reader can participate in the story themselves by making choices. The choices you make lead to different narrative branches, all with varying outcomes. Some gamebooks also feature extended systems, like inventory mechanics or luck mechanics with dices. Sound/visual novel games, such as Kamaitachi no Yoru and Machi are in fact nothing more but (highly complex) gamebooks brought in digital form (which seperates them from adventure games like Ace Attorney). Gamebooks were especially popular in Japan in the 1980s, with many gamebooks being published based on Famicom (NES) games. The book you are holding now was also published during the gamebook boom. In this book, you are given choices like where to go next, or what to ask to whom. As you progress, you collect clues and red herrings (which you add to your inventory as alphabet letters), which allow you to eventually solve the case.
Add (G) to your inventory.
Learn more about the book ⇒ Go to 1.
Quit investigation ⇒ Go to 5.

4

You realize that this book is quite unique, as it's a detective gamebook, whereas most gamebooks are in the fantasy genre. The story in this book is basically the same as the original game (though it does have some surprising changes), but adds in more narrative branches and game over scenarios, some of them quite original and almost hilarious (there is no game over in the original game). A gamebook is a distinctly different experience from a normal novel: here you are forced to make a choice every couple of paragraphs (or even sentences). As such, it's definitely more interactive than a normal book, as you keep flipping back and forth through the book as you keep notes of your clue inventory. In detective stories with a Challenge to the Reader, the reader is often asked to present their own chain of logic to prove who the murderer is. In regards of having to deduce something, this gamebook is very simply. In fact, most of the time, the protagonist will make the connections himself and at set times, the book will also help organize all the hints you've collected until then. What does make this gamebook difficult, and interesting as a detective gamebook, is that you do need to collect all the necessary clues yourself. Forgetting to ask someone something crucial, or accidently going to the village instead of to the doctor's might mean you'll miss out on an important clue. Some clues are vital to proceed in the game, and without them you're forced into a game over scenario. There are also red herrings, which can also prevent you from getting to the end of the story, as simple possession of them already means you're fooled by them. In a Challenge to the Reader-type of story, the story presents you with all the clues, and then asks you to deduce the truth yourself. In this gamebook, you'll have to find the correct clues yourself, but then the story will deduce the truth for you. It's a very different type of experience, but quite unique and a neat way to apply the gamebook mechanism on a detective story. This book is really difficult by the way. Even people who have played the original game will sometimes get tripped up by fake clues and there's very little leeway for mistakes on your way to the end.
Add (C) to your inventory.
Learn more about the book ⇒ Go to 1.
Quit investigation ⇒ Go to 5.

5

It might be time to wrap up your investigation of this book. As you examined it, you could faintly feel your memory returning.
Inventory check.
Do you have (F), (G), (C) and (X) in your inventory? ⇒ Go to 6.
If not ⇒ Go to 7.

6

It is impossible to have X in your inventory. You cheat! As you do not take your investigations seriously, you are unable to retrieve your memories.
BAD END

7

Do you want to want to put the book away?
Yes ⇒ Go to Epilogue.
No ⇒ Go to 1.

Epilogue

You suddenly remember everything. You were so captivated by Famicom Tantei Club - Kieta Koukeisha that you were walking around reading it, and you slipped on the rug in the living room, hitting your head, causing temporary amnesia. Even though you already knew the original game (or perhaps because), you really enjoyed this gamebook, as it was a surprisingly good example of how to do a mystery story in the form of a gamebook. You are now convinced of its possibilities and hope to find more of these.

HAPPY ENDING

Original Japanese title(s): 池田美佐 『ファミコン探偵倶楽部　消えた後継者』

「たたりじゃ、あ、あやしろけのたたりじゃあ！」

「ざけんなよっ！ガキの探偵はファミコンだけだ」
『ファミコン探偵倶楽部PartII うしろに立つ少女』

"Don't fuck around!  Kid detectives only exist on the Famicom!"
"Famicom Detective Club Part II The Girl Standing in the Back"

I think the very first Japanese mystery adventure game I ever played, was the Super Famicom port of Famicom Tantei Club Part II Ushiro ni Tatsu Shoujo ("Famicom Detective Club Part II The Girl Who Stands Behind") (FamiTan 2). A time when I couldn't read Japanese. When we still had dial-up internet. A time when I was still computer-literate enough to do something as simple as download a(n excellent!) fan translation patch for a videogame ROM and actually patch it. While I had played many point and click adventures, FamiTan 2 was the first time I played a command-style adventure game. Nowadays, it seems like most adventures I play are of the command-style variety. Anyway, at that time, I knew there were other games in the FamiTan series, but as I couldn't read Japanese and there were no translation patches, not much could be done then.

But that's hardly a problem nowadays, so I decided to play through all the games this week. And it was at times a frustrating, yet certainly a satisfying week.

The first game Famicom Tantei Club Kieta Koukeisha ("Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir") (FamiTan 1) was originally released in 1988 in Japan for the Famicom Disk System, with big Nintendo names as Sakamoto Yoshio (Metroid, Kid Icarus) and Yokoi Gunpei (Game & Watch, GameBoy) involved with the development. Similar to the Tantei Jinguuji Saburou series on the Famicom, FamiTan 1 was a mystery adventure game. And for people familar with Nintendo, or even more specifically Nintendo of that period, a very heavily plot-oriented game from Nintendo might be a bit surprising

A plot-device that isn't surprising at all though, is amnesia. FamiTan 1 starts when the (nameless) protagonist, a teenage boy, wakes up in the arms of a man. Which is not what it sounds like, because it seems the protagonist has been pushed off a cliff at the beginning of the game and he was just found by a man passing by. Because amnesia is something that occurs immediately when you hit you head (?), the player shouldn't be too surprised at seeing the protagonist wondering what he was doing near the cliff and what happened. As he investigates his own incident, the protagonist meets the girl Tachibana Ayumi, his colleague. He hears from Ayumi that he's the assistant of Utsugi Shunsuke, a famous detective and that he had just begun an investigation in the recent death of Ayashiro Kiku, a wealthy land-owner and head of the Ayashiro Trade Company, living in the village of Myoujin. While it seems like she had just died from a weak heart, her butler isn't so sure and had hired the hero to investigate her death for him. As it's obvious that his own 'incident' is connected to the case, the hero continues with the investigation.

As the hero investigates the family, he finds many people who had a motive for killing Kiku. Her two nephews, Kanji and Jirou, and her niece Azusa wanted to see Kiku dead to get her money. Her grand-nephew Akira had been seen loitering around the house lately. Or are Kiku's missing daughter Yuri and her missing adopted son somehow connected to Kiku's death? And then the case enters a new stage when Kanji is killed. And more follow.As more and more people get killed, the people of the Myoujin village recall the old legend of corpses getting back to life and getting revenge on the living. Are the murders the work of a revived Kiku?

Well, of course not, but FamiTan 1 sure is creepy. 8-bit music and crude pixel-art help a lot of course, but this game surely has the atmosphere right. The suggestion of the supernatural would remain a characteristic of the FamiTan series. As an adventure game, it's still quite rough with unnatural actions required to activate story flags (and a very irritating maze at the end). As a detective game, it's also quite crude, the game doesn't really allow you to think and there are only two or three instances where you have to input a name of a suspect / item to show your own deductions. And while Ayumi returns several times in the story, offering support, it's strange that detective Utsugi, who is supposed to be the boss of the hero, doesn't show up in the whole game. Not even once.

Yet, I really liked it. The atmosphere was creepy, the story OK (don't expect a masterpiece though) and for a Nintendo game, it was quite dark with the murders and all. It has a cool commercial too!

The second game is probably the most famous, also in the West. Famicom Tantei Club Part II Ushiro ni Tatsu Shoujo ("Famicom Detective Club Part II The Girl Who Stands Behind") (FamiTan 2) was originally released for the Famicom Disk System in 1989, but it was ported to the Super Famicom in 1998 for the Nintendo Power cartridge system. As there is an English fan translation for the Super Famicom version available, this is probably the only FamiTan most people have played in the west. It's arguably the best of the series anyway.

FamiTan 2 is a prequel to FamiTan 1 and stars the same hero. The game starts with a short prologue explaining how the hero became the assistent of detective Utsugi (who makes an actual appearance in the game), followed by the discovery of the strangled dead body of the schoolgirl Kojima Youko. The hero starts an investigation at Ushimitsu High School, assisted by... Tachibana Ayumi, who was a close friend of Youko. The two of them had a detective club, and it seems like Youko had discovered something big. The murder of Youko seems connected with the school legend of the Girl Standing in the Back, a school ghost that would appear right behind you and the disappearence of a high school girl many years ago.

I don't why, but schools in Japan all seem to have some kind of urban legend. At least, that's what detective manga have taught me. And games. Anyway, as FamiTan 2 is mostly set in a high school, it's slightly less creepy than FamiTan 1, though those empty corridors and classrooms (with portraits hanging on the wall) can be quite scary too. Once again, not much is asked of the player's intelligence, but players will have experienced a satisfying story ties nicely in with FamiTan 1. I haven't played the Famicom Disk System version, but the Super Famicom version is actually fantastic. Nintendo's R&D1 did an outstanding job with some graphical tricks and music. As FamiTan 2 was released 8 years after the Super Famicom's release, R&D1 really pushed the hardware. And with an English translation patch available, this is the most easily accessible game of the series. Except for me. When I replayed this game yesterday, I got stuck on trying to patch the ROM, so I just gave up and played it in Japanese. I could do something as simple as that many years ago, why not now?

Anyway, storywise, the story ends with Ayumi joining the Utsugi Detective Agency, leading into the events of FamiTan 1. Set in the same year as the events of FamiTan 1, is the third and last game in the series.

Which was actually released one year before the Super Famicom version of FamiTan 2. 1997 brought us BS Tantei Club: Yuki ni Kieta Kako ("BS Detective Club: The Past Lost in the Snow"), released on the Satellaview add-on hardware for the Super Famicom. Due to how the system works (connecting to a satellite), it's actually impossible nowadays to play the game (at least not with all the music and voice-over work). In the end, I had to give up and I watched a full play-through of the game on Youtube. From a VHS source. I hope I will never have to do that again.

This time, the protagonist is Tachibana Ayumi, who has gone back to visit her mother in Ochitani village, who is recovering from illness. When Kusano Genzou, the former mayor of Ochitani village is found murdered, Ayumi's mother is a suspect, because only her footprints were found in the snow leading to the crime scene. When the son of Kusano, current mayor of Ochitani village, is also killed, stabbed by a spear, the villagers start talking about a legend of a fallen warrior coming back to life to kill the corrupt mayor. Ayumi, helped by her friend Reiko, tries to find out the real murderer, but she finds out her family has had a family fued with the Kusano family for a long time. Is the murderer someone in her family?

BSTan is probably the shortest and weakest of all FamiTan games. While it features voice-work and a cleaned up interface, it's very small in scale with few characters and few developments. Which is a shame, as the story offers many opportunies to make it a grander story, but it never really gets anywhere. The footsteps in the snow? The locked room where they found Kusano's son? They are solved mostly as an afterthought. The ending is quite bad though. While the FamiTan games have always been more about telling a story, than making the player a real detective, to have Ayumi pretty much walk in on the murderer who happened to be confessing to the murder, well, that's a bit easy.

But the first two games were great and I do hope that Nintendo will revisit this little R&D1 series in the future again. But please not for something obscure this time please. Famicom Disk System, Nintendo Power cartridges, Satellaview, no wonder this game series is practically unknown except for a small group of fans.

Original Japanese title(s): 『ファミコン探偵倶楽部　消えた後継者』、『ファミコン探偵倶楽部PartII　うしろに立つ少女』、『BS探偵倶楽部　雪に消えた過去』

Awesome music: ？？？- ファミコン探偵倶楽部BGMアレンジ (Famicom Tantei Club BGM Arrange)