Three Strikes, You're Out

"There must be something comforting about the number three. People always give up after three"
"Sherlock"

Wow, it's been almost four years since I last wrote something about this series? 

Tantei Jinguuji Saburou series 

1: The Shinjuku Central Park Murder Case (1987) [Nintendo Famicom Disk System]

5: The Unfinished Reportage (1996) [Sony PlayStation / SEGA Saturn] 

6: At the End of the Dream (1998) [Sony PlayStation / SEGA Saturn] 

7: Before the Light Fades (1999) [Sony PlaySation] 

8: Innocent Black (2002) [Sony PlayStation 2]  

9: Kind of Blue (2004) [Sony PlayStation 2]  

10: The White Phantom Girl (2005) [Nintendo GameBoy Advance] 

14: Ashes and Diamonds (2009) [Sony PlayStation Portable] 

15: The Red Butterfly (2010) [Nintendo DS] 

16: Rondo of Revenge (2012) [Nintendo 3DS]

17: Ghost of the Dusk (2017) [Nintendo 3DS]

18: Prism of Eyes (2018) [Nintendo Switch/Sony PlayStation 4]

 

00: Daedalus: The Awakening of Golden Jazz (2018) [Nintendo Switch/Sony PlayStation 4]

Mobile: New Order [iOS] 

 

Novels

The Shinjuku Central Park Murder Case AD2000 (2000)

The Ghost of Shinjuku (2006)

A Bright Future (2007)

In 1987, Shinjuku Chuuou Kouen Satsujin Jiken ("The Shinjuku Central Park Murder Case") was released for the Famicom Disk System in Japan, making it the third command-based adventure game on the system, and the game would become the first entry in one of the longest mystery adventure game franchises in existence. In the game, the player took up the role of private investigator Jinguuji Saburou who worked in Shinjuku and helped by assistant Youko and backed-up by his friend Inspector Kumano, the player was asked to solve the murder of a woman found in Shinjuku Central Park. It was far from a perfect game, and a lot of the ideas seen in this game would be abandoned, or only return in much later installments in a much refined versions, but still, the basic concept of the game were unique enough to make this a franchise over 30 years old. The game was unique for being aimed at adults, with a distinct hardboiled atmosphere, offering a story that involved the underworld of Shinjuku, and which had you investigate suspicious bars and other places in the shady entertainment district. But, it had also aspects of a puzzle plot mystery, with a pretty outrageous plot revealed at the end, and that is what has given the Tantei Jinguuji Saburou game franchise its unique face: the series has seen several developers in its history, but you can generally expected a mystery story with a hardboiled exterior involving the underworld, but you can occasionally find puzzle plot mystery plots too that tie in with those "hardboiled detective" plots, and then there's of course the fantastic music of this series. I am a big fan of the series, and have written about many of the games, and while they are certainly not all recommended material, I still enjoy them in general a lot.

What might be confusing about this franchise is that the title Shinjuku Chuuou Kouen Satsujin Jiken ("The Shinjuku Central Park Murder Case") has been used multiple times for different productions. In 2003, a "remake" of the game was released on mobile phones in Japan, and this version was also later included in the first Nintendo DS title of this franchise. This DS game has been released in English in localized form as Jake Hunter Detective Story: Memories of the Past, with the remake of Shinjuku Chuuou Kouen Satsujin Jiken being given the title The Petty Murder of a Fragile Heart. But even though this version is considered a "remake" and in Japanese, bears the same title as the 1987 original, it's basically a completely different story: while the 2003 version starts similarly with the corpse of a woman being discovered in Shinjuku Central Park and Inspector Kumano asking Jinguuji to look into the case, the rest of the case is completely different, and the "biggest" connection the 2003 version has with the 1987 game in terms of story, is that a few characters from the 2003 game share names with characters from the 1987 version, though with completely different backgrounds. So that's two games titled Shinjuku Chuuou Kouen Satsujin Jiken but with different stories.

And then there's a third murder in Shinjuku Central Park: Tantei Jinguuji Saburou: Shinjuku Chuuou Kouen Satsujin Jiken AD2000 ("Detective Jinguuji Saburou: The Shinjuku Central Park Murder Case AD2000", 2000), which isn't a game, but a novel written by Sukeno Hiroshi. Who incidentally would go on to work on the story of the 2003 version of Shinjuku Chuuou Kouen Satsujin Jiken, so he worked on at least two of the three Shinjuku Chuuou Kouen Satsujin Jiken titles that exist within this franchise, and because older games don't really properly credit people, so this is impossible to check, but I wouldn't even be surprised if he also worked on the original 1987 game! Anyway, it should surprise anyone if I say the story starts with the discovery of a strangled woman in Shinjuku Central Park. The woman is identified as Yukie, a "hostess" who worked at the club Side Pocket. Jinguuji is hired by Hitomi, a friend of Yukue and fellow hostess to find out why her friend ended up murdered. Jinguuji starts his investigation by asking around in the night club where the victim worked, but soon starts to suspect that something going in at Side Pocket might've led to Yukie's death. but what?

This novel was released in 2000, after the three PlayStation/Saturn era games (The Unfinished Reportage, At the End of the Dream and Before the Light Fades), and you can definitely tell. The atmosphere of this novel, and the way the investigation into the murder of Yukie plays out is very similar to those three games, so as "supplemental material" to those games, I quite enjoyed it. This 2000 version of the Shinjuku Central Park murder by the way is not intended as a remake of the first game: in the book Jinguuji refers to the events of the 1987 game, saying he worked on a case involving a dead woman in the park before, so it's just supposed to be a similar, but different case. There are a few other minor parts that help "fix" this novel within the game timeline, like this book being the first time Jinguuji meets the forensic investigator Miyoshi (who first appears in Mikan no Rupo) or mentioning how this story is set only a few months after Youko first became Jinguuji's assistant (also referencing how they first met, as shown in Yume no Owari ni, and later somewhat retconned/explained really weirdly in the spin-off prequel game Daedalus). That said, I'd say the book is pretty accessible for people who don't know the series at all: sure, you have a few recurring characters like the yakuza boss Imaizumi, but everything you need to know is explained, and Tantei Jinguuji Saburou: Shinjuku Chuuou Kouen Satsujin Jiken AD2000 is perfectly readable as a standalone hardboiled detective story.

That said, I assume that most readers of this blog are not really looking for a hardboiled detective story and in that regard, Tantei Jinguuji Saburou: Shinjuku Chuuou Kouen Satsujin Jiken AD2000 isn't really a book I would recommend. I think it's a great Jinguuji Saburou novel, that really captures the atmosphere of the games, and of the three novels I have read now, this one is absolutely the best one at capturing the vibe, but as a standalone detective story, it's not particularly clever or memorable. You just follow Jinguuji's investigation as he tries to learn more about Yukie, the shady going-ons at Side Pocket and how that may be connected to Yukie's death, and as always, things start to get complicated when Jinguuji stumbles upon a plot that involves the underworld of Shinjuku and there's even a social school-esque aspect as we learn about the weaker people like hostesses who live within the shady night-life of Shinjuku, but it's not like you're treated to a fairly clewed, clever mystery. You're just here for the ride. There are a few minor moments where Jinguuji makes clever deductions about what to do, but those times are rare. It's not the novel that will win people over or anything, it's just a solid spin-off novel of the game series. Some parts might feel bit too similar to the plots from the PlayStation/Saturn-era games, but it's a part I like, because I think those games were the best of the series, and this book really feels part of that era.

Oh, and the book has some neat original art!

So Tantei Jinguuji Saburou: Shinjuku Chuuou Kouen Satsujin Jiken AD2000 isn't really a must-read on its own, but as a big fan of the series, I am happy to have now experienced all three times within this franchise where the titular detective had to investigate the murder of a woman in Shinjuku Central Park. The novel is at no time truly surprising nor does it offer a really clever plot, but it does feel incredibly close to the type of stories the PlayStation/Saturn games in this franchise told and as such, I even think it's the best Jinguuji Saburou novel I have read until now. And as I haven't discussed this series in years now on this blog, I needed an excuse to bring it up again, and use the "hardboiled" tag again. Guess it's back to waiting for a new game again...

Original Japanese title(s): 助野寛『探偵神宮寺三郎新宿中央公園殺人事件AD2000』

Lack of Evidence

"I walk in eternity."

"Doctor Who: Pyramids of Mars"

Umineko no Naku Koro ni Saku on Switch and PlayStation 4 will be released in January 2021! Let's hope I'll be able to finish the game and write a review by December 2021...

Videogames can provide a unique experience in the mystery genre, as it's an active genre: in most mystery games, the story won't proceed unless you (the player) actively interact with the story and characetrs and solve puzzles, as opposed to mystery plots in novels or films, which will go on regardless of how involved  the reader/viewer is with the plot. Of course, the other side of this story is that in novels or films, you at least don't get stuck in the story simply because you don't know what to do next...

While crime might not be rare in Washington D.C., the murder of Walter Edwards near the John F. Kennedy Eternal Flame was one that caught the attention of everyone. Edwards was not only the chief of the Liberty Town police, he was also in D.C. conducting a secret investigation in cooperation with the FBI. Secret documents pertaining to this investigation, believed to be in Edwards' possession, also disappeared after his death, so initially the police suspects Edwards' death has to do with his assignment, which is also why everyone was shocked to learn that the pistol thought to have killed Edwards was found in the apartment of his eldest son Frederick, who goes to college in Washington D.C. The local police is satisfied that they have found their man with Frederick, who apparently had a fight with his father earlier that day. Many people who know Edwards and his family personally aren't quite convinced though and the Liberty Town Police Station decides to send their man J.B. Harold to Washington to investigate the death of their deceased boss. Not only is J.B. personally acquainted with Edwards and his wife, J.B. also knows Washington D.C. well because he studied here ten years ago and as he starts poking around in the city, he finds he still has some old college friends in the city who are willing to help him with his investigation in the videogame D.C. Connection, originally released in 1989 for PC-98 systems, but it was later ported to other systems like i-mode feature phones. The most "current" version of D.C. Connection is the 2011 iOS version, which is the version I played.

D.C Connection is the fourth J.B. Harold game published by the late Riverhillsoft, a Japanese company which specialized in mystery-themed adventure games for the PC in the late 80s-early 90s. While it follows Murder Club, Manhattan Requiem and Kiss of Murder, it's considered the third numbered entry in the series, because Kiss of Murder is considered a parallel world version of the second entry, Manhattan Requiem. In terms of gameplay, D.C. Connection is very similar to the previous Riverhillsoft adventure games (which also includes Kohaku no Yuigon), so when I started this game, my intentions were to complete it in just a few hours, a perfect way to spend my Sunday afternoon. I mean, I already knew very well how Suzuki Rika designed these games, so I could hardly be that far off with my estimate of how long it would take me, right? In the end though, it took me at least double the time I had anticipated, and I had to spread it across three days...

As always in this series, D.C. Connection starts in a non-linear manner: after the short prologue, the player (J.B.) has the freedom to visit more than a dozen different locations spread across Washington D.C., where you'll find suspects, witnesses and other persons willing or unwilling to assist you with your investigation. You can decide the order in which you tackle these persons yourself and you progress, you'll uncover more locations and people to see, and in the end, you may have to interact with over 20-30 different locations and persons. Speaking with these people on various topics like other characters or their alibis will provide you with information and ultimately, the J.B. Harold games are about collecting information: by collecting all available information on a character or a certain topic, you can induce characters to give you new information, for example because you noticed a contradiction in the statement of Character A after you collected the statements of everyone else. This new piece of information allows you to press everyone again on old and new topics, and rinse and repeat to progress in the story. These games are about collecting a lot of information on a lot of topics (I'd estimate about 50 different topics) in a non-linear manner: this is what gives these games a unique vibe, as they are really focused on bringing you the experience of a cop who does his job by going over the crime scenes dozens of time and repeating procedural questionings of witnesses, but it can definitely be a boring experience too, and at times very frustrating too.

I have the feeling the story of D.C. Connection is a bit longer than previous games, but what really made my playthrough of this game take so long was I got stuck a lot. In the original PC-98 version of the game, it was possible to get actually stuck in a way you could never proceed again (a bug), but while it's technically not possible to arrive at a state where it's genuinely impossible to proceed anymore in the iOS version, it can be veeeeeeery difficult finding that one piece of statement you missed that allows you proceed in the story. With approximately 30 characters who at any time have about 20-30 topics to talk about, and other locations you can check, it's pretty easy to miss that little piece of dialogue that is necessary to move the plot forward, especially if it's a very insignificant message. In D.C. Connection, the plot can move forward if you have collected all information about a certain character or topic, or when you reach certain percentages of the total game progression (there's a bar that shows how far you are in the game). Sometimes, you're just stuck because a story event will only happen at 46,6% of the game, while you're at 46,5% and accidentally skipped that one single piece of dialogue with that one character who obviously has nothing to do with the crime, telling you how they have nothing to do with the crime, but which will still add that 0,1% to the bar... It happened more than a few times I really didn't know what I had missed, so then I was forced to talk with every character about every topic once again just to see what I had missed. And this takes ages of just sifting through dialogue you have seen already. And despite the age we live in, there's strangely enough no full walkthrough/guide or even a full Let's Play of D.C. Connection available anywhere, so whenever I got stuck I had to do with that hint book came with the original PC-98 release and only explains specific parts of the game (and naturally, I always got stuck on the parts not explained in that hint book). D.C. Connection really feels like an old PC adventure game: looking for that necessary piece of dialogue is at least as vexing as old-fashioned pixel hunting and it's always something small you missed.

Despite these frustations though, I think D.C. Connection is one of the better J.B. Harold games. Like I said, I have the feeling the story is a bit grander in scale this time and we also have a new mechanic in this game where you can make allies out of certain characters who can help you in different ways: the taxi driver Nelson for example can shadow suspects for you and find out where they were going, adding new locations on your map (Is the fish market ever used in this game by the way?). Story-wise, D.C. Connection is also plotted more tightly than previous games, with a plot that keeps you guessing who murdered Edwards and for what reason. There are also some major plot developments halfway through the game that keep you on your toes. The plot also involves J.B.'s own past a bit, as he meets old college friends and reminisces about days past (certain parts were already mentioned in Manhattan Requiem). If I hadn't get stuck so often in D.C. Connection on very minor obstacles, I have no doubts this would've been my favorite entry in the series.

Despite a few minor innovations, D.C. Connection follows the same formula as the previous J.B. Harold games and thus offers a very sober, down-to-earth mystery adventure where you, as the player, simply have to digest a lot of information through conversations with other characters. There's not much genuine puzzle solving to be done by the player themselves, but it can be very difficult finding the right triggers that allow the story to move forward, more so than in previous games I think. Definitely wouldn't recommend anyone to start playing these Riverhillsoft adventure games with this one, but for fans of the series, D.C. Connection is certainly an entry you shouldn't miss as it's perhaps the most polished one in terms of story and characters.

Original Japanese title(s): 『D.C.コネクション』

Strike-Out Scare

過ぎ行く春を惜しみながら

僕らの幕開けたあの夏

「心絵」(Road of Major)

While lamenting the passing of Spring

Our curtains were raised in that Summer

"Picture of the Heart" (Road of Major)

Huh, who'd have thought I'd be doing another Tantei Jinguuji Saburou ("Detective Jinguuji Saburou") review this year? The long-running detective adventure videogame series had two releases in 2018: Prism of Eyes was the eighteenth entry in the main series, while Daedalus: The Awakening of Golden Jazz was a new prologue spin-off, about a young Jinguuji as he set his first steps in becoming the hardboiled private detective we know from the main series. Neither game was perfect, but as a fan of the series, I'm always happy to see a new entry, as while the brand name is fairly well-known due being around for over thirty years now, none of the games are tremendous sellers or anything like that, so you never quite know for sure whether the series will continue or not.

The Tantei Jinguuji Saburou series started out on game consoles and handhelds and that's still where the main entries are released, but in 2003, a secondary series was introduced with the mobile applications, games designed for garakei feature phones in Japan.  If one were to call the main entries "novels", these Tantei Jinguuji Saburou mobile apps were definitely the short stories: far smaller in scale and bringing a linear experience that told hardboiled detective story of about two hours in four acts. This mobile application series was fairly popular: they released twenty-four of them between 2003 and 2010, following their own numbering seperate of the main series. While as "games", these applications were quite limited, the stories they told are usually quite entertaining as human drama-based hardboiled detective stories and there are even some big industry names connected to it: Nojima Kazushige of Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy X fame for example wrote a few scenarios for this series, and Kodaka Kazutaka, who would later create the Danganronpa game series, more or less started out his career as a game scenario writer with the Jinguuji Saburou application series. These mobile applications were also later included with the DS and 3DS entries of the Tantei Jinguuji Saburou series, and Prism of Eyes actually consisted mainly out of HD-remakes of these mobile applications. The last of them (Yurameku Hitotose) was released in 2010, so they basically stopped making these games when use of smartphones became widespread.

So I was quite surprised when I learned that the mobile application series would continue on iOS and Android this summer. The new app Tantei Jinguuji Saburou New Order ("Detective Jinguuji Saburou New Order", 2019) was released on the last day of July to provide a main hub in which the new stories are distributed, and of course, the first game was also relased on the same day. It's been nearly ten years since the last Jinguuji Saburou mobile game, but when you play Giwaku no Ace ("The Suspicious Ace", 2019), it's like no time has passed. It follows the familar four-act set-up of the short stories and the development team behind the game also consists of familar names (including a veteran Jinguuji Saburou writer who also wrote Ghost of the Dusk, and character designer Junny). One evening private detective Jinguuji Saburou happens to become acquainted with Hayasaka Masumi on the streets of Shinjuku. Masumi is not only an employee of the baseball club Blue Kicks here in Shinjuku, she's also the (secret) girlfriend of Majima Naotaka, a starter of the team. Majima was praised as an ace two years ago, but since then fallen into a slump. He has been acting suspiciously lately, so Masumi wants Jinguuji to tail Majima to see what is going on. Jinguuji learns that Majima has been seeing Fuwa lately, a former team mate who had to quit baseball after an injury. Fuwa kinda disappeared after his early retirement, so Jinguuji is not only surprised to learn Fuwa is still around, but he also realizes Fuwa has a tie with Katagiri of the Matsuishi Group, a yakuza organization that specializes in illegal gambling. Meanwhile, an anonymous letter has also accused someone in the Blue Kicks of doping, which brings another light on Majima's suspicious activities.

Like I said earlier, these mobile application games are quite limited in scale in terms of story, so there's not very much to write about without spoiling everything. The experience is quite linear and passive compared to the (old) main series entries and the player is mostly just choosing discussion topics or selecting where to go next. The most 'thinking' you'll do is figuring out a PIN code twice. That said, I did enjoy Giwaku no Ace as an accessible, short hardboiled mystery story that uses its four-act set-up in a good manner. New events and clues keep popping up at a steady rate that keep the reader, well not guessing, as the story is fairly simple, but it's definitely enticing. You just wanna know what's really going on at the Blue Kicks, and the story does a good job at keeping your attention for the hour-and-half, two hours you'll be playing this, with each act bringing some new clues and questions. It's certainly nothing more than the old mobile application games brought, but nothing less either. If you're wanting for an old-fashioned Tantei Jinguuji Saburou experience, Giwaku no Ace is exactly what you're looking for.

So no, Tantei Jinguuji Saburou New Order: Giwaku no Ace is nothing special. This is the twenty-fifth entry in the mobile application series and they have always been following the same pattern, so no surprises here. That said, I found the two hours I spent on the game amusing, and it's certainly a worthy entry in this series in terms of storytelling. Giwaku no Ace's baseball setting is a fairly original one for the series (they had one about professional wrestling once) and while the application series has always been more focused on human drama than the main series, I think this entry has one of the more relatable casts of this series. I do hope that in the future, they'll release all of the New Order stories in one package on the Nintendo Switch or something like that, because it's really weird they decided to publish New Order in an episodic format after doing exclusively handheld/console releases since 2012!

Original Japanese title(s): 『探偵神宮寺三郎 New Order』「疑惑のエース」

The Raven Chaser

「三郎、思考の樹を育てろ」

『ダイダロス：ジ・アウェイクニング・オブ・ゴールデンジャズ』 

"Saburou, nurture the Tree of Knowledge"

"Daedalus: The Awakening of Golden Jazz"

Last review of the year (not the last post)!

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

00: Daedalus: The Awakening of Golden Jazz (2018) [Nintendo Switch/Sony PlayStation 4]

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

It was only a full month after the death of Jinguuji Kyousuke that his grandson Saburou learned of the death of his beloved grandfather, and to his utter shock, he also found out Kyousuke had been murdered. Kyousuke had been considered the black sheep of the Jinguuji clan, head of the Jinguuji Konzern, as he had moved away from Japan to New York in his younger days to escape the power struggles within his family. In New York, Kyousuke had become a well-respected and much loved private detective. Saburou suspects his grandfather's murder may have to do with his job, so he decides to fly off to New York to find out why his grandfather was killed. In New York, he is reunited with old friends he met at summer camp when he was a kid, but also with new allies, like Kyousuke's assistant Dan and police detectives Joshua and Hal. As Saburou learns more about the life his grandfather had in New York, he also stumbles upon the last case his grandfather was working on, which may have led to his death. With the words "Daedalus" and "The Cursed Town" as his only clues, Saburou sets out to find the murderer of his grandfather in the 2018 Switch/PS4 videogame Daedalus: The Awakening of Golden Jazz.

The Tantei Jinguuji Saburou series (also known as the Jake Hunter series) is a long-running mystery adventure game series which started in 1987 with the Famicom Disk System videogame Shinjuku Chuuou Kouen Satsujin Jiken ("The Shinjuku Central Park Murder Case"). The series revolves around the titular Jinguuji Saburou, a private detective who operates from Shinjuku, Tokyo. With the support of his assistant Youko, Inspector Kumano of the Yodobashi Police Station and other friends, Jinguuji has managed to solve many, many cases over the course of thirty years of game history. The hardboiled crime stories often have a focus on human drama and lean towards the social school of mystery, but will also occasionally feature puzzle plot mysteries and other classic tropes, resulting in a very eclectic form that at least greatly entertains me. The most recent game in this series is Prism of Eyes, which I reviewed in August of this year.

But before the release of Prism of Eyes, it was already announced that we'd see another entry of this series soon, though in a completely different form. Daedalus: The Awakening of Golden Jazz is the first prequel/spin-off game the series has seen in its more than thirty years old history, and is set about 10 years before the main series, portraying a younger Jinguuji Saburou as a student, long before he became the ever-smoking private detective we know of the other games. From earlier games, we knew he had taken after his grandfather and that like his grandfather, he had also lived in the United States and that during his time in New York, he had first met his future assistant Misono Youko as both got involved in a certain case (as mentioned in the PSX entry Yume no Owari ni), but we never got any details about this past. Daedalus: The Awakening of Golden Jazz, which is written by the same scenario writer as of Yume no Owari ni, gives us the details of Saburou's time in New York.

Why Daedalus: The Awakening of Golden Jazz is touted as a spin-off title rather than as the newest numbered entry in the main series, becomes obvious the moment you look at the game. It looks nothing at all like the previous games. Sure, the character designs are always different each game, and I really like the character designs this time. But gone are the old-fashioned commands like "Look" or "Talk" which you use to interact with static screens featuring static characters, as now each location is depicted as a 360 degrees panorama picture. It's pretty to nice to actually be able to move the camera now and look all around you. Instead of choosing the "Look" command, followed by "Telephone" like in all the previous games, you can now directly move the camera towards the telephone and select it to interact with it. Functionally, it works actually precisely the same as in the old games, but it certainly looks flashier. (If you're thinking of Sherlock because of the floating text: Sherlock takes a lot of cues from game grammar). I guess the idea is that these changes allow the player to really experience the world through Saburou's eyes, interacting directly with everything and everyone, rather than using commands. I love the use of the panorama view based on real photographs by the way, which reminds of the real photographs used as backgrounds in previous games like Yume no Owari ni and Tomoshibi ga Kienu Ma Ni.

Gameplay-wise though, Daedalus: The Awakening of Golden Jazz is almost the same as the other games, providing a fairly linear experience. It's a mystery game, but most of the time you'll not be able to do any thinking yourself, as much of the story is streamlined: you can only continue in the story if you go to the right location to talk with the right person/find the right piece of evidence, and only then can you continue to the next location, etc. It's a fairly stress-free experience, but there's not freedom here. This game also introduces a so-called "Stance" mechanic (where you can react to a person with different attitudes), but in reality it's nothing but a multiple choice system, as there's usually only one correct stance to pick, and the game will eventually always force you to pick the correct stance.

New in Daedalus: The Awakening of Golden Jazz are the end-of-chapter confrontations, where Jinguuji confronts a person of interest with his findings. These confrontations are fairly simple, as you're basically asked a few questions, which you answer to with the discoveries you already made over the course of the chapter (basically, it's just checking whether you paid attention). Though these are one of the few moments where you can get a game over screen (besides a few select other points in the games), which is fairly surprising, because I don't think the series has featured a game over screen since the very first game!

So despite all the flashier looks, Daedalus: The Awakening of Golden Jazz doesn't really differ from the other games mechanically, focusing much on telling a mystery story, rather than really challenging the player with game mechanics that allow them to think for themselves, but how does it fare as a mystery story? Well, I really want to like it more than I do. I quite like the new chapter structure, with Saburou solving a major incident at the end of each chapter (previous games were more like one long story), but these incidents are usually incredibly straightforward. When you find the proverbial bloody glove with the fingerprints of a suspect, you can be sure that the clue means the murderer was indeed the owner of those fingerprints, and that it's not some kind of red herring. These far-too-simple chapter cases seldom make feel like you've uncovered something big like in the previous games, which usually started with a small incident (a missing woman or something like that) which eventually are discovered to be part of a bigger case (often involving organized crime etc). Daedalus: The Awakening of Golden Jazz does become a story with scale eventually, but the smaller chapter cases are far too short and simple, with very few shocking surprises awaiting the player. What doesn't help is it often feels like there are holes in the storytelling and direction, as if scenes or lines had been cut. Sometimes things are mentioned as if we had heard about them before (which I'm sure we didn't or at least vaguely) and sometimes, the direction of scenes is just too vague, making it unclear what actually happened until they discuss it afterwards ("Oh, so thaaat's what happened). It's especially the moments where they treat a fact as commonly known, even though it's only been vaguely alluded too earlier, where Daedalus feels off. The overall story of Daedalus has some really good emotional moments, but also some choppy moments because of this uneven storytelling. It does become a bit silly at certain points regarding the backstory, but overall, I did enjoy the story. Warning though: Deadalus starts incredibly slow and the first chapter, set in the past when Saburou was at summer camp with his friends Abby, Leo and Ben, is arguably the worst one too, so you have to make your way through that until it becomes more interesting.

Though I have to mention this: the events of how Saburou and Youko first met in New York as depicted in Daedalus: The Awakening of Golden Jazz, don't exactly match the story alluded to in Yume no Owari ni, even though they're written by the same writer! Which is more than a bit strange considering the concept of this very game was to give the details about the incident that brought them together! Also: Youko is depicted very differently from how we know her in the other games. She's almost... tsundere! Funny is how Saburou is still a minor in this game, so he doesn't smoke nor drink, which are like the two things he always does in the main series (heck, the main series has a dedicated "Smoke" command, which usually functions as a "Hint" command).

The subtitle The Awakening of Golden Jazz refers not only to the awakening of Saburou as a detective, but also to the fantastic jazzy soundtracks that are a staple of the series. To be honest, at the start of the game, I thought the music was okay, but not really fitting to the series, but as you progress in the story, the music also changes and by the time you get to the end, the music does really sound like something you'd expect from the Tantei Jinguuji Saburou series, so the 'awakening' of jazz as you proceed in the game was a really nice touch! The music of the Tantei Jinguuji Saburou is my default 'writing' background music by the way.

To be honest, at first I wasn't really looking forward to Daedalus: The Awakening of Golden Jazz, as the idea of a prequel game simply sounded rather uninspired to me. Having now played the game, I think my hesitations have shifted focus. Overall, I did have fun with this game, more than I had initially expected, and I am most definitely a fan of the graphical and music style they chose for this spin-off, but this game could also have been much more enjoyable if the storytelling had a brush-up, as many moments don't come across as intended because of clunky direction at times. I think the overall story works quite fine as a mystery story that doesn't quite feel like it would work in the main series, but perfectly as a spin-off prequel, but had the developers had more time to flesh out the seperate chapters too with more depth, I think this could've been a much, much better game.

Original Japanese title(s): 『ダイダロス：ジ・アウェイクニング・オブ・ゴールデンジャズ』

Monochrome Motion

たった一度だけでも抱いてしまった希望

君の手の中に踊るのは

未完成な音色

「未完成な音色」（Garnet Crow）

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

But what is dancing within your hands is

An imperfect sound

"An Imperfect Sound" (Garnet Crow)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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』

The Dark Side

"Allora, sono abastanza cattivo?"

"MM Mickey Mouse Mystery Magazine"

"Am I badass enough for you now?"

"MM Mickey Mouse Mystery Magazine"

I never knew Mickey Mouse lived in Mouseton until a few weeks ago. In certain European countries, like the Netherlands, Mickey lives in an neighborhood within Duckburg (the town where Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck live). Their comic adventures seldom cross, but still, the fact the Mouse lives in the city of the Ducks shows how big Donald Duck and his family are in European Disney comics compared to Mickey.

As I wrote in an article last week, Mickey Mouse often acts as a private detective in European Disney comics, where he usually gets the support of Goofy, Chief O'Hara, Detective Casey and other familiar faces from the Mickey Mouse universe. But what would happen if you put the Mouse in a completely new environment without his friends, and where the friendly demeanor of his modern depiction might literally mean the death of him? Mickey is one day informed of two shocking facts: not only does he learn that he owns half of the detective agency of his college friend Sonny Mitchell, said Sonny has also disappeared from the face of the earth. In order to find out what happened to his old friend, Mickey decides to travel to the city of Anderville, a big metropolis that also serves as the crime capital, with gangs and corrupt businesses and politicians ruling the city. Mickey might be a big shot detective who has the trust of the police back in Mouseton, but here nobody even notices a small wannabe mouse detective, and he soon learns that his old ways of detecting won't work here, as you need to be mean to survive in Anderville. Mickey realizes that Sonny got himself mixed up with something big, and now the underworld also has its eyes set on Sonny's partner Mickey, but he sure isn't going down without a fight in the Italian comic series MM Mickey Mouse Mystery Magazine (1999-2001).

While I was reading up for my Mickey Mouse article of last week, I not only learned that most of the Mickey Mouse-as-a-detective stories I knew came from Italy, I also came across the existence of MM Mickey Mouse Mystery Magazine, a short-lived Italian comic that put the Mickey-as-detective character in a completely new setting (Anderville), aimed at a somewhat older audience than the usual comics. I also discovered that this series was also published in Dutch relatively recently (in the Disney Premium Pocket line), so I picked the corresponding volumes up immediately (the series is available in various languages across Europe, but not in English it seems).

Simply said, MM Mickey Mouse Mystery Magazine is Mickey Mouse in Gotham City. Let that sink in for a while. Mickey as a crime fighter is not an unfamiliar sight for those familiar with the 30s/40s Mickey Mouse comics by Floyd Gottfredson, or the European Disney comic tradition that built on that, but even so, MM Mickey Mouse Mystery Magazine really feels different due to the setting Anderville. It's a place where Mickey has no friends, where his usual tricks don't work, where the average gang member is infinitely more dangerous than any of the criminal masterminds he meets in Mouseton. The chaotic metropolis is ruled by crime and corruption. It's a depressing place, especially as Mickey can't leave the town to see his friends as he's seen as a suspect in a certain case by the Anderville Police and the only salvation left for Mickey are the rare allies he finds in Anderville. The tone of the comic is also a bit dark, but not really dark: it's still a Mickey Mouse comic, and there are also lighthearted segments with Mickey bickering with his secretary or the regulars and the cook at his usual hang-out Little Caesar.

MM Mickey Mouse Mystery Magazine is a hardboiled mystery comic, and the cases Mickey works on often involve organized crime or corruption in the business or political world of Anderville. While Mickey still has to figure some underlying criminal plot out at times, you shouldn't expect a fair-play puzzle plot mystery of MM Mickey Mouse Mystery Magazine, as it really isn't. That said though, this series really works well as a hardboiled mystery series with Mickey. He solves cases by outsmarting small fry criminals and using his wits and his fists to win from assassins and the individual cases are interesting enough as hardboiled mystery stories, thrilling from start to finish and with some kind of mystery for either the Mouse or the reader to solve (even if it's not always presented in a fair way). Some of the more interesting stories are Run Run Run, where Mickey is forced to compete in the Anderville Marathon by a "fan" who has planted bombs along the route and Mousetrap, where Mickey is blackmailed to participate in a bank robbery to set himself up as a scapegoat. There are also some character-oriented stories that focus on Anderville and its inhabitants.

There are some missed chances for fair-play mystery plots, even if that wasn't the goal of this series. Black Mask has Mickey and a few others trapped inside the supertrain Black Mask, with one of the other passengers actually an assassin sent to kill Mickey. It's a very tense story with the assassin making several attempts at Mickey's life , but even though this could've been an excellent fair-play whodunnit, the identity of the assassin was hardly hinted at in the story. In another story, Firestorm, there's actually a fairly-clewed segment where Mickey Mouse and reluctant ally and police cop Patty manage to fool a group of hitmen who want to take out Mickey (with the puzzle presented to the reader as to how they managed to fool the hitmen in the first place), so it's not like a fair-play mystery is impossible within the hardboiled mystery structure of MM Mickey Mouse Mystery Magazine.

The series is relatively short, as low sales and the radical different depiction of Mickey (a Mickey closer to his 30s/40s Floyd Gottfredson comic depiction, rather than his modern do-gooder depiction) led to a premature conclusion in Italy, ending the series at only twelve issues, with a very forced ending with hardly any closure to it. It's almost as if the writers were told one or two issues earlier they had to end it, as basically none of the ongoing storylines in the series were resolved satisfactorily, and it basically ends with Mickey leaving Anderville right in the middle of events. It's a shame the creators weren't given a few more issues to give this series at least slightly more closure, as now it's almost like only the last eight or so pages of this series were available to wrap the whole thing up.

Overall though I really enjoyed MM Mickey Mouse Mystery Magazine as a hardboiled mystery series that happens to star Mickey Mouse. Could it have worked without Mickey Mouse? I don't know: I didn't think this Mickey Mouse was that much removed from the Mickey I knew from the other European Mickey-as-detective stories. The setting of Anderville is used to do stories that you couldn't usually do in Mouseton, but Mickey still feels like himself, only better adapted to his new environment. For readers who are interested in seeing a different kind of Mickey, I really recommend this series with the caveat that it has a very abrupt ending.