Samantha Lienhard's Blog, page 38
June 10, 2023
Not-E3 2023 Part 3: Wholesome Direct and Future Games Show
Not-E3 2023 Schedule
Guerrilla Collective 2023
Summer Game Fest 2023 Showcase
Devolver Direct: The Return of Volvy
Wholesome Direct 2023
Future Games Show
Xbox Game Showcase
PC Gaming Show
Ubisoft Forward
Capcom Showcase
Grasshopper Direct
RGG Summit
Today brings us two more showcases: the Wholesome Direct and the Future Games Show. Once again, we’ll be going through the highlights, so be sure to check out the full showcases if you want to see everything that was announced.
Wholesome DirectThe Wholesome Direct is always an interesting show to look forward to, because while it might only have a handful of games I want to play, it’s bound to be the cutest showcase. This year’s Wholesome Direct featured a lot of farming and garden games (and a high number of witch games again), like last year. Also like last year, there were multiple frog games.
First up was Mineko’s Night Market. I feel like we’ve been talking about this game for years, but now it finally has a release date!
The next game to catch my attention was one of the aforementioned frog games. Frogsong is an action-adventure game where you play a tiny frog, and it looks so cute!
Creature-collecting game Moonstone Island, bunny-collection game Usagi Shima, and nature exploration game Flutter Away are among the number that look really cute even though I’m not sure if they’d appeal to me personally.
Frog-raising farm sim Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge is another (as well as being another frog game).
Then there’s Gourdlets, which sounds like a game I wouldn’t normally be interested in, being a city-building sandbox. Yet something about building your city and watching the little gourdlets interact with it looks so relaxing, I can’t help but be interested.
And while there are a lot of games starring cute animals, special mention goes to Smushi Come Home, an exploration game where you play as a tiny mushroom.
I’m also intrigued by A Tiny Sticker Tale, which looks like a pretty neat little puzzle game.
And while there were a ton of exploration/gardening games, Kibu is one that especially stood out.
Meanwhile, even among all these cute games, the cuteness award might go to Little Friends: Puppy Island, where you explore and build a paradise with a bunch of puppies. (Now, if it was kittens, I’d probably be buying it already.)
Narrative adventure game Fall of Porcupine looks interesting, and there was also a surprise appearance of Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life. Of course, it fits right in with the theme, but I expected it to be entirely focused on indie games.
(One of these days, I’ll get back to playing Rune Factory.)
Campfire Cat Cafe did bring some more cute cats to the showcase, and then it ended with another farm/life sim RPG that looks especially interesting, Fields of Mistria.
Future Games ShowAfter the Wholesome Direct, we went straight into the Future Games Show. One of the games that stood out to me the most is Lords of the Fallen, the spiritual successor to the previous Lords of the Fallen. Confusing title aside, it looks pretty cool! This new trailer introduced its dual worlds system and gave a decent look at its gameplay.
I also have to give a shout-out to Head Bangers: Rhythm Royale. While this sort of multiplayer game isn’t my sort of thing, the dancing pigeons were terrifying yet strangely compelling to watch.
Moving on, you might remember The Last Faith from last year, and it still looks fantastic.
Swashbuckling action game En Garde! looks like it could be interesting, and so does narrative adventure game The Book Walker: Thief of Tales.
I was also surprised to see the Deponia series return, with Surviving Deponia… a survival game entry in the adventure game series.
Layers of Fear also got a new trailer – this is the upcoming collection of both previous Layers of Fear games plus new content, so it’s competing with Lords of the Fallen for the most confusing title.
Speaking of horror games, I’m also curious about Daymare: 1994 Sandcastle, although I haven’t played the first one.
Ruffy and the Riverside also looks like it could be a lot of fun, although finding out that it’s open world diminished my excitement a bit.
Getting back to the horror genre, another horror game (although its store page officially describes it as a “psycho-thriller”) that looks like it has potential is Reveil, so I’ll be keeping my eye on that one, and Luto also looks nice and spooky.
The final game shown, The Spirit of the Samurai, also looks interesting, although I’m not sure how I feel about the stop-motion animation style.
Anyway, those were the highlights for me from today’s showcases! Come back tomorrow for two more game showcases as we proceed through this year’s Not-E3 season. In the meantime, which games stood out to you the most?
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June 8, 2023
Not-E3 2023 Part 2: Summer Game Fest Showcase and Devolver Digital
Not-E3 2023 Schedule
Guerrilla Collective 2023
Summer Game Fest 2023 Showcase
Devolver Direct: The Return of Volvy
Wholesome Direct 2023
Future Games Show
Xbox Game Showcase
PC Gaming Show
Ubisoft Forward
Capcom Showcase
Grasshopper Direct
RGG Summit
Today began with the surprise leak of the store page for Like a Dragon Gaiden, as well as another hint that we might see a Final Fantasy VII Rebirth trailer today. So with the Summer Game Fest 2023 Showcase kicking off today’s activities, let’s take a look!
Once again, I’ll focus on highlights so we don’t have whole paragraphs of me just listing games.
Summer Game Fest 2023 ShowcaseIt began with a surprise: a new Prince of Persia game. The Sands of Time remake has been in limbo for a while now, with preorders being refunded, but apparently they decided to make a new 2.5D action platformer in the meantime. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown had a good trailer (although the music seemed out of place), so I’m interested. I’ve never played a Prince of Persia game before, so maybe I should give it a try.
The next game to catch my attention was a new Sonic game, Sonic Superstars, which looks pretty good even though I’m not a Sonic fan.
Then there’s Honkai: Star Rail, which I’d probably be interested in if it wasn’t a gacha game.
Lies of P, however, looks as cool as ever. It will be out on September 19 and has a demo available now.
They also announced Sand Land, a new game from Bandai Namco and Akira Toriyama. The trailer didn’t reveal a whole lot, but it definitely looks interesting enough to keep an eye on. It seems it’s based on a manga of the same name.
An Annapurna Interactive Showcase was announced for June 29, so that will be something to tune in for.
Then, after several other games, it was finally the moment I was waiting for, Alan Wake II! I’m still disappointed in the digital-only release, but I’m curious about how they’ll handle the two protagonists. They said today that it will be roughly a 50/50 split between playing as Alan and playing as the new character Saga, and that you can choose when to switch between them.
It was nice to get another look at Balder’s Gate III, as well as Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis. That one still has my attention despite being a mobile game.
And then it was time for Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name! Like the leaks this morning said, it will be out on November 9, and it looks so cool. Can I catch up on the series in time to play Gaiden when it comes out? I don’t know, but either way, I’m excited for this game.
After that, there were a lot of games I didn’t care much for, including some I missed entirely because I was too hyped for Like a Dragon. But that’s okay, because the showcase ended with…
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth!
It was highly expected, due to the Rebirth tweets that appeared to be leading up to today, and I was thrilled when the trailer began. It’s been confirmed for early 2024, and it looks incredible. I’m sure I’ll go over this trailer a thousand times to pick out specific details, but for now, enjoy!
What a great way to end the showcase!
Our next major showcase of the day was Devolver’s show, so let’s see what brand of insanity they had for us today…
Devolver Digital: The Return of VolvyDevolver began their show by going over the history of their mascot, Volvy. Now, Volvy never existed before this showcase, but they constructed an entire history of its role in the gaming industry to review before unveiling its new form… an AI that can instantly generate games based on prompts.
Yes, today’s show was largely focused on AI (and Volvy!), and the full show deserves to be seen.
In between bouts of insanity, the showcase showed off Wizard With a Gun, The Talos Principle II, Baby Steps, and Human Fall Flat 2.
Meanwhile, in between these two showcases there were a few additional announcements, including a remaster of Shadows of the Damned.
Now, you might logically assume that’s that the Grasshopper Manufacture countdown was for, since the countdown was set to end tomorrow, but they recently updated the website to end on June 14 instead. This trailer ends with the announcement of a Grasshopper Direct on June 14 (or 15, depending on your time zone), so it looks like we have another showcase to add to the list!
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June 7, 2023
Not-E3 2023 Part 1: Guerrilla Collective Highlights
Not-E3 2023 Schedule
Guerrilla Collective 2023
Summer Game Fest 2023 Showcase
Devolver Direct: The Return of Volvy
Wholesome Direct 2023
Future Games Show
Xbox Game Showcase
PC Gaming Show
Ubisoft Forward
Capcom Showcase
RGG Summit
Our first big showcase of Not-E3 2023 comes from the Guerrilla Collective, which in the past has shown a number of interesting indie games.
But you know, a lengthy, 2-hour showcase like this always results in me writing out paragraphs of listing the games that didn’t interest me as much, and a list of titles like that isn’t helpful for any of us. So instead, I’ll cover the highlights that stood out to me. You can check out the full showcase here.
The first game to catch my attention was Terra Memoria. It seems to be an exploration-based RPG, and it looks pretty nice.
The next game to catch my eye was Forgotlings, a sides-crolling action-adventure game that had me confused for a bit. You see, the art and animation reminded me a lot of Forgotton Anne, which I played and reviewed for MonsterVine back in 2018. “Forgotlings” was also a term from that game, so it seemed like they had to be connected, but I didn’t see anything like that.
Finally, though, I found the Forgotlings Kickstarter campaign and found that it is “a spiritual sequel to Forgotton Anne.” I enjoyed Forgotton Anne, so that’s one I’ll want to look into.
They showed an exploration game called Europa that I want to mention just because of how pretty it is, and then one called Light Odyssey… which I was a lot more interested in before I found out that it’s a boss rush game. So Light Odyssey probably isn’t for me, but it does look cool.
Remnant II also looks cool, although I haven’t played the first game, and I was delighted to see that World of Horror is coming out of Early Access this October 19! That’s one I’ve been interested in for quite a while, but I wanted to wait until Early Access ended before playing it.
Last year, Demonschool was announced, and I said I’d keep my eye on it. It’s a turn-based strategy RPG. Well, its new trailer this year definitely helped to win me over.
Then there’s the turn-based RPG SacriFire, which got a new trailer today as well and looks as cool as ever.
Moving on to a new announcement, Dark Deity II was announced today. Although I haven’t played the first game, its Fire Emblem style approach to strategy RPG combat has me interested enough to pay attention.
I was also surprised by how good the wrestling RPG WrestleQuest looks.
Grifford Academy is another turn-based RPG that looks worth keeping an eye on. This showcase had a pretty good selection of RPGs, which is great for someone like me.
Now we need to talk about Super Adventure Hand, a 3D platformer that was actually announced several months ago, but which I somehow missed until now. The trailer is utterly bizarre, since you play as a disembodied hand, but it actually looks like it could be a lot of fun.
On the heels of that weirdness came a balancing dose of cuteness, with Corgi’s Cozy Hike. It’s open world, so I’m not sure if I’d enjoy it, but it’s adorable!
(I’ll be surprised if this one doesn’t show up at the Wholesome Games showcase.)
Bye Sweet Carole also looks incredible (very Disney animation inspired), although the trailer told me nothing about the gameplay.
Lil’ Guardsman, in which you play a 12-year-old guard at the castle gate determining who to allow in or deny, looks like it could be entertaining.
I also can’t overlook Death Trick: Double Blind, a circus-set non-linear murder mystery. It might be a bit more non-linear than I prefer in my mystery games (plus it has limited actions, a feature I wasn’t crazy about in Aviary Attorney), but I’ll be sure to look into it more.
They showed a 2D action game called Nocturnal that just came out and looks pretty cool, and then the final game to catch my attention was Crypt Custodian, a metroidvania in which you play a cat who works as the afterlife’s janitor. Definitely an unusual premise, but I love how it looks.
These were the highlights for me from this year’s Guerrilla Collective showcase! What games stood out to you the most?
This is only the start of this year’s “Not-E3,” so check out the schedule and stay tuned for more showcases.
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June 5, 2023
Not-E3 2023 Schedule, Predictions, and Pipe Dreams
Just like that, Not-E3 season is upon us once more. Even though the official E3 is cancelled, a whole host of upcoming showcases are scheduled for June 7-15.
So here’s what we’ve got lined up!
Not-E3 2023 ScheduleJune 7
Guerrilla Collective 2023 – 9 AM PT / 12 PM ET
June 8
Summer Game Fest 2023 Showcase – June 8 at 12 PM PT / 3 PM ET
Devolver Direct: The Return of Volvy – June 8 at 3 PM PT / 6 PM ET
June 10
Wholesome Direct 2023 – 9 AM PT / 12 PM ET
Future Games Show – 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET
June 11
Xbox Game Showcase – 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET
PC Gaming Show – 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET
June 12
Ubisoft Forward – 9:45 AM PT / 12:45 PM ET
Capcom Showcase – 3 PM PT / 6 PM ET
June 15
RGG Summit – 8 PM PT / 11 PM ET
There are some additional indie game showcases as well, but I’ve decided to save those for potential miscellaneous highlights at the end, along with any notable highlights from Xbox’s extended show on June 13. Like last year, some of the usual E3 names are missing from this list. Sony had a State of Play just a couple weeks ago, so they probably won’t have another showcase this soon. I’d love to see a Nintendo Direct, though.
If any new showcases are announced for this time period, I’ll update the schedule.
Updated to add Capcom.
Not-E3 2023 PredictionsSome games are already confirmed, such as a gameplay debut for Alan Wake 2 at Summer Game Fest, so I’ll be looking forward to that (even though I’m disappointed in the game being digital-only). Surprisingly, it also feels like a safe guess that Final Fantasy VII Rebirth will be shown. I wouldn’t normally expect Rebirth news until after the release of Final Fantasy XVI, but the official Twitter account has been tweeting one short answer about the game each day, starting on June 2. If they do this for a total of 7 days, it will end right ahead of Summer Game Fest, which has led to widespread speculation that a trailer will be shown there. I also wonder if Death Stranding 2 will appear.
Elden Ring’s DLC also seems possible. All we really know about it is its title, Shadow of the Erdtree. Elden Ring has been out for over a year now, so it feels like the DLC should be shown soon.
In a less likely prediction, I wonder if a new Tales game could be announced. While Tales of Arise only came out in 2021, the gap between it and Tales of Berseria was unusually long for the series. I just hope they don’t have any more mobile games planned, since they seem to send them out to die.
Meanwhile, we already discussed hopes and predictions for RGG’s showcase.
Not-E3 2023 Pipe DreamsAnd finally, let’s go over some pipe dreams – things that probably won’t happen, but which I’d love to see.
It’s funny how my list of pipe dreams has slowly come true. In 2015, I made my original list of video game pipe dreams: Ace Attorney Investigations 2 localization, a sequel to The World Ends With You, Bayonetta 3 or a Bayonetta spin-off, and a Tales of Symphonia prequel. Since then, we’ve gotten a sequel to TWEWY, Bayonetta 3, and a Bayonetta spin-off.
In 2016, I updated my list with The Great Ace Attorney localization, Xenosaga HD, Knights of the Old Republic III, a new Professor Layton game, and a true Paper Mario. Since then, we’ve gotten localizations for The Great Ace Attorney and its sequel, a new Professor Layton game (with another on its way), and… well, all right, I’m not sure if I should count Paper Mario: The Origami King.
I no longer feel such a need for Knights of the Old Republic III, though. With the KotOR remake itself in uncertain position, I increasingly feel like a KotOR III would just end up disappointing me. So let’s just consider that one crossed off the list.
In 2017, I added World of Final Fantasy 2 to the list.
Then in 2018, I added two more pipe dreams: Mother 3 localization and a Persona 3 remake. (That last one has been rumored over and over again by this point.)
Finally, in 2021, I updated the list once again to add the the untranslated Tales games, Fatal Frame IV, Crossbell, and the untranslated Yakuza games. Since then, we’ve gotten Fatal Frame IV, Crossbell, and Like a Dragon Ishin.
So as it stands now, my gaming announcement pipe dreams look like:
Ace Attorney Investigations 2 localizationTales of Symphonia prequelXenosaga HDA classic-style Paper MarioWorld of Final Fantasy 2Mother 3 localizationPersona 3 remakeUntranslated Tales gamesLike a Dragon Kenzan and KurohyoThat’s a surprisingly small list, considering at one point it seemed like it would only ever get longer. Are these games likely to be announced? Definitely not. Will I hope for them anyway? Absolutely. Capcom is on the list of participants for Summer Game Fest, and while there’s basically no chance of Ace Attorney appearing, I’ll hang onto that hope anyway.
What do you expect or hope to be announced at this year’s June showcases? Do you think any companies like Nintendo will announce a showcase for that time frame after all?
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June 2, 2023
RGG Summit 2023 Hopes and Predictions
June is here, our mystery game celebration is at an end, and the contest winners are in the process of being notified.
Now it’s time to catch up on one of the exciting announcements that occurred during May: a new RGG Summit!
Last week, RGG Studio announced that a new RGG Summit will be held on June 16 at 12:00 JST (June 15 at 8 PM PT / 11 PM ET).
No specific details have been provided, so we don’t really know what to expect.
Last year, the first-ever RGG Summit was held in September, and it was quite an event. Like a Dragon: Ishin was revealed the night before at the State of Play, followed by a closer look and the release date announcement at RGG Summit. They didn’t stop there, officially revealing Like a Dragon 8 and announcing Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name at the same event. And while it wasn’t officially part of the summit, Judgment and Lost Judgment dropped on PC the same day.
Will this year’s RGG Summit be just as exciting?
Two reasonable expectations are to get a release date for Like a Dragon Gaiden, which is due out this year, and possibly a new trailer for Like a Dragon 8.
Now, how about some less likely guesses about what we could see?
New IP – Back in 2021, RGG said in an interview that they had a new IP in development, separate from Yakuza and Judgment. The time could be right to reveal it!Judgment 3 – With the Judgment games now on PC, there’s no longer any reason to believe the Judgment series is cancelled. I still haven’t played Lost Judgment, but I’d be ecstatic if a third entry was announced.Dead Souls remaster – The surprisingly enjoyable zombie spin-off never received a remaster like the others, and that would be a perfect surprise to slot in between the larger entries.Kenzan remake – This is the least likely one, as they said a Kenzan remake would require considerably more work than Ishin. Still, Ishin seemed like a pipe dream until the sudden announcement last year.Something from one of their other series – It’s easy to forget that RGG Studio has also worked on Binary Domain, Monkey Ball, and Virtua Fighter, so one of those would be fair game for an RGG Summit.One way or another, we’ll find out on June 15.
The RGG Summit is only one of many showcases set for June. Yes, we’ve got another Not-E3 lining up nicely, so we’ll talk more about that soon.
What do you think will be featured at RGG Summit 2023?
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May 31, 2023
Celebrating All Things Mysterious: Ace Attorney Investigations 2
Today is the final day of Celebrating All Things Mysterious 2023, and what better game to celebrate with than one we’ve been talking about since the earliest days of this blog?
Gyakuten Kenji 2, or Ace Attorney Investigations 2, came out in 2011. It is now the only game in the Ace Attorney series to not have an official release outside of Japan.
It did, however, receive a fan translation. I’ve spent over a decade now holding out hope for an official localization and have more hope for it in the aftermath of The Great Ace Attorney’s localization that I had in years, but last year I decided that if the year ended with no sign of further Ace Attorney ports, I would finally play the Ace Attorney Investigations 2 fan translation.
I wanted a copy anyway, just to have every Ace Attorney game, so I imported a Japanese copy of Gyakuten Kenji 2 from Play-Asia.
And when May came, I began the process of learning how one actually plays a DS game fan translation, which was a bit like jumping into the deep end since the closest I’ve come to anything of the kind was playing the fan translation of Chaos;Head, a PC game I could simply buy, download, and apply the patch to. So actually figuring out how to play Investigations 2 (particularly since I wanted it on a flash cart so I could play it on my 3DS without hacking it) took much longer than I expected.
But at last, I was able to play Investigations 2 with its fan translation.
Picking up after the events of the first Investigations, Investigations 2 once again puts you in the shoes of Miles Edgeworth as he investigates a new series of cases. If you’ve never played Investigations, it plays a bit differently than the main Ace Attorney series. For investigations, you actually walk around as an Edgeworth sprite to inspect areas in the environment. You also confront people directly, hearing their testimonies and presenting evidence against them, instead of having that occur in a trial. They are essentially investigation-only cases, but with mechanics made to adapt Ace Attorney’s regular style to that format.
Investigations 2 also adds two new gameplay features, Logic and Logic Chess. In addition to evidence, you’ll also receive clues that you can then connect to one another through the “Logic” mechanic. This is usually fairly simple, but it was fine.
Logic Chess, meanwhile, puts you in a confrontation with a character who won’t reveal their secrets. It has little to do with actual chess and is essentially a timed series of dialogue choices to break through a character’s resistance, while chess pieces float on the screen to represent the character’s defenses. There are times when you need to pick the option to wait without saying anything, so it becomes a game of judging from the character’s responses whether you should speak or not. Sometimes it felt a bit too arbitrary, but overall I found Logic Chess to be a fun mechanic.
Moving on to the story, it was easy to forget I was playing a fan translation. It feels like Ace Attorney writing. Occasionally I found the game’s questions to be worded in a confusing way so that I wasn’t quite sure what it was asking me for, but I’m not sure if that’s because of the translation or the original writing.
Anyway, it brings back returning characters while also introducing several new ones. Most of the new characters were fairly likeable, with one in particular getting such a character arc that I have to admire the writers for making my opinion of a character change so dramatically over the course of the game. And while I unfortunately got spoiled on the main antagonist’s identity ahead of time, the reveal still gave me chills.
There’s plenty of Ace Attorney humor, as well, although I didn’t find it to be as funny as some of them are. It also has a lot of callbacks to the previous Ace Attorney games, much more than I expected. That was a fun surprise.
As for the story itself, I’m going to need some time to think everything over. You see, Investigations 2 has an overarching story, but the way things come together don’t become apparent until near the end. Each individual case has its highs and lows, but once I started to see how events were connected, I found myself wanting to go back and see them again with new context. And the character writing was so good that a few key moments alone made me love the game so much more.
I only have three real criticisms of the story. First, I felt the pacing dragged on a bit. Most cases felt a little longer than they had to be. My other two criticisms are spoilers, so I’ll explain them behind spoiler tags.
Click for Ace Attorney Investigations 2 spoilersThis is partly on me, but for all this time since Investigations 2 came out, I mistakenly believed we’d play as Gregory in the trial against Von Karma that led to the DL-6 incident. Going through the investigation but having the trial summarized by Ray in the present disappointed me and feels like a missed opportunity. Actually playing through that trial would have elevated that case by so much for me.Finally, I wish the mastermind had just a slightly greater presence in the story. Just enough to make it feel like more of a betrayal.
Overall, I greatly enjoyed my time with Ace Attorney Investigations 2. While I need some time to let the story think in to determine where it sits in my Ace Attorney rankings, I definitely had a good time with it.
You might think that this lessens my desire for an official translation… but you’d be wrong! No, I want Investigations 2 to get a port and localization more than ever now! I want more people to play it. I want to be able to recommend it to friends without a list of instructions on how to play it! The fan translation is great, so maybe Capcom could work out a deal to use it as a base for an official release, like what happened with the Crossbell games. Playing it just cemented how much I not only want the remaining mainline games to be ported to modern platforms, but the Investigations duology as well.
So I’m still hoping for an Ace Attorney Investigations 2 localization after all this time. The sole other time I’ve played a game’s fan translation, localization was announced five months later, so maybe that same magic will occur again!
Gyakuten Kenji 2 can still be found out there, but being a Japan-exclusive DS game makes it among the most difficult Ace Attorney games to play. Here’s hoping Capcom remembers it and gives Investigations another chance.
And that brings this year’s mystery game celebration to a close! You have until the end of tonight to leave comments for the contest, so join in the conversation with your thoughts on Ace Attorney Investigations 2 and all the other games we’ve discussed this month!
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May 29, 2023
Celebrating All Things Mysterious: Process of Elimination
Process of Elimination came out earlier this year for the Switch and PS4, so it seemed fitting to make it part of our mystery game month.
You play as Wato Hojo, an aspiring detective who ends up joining a group of detectives from the Detective Alliance as they attempt to investigate the identity of the serial killer known as the Quartering Duke. However, they soon find themselves trapped together, with the knowledge that the Quartering Duke might be among them…
It is one of several games coming out this year that I refer to casually as “Danganronpa-likes.” As members of the group are killed, it’s up to you to investigate and determine who the culprit is in each case.
Process of Elimination is primarily a visual novel. By far the vast majority of your time will be spent reading.
However, investigations are handled in a unique format for this sort of game. During these segments, the area you’ve investigating is presented as a grid the characters can walk around on. You need to make use of their stats in order to inspect suspicious areas, analyze evidence, and draw conclusions about the crime.
When I played the demo, it left me confused about what different terms meant and what actions should be used at different times. However, a bit of trial and error made it click for me, and I ended up enjoying these parts after all (aside from one segment that also included invisible enemies, which was too frustrating to be enjoyable).
Once you’ve gathered all the evidence you need, you return to the visual novel format and have to answer a series of questions to show who the culprit is, what evidence proves it, etc. This was the other aspect the demo left me uncertain about, so I was pleased to see that those sections do expect the player to pay attention to the clues and see how they all fit together.
As for its story, I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to at first. I grew attached to the characters, and several points had me invested in seeing what would happen next. It feels like there’s potential for a sequel, and I wouldn’t at all mind seeing these characters again.
Process of Elimination took me by surprise. I didn’t expect to like it as much as I did. Overall, I found it to be an interesting detective story with a good cast of characters, with unique investigation segments that proved to be a fun change of pace.
Only three days remain in this year’s Celebrating All Things Mysterious event and contest, so be sure to look back at all the relevant posts to see what games we’ve discussed so far this month and join in by leaving a comment on anything that grabs your attention!
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May 26, 2023
Celebrating All Things Mysterious: The Innsmouth Case
The Innsmouth Case is a short interactive fiction story about a detective hired to investigate the disappearance of a little girl in Innsmouth.
Now, I love H.P. Lovecraft’s stories, games based on them, and detective stories, and this one is also a comedy, so I had high hopes.
I finally added an “interactive fiction” tag for this one, because while it does have some visuals, it’s primarily text-based and is even presented as the pages of a book. Scenery and characters appear at the top of the page, while the text appears to tell the story and present you with choices.
These choices have a variety of effects, with some leading to major branches while others can influence things later down the line, which means there’s a lot of variability.
When you reach an ending, you can easily reload a previous chapter if you don’t want to start over from the beginning. You can also skip through text to reach the next choice. This is good, since there’s a lot of trial and error involved. While some choices expect you to reason through what a smart reaction would be, others can’t be predicted (and finding the lost girl requires more guesswork than detective work).
However, I didn’t feel compelled to seek out all the endings or try to see all the branching paths, because it just didn’t have the heart I was hoping for.
Like I mentioned above, The Innsmouth Case is a comedy, despite being based on Lovecraftian horror. Its store page describes it as “the first scary-comedy-text-adventure of its kind,” but I wouldn’t go that far. As far as horror goes, The Innsmouth Case isn’t particularly scary, although it does have a ton of little nods to H.P. Lovecraft’s work. And when it comes to comedy… well, comedy is subjective, but it didn’t do it for me.
It certainly has an irreverent tone and a goofy approach to its situation, especially if you pick some of the more questionable choices. There were only a few moments that actually made me laugh, though.
In short, The Innsmouth Case isn’t the game to play if you’re looking for horror, a serious detective story, or a hilarious adventure, but if you want a short piece of interactive fiction with many branching paths and nods to Lovecraft, maybe you’ll get more out of it than I did.
We’re nearing the end of our Celebrating All Things Mysterious celebration, but there’s still plenty of time to join in the conversation about any of the games we’ve discussed so far! I’m hoping to end on a high note, so stay tuned for the upcoming reviews next week!
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May 24, 2023
Celebrating All Things Mysterious: Adam Wolfe – A Paranormal Conspiracy in 4 Parts
Adam Wolfe is a 4-episode hidden object game in which you play a paranormal detective solving cases while searching for his missing sister.
The first three episodes each have a self-contained supernatural mystery, but they’re all connected by a conspiracy that reaches its conclusion in the fourth episode, which brings everything together.
It is a hidden object game at heart, although one that leans more toward being an adventure game. Using a point-and-click interface, you’ll need to investigate areas to find key items and use them to solve puzzles. You can travel between locations using your map, and occasionally you have special interactions available (such as making a phone call or using your gun).
The puzzles tend to be quite simple and straightforward. Early on in the first episode, you obtain a watch that lets you look into the past (oddly enough, this isn’t the first game with such a mechanic we’ve discussed this May), so occasionally you’ll have to do that in order to proceed. Strangely, these segments require you to move present-time objects to their correct placements in the past in order to see what happened.
While the first episode also has a handful of sections that are more action-oriented, the later episodes minimized these in favor of simple puzzles.
And of course, it has hidden object sequences. What makes Adam Wolfe stand out compared to other hidden object games I’ve played is that the majority of these have narrative significance. Instead of grabbing random items from a list, you’ll be hearing the words to an ancient ritual and need to click the corresponding items, for example. One humorous section has you pick up tool after tool in order to break into a locked box.
Sadly, the last two episodes had some regular hidden object sections instead, which was disappointing, although they didn’t abandon the format entirely.
In terms of its story, Adam Wolfe is interesting enough. While the individual cases aren’t too thrilling (although the first episode is by far the most interesting in terms of the standalone mysteries), I was invested in the overarching plot by episode 3. Unfortunately, the ending was anticlimactic. After everything else that had happened up until that point, the end disappointed me.
Nevertheless, if you enjoy hidden object games, Adam Wolfe takes a bit of unique twist on the formula while telling a decent story, aside from its conclusion.
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May 22, 2023
Celebrating All Things Mysterious: Bustafellows – Great Characters and a Rushed Mystery
Bustafellows is described as a noir mystery otome game, so I was excited to get it when it came out in 2021.
But it came out right while I was still in the middle of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, so it got pushed aside and lost in the shuffle of my backlog until this year’s mystery game celebration spurred me to dive into it after all this time.
You play Teuta, a young journalist with the power to send her consciousness back in time a few hours, although she wakes up in the past in someone else’s body. When she sees that a man has been killed, she goes back in time to warn him and becomes mixed up with the “Fixers,” a small group dedicated to bringing justice to people where the law and society have failed them.
Her power is not as important to the story as I expected from the premise. It allows her to save the day at certain critical moments, but most of Bustafellows feels like it could have been written without the time travel.
Bustafellows is a beautiful game with backgrounds that have moving animations (a big deal in a visual novel). It made everything feel more alive, and it really feels high-quality. On the other hand, there are a number of points where characters are talking in the background without a text box appearing on the screen… which I’m sure is just fine if you know Japanese, but if you’re relying on the English translation, that means you need to check the log to find out what the missed lines were, since they’re fortunately translated there.
(Except for the very end, which is a cutscene presented that way, with no ability to view the log since the game ends after that.)
Anyway, Bustafellows is one of those otome games where the love interests are a big group of friends, and I really like that. There are a number of slice of life scenes that are just fun because of the dynamic the characters have with each other, both in the common route and in individual routes.
The common route is a decent length, and your choices across its chapters lead you to one of the individual character routes. Each of these routes has a different focus. They range from mystery investigations to crime thrillers, although the mystery-solving aspect was never as strong as I’d hoped it would be.
I liked most of the love interests, although one just annoyed me and a couple of the others felt like their routes were rushed. Overall, I liked the characters (especially Mozu, my love) enough to make me enjoy my time with Bustafellows…
…Which is good, because the overarching plot doesn’t do it many favors. The common route introduces some mysteries and conspiracies that are largely ignored in the character routes, and then returns to them in two epilogue routes unlocked after all the other routes are complete. Unfortunately, the conclusions feel rushed, which developments that came out of nowhere. Developing those aspects of the story more slowly, with hints dropped throughout the routes, would have made it much better.
In short, Bustafellows shines when it focuses on its characters and their interactions, and stumbles when it tries to bring its mysteries to a satisfactory conclusion.
A sequel is coming out in Japan, and I liked the characters in Bustafellows enough to hope the sequel will be localized. But if it is, I hope it handles its mysteries more carefully, explores Teuta’s time travel powers in more detail, and adds on-screen translations for all of its dialogue.
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