Neat little game in the style of Portopia Serial Murder Case. Chasing after that retro style is really endearing and I'm especially grateful that it got an English release. Quite sincerely, I was briefly attempting to learn Japanese just to play this. Its almost disappointing that I didn't get the chance to commit to that.

The broad strokes story and gameplay, fitting the aesthetic, is very linear with no room for deviation. But the decision making feels easier than it did compared to Portopia or Famicom Detective Club. Never trying to trick you or outsmart you, just taking you along for the ride. There's plenty of red herrings and loose plot threads that don't connect to each other, just building on top of the broader machinations of the individuals wrapped up in the narrative. But it all lands primarily because it ties into the most classic kind of mystery story: people doing evil shit for a cool looking pearl.

A retro murder mystery inspired by greats like Famicom Detective Club and Portopia Serial Murder Case, Retro Mystery Club Vol.1 had us hooked from the very beginning. This game's incredibly faithful, almost to a fault: like Portopia, there will be times where you're mashing the same menu verbs again and again, hoping to move forward, stuck in a rut until you remember the one thing you haven't yet tried. But in spite of that, it's a satisfying little mystery, one that genuinely surprised us at times.

Give it a shot! And maybe leave a review on the Steam page after you do: it's currently hovering around 6-7 reviews, which we hope doesn't discourage the publisher from localizing the other two games in this series.