A very charming graphic adventure with interesting story-telling and amazing horror vibes.

Here's the main stuff that attracted me to play this duology asap, despise the overpriced price (imo):

- remake(s) done by freaking MAGES who did the Science Adventure VNs everyone knows about or heard about once (Steins;Gate, Chaos;Head etc.)
- Ayumi Tachibana originally meant to be playable in Super Smash Bros. Melee.

If you are now more interested because of this then: absolutely check this out. Worth it.

amicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir is a solid, enjoyable mystery to play. I loved exploring Myoujin Village and learning about the cast, or swapping between the orchestrated arrangement and original chiptune songs. The game is also a time capsule into Nintendo’s past and the early days of graphic adventures on console, and has aged remarkably well. I sort of wish they’d included the original version of the game, if only for comparison’s sake, but having the music is a nice touch. The game even comes with a Music Mode you unlock after completing it. It’s a nice touch.

https://operationrainfall.com/2021/06/09/review-famicom-detective-club-the-missing-heir/

Game #134: Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir

First game I've beaten on my Switch. It has extremely beautiful artwork and a well written story but in some parts it needs QoL improvements. Apart from that story is really predictable but still an enjoyable experience overall.

7/10

It's like a darker, more serious and more overtly supernatural version of an Ace Attorney game, if you replaced the humor with a more frustrating focus on sequence breaking and point-and-click exploration. That sounds like I didn't like it, but I did; adventure games of this sort are not my usual genre, so I was unaware of the way "just do the same action over and over until something happens" is a common mechanic.

The atmosphere here is genuinely haunting at times, and the late-in-game genre and play mechanic shift genuinely took me by surprise.

I bought the dual collection when it came out, but I ended up not actually playing it until just recently for whatever reason. I decided to make The Missing Heir my first game, as it seemed to be the recommended starter.

First off, I wanna say, the production values in this are pretty incredible. New soundtrack (with the option to listen to the original soundtrack from the Famicom), nice art and backgrounds (I think the backgrounds are hand drawn and the character sprites, while I'm not sure, look like 3D models that pass off as hand drawn), lots of cut ins and CGs, it's honestly kind of incredible. For an incredibly old duology, Nintendo really put a lot of effort into it. The art is great, and the soundtrack is pretty catchy, too! Also, mostly full voice acting! Megumi Ogata is the protagonist!

The story is, overall, pretty good, too. You play as a detective who has lost his memories right before you're to investigate the murder of the head of a rich, influential family. There are plenty of twists which, honestly, I quite liked! The cast was pretty good and fun, and I quite enjoyed the story.

However, this leads to two major downsides. The first is that, this is very classic adventure game. Sometimes you have to choose the same option 4 times in a row, or you have to do things in a certain order to get the next flag set for you to progress. It's not particularly fun at times, and I ended up opening up a walkthrough towards the end for when I got stuck. I understand it's a very old game and that's how they used to work, but I kind of wish they touched some of this up to make it less... frustrating.

The other issue is the story works at a pretty fast pace, a little too fast. Some of the big twists at the end you're left with only moments to breathe and take in the current chapter and plot beats before it's over and you're on to something new. There's a lot of cool stuff in the story, and I just wish they let it sit and simmer and let you take it in before you're off to the next thing. For a pretty fun murder mystery story, it's over far too soon, which is a real shame.

I would definitely recommend it! It's cool to play a game that was only available in Japan, especially that's so present day in its production. If you like short little mystery games, check it out! I'm eager to play the next one!

Feeling very lukewarm on this. A lot of the gameplay involves trial-and-error choosing options from the menu, with dialogue options often needing to be selected in the right order or a certain number of times for you to progress. There's no puzzle solving or choices that affect the story, definitely nothing that feels like detective work, and I would've enjoyed this more as just a kinetic visual novel. The story is decent and engaging enough for me to see it through to the end, but not enough to make me overlook the gameplay. It's fine! I don't regret playing it but I think I'll forget about it soon.