Easy to see why "The Girl Who Stands Behind" is the favorite between the two original offerings. This isn't bad - it's a solid mystery, there's a couple good tonal moments (the seaside cliff in general is a great set piece), and it's neat to see Nintendo advance the formula established by The Portopia Serial Murder Case. But there's just no competing with the heights of "The Girl Who Stands Behind"'s mystery. Playing through this ended up being less "Aha, this is what I was missing" and more "Ah, this is what the prequel built upon."

Also, for all the polish (I LOVE this art style, and the music/voice acting is such a treat), there's no escaping that third-gen gameplay jank that forms the heart of this game. There was a good stretch of time where I kept running around in circles, trying to find the flag I missed during my first, second, third pass of a scene. I run into that a lot with mystery adventure games, admittedly, but it always feels at its most pronounced for me with the Famicom Detective Club games.

Still, I am VERY grateful we got this. This was my gaming white whale for the longest time, and I'm glad I was finally able to play through it.