I was really into Murder by Numbers at first. It's got picross; I like picross. It's got Hato Moa character designs, it's got Masakazu Sugimori music, and the writing was above decent.
If you're looking for stimulating gameplay (picross is stimulating but not on a moment-to-moment basis) then this is not your game. When you're not solving picross puzzles, you're reading dialogue in visual novel form or point-and-clicking to find the next puzzle.
The soundtrack is the best part of the game. It sounds like something from an Ace Attorney game yet has a unique tone and identity to have it stand on its own. The character designs are great; some are over-designed nightmares but the good outweigh the bad. Honor is a drink.
The game fell apart in two ways for me: the story and the quantity of puzzles. The story starts to stagnate right where it should climax. Even though the pieces are all set up, it kept unceremoniously dropping subplots and character relationships.
Of the five main characters that are highlighted in the intro animation, one disappears halfway through the game and the other follows suit in the final quarter. The dialogue, while capable of being brilliant and humorous at times, has a nasty habit of destroying the tension.
Poorly-placed jokes, painfully unfunny jokes, cringe-worthy dialogue in both inconsequential AND crucial plot moments. The mysteries aren't as clever as the game thinks they are. Two suspects is hardly a mystery; it's a coin flip. Layton games have fucking mysteries.
The final case in particular felt incredibly bloated. Too many puzzles with little juicy story moments in between to encourage me to push through was exhausting. Ending is kinda lame, too. The bad guy's reasoning is solid enough but he didn't have much time to develop a presence.
If you're a picross fan, Murder by Numbers will give you a decent cast of characters and a bopping soundtrack, but as a cohesive game, it didn't do much besides provide a mentally stimulating distraction from Animal Crossing.
If you're looking for stimulating gameplay (picross is stimulating but not on a moment-to-moment basis) then this is not your game. When you're not solving picross puzzles, you're reading dialogue in visual novel form or point-and-clicking to find the next puzzle.
The soundtrack is the best part of the game. It sounds like something from an Ace Attorney game yet has a unique tone and identity to have it stand on its own. The character designs are great; some are over-designed nightmares but the good outweigh the bad. Honor is a drink.
The game fell apart in two ways for me: the story and the quantity of puzzles. The story starts to stagnate right where it should climax. Even though the pieces are all set up, it kept unceremoniously dropping subplots and character relationships.
Of the five main characters that are highlighted in the intro animation, one disappears halfway through the game and the other follows suit in the final quarter. The dialogue, while capable of being brilliant and humorous at times, has a nasty habit of destroying the tension.
Poorly-placed jokes, painfully unfunny jokes, cringe-worthy dialogue in both inconsequential AND crucial plot moments. The mysteries aren't as clever as the game thinks they are. Two suspects is hardly a mystery; it's a coin flip. Layton games have fucking mysteries.
The final case in particular felt incredibly bloated. Too many puzzles with little juicy story moments in between to encourage me to push through was exhausting. Ending is kinda lame, too. The bad guy's reasoning is solid enough but he didn't have much time to develop a presence.
If you're a picross fan, Murder by Numbers will give you a decent cast of characters and a bopping soundtrack, but as a cohesive game, it didn't do much besides provide a mentally stimulating distraction from Animal Crossing.