Right off the bat, I must point out this game's biggest flaw: its pricing. One Famicom Detective Club (FDC) game is $35, or £50/$60 for both, and in Europe you cannot buy them separately. For a remake of a Famicom adventure game/visual novel that took me under six hours to complete with virtually zero replayability, this pricing is just unacceptable, and I can't recommend this game to anyone if the price stays this way.
Nevertheless, The Girl Who Stands Behind is pretty good. The best point of comparison I can make is that it feels like a long and loose Ace Attorney case, the ones that have nothing to do with any overarching plots. There is almost nothing in terms of character building for the protagonist, and the little that was there felt shoehorned in. This is the second FDC game, which I played first by recommendation of the one review that I read before buying, meaning that there might be better foundations laid out in the The Missing Heir, but I wouldn't count on it. This isn’t inherently a bad thing, since the game was intent on feeling like a one-off episode, and it executed that well.
The story was intriguing, and it had enough twists and turns to keep me guessing for the almost one sitting I played it in. It’s about a dead high school girl and a rumour about a ghost in said school, with a more serious tone than the light-hearted Ace Attorney series. I was promised a bit of horror by that one review I read, but it didn’t really deliver until the very end, and even then, it was very tame. It’s very linear, meaning that you won’t have to piece together the puzzle yourself, but the game does a good job of addressing deductions the player might have made, eliminating most of the annoying dramatic irony that comes with detective media like this.
In terms of its success as a remake, it’s excellent from a presentation standpoint. The new art direction is great, with a fair amount of charm that complements the story well. The characters are expressive, and the backgrounds are intricate. I’m told that it’s even prettier in the first game, which is set in the countryside, where this one is in the city. It’s fully animated and voice acted too, making it feel like a step above something like the older Ace Attorney games. The rearranged music was surprisingly nice, with options for the Famicom versions too if you want a more authentic experience.
FDC’s remade presentation brushed up well, but what doesn’t hold up so well today is the adventure gameplay. One of the reasons I played this one first was because I was told its gameplay is less obtuse than the first game, and if this is “less obtuse” I shudder to think about what The Missing Heir is like. You have to pixel peep for the inanest things. You have to exhaust every dialogue option for a character multiple times even if their only response is “…”. It’s just not elegant in the slightest, and even though I got through it easy enough, I found myself eyerolling at some of the ways to progress. It’s a shame that the gameplay was largely untouched considering the effort that went into remaking the presentation.
Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind is well done remake and a fantastic homage to detective media that fans of Ace Attorney will enjoy, although you’ll need to have some patience for its outdated gameplay. Like I said before though, I can’t recommend that anyone buys this until the price has been slashed by at least 50%, or you’ll come away from its short runtime feeling very unsatisfied. That being said, it’s time for me to go buy and play The Missing Heir.
Nevertheless, The Girl Who Stands Behind is pretty good. The best point of comparison I can make is that it feels like a long and loose Ace Attorney case, the ones that have nothing to do with any overarching plots. There is almost nothing in terms of character building for the protagonist, and the little that was there felt shoehorned in. This is the second FDC game, which I played first by recommendation of the one review that I read before buying, meaning that there might be better foundations laid out in the The Missing Heir, but I wouldn't count on it. This isn’t inherently a bad thing, since the game was intent on feeling like a one-off episode, and it executed that well.
The story was intriguing, and it had enough twists and turns to keep me guessing for the almost one sitting I played it in. It’s about a dead high school girl and a rumour about a ghost in said school, with a more serious tone than the light-hearted Ace Attorney series. I was promised a bit of horror by that one review I read, but it didn’t really deliver until the very end, and even then, it was very tame. It’s very linear, meaning that you won’t have to piece together the puzzle yourself, but the game does a good job of addressing deductions the player might have made, eliminating most of the annoying dramatic irony that comes with detective media like this.
In terms of its success as a remake, it’s excellent from a presentation standpoint. The new art direction is great, with a fair amount of charm that complements the story well. The characters are expressive, and the backgrounds are intricate. I’m told that it’s even prettier in the first game, which is set in the countryside, where this one is in the city. It’s fully animated and voice acted too, making it feel like a step above something like the older Ace Attorney games. The rearranged music was surprisingly nice, with options for the Famicom versions too if you want a more authentic experience.
FDC’s remade presentation brushed up well, but what doesn’t hold up so well today is the adventure gameplay. One of the reasons I played this one first was because I was told its gameplay is less obtuse than the first game, and if this is “less obtuse” I shudder to think about what The Missing Heir is like. You have to pixel peep for the inanest things. You have to exhaust every dialogue option for a character multiple times even if their only response is “…”. It’s just not elegant in the slightest, and even though I got through it easy enough, I found myself eyerolling at some of the ways to progress. It’s a shame that the gameplay was largely untouched considering the effort that went into remaking the presentation.
Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind is well done remake and a fantastic homage to detective media that fans of Ace Attorney will enjoy, although you’ll need to have some patience for its outdated gameplay. Like I said before though, I can’t recommend that anyone buys this until the price has been slashed by at least 50%, or you’ll come away from its short runtime feeling very unsatisfied. That being said, it’s time for me to go buy and play The Missing Heir.
3 Comments
ye this was made for the OLED Switch Pro for sure
so because you finished this in about one sitting, i'm guessing we can expect around 30 hours of gameplay in this one?
Baka_Ouji
3 years ago