the centennial case's biggest strengths lie in its brilliant use of the FMV medium and the very nice UI.

the performances are great -- especially the main characters' -- although they're all a little campy (which is a wonderful thing, in my opinion). a lot of sets, props, and costumes are reused between all three time periods the game takes place in, but it's obvious that a lot of effort went into all of these aspects regardless. in addition, all of the UI has a beautiful, cohesive visual aesthetic. the mysteries themselves are generally interesting, and the overarching questions get satisfying conclusions! some of the plot twists had me absolutely floored.

the biggest issue i had was with the bulk of the gameplay: the reasoning sections. towards later sections of the game, they add elements to the format that make it more fun, but most of the gameplay consists of pure trial and error. throughout the FMV investigation sections, you pick up clues that you then connect to various "mysteries" -- questions about different aspects of the case, in order to create a list of hypotheses, eventually choosing which ones are correct and confronting the culprit. a lot of possibilities, some actually important to the case, some funny, and most just mundane, are exhausted. there are a lot of clues to choose from, and some of the connections aren't at all obvious. after a while, it gets kind of repetitive.

all in all, the centennial case is a pretty alright mystery game, a great use of full-motion video, and it definitely didn't make me cry :')