My Review on Reddit with Images
KEY NOTES:
-Visual Novel
-About15 hours to complete
-Linear and only one ending
-Fully voiced in JP
-Has strategic gameplay elements (20% of the game)
INTRODUCTION
Nippon Ichi Software (NIS) has developed many different type of games over the years and many of them were released to the west. They have also developed a number of Visual Novels, but many of them weren't released in English which makes the western release of Process of Elimination (PoE) a rarity.
STORY
The story follows a young man named Wato Hojo who was aspiring to be a great detective. One day, he gets forcibly brought to a island where a number of detectives were gathered. As part of the Detective Alliance organization, these detectives had assembled to plan and prepare for the capture of a wanted serial killer who goes by the name, The Quartering Duke. The Duke had played a key role in the deaths of 100 people in just the past year. The detectives however soon realized that they were caught in a trap created by the Duke.
As expected with the presence of many detectives, PoE's story is a mystery as its core which unravels as you progress throughout the game. It's also not just an ordinary mystery, but also a murder mystery. Many of these are done in the style of "locked-room" mysteries so there is a degree of complexity to them. Finding out the whodunit is interesting, but the "how" is equally intriguing.
The overall story is linear, but it was captivating nonetheless. I was constantly trying to figure out what was going on and who were the main culprits. There were many twists that while it didn't blew my mind, had me surprised at the development. The pacing is slow early on when it spends a great deal of time explaining the circumstances, the world and the characters, but does begin to move quicker at about the 1/3 mark of the game. At just about 15 hours, it doesn't drag on for that long, but could've still used some more hours and length to better flesh out the world and develop the plot points. My other notable complaint is that the finale feels anti-climatic. The ending itself feels like there's more to it as if it was setting up for a sequel that may never come.
The worldbuilding is pretty interesting and surprisingly has a lot of content. Most of the worldbuilding events and terminology are referenced throughout the game, but the details are explained in more detail in the game's Lexicon.
CHARACTERS
PoE's cast is rather large at about 14. It feels especially big when you have nearly all of them in the same room or close proximity. Fortunately, the game gives every character time to shine in the spotlight so nobody gets forgotten in the shadows. Each detective has their quirks which makes them stand out quite a bit already. They are anime-tropey on first impression which is reflected in their alias such as "Workaholic", "Techie", and "Booky." With that said, they have decent amounts of depth and characterization as well although only a few have character growth.
I found nearly all of the detectives to be likable and have some kind of charm. Many of them are rather humorous with their dialogue without feeling over the top. The characters did a good job in making the story even more engaging and the comedic parts help balance out the serious nature of the story.
GRAPHICS/ART DIRECTION
PoE looks good for a Visual Novel. I wouldn't call it a feast for the eyes, but the backgrounds, character designs, CGs and general graphics are appealing. I have no complaints with this part.
MUSIC
The soundtrack was mostly composed by Hisa Aihara who goes by a_hisa. I wasn't familiar with him at all, but his other notable work seemed to be the Mad Rat Dead game. There's only about 20 tracks or so in the game so there are many repeated songs throughout. Fortunately, most of them sound great. A good mix of upbeat songs and softer ones for the emotional events. Overall, a solid soundtrack.
GAMEPLAY
As a Visual Novel, most of the gameplay is reading text boxes after text boxes. The story is linear so the few choices that appear have very little consequences. PoE does however add some more variety to an otherwise traditional Visual Novel. There are a few "Investigation" phases where it plays out similar to a strategy RPG. Characters are placed on a grid-based map and the main goal is often to uncover all of the evidence in relation to the current mystery.
Each character has different detective stats which includes, "Movement", "Inference", "Analyzation", "Assistance" and "Inspection." The Movement stat is identical to other SRPGs and indicates how far a character can move per action. The Inference stat is used mostly to whittle down Investigation spots. For an example, there's a spot with an Investigation number of 6. If a detective with an Inference stat of 2 uses the "Infer" command on it, the Investigation spot number goes down to 4. You will obtain a fact/hypothesis after getting it down to 0. Infer is also used to destroy traps and objects.
When Analyzing evidence found, only detectives with a high enough Analyzation stat could actually complete it. The Inspect command uncovers evidence at specific location. The Inspection stat itself determines how far a detective can Inspect from their current position.
Finally, the Assist command is used to boost another detective's Infer stat for that turn only. The amount boosted is based on the Assistance stat.
The game wouldn't have much strategy if all you do is move characters around and investigate/analyze/infer specific points. The phase is on a timer so you don't have all of the time in the world to complete this part. This requires careful planning on what specific actions each detective should do based on their detective stats and location on the map. To make it even more challenging, some Investigation phases have gimmicks like traps or actual dangers that move around and attack you. Furthermore, there are times when you can't even control every detective on the map and only a few of them. This phase can be challenging especially early on, but it does get noticeably easier as you progress.
After the Investigation phase is done, you enter the Deduction phase where the characters discuss the evidence obtained and the inferences from them. While the other detectives will contribute with some helpful information, you are the one who actually pieces the evidence together and form the conclusion through various multiple choice questions. This part isn't that difficult since the various hints and inferences give you a decent idea of what happened and even the culprit. Getting the wrong answers enough time is a game over and you restart from the beginning of this phase (assuming you save the game when the Investigation phase ends).
These particular gameplay parts gives you a nice breather from the heavy dialogue portions, but they are very few in general to make a huge impact. It's about 80:20 ratio of visual novel story portion to the investigation portions of the game.
FINAL REMARKS
PoE is a good read especially if you're into mysteries and murder mysteries. The characters are mostly enjoyable and it was fun to see their interactions with each other. The early portion aside, the story does move at a fairly decent pace. I do wished the game was at least a few hours longer especially since 15 hours isn't that long for a Visual Novel. The finale could've been stronger as well, but it was overall a solid experience. Hopefully, this would allow more NIS Visual Novels to be released for the west.
KEY NOTES:
-Visual Novel
-About15 hours to complete
-Linear and only one ending
-Fully voiced in JP
-Has strategic gameplay elements (20% of the game)
INTRODUCTION
Nippon Ichi Software (NIS) has developed many different type of games over the years and many of them were released to the west. They have also developed a number of Visual Novels, but many of them weren't released in English which makes the western release of Process of Elimination (PoE) a rarity.
STORY
The story follows a young man named Wato Hojo who was aspiring to be a great detective. One day, he gets forcibly brought to a island where a number of detectives were gathered. As part of the Detective Alliance organization, these detectives had assembled to plan and prepare for the capture of a wanted serial killer who goes by the name, The Quartering Duke. The Duke had played a key role in the deaths of 100 people in just the past year. The detectives however soon realized that they were caught in a trap created by the Duke.
As expected with the presence of many detectives, PoE's story is a mystery as its core which unravels as you progress throughout the game. It's also not just an ordinary mystery, but also a murder mystery. Many of these are done in the style of "locked-room" mysteries so there is a degree of complexity to them. Finding out the whodunit is interesting, but the "how" is equally intriguing.
The overall story is linear, but it was captivating nonetheless. I was constantly trying to figure out what was going on and who were the main culprits. There were many twists that while it didn't blew my mind, had me surprised at the development. The pacing is slow early on when it spends a great deal of time explaining the circumstances, the world and the characters, but does begin to move quicker at about the 1/3 mark of the game. At just about 15 hours, it doesn't drag on for that long, but could've still used some more hours and length to better flesh out the world and develop the plot points. My other notable complaint is that the finale feels anti-climatic. The ending itself feels like there's more to it as if it was setting up for a sequel that may never come.
The worldbuilding is pretty interesting and surprisingly has a lot of content. Most of the worldbuilding events and terminology are referenced throughout the game, but the details are explained in more detail in the game's Lexicon.
CHARACTERS
PoE's cast is rather large at about 14. It feels especially big when you have nearly all of them in the same room or close proximity. Fortunately, the game gives every character time to shine in the spotlight so nobody gets forgotten in the shadows. Each detective has their quirks which makes them stand out quite a bit already. They are anime-tropey on first impression which is reflected in their alias such as "Workaholic", "Techie", and "Booky." With that said, they have decent amounts of depth and characterization as well although only a few have character growth.
I found nearly all of the detectives to be likable and have some kind of charm. Many of them are rather humorous with their dialogue without feeling over the top. The characters did a good job in making the story even more engaging and the comedic parts help balance out the serious nature of the story.
GRAPHICS/ART DIRECTION
PoE looks good for a Visual Novel. I wouldn't call it a feast for the eyes, but the backgrounds, character designs, CGs and general graphics are appealing. I have no complaints with this part.
MUSIC
The soundtrack was mostly composed by Hisa Aihara who goes by a_hisa. I wasn't familiar with him at all, but his other notable work seemed to be the Mad Rat Dead game. There's only about 20 tracks or so in the game so there are many repeated songs throughout. Fortunately, most of them sound great. A good mix of upbeat songs and softer ones for the emotional events. Overall, a solid soundtrack.
GAMEPLAY
As a Visual Novel, most of the gameplay is reading text boxes after text boxes. The story is linear so the few choices that appear have very little consequences. PoE does however add some more variety to an otherwise traditional Visual Novel. There are a few "Investigation" phases where it plays out similar to a strategy RPG. Characters are placed on a grid-based map and the main goal is often to uncover all of the evidence in relation to the current mystery.
Each character has different detective stats which includes, "Movement", "Inference", "Analyzation", "Assistance" and "Inspection." The Movement stat is identical to other SRPGs and indicates how far a character can move per action. The Inference stat is used mostly to whittle down Investigation spots. For an example, there's a spot with an Investigation number of 6. If a detective with an Inference stat of 2 uses the "Infer" command on it, the Investigation spot number goes down to 4. You will obtain a fact/hypothesis after getting it down to 0. Infer is also used to destroy traps and objects.
When Analyzing evidence found, only detectives with a high enough Analyzation stat could actually complete it. The Inspect command uncovers evidence at specific location. The Inspection stat itself determines how far a detective can Inspect from their current position.
Finally, the Assist command is used to boost another detective's Infer stat for that turn only. The amount boosted is based on the Assistance stat.
The game wouldn't have much strategy if all you do is move characters around and investigate/analyze/infer specific points. The phase is on a timer so you don't have all of the time in the world to complete this part. This requires careful planning on what specific actions each detective should do based on their detective stats and location on the map. To make it even more challenging, some Investigation phases have gimmicks like traps or actual dangers that move around and attack you. Furthermore, there are times when you can't even control every detective on the map and only a few of them. This phase can be challenging especially early on, but it does get noticeably easier as you progress.
After the Investigation phase is done, you enter the Deduction phase where the characters discuss the evidence obtained and the inferences from them. While the other detectives will contribute with some helpful information, you are the one who actually pieces the evidence together and form the conclusion through various multiple choice questions. This part isn't that difficult since the various hints and inferences give you a decent idea of what happened and even the culprit. Getting the wrong answers enough time is a game over and you restart from the beginning of this phase (assuming you save the game when the Investigation phase ends).
These particular gameplay parts gives you a nice breather from the heavy dialogue portions, but they are very few in general to make a huge impact. It's about 80:20 ratio of visual novel story portion to the investigation portions of the game.
FINAL REMARKS
PoE is a good read especially if you're into mysteries and murder mysteries. The characters are mostly enjoyable and it was fun to see their interactions with each other. The early portion aside, the story does move at a fairly decent pace. I do wished the game was at least a few hours longer especially since 15 hours isn't that long for a Visual Novel. The finale could've been stronger as well, but it was overall a solid experience. Hopefully, this would allow more NIS Visual Novels to be released for the west.