pretty crazy!! tonally its a bit like a yakuza game (goofy substories and all) but with the timeline fuckery and wild plot twists of a zero escape game. definitely some really really good moments in here, 100% check this out if you're a fan of other chunsoft mystery vns. it's got too many flaws[1] for me to give it a 9 but know that it's pretty damn close! should be way more popular than it is, pretty much the only acclaim i hear about this game is within vn circles, and this definitely deserves to have a lot more outside reach than it does. certainly a much more accessible vn for people who don't play vns than i surmise the grasshopper manufacture ones are (at least judging from the first half of the silver case i played a while back lmao)
the weakest bit is around the middle when the game goes from having a comedy focus with mystery undertones to a mystery focus with comedic undertones. both of these sections are good alone of one another (and sometimes in concert with one another--you'll see) but the transitional period was a bit rough since I had to readjust how seriously i was taking things lol. shouldn't be as much of a problem if you know it's coming, but once you power through that its really solid for the last several in-universe hours. really gripping stuff
[1] main ones that pop up in my mind are:
- at points some really bizarre tone shifts that are hard to keep up with (what with all of the jumping in and out of stories in the middle of them that you end up doing)
- the mystery bits being weak in the first half and the comedy bits being weak in the second half
- being a little too trial and error-y in the last timeblock specifically, but it is a much more minor lingering issue throughout the whole game (mitigated by the fact that many of the bad endings are interesting/funny enough so that you don't really mind)
- too many flashbacks near the end in general, not a huge issue but the game just starts having a ton of them out of nowhere lol
- a pretty cumbersome port (no mouse support or skip button? wtf)
- a couple side plotlines fizzle out near the end and dont really get any sort of real conclusion as the main mystery takes center stage, predominantly thinking about 2 characters here, won't say which 2 as thatd probably fall under spoilers but ppl who have played can probably deduce who im talking about
the weakest bit is around the middle when the game goes from having a comedy focus with mystery undertones to a mystery focus with comedic undertones. both of these sections are good alone of one another (and sometimes in concert with one another--you'll see) but the transitional period was a bit rough since I had to readjust how seriously i was taking things lol. shouldn't be as much of a problem if you know it's coming, but once you power through that its really solid for the last several in-universe hours. really gripping stuff
[1] main ones that pop up in my mind are:
- at points some really bizarre tone shifts that are hard to keep up with (what with all of the jumping in and out of stories in the middle of them that you end up doing)
- the mystery bits being weak in the first half and the comedy bits being weak in the second half
- being a little too trial and error-y in the last timeblock specifically, but it is a much more minor lingering issue throughout the whole game (mitigated by the fact that many of the bad endings are interesting/funny enough so that you don't really mind)
- too many flashbacks near the end in general, not a huge issue but the game just starts having a ton of them out of nowhere lol
- a pretty cumbersome port (no mouse support or skip button? wtf)
- a couple side plotlines fizzle out near the end and dont really get any sort of real conclusion as the main mystery takes center stage, predominantly thinking about 2 characters here, won't say which 2 as thatd probably fall under spoilers but ppl who have played can probably deduce who im talking about