May 172023
Murder Most Misfortunate is a visual novel with adventure game elements in which you play as a high society lady named Miss Fortune, who is invited to join a private gathering at a secluded mansion, only for one of them to be murdered.
When a bloody dagger shows up in her purse, Miss Fortune decides to investigate the crime to find the killer before she herself is blamed.
Miss Fortune is an… interesting protagonist. A widow with 9 dead husbands behind her, she’s the sort of character who will politely warn characters that it’s unhealthy to upset her while standing by an open window. She is sarcastic, morbid, and not especially concerned about the people around her.
The game is split into three acts: Act 1 to set up the story, Act 2 to allow the player to investigation, and Act 3 to call everyone together and reveal the culprit.
During Act 2, the game takes on a point-and-click adventure format in which you visit each room of the mansion to inspect objects in the environment, gather evidence, and talk to characters to gain more information. Sometimes, information you learn unlocks additional conversation options that could lead to new clues. While investigating environments, you have to scroll from one side to the other by bringing the mouse to the edge of the screen, which I found a little annoying, but everything else is fine.
You choose when to advance to Act 3, which means it’s possible to start the confrontation without the evidence that you need. If you want to make it a bit more difficult, there is an option to make the second act timed. If time runs out before you’re ready, you proceed to the third act anyway.
Once you’ve gathered everyone together, it’s time for you to accuse another guest of murder and present the evidence to show how they did it. The most interesting thing about Murder Most Misfortunate is that you can support an argument against any other character. While one character is the true culprit, with the most fleshed out ending, each of the others has an ending in which they’re arrested if you’ve found the right evidence to make your case against them.
Murder Most Misfortunate is a short game, taking only a couple of hours to beat, but it’s an enjoyable mystery with added entertainment from being able to pursue a case against any character.
Interesting that you can technically accuse any character! Reminds me of another mystery game I played on Switch a while back, Paradise Killer, though that one has an added aspect of being in a 3D first-person space.
Ah, I remember seeing trailers for Paradise Killer, although the open world nature made it appeal to me less.
It’s an open world, but it’s not a large open world. I enjoyed how there were mysteries and character strewn throughout and how your exploration could reveal side areas or conversations and you could never quite know what might or might not be related to the “central” mystery, along with the idea that you truly can accuse anyone (even if there is, again, an argument to be made for the “true” culprit). The world building was interesting and somewhat alien, so it took a bit of getting used to, but I would recommend it as a quirky and unusual mystery game, which is definitely a mystery game!
Hmm, it does sound interesting. I’ll keep it in mind.
The fact that you can get just about anyone arrested is pretty cool. I wonder if there are any jerk characters who are satisfying to see arrested, even if they’re not the ‘true’ killer, hehe.
Hmm, maybe one, although for the most part I’d say it’s less that you want to see them arrested because they’re a jerk, and more that they’re just hostile/suspicious enough for it to seem plausible that they’re guilty.