Celebrating All Things Mysterious: Process of Elimination

Process of Elimination came out earlier this year for the Switch and PS4, so it seemed fitting to make it part of our mystery game month.

You play as Wato Hojo, an aspiring detective who ends up joining a group of detectives from the Detective Alliance as they attempt to investigate the identity of the serial killer known as the Quartering Duke. However, they soon find themselves trapped together, with the knowledge that the Quartering Duke might be among them…

It is one of several games coming out this year that I refer to casually as “Danganronpa-likes.” As members of the group are killed, it’s up to you to investigate and determine who the culprit is in each case.

Process of Elimination is primarily a visual novel. By far the vast majority of your time will be spent reading.

However, investigations are handled in a unique format for this sort of game. During these segments, the area you’ve investigating is presented as a grid the characters can walk around on. You need to make use of their stats in order to inspect suspicious areas, analyze evidence, and draw conclusions about the crime.

When I played the demo, it left me confused about what different terms meant and what actions should be used at different times. However, a bit of trial and error made it click for me, and I ended up enjoying these parts after all (aside from one segment that also included invisible enemies, which was too frustrating to be enjoyable).

Once you’ve gathered all the evidence you need, you return to the visual novel format and have to answer a series of questions to show who the culprit is, what evidence proves it, etc. This was the other aspect the demo left me uncertain about, so I was pleased to see that those sections do expect the player to pay attention to the clues and see how they all fit together.

As for its story, I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to at first. I grew attached to the characters, and several points had me invested in seeing what would happen next. It feels like there’s potential for a sequel, and I wouldn’t at all mind seeing these characters again.

Process of Elimination took me by surprise. I didn’t expect to like it as much as I did. Overall, I found it to be an interesting detective story with a good cast of characters, with unique investigation segments that proved to be a fun change of pace.

Only three days remain in this year’s Celebrating All Things Mysterious event and contest, so be sure to look back at all the relevant posts to see what games we’ve discussed so far this month and join in by leaving a comment on anything that grabs your attention!