May 272024
Last time, we talked about the remake of the first Famicom Detective Club game, The Missing Heir.
Now let’s continue on and talk about the second.
Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind is actually a prequel, and they’re set up so that you can play them in either order. (If you play one, you can carry over the name you used for the protagonist to the other, too.) I went with release order and played The Missing Heir first, but I can see how playing the prequel first might increase the tension at times. It’s up to you.
From the beginning, The Girl Who Stands Behind is the creepier of the two games. While The Missing Heir had slight hints of potentially supernatural occurrences, they’re much stronger in its prequel.
The case begins with the discovery of a murdered high school girl, and it isn’t long before you learn that before her death, she was investigating the school’s urban legend about a ghost that will appear standing behind you. With that as your one lead, you begin digging deeper into the origins of the legend and what the victim might have learned about it.
For the most part, the gameplay is identical to that of the first game. You’ll still be picking commands from the menu, inspecting backgrounds for clues, and running through a list of dialogue options and other actions to figure out how to progress. Progression didn’t feel quite as opaque in this one, although there were still a few times when I was stumped until I found the action I needed to try or re-try to make things happen.
Sadly, there aren’t any parts where you have to type your answer. Instead, there are a couple parts where you’re asked questions and have to choose the correct answer from a list.
The story was interesting, and I loved the creepier tone, although it lacked some of the excitement of The Missing Heir’s story. It also didn’t feel quite as tight, with more loose ends and aspects that should have been explored in more detail, plus the odd choice to add ambiguity right at the very end.
But while I’d say I enjoyed The Missing Heir more overall, The Girl Who Stands Behind was still a good mystery with a lot of excellent points. If you like one of the Famicom Detective Club remakes, you’ll probably like the other.
Now, when can we have a third Famicom Detective Club game…?
“But while I’d say I enjoyed The Missing Heir more overall, The Girl Who Stands Behind was still a good mystery with a lot of excellent points. If you like one of the Famicom Detective Club remakes, you’ll probably like the other.”
And wot if I haven’t played either? C’mon, gimme a recommendation here (at full price).
As long as you don’t mind the tedious approach to investigations that I described (ex. perform every action multiple times because what will cause progress isn’t always clear), then I’d recommend them. If you’re looking for a recommendation for which one, I personally enjoyed The Missing Heir better. That’s subjective, though, so let’s talk about the style of story/mystery.
If you like the sound of a mystery where the detective doesn’t know the information he already gathered, so he’s in the dark about who he can trust, and where the stakes keep getting higher as more people die, go with The Missing Heir.
If you’d prefer a mystery with a case linked to a much older unsolved case, where solving the past mystery is critical to solving the present-day mystery, and don’t mind a stronger presence of ambiguously supernatural elements, then go with The Girl Who Stands Behind.
I think this is a case where, while the games could be played in either order, I would go with publish order due to perceived improvements in the second game over the first game. But this duology makes a good bookend to the mystery month!
I’d say they’re close enough in quality that it probably wouldn’t affect things too much.
Hey, mystery month isn’t over yet! We still have the rest of the week!
I keep seeing these games and I really need to play these. I’ve been getting into alot of mystery/detective games lately (does Danganronpa count?) So I gues we’ll see!
Danganronpa absolutely counts! I even played one as part of last year’s mystery game celebration: https://www.samanthalienhard.com/2023/05/celebrating-all-things-mysterious-danganronpa-2-a-return-to-the-world-of-hope-and-despair.html