Mar 072025
A new mystery visual novel has been announced by the Japanese developer Coly.
Kindaichi Mystery Series: The Honjin Murders is a visual novel based on Seishi Yokomizo’s 1946 mystery novel The Honjin Murders, the first in a series of detective stories starring a detective named Kosuke Kindaichi.
I was unfamiliar with the books, but apparently they started getting English translations in 2020.
This visual novel will have the player connect testimonies and clues to piece together the truth of the murder. (It reminds me a little of the Logic gameplay mechanic in Ace Attorney Investigations, except with longer sections of dialogue that need to be connected.)
It will be out on Steam on March 20 with Japanese, English, and Chinese language options, with a Switch version to follow near the end of March.
The announcement page says it will cost 1500 yen, so although the dollar price hasn’t been revealed yet, it should be fairly inexpensive. I wonder if that means it’s going to be a short game. The nature of the title makes me think they want to turn it into a series with subsequent games based on the other Kosuke Kindaichi stories.
Now, I was curious about the developer since I hadn’t heard of them before, so I looked around their website. When I looked at their past games, I still didn’t recognize any… except for Stand My Heroes, a Japanese-only mobile otome game I know only because it has an Ace Attorney collaboration back in 2022. That wasn’t a title I expected to see while researching a new mystery game!
All in all, Kindaichi Mystery Series: The Honjin Murders is a game I’ll want to keep an eye on. What do you think about it so far?
Seems like an interesting title! Definitel something to keep an eye on
Actually, I literally just played a game with this exact gameplay style of rearranging people’s testimony and assigning who said it. It was a short mystery game called No Case Should Remain Unsolved on Steam
Oh, interesting! I’ll have to check that one out, too.
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