We’ve talked about the Jake Hunter series twice now, first with Memories of the Past on the DS and then Ghost of the Dusk on the 3DS.

Despite the next console game, Prism of Eyes, getting rated under its English title back in 2018, we have yet to see localization of that one.

But the one after that did get translated, so today we’ll be talking about Alternate Jake Hunter: Daedalus – The Awakening of Golden Jazz.

(I played the Switch version, but it’s also available on Steam and PS4.)

Unlike the previous Jake Hunter games we’ve discussed, which contained multiple cases, this one contains a single story. It’s a prequel to the rest of the series and follows a young Saburo Jinguji as he travels to New York to investigate his grandfather’s murder and the significance of his final investigation into something called “Daedalus.”

Yes, I said Saburo Jinguji.

You might recall that Memories of the Past changed its setting to America for the localization and gave the characters American names, with the main character Saburo Jinguji becoming Jake Hunter. Ghost of the Dusk then changed the setting to a vague fictional country so Jake could investigate in definitely-not-Japan but also talk about how he once visited America. Well, for this game they dropped that stuff entirely, and now we’re following Saburo as he leaves Japan for the aforementioned visit.

I actually like this decision, but it does make the lack of localization consistency for the series even funnier. I was near the end of the game before I realized Yoko was the character the previous localizations called Yulia and I was seeing how they first met.

(It also makes the game’s English title downright hilarious. “Alternate Jake Hunter” incorporates the English title for the series, but to someone unfamiliar with how the previous games were localized, it must seem completely random. Meanwhile, “Daedalus” is plot-relevant, but I have no idea what “The Awakening of Golden Jazz” is meant to signify.)

Okay, that’s enough rambling about translation and names. Let’s talk about the game itself.

Unlike the previous games, this one doesn’t have you select your actions from menus. Instead, you can freely rotate the camera to look around a 3D area and select an area to investigate, which then switches to 2D art of that area for you to examine in point & click format. While this can be a little annoying when there’s only one thing to investigate (ex. select the phone to switch to a 2D view of the phone and then select the phone again), I like the idea.

Your ability to look around freely persists even through dialogue, which is also interesting for a game that otherwise presents itself like a visual novel.

In addition to interacting with the environment, you can also interact with characters to ask them questions or see if they have any information to share. Instead of conversation topics being presented as a list, they’re not in a straight line, so sometimes it can take a few tries to select the one you want.

Daedalus is filled with oddities like that. Scenes often end with the narration stating that you went to a different location, followed by a fade-to-black, only for you to be in the same location and need to travel to the new one yourself. The fadeout might make sense if the character with you disappeared, but most of the time there’s no change.

Now, this one is far lighter on the point-and-click adventure elements than the previous games in the series. It is almost entirely a matter of inspecting the environment and talking to characters.

There are two exceptions. As you gather clues, they form a symbolic tree in your “mind orchard.” Once you’ve gathered all the clues for the mystery, you will then have to answer questions by choosing which clue provides the answer. A few other sections put you in situations where you’re given multiple options and have to pick the correct one to survive. During conversations, there are also times when you can pick a “stance,” which basically just means a dialogue option.

Certain options throughout the game are flags for getting the true ending. The good news is that once you’ve finished the game, you can replay specific chapters and the chapter select screen shows which flags you’ve obtained. The bad news is that there are no manual saves and chapter select puts you at the start of the chapter, so if you missed a flag near the chapter’s end, you’ll need to replay the entire chapter to get it.

The story itself is… fine. Occasionally the dialogue feels like it doesn’t quite follow logically, or it will act as though you don’t have information you learned in a previous scene, but it’s not a major problem. There are some interesting parts to the mystery, although it struggles a little in its presentation. An early chapter has you play through a flashback from when Saburo was a child and met his three American friends. I expected a past storyline to develop alongside the present case, but not only did that not happen, the friends don’t play a large role in the story beyond occasionally driving Saburo from place to place.

Overall, I think making the story a little longer to flesh out some of the plot details and character relationships more would have worked to its advantage.

So, how was Daedalus – The Awakening of Golden Jazz? It was fine. Nothing brilliant, but nothing terrible. I like its presentation, and I wouldn’t mind seeing another Jake Hunter game done in this style again, preferably with its rougher edges smoothed out.

And I’m still waiting for Prism of Eyes.