Operation Backlog Completion 2026

Detective Instinct: Farewell, My Beloved is a Great Indie Mystery Game

 Reviews, Video games  No Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Jan 192026
 

I’d been following news about the indie game Detective Instinct: Farewell, My Beloved for quite a while ahead of its launch, because it looks like my sort of game.

It came out near the end of November for PC and Switch, and when it recently went on sale, I decided to check it out.

You play as a young man on a college trip with your classmate and professor. On the train ride home, your classmate encounters a mysterious woman who soon vanishes without a trace – and everyone else on board claims she was never there. Disturbed by the incident, she comes to you, and the two of you team up to find the truth.

Now, I’m pretty sure Detective Instinct first came to my attention because of Ace Attorney, but it’s much closer in style to the Famicom Detective Club games. You have a menu from which you pick your actions, like talking to characters, inspecting things in the background, etc.

The first thing that stood out to me when I started playing was how high-quality it is. The character sprites especially, with their little animations as they talk, make it feel very polished.

It’s fairly straightforward, and I’d say it’s better to view it as less of an adventure game and more of a visual novel that occasionally quizzes you. There are a few moments when you need to decide what to do or solve a puzzle, but the majority of the game is spend simply talking to people to advance the story.

I found the story to be enjoyable, with enough little twists in the mystery to keep me wondering until near the end. There are also some nice funny moments, including a few optional ones, that had me smiling.

Overall, playing Detective Instinct left me with one thing: the hope that the developer will make a sequel, maybe with more involved detective gameplay this time around.

Either way, if you enjoy mysteries and the Famicom Detective Club style of gameplay, Detective Instinct: Farewell, My Beloved is worth checking out!

Novect’s Project Code M is in the Latter Half of Development

 Video games  2 Responses »  Tagged with: , ,
Dec 292025
 

One of the biggest surprises of 2025 was Aksys announcing during their July showcase that they’re the publisher for the console version of Novect’s Project Code M.

Project Code M was announced back in 2022, so it’s exciting to see it getting closer to release.

It’s a detective game, but one where you play as both the detective and the murderer.

Novect routinely posts about the game’s development on their blog, and the latest entry mentions that “development has firmly entered the latter half of production,” with the scenario being 95% complete. It sounds like it’s still a long way off, but it’s great to know it’s progressing well.

If it’s even half as good as The House in Fata Morgana, it will be well worth the wait.

Are you looking forward to Project Code M?

(Sorry for the short post today; I thought I’d have finished another game by now to review as we head closer and closer to the end of the year, but I didn’t quite get there in time! There’s no way I’m meeting this year’s backlog goal, but I’m still hoping to add a few more to the count before the year ends.)

Corpse Party Tetralogy Pack Cancelled for the West

 Video games  2 Responses »  Tagged with: , ,
Nov 172025
 

Back in August, we discussed both bad news and good news for the Corpse Party series: although Corpse Party II was delayed to 2026, the Corpse Party Tetralogy Pack had been confirmed for a western release.

Well… not anymore.

About a month ago, Xseed Games tweeted that they had “run into an unanticipated complication” that could prevent them from releasing the Tetralogy Pack and stopped pre-orders as a precaution.

And this past Friday evening, they followed up with the unfortunate update that the games’ contents “did not comply with current platform guidelines.”

The Tetralogy Pack, as well as the digital release of the games that weren’t already on the Switch, has been cancelled.

Corpse Party and Blood Drive are both on the eShop already, so since their tweet says the problem was with multiple games in the collection, it sounds like both Book of Shadows and Sweet Sachiko’s Hysteric Birthday Bash break content guidelines.

(I would have otherwise guessed it was just Birthday Bash, since that one has so much fanservice compared to the others.)

On the other hand, I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that even content in the other games is no longer acceptable, and the games already on the eShop just aren’t being removed even though they wouldn’t be accepted if they were new games.

There’s no denying it, something has definitely changed with Nintendo of America’s content guidelines. For the whole Switch era, Nintendo was the more relaxed platform when it came to censorship. Third-party games could do just about anything as long as it was covered by an M rating. But this year, several companies ran into trouble with western Switch releases, Idea Factory being the most prominent one. Now this incident leaves no room for doubt.

Fortunately, the Japanese version of the Corpse Party Tetralogy Pack supports English. As soon as Xseed made that first tweet in October, I ordered a copy from VGP. They’re all sold out now, but you should keep an eye on Play-Asia and VGP if you want the Corpse Party Tetralogy Pack.

What will this mean for Corpse Party II, though? I’d hate for them to tone down its content in anticipation of problems. Right now all we can do is wait.

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