Operation Backlog Completion 2026

Jake Hunter Detective Story: Memories of the Past Has Some Fun Cases

 Reviews, Video games  6 Responses »  Tagged with: , ,
Mar 082021
 

When I started thinking of playing another 3DS game, I decided to check my 3DS to see what game I’d left in the system.

To my surprise, I found Jake Hunter Detective Story: Memories of the Past, which I hadn’t played and didn’t remember prioritizing, but apparently at some point it was the next game I intended to play.

So why not? I decided to play it.

Memories of the Past is a visual novel adventure game in which you play a detective investigating various cases. It contains six cases, but the Jake Hunter release history gets a little complicated, so let’s talk about that first.

The series began all the way back in 1987 on the Famicom and saw consistent titles across a variety of platforms from then on, including a line of mobile games.

The first five cases in Memories of the Past are actually the first five mobile games, the first four of which are remakes of the original four Famicom games.

Finally, the sixth case is titled Memories of the Past and was created for this DS game. In fact, while all six cases are unlocked from the start and I played them in order, the game clearly intends for you to start with Memories of the Past, because it prompts you within that case to play through the others, creating a single continuous experience instead of treating each as a separate game.

(If you play them separately, like I did, you can skip the previous cases in Memories of the Past, but it still quizzes you on the major points.)

Gameplay-wise, everything is handled through menus. You won’t be tapping around the environment to search for clues, but rather choosing “Inspect” and then picking an area/object to inspect from the list that comes up. It can be a little tedious, since occasionally it needs you to inspect things multiple times or in the right order, but it’s fine.

It also frequently quizzes you on the current case’s events to make sure you remember the important details.

I found the first three cases to be pretty straightforward, entertaining enough to see how the mystery plays out, but not too compelling. The fourth was probably my favorite, with two alternating points of view and a story that had some fairly emotional moments.

The fifth case was fine, and the sixth was interesting in how it tried to bring things together, but not particularly noteworthy on its own in my opinion.

In addition to the main six cases, there are also a number of “Jake Hunter Unleashed” cases, shorter mysteries with chibi art and an emphasis on humor. They essentially feel more like puzzles, since they give you all the evidence and witness testimonies right away and you need to figure out the truth.

One more thing I want to mention is that this is another series that decided to change its setting to America for the localizations. Unlike Ace Attorney, where changing the names makes sense for the pun-based humor, there’s no reason for that to have been done in Jake Hunter. I assume they thought western audiences would be less inclined to buy “Detective Saburo Jinguji,” but honestly I find “Jake Hunter Detective Story” to be such a bland title I’m not sure it paid off.

Anyway, Jake Hunter Detective Story: Memories of the Past was enjoyable enough. I wouldn’t say it’s a new favorite, but I’m intrigued enough to check out the next game that was released in English…

…which is not any of the five Jake Hunter games that came out after Memories of the Past, but rather the next one after that, Ghost of the Dusk. (And so far they’ve skipped over the next game, Prism of Eyes, despite it getting an English rating, so staying up to date with the Jake Hunter series doesn’t seem like it’ll get any easier anytime soon…)

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim Has an Incredible, Complicated Story

 Reviews, Video games  8 Responses »  Tagged with: , ,
Jan 152021
 

Do you like story-driven games? Have you played 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim yet?

If you haven’t, you’re missing out on one of the best story-driven games that came out last year.

A lot of people had been anticipating 13 Sentinels for years, but I wasn’t actually one of them. It’s the latest title from Vanillaware, and when I looked it up because of the hype, I saw its combat was described as real-time strategy and crossed it off my list.

Then it came out, and the high praise for its story together with assurances that calling it real-time strategy is pretty misleading convinced me to try it.

I’m so glad that I did.

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim followed thirteen high school students who are caught up in a struggle to protect Japan from kaiju trying to destroy it across various time periods. Its genre is a little tricky to pin down; it’s so story-focused that some people consider it to be a visual novel, but that’s caused no end of controversy. The narrative sections could be seen as an adventure game, yet they are almost entirely focused on dialogue with only light gameplay.

Meanwhile, the combat is a comparatively minor part of the overall game and features a sort of real-time system, but one that pauses for you to select your character’s actions.

But whatever genre it falls into, it’s fantastic. The story is told through a non-linear presentation with a fair amount of freedom as to how you proceed. Stick with one character’s story until you hit a lock that requires you to do something else first? Alternate between between characters? Focus on story over combat? Focus on combat over story? Do a little story and then a little combat? All of these are valid approaches to playing 13 Sentinels, and the narrative is constructed in such a way that they all work.

You will start out feeling confused by the story. After a little while, you’ll start to understand what’s going on. Then you’ll play another section of the story and get hit by a plot twist that makes you realize your “understanding” was actually wrong.

There are so many plot twists, and the non-linear approach to the story (along with certain story segments being gated by others so you don’t have complete freedom) lets it tease information in such a way as to nudge you in the wrong direction until you finally learn the truth.

(In some ways it reminded me of the fragment system in Zero Time Dilemma, except handled in a much better way.)

With so many plot twists and convoluted aspects to the story, there were times when I worried it wouldn’t ever feel cohesive. But that’s not true. Through surprise after surprise and even plot twists late in the game, the pieces of the story all come together in a way that makes sense. At the end, you finally do understand the story and see how all those confusing little parts actually fit into it.

The characters are great, the story is intense and filled with twists, and it’s just so brilliant the way everything fits together.

I can’t praise 13 Sentinels enough. It is an incredible game, and it would have made my top 5 list easily if I’d finished it last year instead of this year. As it is, it got 2021’s gaming off to a great start.

So if you love story-driven games, you need to play 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. And if you’ve already played 13 Sentinels, share your own thoughts on it in the comments below!

I Finally Plunged Into the Suspenseful Mysteries of Danganronpa

 Reviews, Video games  4 Responses »  Tagged with: , ,
Nov 272020
 

One series I’d been intending to try for ages is Danganronpa. Murder mysteries, investigations and trials, it sounded like my sort of thing, but I never got around to it.

Well, one of this year’s Celebrating All Things Spooky contest winners chose a game for me to review as his prize, and he picked Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc.

In Danganronpa, you play a boy named Makoto who is selected to attend an elite school, but when he gets there, he finds himself trapped along with his classmates and forced to participate in a deadly game. They’re told that if anyone can successfully kill another student and get away with it, they will be allowed to leave. If not, they have to stay there forever.

Of course, it isn’t long before a student turns up dead.

Similar to games like Ace Attorney, Danganronpa is essentially a cross between a visual novel and an adventure game. There are long stretches of time that are solely story-driven, but at other points you’re set loose to explore and investigate.

Once you’ve gathered all the evidence for a case, the “class trial” begins. Unlike Ace Attorney, these trials involved much more action. Pieces of evidence become “bullets” that you shoot at contradictory statements while the text is on-screen. I’m not crazy about my ability to solve a case being dependent on my shooting skills, but the game gives you enough time that it isn’t too reliant on fast reflexes.

At other points you’ll have to shoot letters to spell out a key word to answer a question, and there are also rhythm game confrontations. Of everything, the rhythm game parts are the ones I liked the least, but I endured them.

(Fortunately, if you lose all of your health and get a game over, you can restart from right ahead of where you failed.)

In between each case, you get a few “free time” sections. These sections let you pick a character to spend time with and learn more about them, which also unlocks optional skills to help you in trials.

I liked the characters, and I enjoyed solving the cases (especially as they got crazier and more convoluted later in the game), but what I really loved the most was the overarching mystery. Why are they trapped at this school? Who is the mastermind behind Monokuma, the robotic bear overseeing the game (who fortunately isn’t as annoying as I feared, considering my general dislike of “cute” mascot characters)? What is really going on?

I loved thinking over every clue and developing theories about the overarching story. Sure, I predicted some things that weren’t revealed until the game was almost over, but it was still fun to watch them finally come to light.

Danganronpa also did a great job of building up an “anyone can die” atmosphere. By the second case, I was already looking at each character anxiously, wondering if one of my favorites would survive through to the next one or not. It made everything feel that much more suspenseful.

Aside from one particularly annoying point in a case that involved a drawn-out debate to prove something that could have been resolved with a single sentence, I had a great time playing Danganronpa. I’m not going to start the next one immediately, but I’m looking forward to playing the sequel when I finally do get there.

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