Return to Shironagasu Island is a visual novel about a detective whose investigation into a millionaire’s death leads him to discover an invitation asking the man to return to a place called Shironagasu Island.

The detective and his assistant, a girl with a photographic memory, respond to the invitation themselves and head to the island undercover.

Once they get there, it soon becomes clear something sinister is going on, especially when one of the other invited guests is brutally murdered.

Return to Shironagasu Island is a dark, intriguing story. It also has a lot more horror elements than I expected, which become more prominent as the story progresses. Most of these are related to the story itself, but it actually has a couple pretty neat scares, with something appearing in the background briefly and then disappearing again. I almost think it would have been more fitting for our horror celebration than this one.

(So it’s like an inverse of my Cartagra experience.)

However, it is a mystery game, and there’s even a bit of investigation gameplay. Unfortunately, this is the worst part of the game because of how it’s implemented. As is pretty typical for this sort of game, you’ll click an object in the scene to get some dialogue about it.

Then you’ll click it again for more dialogue.

And maybe again for even more dialogue. It may or may not be optional. Maybe you’ll have to inspect something else and then come back to it again for more dialogue. Maybe you’ll need to inspect everything in the room and then click something again to finally progress.

It gets tedious, especially since there isn’t always clear reasoning behind it. Dialogue choices function the same way, so you’ll need to pick an option multiple times, sometimes returning to it after other options, to continue on.

One section is timed and makes you visit and re-visit locations until the characters figure out the answer.

Fortunately, since it’s a visual novel, most of the emphasis is on the story. There are several points where you can get bad endings, so you’ll need to pay close attention to the mystery to stay on the right track. The story is compelling, and it’s the sort of mystery that feels very complicated but makes sense once everything is explained. It has a good cast of characters, although I thought the dialogue felt slightly off at times.

(There’s also a character with the surname Edgworth, which caused me to think of Ace Attorney every single time it was said, but I can hardly criticize the game for that.)

Now, once you reach the true ending, you unlock an extra story set after the events of the main game. The extra story is not a mystery. It’s hard to say what it is, actually. Return to Shironagasu’s extra story is strange. It starts out feeling like a lighthearted bonus story (silly misunderstandings, swimming at the beach, a goofy premise), but then it veers into horror.

But… not serious horror like in the main story. Horror that seems to come out of nowhere and leaves you wondering if any of this is canon. It almost feels more like a horror parody, except that it’s playing it straight in the moment.

The extra story is a fun read, but know that it feels very different compared to the main story.

Return to Shironagasu Island is a dark visual novel that I’d recommend to anyone who likes horror and mystery. While the investigation gameplay is tedious, the story is worth sticking it out for. It appears that a sequel is also in development, so I’ll be looking forward to learning more about that.