Today I come to bring you a review of a very interesting game, it could be defined at first glance as a Phoenix Wright with drugs mixed with Saw. We are facing a visual novel/graphic adventure where we will have extensive doses of a lot of text; it is necessary to clarify this because this genre is not something that is much appreciated in the West, making the vast majority of these works remain in their country of origin. When it was released, it was very popular and became a very interesting title, getting an anime adaptation and also, obviously, a sequel. First released on PSP only in Japanese, after its resounding success it was released on PSP Vita with its respective English localisation, arriving for the first time on this side of the world. Later it would be released for PC and mobile devices.
It all revolves around the Hope's Peak Academy, where the most prestigious students gather depending on the skill they master, including the ultimate pop idol student, the ultimate punk student, the ultimate otaku student, among others based mainly on stereotypes of Japanese culture. We will be the ultimate lucky student, Makoto Naegi. Upon entering the academy we will be granted the privilege of getting a good job in a good company, privileges that no one could refuse. Naegi himself doesn't excel in anything, he has no skills, he was just randomly selected making him a lucky guy. As soon as we try to enter we will be drugged, we will appear and we will be locked inside the institution along with 15 other students. The only way out is to commit murder and not be discovered by the other people.
The mechanics of the game basically consist of a very simple gameplay, mobility through the scenarios is as limited as any visual novel, although they are made in three-dimensional form in first person to improve exploration, it is allowed in the investigations to rotate the cameras to better search for objects according to the angles. The whole adventure is made up of investigation phases and dialogue phases where we will converse most of the time with our companions, coins can also be obtained to buy gifts for the other students. When a murder occurs we will have a time limit to re-inspect the scenarios in search of any changes, collecting clues and evidence to help us in the trial. The trials could be considered the most fun part of the game, it will remind us a lot of the Ace Attorney saga but on steroids, it is mainly about refuting the arguments of the other students who accuse a particular person and are obviously wrong, you will have to use your head to accuse or defend with knowledge.
During the trials there are different dynamics, each one serving to change the pace of the conversations, slowing down the debate in our favour, making everything go more slowly, as well as mini-games to eliminate alibis or steer the conversation in a new direction. To finish the trials, we have to recreate the events as if it were a manga, using vignettes. We will have to be extremely careful, if we want to have influence in the future on the verdicts, to have leadership we must not make mistakes at all because later on with more difficult cases, more aspects to debate and less evidence, things will be much more complicated for us. You must not waste your 'bullets', you must think before you act and gain the trust of your colleagues.
The main shortcomings that the game has is in the person who is playing it, if you are not very good at reading a lot of text before moving on to the action, you will most likely end up abandoning it before even getting to the best part, as the name says, this is a novel with images, here we are already prepared for that. There are crucial moments in the cases where we are presented with very obvious evidence and it can be frustrating, we will know who the guilty party is but we can't act until the whole judicial process is completed, although perhaps that is a problem for the most desperate, here everything will be resolved in time and will fit together little by little, it's not just enough to catch the guilty party. Something that is perhaps really wrong is how the characters were developed, making them not to be taken seriously, taking them more as a comic aspect.
In conclusion, this is one of the best visual novels of recent years, which perhaps if it had been taken a little more seriously would be a benchmark in games where deducing and tying up loose ends is the main point. Its dynamic trials with different mechanics make Phoenix Wright's cases seem like they're about traffic tickets, the resolutions are also absolutely insane. What stands out the most is the extensive story, granting an exquisite 30 hours of gameplay for our total enjoyment. So if you plan to play this title get ready for what awaits you, there can be no mistakes here, you must think fast, make no mistakes, you have a time limit against you, get ready, you have to get out, you have to avoid dying, remember, you are the ultimate lucky student, don't forget it.