We Are In Novel And Adventure - Famicon Detective Club

Combining graphic novels and adventure genres, Famicom Detective Club has the potential to reveal the young detective within us.

Famicon Detective Club is the last member of the rush of remake games that we are used to lately. What distinguishes this game from other remakes is that it was published in 1988 for Famicom or NES systems as it is known in the west, not a game that came out 5-10 years ago like most remakes. Famicon Detective Club, which has been published on NES consoles where we are familiar with clone versions called "ateri" in our country, comes to Nintendo Switch with two different games that have not been published in the west before.

The first game of the series, The Missing Heir, was released 33 years ago, and the second, The Girl Who Stands Behind, was released 32 years ago. Considering the age and the consoles it has been released, we naturally expect improvements beyond the point to say "we renewed and published the graphics". Let's examine the games that combine adventure with the visual novel genre, which are not very popular in our country (even in most countries in the west).

Pros

+ A 33-year-old game successfully adapted to the present

+ Graphics and animations

+ Musics

+ Sometimes scary stories

+ All characters are voiced

Cons

- Silly puzzles that put the player in a deadlock

- Old style gameplay problems continue in the new generation

- Prices are a little high

Two Games in One Review

We have two different games under the name of Famicon Detective Club. The first of these games is The Missing Heir, which could not be played in any way outside of Japan before. We are trying to solve the mysterious death of a rich woman, The Missing Heir, the first game of the series. Another mystery is who we are. At the beginning of the game, we lie on the edge of an ocean and we don't remember anything because of memory loss.

We determine the name of our main character. We soon learn that we are a young detective working for the Utsugi Detective Agency and that we came here about the murder. Together with Ayumi from the same agency, we are trying to find out about the murder and why we lost our memory. In the meantime, we should not forget that there is a rumor in the village that the dead have come back to life and killed everyone who tried to harm the Ayashiro family. There is a gripping crime story in which we will trace the links between rumors and murder and uncover the secret behind the Ayashiro family.

The Missing Heir is the first game of the series and a game that has not even had fan translations before. So it offers a completely new story for western players who don't speak Japanese.

Next is the second game, The Girl Who Stands Behind. The second game of the series, The Girl Who Stands Behind, predates the first game chronologically. In the first game, we investigate how we joined the agency we worked for and in the game, which examines the first file we received, we investigate the death of a high school student whose body was found on a waterfront.

The clues we received with the help of a close friend of the deceased girl lead us to the girl's school and to the ghost story "The Girl Standing Behind You". As far as we have learned, the deceased girl and her friend are doing small-scale research as a club activity, and the last issue of interest to the deceased girl is the mentioned ghost story. We are working with the girl's close friend and trying to reveal the events by going down to the origin of the ghost story and successfully complete our first case.

Both games are great in terms of story. The first scenarios of Yoshio Sakamoto, who is especially known for his Metroid series, appear in these games. The plays inspired by the films of the famous Italian horror film director Dario Argento are also seen by Sakamato as a turning point. Although there are detective stories in both plays, the main inspiration of the games has always been Argento's horror movies.

Although there are supernatural elements in both stories, we are experiencing well-written successful detective stories. Although The Girl Who Stands Behind was more interesting to me in terms of the story, I enjoyed both games. A good job has already been done on the most important aspect of the genre, the story.

Those who have played a lot of games in this genre may expect the story to get a little more branched, but the game is already one of the oldest of its kind. He tells the story he wants to tell without dealing with very unusual subjects. The characters are not different, interesting characters, each of which stands out with a different feature, as in the visual novels I am used to, but consist of people we can encounter in daily life.

Time to Do Research to Solve Events

Both of the Famicom Detective Club games are visual novel / adventure games. If you are not familiar with the genre, let me tell you right from the start, you will read a lot of text. If you've played games like Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Danganronpa and Steins; Gate before, you won't be unfamiliar with this game.

In the game, there are dialogue sections where we question suspects and advance the story, as well as research sections similar to the Ace Attorney series. In these parts where we can investigate the environment and interact with objects and people, we can identify important points and collect research-related items. This part looks like the Ace Attorney series. When the subject is deadlocked with the person you are talking to, you may need to investigate the environment and make the necessary interaction.

When there is a new action that we can do in the game, the option is written in yellow and it draws our attention. Standard options are in white. What we can do are options such as interacting with the environment, talking to people nearby, calling out to the person to talk to, and thinking to himself. Sometimes we get stuck here so we can't figure out what to do. I had similar stutters in the Phoenix Wright series before, but it is a situation that happens a lot in the Famicom Detective Series games.

I talk to the witness, I choose all possible options, I examine the area, I think I get every possible reaction, but the story does not progress. In this case, there is no solution but to try all the options you have, over and over, and say, "Wait, somebody will work for sure." I realize that a conversation option that I think is repeating itself actually continues the story with one-sentence conversations. The fact that he sets up sentences one by one about the subject we choose each time causes me to think that the topic is over and try to try other options. I must say that the "thinking" option (referred to as "remembering" in The Missing Heir), which the character should give us a clue, was very unsuccessful.

I would like to mention a point where I stuck in order to clarify the subject. At some point in The Missing Heir scenario, the other person has something to tell you, and you have to scare it to get it from him. The solution is to scare the other person with another character who was not around at the time. There is an option to call out in the game and you can switch to that character by calling someone else nearby. What you need to do is call out to the character who is not there many times and make the other person afraid. While I was bored and trying the same options over and over, I found it completely by chance. Since the game was not released yet, I had no chance to look at the exact solution, I would probably solve it with the full solution.

The game locks you at some point from time to time, but it is possible to get rid of this impasse with a little attention and a little trial and error method. The research parts are pleasant, but the speed of the cursor was sometimes very slow to me. It also has an effect that I got used to quickly navigating around with a mouse at the computer. I would like to take advantage of the touch screen feature when I play by hand.

As a result, the gameplay is pretty good by visual novel standards. The trial and error parts are sometimes annoying, in these cases it is good to say "let me take a break and come". It is not a fluid action game anyway, it is necessary to approach it like a book you read whenever you find it. But I wish they had used the coloring system that would direct them to new dialogues instead of struggling with "which one will hold" among a lot of options. At least in a region, it is not possible for you to go to different regions until you are done, you can reach a solution quickly by knowing that what you can do is only in one region.

Brand New Visual and Audio Experiences

It was not surprising to see serious improvements in terms of sound and graphics in the remake of a game released in 1988. Famicom Detective Series games are made by MAGES, known for their successful works in the visual novel genre. The original producer TOSE is also said to have some support.

The game looks very good visually. The environments of the eighties are very well drawn, the characters look very nice, we do not encounter a problem like character models grinning on a lower quality background that we encounter in some games. In addition, character animations have been successfully made. MAGES, who had previously been behind quality works such as Steins, Gate and Corpse Party, was a very good choice for a highly anticipated remake by fans of the genre.

All dialogues were voiced in both plays. As someone who is accustomed to the "dumb" sounds that come in place of speaking voices, it makes me happy to hear real people speak in visual novels. The voiceover was made only in Japanese, but as you can imagine, it didn't bother me at all. The music is orchestrally re-recorded and complements the atmosphere beautifully. You also have the option of playing the game's original music if you want. It's a nice detail, but the new music is pretty good.

The Missing Heir never appeared in the west in any way, but the SNES version of The Girl Who Stands Behind met with the western actors with translations made by fans. Since I haven't played the game in any way before, I have no idea how good the translation is. But in general, I can say that the translations in the game are done well. However, I still do not understand why the "recording" option in the game is under "Quit Investigation". Since I didn't want to quit without saving the game, I never used it for a while and the save option.

Result

The two plays released under the name of Famicom Detective Club, The Missing Heir and The Girl Who Stands Behind, were released in Japan in the eighties and officially came to the west for the first time. This game may seem a bit lame, as there has been a lot of development in the story over the past 30 years, but this does not mean that the story is unsuccessful. Two interesting and immersive detective adventures await you. However, I have to remind you that the game is a visual novel. It's a genre that includes lots of reading and doesn't have the kind of action you're used to. I will not put a minus like "There is too much dialogue" but if you are one of the people who pass even the intermediate scenes quickly, this game is not for you.

Both games have an average play time of 10 hours. The stories are linear and there is no option to interfere with events and reach different endings. Since there are no different endings brought by different actions, it is not replayable.