Samantha Lienhard
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MonsterVineLatest Reviews
One thing that helps elevate the game is its presentation. The graphics and animations are beautiful, with many little details that keep it feeling lively. In every aspect, you can see how much attention went into it to make it a high-quality experience. While it’s still a fairly short game, it’s the longest of the series. It also has some nice features, such as an optional recap of the plot when you load a game and an evaluation unlocked at the end that shows how well you did in each chapter and offers insight into your personality based on the choices you made. Overall, Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club truly feels in line with the Famicom Detective Club remakes, even if it lost a bit of the investigative gameplay, and I’d love to see this series continue on with more.
For a long time, I thought we would never see Ace Attorney Investigations again, let alone get an official translation of the second game. Now they’re finally here, available together in a single collection, and I’m happy to say it was worth the wait.
Duck Detective: The Secret Salami is a charming game with a good sense of humor and an interesting approach to mystery-solving. At times I wished it made its connections clearer to make clues feel more like actual clues instead of just a handy keyword list, but whenever I saw the word “deducktion” or pressed the quack button, I couldn’t help but smile. I don’t know if the developers are planning to do more with Duck Detective, but I’d be interested to see how they might evolve these systems in the future.
Now, since I had no prior experience with the second game, I can’t really compare it to the original release. From what I’ve looked up, however, there are some major story changes for the remake – to the point where when I read discussions about the sequel’s ending, it almost sounded like a different story. Why they changed it so much, I’m not sure, but it seems the original second game left several loose ends. With the chance to remake the story, perhaps they wanted to give it a more complete resolution in case a third game is never made. Nevertheless, if a third game ever is made in this remake’s style, I’d be interested to see where they would take an all-new idea… preferably with more puzzles.
The Final Word Detective Pikachu Returns might not push the boundaries in terms of graphics, and it certainly won’t bend your mind with its easy and straightforward deductions. However, it’s a charming game with cute character interactions, a good sense of humor, and an interesting story. Some games just make you feel happy when you play them, and I found Detective Pikachu Returns to be one of those games.
There are minor annoyances, such as explanatory tips that pop up every time you pick up an item and a reliance on auto-saves only, but overall it is enjoyable to play. While not the scariest horror game, it has its moments of tension and a nice approach to telling the story of both a child bullied at school and a town with a dark secret. Taking around 7 hours to finish with most collectibles found–and significantly less time once you know what to do–it’s just long enough to tell a complete story without overstaying its welcome.
Outside of the new storyline, Layers of Fear has some other useful additions. For players who don’t want to worry about the monster killing them (or get stuck on a chase one too many times), there is a safe mode option where enemies can’t kill you. For players interested in seeing different aspects of the story, there is a Chapter Mode that lets you start from any completed chapter to play through again and tracks your progress separately from the regular Story Mode. Meanwhile, the game looks beautiful, and I ran into only a few technical issues aside from a bug where I slowly fell out of the game world, which occurred twice during the painter’s story. Layers of Fear is an interesting approach to remaking the previous games, and I look forward to seeing if they intend to do any more with this series in the future.
Now, I haven’t said too much about the story beyond the initial premise, and there isn’t much I can say without spoilers. While the occult horror elements take center stage early on, Paranormasight is as much a crime story as it is a supernatural one. Investigations into mysteries both old and new intertwine with the search for the Rite of Resurrection as the stories all come together in interesting ways. The story enters some fairly dark territory at times, and it often had me hooked so that I had to see what would happen next. Add in some particularly clever twists and ways of tying things together, and Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo is a creepy adventure I won’t forget anytime soon.
Even outside of the ending, there is a significant tonal difference here compared to the previous games. Bayonetta 3 is a wonderful action game, but at times it didn’t feel like I was playing Bayonetta. The series’ iconic risque, irreverent attitude is toned down. The sexualization that was so pervasive in the previous games is still present, but muted, despite the game having a new option to censor it. Even some of Bayonetta’s dialogue feels off, like it’s trying to mimic her attitude without quite achieving it. The entire game feels strangely subdued despite the high-scale action. By the time I finished, I was convinced this was an intentional story-based decision due to (spoilers) this not being the same Bayonetta we played as in the previous games. Yet even if there’s a reason for it, just like how Viola’s chapters have a markedly different tone, that doesn’t change the fact that it makes the game feel different. The ending leaves open the possibility of a sequel, and a secret chapter teases a potential spin-off or DLC, but everything leaves me wondering if the theoretical Bayonetta 4 will feel like Bayonetta at all or like something entirely new.
Nevertheless, it has everything I look for in a survival horror game–compelling environments to explore, puzzles, dangerous monsters, and a sense of dread. It should take under 10 hours to complete, much like the classics it pays homage to, and those hours feature an enjoyable progression into the darkness as you dig deeper into the facility’s secrets.