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.
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.
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.
I encountered a few crashes while I played, but thanks to the auto-saves, the ability to manually save at any point during gameplay, and the fast-forward function, this never resulted in too much progress being lost. There also were occasional performance issues, but they weren’t bad enough to detract from the experience for me. The only thing I wish was different about the game’s presentation is that there is only a single manual save slot. Of course, you can use the flowchart to replay any section of the game whenever you want, but I still would have liked the option of having multiple saves, especially if I ever want to start fresh with a new game. AI: The Somnium Files – Nirvana Initiative is the sort of game that had me returning immediately after the credits rolled to check out its final secrets and examine prior events with newfound context.
Balan Wonderworld isn’t all bad. The cutscenes are absolutely gorgeous, the music is great, the psychological premise is intriguing, and I really like the designs for Balan and his nemesis. There were times when I had fun playing this game, like when I’d get a new costume with a cool power or spot a Balan Statue and realize what I needed to do to reach it. Yet it was always only a matter of time before the game would hit me with yet another tedious design decision that would leave me asking, “But why? Why design it like this?” That sums up my experience with Balan Wonderworld. It has some interesting ideas, but the number of tedious design choices ultimately drags it down.
While Mundaun often presents you with a problem and lets you figure out for yourself how to solve it rather than guiding you every step of the way, it also has some features that are quite friendly, such as the ability to summon the Muvel from posters set up throughout the environments and the fact that useful optional items can be found in multiple spots in case you missed them earlier. All notes and clues are also recorded in Curdin’s journal, which you can check at any point. While the story mostly follows a set path, certain decisions will determine which ending you get, so you’ll want to think carefully when the game asks you to make an important choice. Overall, I enjoyed exploring the isolated valley of Mundaun and watching its dark story unfold.
It looks fantastic, the soundtrack is beautiful, and the controls feel great. It’s somewhat longer than the original, and that sums up the game in general. It’s more Little Nightmares, with a bigger scope and more varied situations, but ultimately builds upon the structure of what made the first game so enjoyable to play.
The story is delightful, too–a little predictable at times, but not quite as straightforward as you might initially expect. It should take you between 10-15 hours to complete, depending on how much you explore and how many side quests you do. There’s also a nice dose of humor, which adds to the overall charm. Although the ending feels a bit rushed, overall Ary and the Secret of Seasons is a fun-filled, entertaining adventure in both gameplay and story.