Special Report Division is a VN about, as the title suggests, the special report division of a local TV station that investigates urban legends and the paranormal. We play as Ryou Yuhara, a reporter who is transferred from the news division to special report division. Initially he’s flabbergasted at how the other special report division members take the wild stories seriously, but soon he discovers there may actually be truth to them…
I’ve never played the Hayarigami series, but from my understanding of Hayarigami, Special Report Division would be the sci-fi analog to Hayarigami’s horror. For instance, the first case in Special Report Division is about alien abductions, and the second about spontaneous human combustion. (Both games are made by Nippon Ichi Software, so the parallels aren't totally unexpected.)
Like Hayarigami, each chapter has two different endings, but, while Hayarigami has one scientific ending and one supernatural ending for each chapter, Special Report Division endings aren’t categorized in any particular way. Sometimes one ending just feels like an extended version of another, but oftentimes they take the story in completely different directions, which was neat. Although the core solution to the mystery remains the same no matter what your choice is, sometimes your choice affects other characters’ actions independently of your own (Zero Escape style), which felt a bit odd.
Other than picking your ending, Special Report Division is linear, which means the game is mostly just reading. There are only two other gameplay mechanics. The first is “material check,” where you need to pick out the part of a piece of evidence relevant to the topic at hand. The neat thing about this mechanic is that you often need to review film clips, not just single photos, since you're working for a TV studio. This is handled by providing multiple frames for you to sift through (and not an actual video), but it’s still a neat touch. The not-quite-as-neat bit is the fact that nearly every single material check is incredibly easy, so they don’t make it feel like you’re solving and progressing the case in the way that Ace Attorney does. The only other gameplay system is at the end of each chapter, when your report goes on-air and you need to select the correct CG to broadcast to match the reporter’s commentary. (The neat side effect is that every chapter has a fair amount of CGs, since they need to enough to present wrong answers for this segment.)
Overall, Special Report Division is a fun but forgettable game. Diving into the urban legends is spooky but fun, and it’s interesting seeing the arc of each chapter because the main focus of each chapter will often initially present as one urban legend, but then turn out to actually be the manifestation of another. The core cast has good chemistry with entertaining writing. The issue is that the game is mostly just a repackaging of standard urban legends, which is engaging in the moment but not particularly deep. The game attempts to tie everything together in the final chapter, but ends up unspooling its plot threads instead. (It also felt a bit jarring and contrived how all the odd phenomena the group had encountered until then were allegedly connected behind the scenes, especially since some parts of them remained unexplained even by the end of the game.)
Special Report Division clearly had a limited scope, but I think the team behind it really tried their best within that framework. The sprites have animated blinking, which is always a nice touch, and the game is fully voice-acted. The game is filled with cool little touches, such as the fact that the UI looks like a camera viewfinder.
There is one more element to the game which was a bit sketchy, and that’s the romance. Ryou is in his twenties, and he’s paired with the main heroine, who is a high school student. Yikes. The game does seem to acknowledge that a romantic relationship between the two is a bit odd and so tries to ensure they never take things too far, but… it still feels weird. I do sympathize a bit because I don’t think the heroine can simply be aged up (her story only really works if she’s a minor), but it still would’ve been nice if my final thought after finishing the game wasn’t worrying if the protagonist would end up going to jail for statutory rape.
I liked Special Report Division, but I wish it went further than it did. Urban legends are a fun topic, but neither the characters nor the story nor the gameplay nor the art nor the music goes anywhere particularly deep, leaving Special Report Division a niche, forgotten VN of the Vita era.
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