The Go-Toba Legend Murder Case / 後鳥羽伝説殺人事件

The Go-Toba Legend Murder Case is the first novel in the legendary Mitsuhiko Asami series by Yasuo Uchida. If only the book was actually as good as the reputation.

Eldest Souls

A pixel art boss battler with Souls-y combat, huh. Where have I seen that before….

Titan Souls

Titan Souls is a simple yet captivating boss battler where the main conceit is that everything dies in one hit. It’s not that long, but it provides a healthy serving of bite-size boss battles.

SKALD: Against the Black Priory

SKALD: Against the Black Priory is a neat little retro-style RPG all about doom and destruction. It employs a unique RPG system built from familiar DNA, with a well-woven story that knows exactly when its welcome has worn out. The biggest issues are the clunkiness of the battle system at early levels (which arguably only enhances the game’s theme and atmosphere) and depressing plot. Skald is not a grand 100+ hour JRPG, but a short and competent RPG module.

Blasphemous 2

Blasphemous 2 might be the sequel closest to its predecessor that I’ve ever played. Sure, there’s lots of little tweaks and differences, but the vibe, the aesthetic, the experience are all exactly the same as the first. Which is great, because Blasphemous is fantastic.

The 46th Locked Room / ４６番目の密室

The 46th Locked Room is a murder mystery by Alice Arisugawa told from the point of view of a character also named Alice Arisugawa, but not that Alice Arisugawa. Many Japanese mystery authors have multiple series and Arisugawa is no exception, except the narrator character in both is name Alice Arisugawa. The narrator of the Arisugawa books I’ve read so far is a university student, and so the series is called the Student Alice series. The narrator of the other “Alice Arisugawa” series is a writer of mystery novels (just like real-life Alice Arisugawa), so it’s called the Writer Alice series. And if that wasn’t confusing enough, in the Student Alice series the narrator is the author of the Writer Alice books, and in the Writer Alice series the narrator is the author of the Student Alice books.

I’ve enjoyed the Arisugawa novels I’ve read so far, and it seems that the Student Alice series is expected to have five novels, but Arisugawa has been sitting on four for almost two decades at this point. The Writer Alice series, however, keeps getting new entries. So I was very eager to see exactly what the books that have been delaying the final Student Alice novel was like! And, to be frank, I’m not impressed.

Shudder of the Mailer Daemon / メーラーデーモンの戦慄

Shudder of the Mailer Daemon is the final book of the Lychee Kamiki series about everyone’s favorite high schooler prostitute detective. It’s probably the weakest novel of the bunch, but a fitting finale to the series.

Monster Sanctuary

Monster Sanctuary is a great monster-catching metroidvania. That’s two distinct genres, so let’s break down how to intersect.

Death on Gokumon Island / 獄門島

I’ve read several Kindaichi stories that I just haven’t reviewed because they’ve all been bad, but not quite as bad as It Walks By Night, so it felt difficult to muster the energy to write when I’d just be making the same points as in that review, but with less gusto. However, Death on Gokumon Island may by the best Yokomizo book I’ve read so far. Don’t interpret that as me liking it, because I don’t, but it’s not a steaming pile of problematic trash, which is a nice change of pace for Yokomizo.

See How They Run

See How They Run is a movie eager to prove its view of murder mysteries correct. Unfortunately, that view seems to be that they are boring, arbitrary and interchangeable.

Wake Up Dead Man

The best description I can give of Wake Up Dead Man is that it’s Knives Out with a better mystery and worse cast. That doesn’t mean it’s likely to fool anyone well-versed in the genre, but it’s another fun movie bringing alive an original Golden Age-style mystery with Hollywood magic.

The Thaumaturge

Earlier in the month I reviewed a Polish adventure game with RPG elements and a sci-fi setting 100 years in the future, so this time I thought I’d shake things up by writing about a Polish adventure game with RPG elements and a historical fantasy setting 100 years in the past.

Wictor (pronounced “Victor”) Szulski is the titular Thaumaturge, a person born with the special ability to wield magical powers through a connection to a demon known as a salutor. Wictor is drawn to his hometown of Warsaw after the death of his father, bringing him within the crossroads of various historical forces as well as a blood vendetta involving his family.

The Thaumaturge is fun, sweeping you into the world of early 20th-century Warsaw while wearing the pride and love for its Polish heritage on its sleeve, yet ultimately you do little more than run around Warsaw and then watch an ending cutscene; by constraining itself to historical fiction, The Thaumaturge doesn’t give its plot enough space to do anything, leaving what should be a story-based game feeling like it doesn’t really have one.

Gamedec

As it says in the blog description, I’m just a guy who likes mysteries, games, and mystery games. So you’d think Gamedec, a mystery game about mysteries in games, would be right up my alley, but there are just too many rough edges for me to recommend it. I wish I could, and the pieces are there, but they just clash with each other in a way that prevents the game from coming together as a cohesive whole.

Those Who Submerge Like the Water Spirit / 水魑の如き沈むもの

And so one we come once again to a spooky murder mystery with Genya Toujou. I find it funny how for both series I review on a set schedule—this and Lychee Kamiki—both series ended up with a snake-themed entry during the Year of the Snake. Coincidence, or something more...?

(Alright, so as far as the Chinese zodiac is concerned, the “water spirit” corresponds more to the dragon rather than the snake, so hopefully the previous paragraph wasn’t blasphemy. But still a funny pattern!)

The Perfect Outsider / 有限と微小のパン

They say don’t meet your heroes. Maybe that applies to books, too.

I always knew I’d read The Perfect Outsider, the finale to Hiroshi Mori’s S&M Series. Well, “always” is a bit of an overstatement. After I finished The Perfect Insider, the first book in the series, I knew I’d read The Perfect Outsider. I wasn’t sure about the intervening books, but the next two passed my test, so I dutifully proceeded through the series until we arrived here, and… I wouldn’t say I wish I hadn’t, but it was certainly a disappointing ending. For most of the book I thought it was fun and plot-focused with an interesting scenario, but Mori’s bad habits started creeping up again in the final third until the book culminated in an anti-climax letdown.

As a warning, the premise of The Perfect Outsider (and thus this review) has general spoilers for The Perfect Insider. I think it’s a bit of an “open secret” if you look at Mori’s works, but you’ve been warned!

The Poisoned Chocolates Case

The Poisoned Chocolates Case is a fun trick novel by Anthony Berkeley. The premise is simple: the six members of a club called the Crimes Circle (a bit like the real life Detection Club) decide to investigate a real murder, and each present their theory in turn. Naturally, each member comes to a different conclusion, and each member’s theory seems to disprove the previous member’s. The Poisoned Chocolates Case is a wonderful examination of how shaky detective novel solutions can truly be, in the vein of the Late Queen Problem.

One Outs / ワンナウツ

If it isn’t already obvious from the blog, I’m a nerd. I don’t care for sports. So if you haven’t heard about One Outs before, it might seem odd that I watched (and loved!) a baseball anime, but One Outs isn’t really about baseball. It’s a psychological/gaming anime right up there with the best of them, and it just so happens that it’s about baseball rather than a series of bespoke games.

Crystal Pyramid / 水晶のピラミッド

Crystal Pyramid is a grand, larger-than-life mystery that is perhaps a bit too grand and larger-than-life. Souji Shimada’s recurring detective Kiyoshi Mitarai investigates a murder that occurred at a full-scale recreation of the Great Pyramid of Giza on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico, and this mystery works really well, but there’s a lot of extraneous flak that comes with it.

AI: The Somnium Files - nirvanA Initiative / AI：ソムニウムファイル ニルヴァーナ イニシアチブ

When I first finished AI: The Somnium Files - nirvanA Initiative, my feelings were a lot more positive than those for its predecessor, AI: The Somnium Files, which is admittedly not a high bar. (Boy are those names a mouthful.) But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that pretty much no individual component of NI was better than TSF… except for the fact that the main characters weren’t absolutely insufferable. So NI may not be more well-crafted than TSF, but the fact that we don’t play as Date still makes it way better in my book.

Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition

Icewind Dale is the final game created in the Infinity Engine using Dungeons & Dragons 2e rules, after Baldur’s Gate and Planescape: Torment. Despite being made after those games, it doesn’t stack up to any of them. Baldur’s Gate provided a balanced experience and Planescape: Torment focused heavily on story. Icewind Dale, on the other hand, is a combat slog, and that descriptor should tell you what I think of it.