Illusion Acts Like Magic / 幻惑の死と使途

Illusion Acts Like Magic begins with Moe meeting her friend Tomoe Minosawa and going to a magic show. Saikawa was supposed to come as well (a date!) but backs out at the last second because Saikawa. Tomoe is Moe’s best friend from high school. For a long time Tomoe saw Moe as an academic rival, while Moe… had no idea Tomoe existed. But once Tomoe confronted Moe they became fast friends. Anyway, Tomoe doesn’t have anything to do with the rest of the book. At the magic show Moe receives an ad for an upcoming magic show at a local park, and that’s where the plot of the book really begins.

Special Report Division / 特殊報道部

Who doesn’t like a good conspiracy theory? There are plenty of allegedly supernatural phenomena out there. Personally, I’m a skeptic. Despite the fact that there are now significant portions of the world where almost everyone has a camera on their person at all times, concrete proof of such phenomena has yet to emerge. But the allure of these types of mysteries is undeniable, and Special Report Division is a fun excursion into a world where these stories are more than just urban legend.

Medium - The Medium Detective Hisui Jouzuka / メディウム 霊媒探偵城塚翡翠

Shirou Kougetsu is your ordinary, run-of-the-mill Japanese mystery novelist. He writes novels, goes on wacky adventures with teenage sidekicks, and assists the police with actual murder investigations. You know, the usual. One day a college friend, Yuika (who’s a pretty young woman, obviously), tells Shirou that she recently got an odd reading at a psychic and feels a spirit has been following her ever since. In order to learn about this spirit, she asks Kougetsu to accompany her to visit a medium—the mysterious, delicate, and stunningly beautiful Hisui Jouzuka.

At the meeting Hisui demonstrates her powers, warns Yuika that she’s in danger, and asks to make a home visit to investigate further. However, when Hisui and Kougetsu go to visit Yuika, it’s too late—she’s been murdered in her apartment. The police suspect a break-in gone wrong, but Hisui tells Kougetsu that the culprit is a woman. Thus begins a partnership between medium and novelist: Hisui forms a conclusion using her power, and then Kougetsu uses his knowledge and experience as a mystery novelist to find evidence to back up Hisui’s findings (since they can’t just go to the police and directly report Hisui’s magic powers).

As Kougetsu and Hisui solve cases, we see interludes from the perspective of a serial killer who has been abducting and murdering beautiful young women. He’s extremely methodical and careful, and thus has avoided leaving any traces or clues for the police so far. He’s convinced himself that the only way someone would be able to catch him is with supernatural powers….

I hated Medium when I was reading it. I loved Medium when I finished.

And Then They Never Die / そして誰も死ななかった

The protagonist of And Then They Never Die, Ushio Oomata, is a sleazebag. He’s crass, rude, and a fraud—he’s a mystery novelist, but the only book he published was actually a manuscript he found among his dead father’s belongings. That book becomes a massive success, and Ushio decides to play along with the role, despite being uneducated, uncultured, and completely ignorant of the mystery genre. At least until he encounters a certain woman.

Ten years later, Ushio is a financially stable sleazebag. He works for an at-home health (read as: prostitution) company. One day he receives an invitation from a mystery novelist to a party on a private island celebrating the novelist’s career. (Despite being a one-hit wonder, Ushio is still known to the world as an author.) Ushio brushes off the invitation until he discovers one of the girls at his company moonlights as a mystery writer—and also received an invitation.

The pair and three other mystery novelists set out for the island, which contains nothing but the host's mansion and studio. However, when they arrive, their host is nowhere to be found, and five dolls have been set up in the dining room. With five four mystery writers (and one sleazebag) present, it doesn’t take them long to figure out what the dolls mean. The group is essentially stranded on the island (their boat lost some fuel on the ride over and doesn’t have enough for the return trip), so they resolve to take precautionary measures that night and figure out what to do tomorrow—which is not cautious enough, since someone massacres all five overnight.

Gloomhaven

Gloomhaven is a dungeon-crawling fantasy board game. First released in 2017, it revolutionized the genre and was hailed as one of the best co-op board games of all time thanks to its intricate mechanics, deep customization, wealth of secrets to unlock, and branching story. In 2019, Flaming Fowl Studios released a digital version (in early access, which was completed in 2021), which I played, so I can now confirm that the accolades Gloomhaven received are undoubtedly well-earned. While the digital version massively streamlined many points of the experience, it also introduced a few annoyances.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light is a isometric action-adventure puzzle game. The story involves Lara finding an ancient Mayan artifact, the Mirror of Smoke, which releases Xolotl, an evil spirit bent on destroying the world, as well as Totec, the titular Guardian of Light. Lara and Totec team up to track down Xolotl and save the world. The plot is pretty basic because the focus is on gameplay, where the game delivers on its promise of a fun co-op adventure.

House of Earth and Blood

The first sentence on the blurb on the back cover of House of Earth and Blood is “Half-Fae, half-human Bryce Quinlan loves her life.” And that’s how I knew things were going to horrifically wrong for her.

As even a quick glance at my blog will probably show, I’m interested mostly in mysteries and video games. But I love fantasy as well! (Perhaps not so surprising, since it’s the genre of many video games, especially RPGs.) The reason I don’t read much fantasy, however, is because, while I like fantasy, I like mystery more. So whenever I would buy a fantasy book, I ask myself… why not buy a mystery instead? And that's what I end up doing. 

But HOEAB was gifted to me by a friend, and so bypassed that entire ordeal. Plus it features a murder, so it’s not entirely off-brand? 

Turnabout Airport / 逆転空港

In the world of Ace Attorney, it seems impossible to be involved with the law without getting accused of murder once. (Or thrice.) Yet despite the seemingly irresistible pull of the defendant’s chair, there is one major character who has managed to avoid it… until now.

It’s finally time for Apollo’s time in the hot seat in Turnabout Airport, when the person in line in front of him at the security checkpoint rudely falls over and dies, stabbed to death by the bloody icepick in Apollo’s hand. (Apollo claims he just noticed it on the ground and picked it up without realizing what it was, a likely story.) And, of course, there was nobody else on line at the time besides Apollo and the victim. Whoops! Naturally, Phoenix must swoop in to save Apollo and prove his innocence.

Nobody Can Pass Judgment on Me / 誰も僕を裁けない

I’m fairly certain the title of the book is meant to be a defense against reading erotica in public…

Anyway, Nobody Can Pass Judgment on Me is the third entry in the Lychee Kamiki series, and my favorite so far. One day Lychee, our high schooler prostitute detective heroine, receives a package with a maid outfit and a letter from a man named Touzou Sakai requesting to hire Lychee as a live-in maid for the first week of May. Lychee has never heard of him before, but an internet search reveals that he and his brother run a massive machinery business—in other words, he’s filthy rich. It’s an odd request and Lychee isn’t sure whether she’s actually being hired as a maid or if that’s just a cover to take in an escort, but Lychee can’t resist the allure of cold, hard cash. So she goes to the Sakai estate and is hired as a maid—but it’s clear from her interactions with Touzou that he didn’t actually send the letter. The letter had Touzou’s personal seal, so it must have come from someone in the house. Lychee resolves to get to the bottom of this strange situation—but the next morning one of Touzou’s sons is discovered murdered in his room.

Cat, the Great Detective / 猫には推理がよく似合う

Cat, the Great Detective is a mystery novel that, you may have guessed from the title and cover, features a cat. Our protagonist is Kaori Tsubaki, a legal assistant and the sole employee of an old, semi-retired lawyer. It’s a pretty chill job, but the main perk is the fact that the lawyer keeps his late wife’s cat at the office—and Kaori loves cats. In fact, she spends every Sunday in the office so Scottie won’t be alone. Scottie is the titular cat, and everyone else calls him Hyouta, but Kaori knows his name is actually Scottie, since he’s a Scottish Fold. How does Kaori know Scottie’s name is actually Scottie? She asked him. (Kaori can hear Scottie speak.)

Stray

Stray got a lot of hype. If you were completely oblivious to internet discourse in the weeks leading up to its release, allow me to provide a comprehensive explanation of Stray’s features and how they interacted with the main underlying currents of pop culture at the time in a way to produce one of the most anticipated games of 2022:

In Stray, you play as a cat.

…Hm? No, that’s it. Were you expecting more?

Huh. When you take a step back, that’s actually a pretty small base to place so much hype on, isn’t it?

So, how was it? Is Stray the cat’s meow, or does it belong in the litter box?

Let’s just say I’m more of a dog person.

Vaporum

It always begins with a man and a lighthouse… We play as a man with no memories who washes up on at a tower in the middle of the ocean. Upon entering, he finds a retro-futuristic steampunk dystopia that, based on audiologs scattered throughout the facility, appears to have resulted from the study of a mysterious miracle substance gone wrong. In other words, it’s… Vaporum!

Operencia: The Stolen Sun

Operencia: The Stolen Sun is a first-person grid-based dungeon crawler, which readers of the blog may already know that I love. While Legend of Grimrock is focused purely on exploration, combat, and puzzles, Operencia is a bit more well-rounded, with actual characters and story, and a more fleshed-out combat system. Unfortunately that doesn’t mean Operencia was better. It was fun, but it wasn’t great—it held itself back. But we’ll get to that.