First and foremost the translation by Demiforce is pretty garbage. Not only do they add themselves to the narrative on one clue, but there’s also lots of American pop cultural references as well as “Wassup,G” in one part of the game that is out of place. Some of these references weren’t even around when the game was made. One major thing is the transphobia they added for one character in particular when you are interviewing students. Of course Nintendo gave them something to work with which is the other half of this review. How utterly misogynistic this whole game is.

This is the prequel game to “The Missing Heir”.  So it basically is telling you where Ayumi came from.

Ayumi who made a Detective Club at school with her friends Hitomi and Yoko. Yoko who was murdered and is the main case of the whole game. Ayumi who is only there as a prize at the end for ‘doing good’ and then becomes the main office slave, useful to get coffee and do men’s menial labor. So much for being a Detective. Of course there are a number of points where she’s “just in the way” as well. Leading for her to be taken as a damsel to be saved… twice.
Yeah this game is a dating sim too.
At least she wasn’t Yoko! Yoko faces a worse fate.

By the end of the game the text exonerates a murder who is also an accessory to murder. Who literally DISPOSED of Yoko and killed Shinobu. The game praises him as a “good guy”. The girls of course are simply trash. Thrown away. He dies an “honorable” death. “He looks up for his students!” As long as they are male.
Meanwhile this is where the plot goes off the rails. Where everything points to him and it flips to “Oh, this other teacher is suddenly a homicidal maniac and REALLY did all the killings!” The story would have been much better if it was about a man who everything thinks is “great and wonderful” but in the end was human garbage. Nope, gotta put all that on someone else… right. at. the. very. end. Just to have Mr. Dogshit come out smelling clean, despite a hit and run and then disposing of the body. Despite tossing a girl into a river. Girls aren’t human to Nintendo in this game.

Also of course it has the “Yoko looks EXACTLY like Shinobu” interchangeable women BS as well on top of all this.

On top of all this there are points where you are blocked not knowing what to do. One is a dunk guy where you have to go through all of the options more than once and is just annoying. Prepare to get stuck.

Another detective game I had very low hopes for and was surprised it was so good.

This game is a detective game with occult/paranormal element that’s set in Japan in the 80s. It’s an 80s detective story and I’m glad Aksys didn’t get their slimy fingers on this. It’s well steeped in Japanese terminology and 80s Japanese detective tropes.

It’s about a set of character that are Curse Users that each have a reason to bring someone back from the dead. The whole plot unfolds as you find out how each are linked to each other.
There’s some 4th wall shenanigans that are explained at the end of the game that don’t take away from the story and some puzzle that require you to talk to people well more than once, as well as examining items in rooms more than once.

I have to say the highlight of this game however is Richter Kai. A PI who left the force, who you can’t see how he was ever on the force. He’s probably the most animated (and hot) character next to Erio.

The best part about this game is that all the characters look their age, no 40yo that look 10 here. The women also act like people and not just some stereotype personality. It was a relief to see this after seeing the Switch shop flooded with porn VNs. Finally one where they told a really good story without all that garbge.
It also proves that you can tell a story without pandering to men’s dicks.

The main problem I had with this game was the chromatic aberration. It started to hurt my eyes after a while and there’s no off switch.
Overall though a really great game.

So I played this on a whim and didn’t have high hopes for it thinking it’d be another otaku pandering mess and…

It’s not.

It’s a funny (however short) comedy detective game with Lovecraftian/Cryptid plots. I really enjoyed it. The ending itself comes out of nowhere.

I will get out of the way the problems I had with it:
Namely a 10yo girl is constantly saying that she and Tendo are going to get married.
Tendo Saiga is 29…
Tendo however doesn’t even acknowledge it at all, doesn’t even comment on it and ignores it.
That girl also hates Hin Rei because she’s the new sidekick and thus horning in on her territory. Really they could have done without any of that and it would have improved the game a lot.

The only other problems was the text run on. But I could overlook that.

After all that it’s a nice fun comedy adventure in a town that is plagued by Lovecraftian creatures. None of the creatures use Lovecraftian names however, which is a bit of a relief. There’s also no talks about “sanity” or any of that after seeing these creatures. For Tendo, cryptids are just the norm.
There was also no gross sexualization of Hin Rei or any of the other women. Save one, and even then only slightly, and then the reaction of Tendo well.. spoiler and humorous. Not gross.
That all being said I found the whole experience a but short. It’s mostly voiced? There are parts that are fully voice and other parts that are just a catchphrase. I appreciated having the voices.
I was left wanting more and felt that I had only experienced one chapter of a trilogy game, instead of a whole game.

I would definitely check the game out if you are looking for a lighthearted visual novel.

This game just love to force things on the MC that she never asks for, but of course accepts it because she’s such a doormat.

Of course the MC has convenient amnesia and needs a MAAAN to fill her in on what happened.

I was hoping that it would be a decent game about MMOs and stuff like Sword Art, but not here. The MC is completely useless unless the plot calls for it. She can’t do anything herself and needs men to save her. Even the 14 year old boy is stronger than her and it’s pretty bad.

Like she rationalizes because he was trying to keep his promise it’s OK that he’s a murderer/rapist. When you look at it, it’s basically what Shiki wants and nothing about what she wants at all, but she just goes with it for no real reason.

The ending is of course a “reset time and none of this stuff ever happened” bullshit. Almost like what was the point of playing the game.

Let’s also talk about the incest going on. It’s stated he loved her the minute he saw her. At the end of Shiki’s route you can see they meet when she’s not even old enough to form words.

And the ultimate insult is the harem ending is the BAD ending. Women can’t even have an ending where they get all the guys and are happy like males are catered to all the damn time. The MC is then punished of course by being raped by her own brother.

THe best routes out of all of this are Libera, Radius and to a degree Astrum. The rest go way over the line. Zain was a good candidate for being a good one, but the writers decided to toss in the Demento shit and make him evil.

Digimon Tamers: It’s stated that Digimon don’t have gender, yet both time Renamon was said to be “a girl”. This is reflected in the anime as her needing to be saved and not getting to do any heavy lifting like Terriermon or Guilmon. They have been cast into “The Girl” role. Also, there are a number of digimon that are “Women with some bits of armor and a mask” that are definately being forced into the female gender. Large breasts, skimpy clothes. Simply to give the human MEN watching this CHILDREN’S show boners.
Ultimately this show is about “saving the damsel in distress”. In the end it’s the girls that have to be “powered down” in order for the boys to be “powered up”.

This show didn’t age well at all, however compared to the later Digimon anime, it at least didn’t have as much sexualization going on.