Retro Mystery Club Vol.1: The Ise-Shima Case (PC)

Retro Mystery Club Vol.1: The Ise-Shima Case is less of a detective game and more a visual novel about detectives working a case. While you’ll still be actually picking the options to inspect evidence and grill suspects, it’s often more the order of operations you’re determining rather than the player holding much influence over how things unfold. Of course, a mystery story can be engaging even if you don’t play a big part in uncovering the truth, so once you’ve come to understand the level of control you truly have over the tale, it’s a bit easier to sit back and take in the story told by way of a stylistic throwback to the Famicom Detective Club series.

Taking on the role of an unnamed police investigator everyone just calls Detective, the player receives a call from their partner Ken who actually ends up doing most of the talking for the pair. While this does almost make him the main character in all but the fact you don’t directly control him, Ken speaking directly to you does allow for him to better present certain details or even show more of his personality, the young detective bringing some youthful energy and even moments of comedy that can help bring forth some light moments in a narrative that isn’t afraid to touch on some grave matters and serious subjects. The phone call that starts the case has to do with an unidentified corpse that is soon revealed to have ties to the Japanese city of Ise, particularly to the pearl industry of the region. Working on incomplete clues and scuttlebutt for a while, the player and Ken start to slowly unearth more about the victim and start to find the trail helps them uncover further murders, some major developments from the small cast of characters you interact with and interrogate helping piece together why the business of pearl production has lead to such a string of crimes.

Typically, Retro Mystery Club Vol.1: The Ise-Shima Case presents the areas you explore and characters you speak to in a set manner. A large text box exists at the bottom for the dialogue and described actions, a column to the side contains a list of interactions you’re able to perform, and a window on the left contains the visuals of the current area and any characters you’re speaking with. Retro Mystery Club Vol.1: The Ise-Shima Case’s art style is deliberately trying to look like an old Famicom game series from the 1980s that many English speaking players might not be familiar with, but even if you’ve never heard of Famicom Detective Club, the pixel art can still feel a bit nostalgic while the characters are also drawn well enough to be expressive and more endearing for it. Funnily enough, despite the retro presentation, the game does seem to be set in the present day, a smartphone being one of your tools for investigating and other small references do make this presentation style more an aesthetic throwback than something to root your mind in the past.

To progress through the criminal investigation at the heart of Retro Mystery Club Vol.1: The Ise-Shima Case you don’t really need to be making any deductions yourself. Instead, when you enter a situation or are speaking with someone, the game won’t let you move on until you’ve gathered all the required information, this helpful for keeping the right story details in play but minimizing your importance as the player. You are asked to pick the order of the questions you ask or objects you examine and there are times you need to press certain details or determine a few orders of operations to get people to speak plainly, but it never really reaches the point of requiring much from you besides some experimenting with your limited range of options. Besides a platforming minigame on the smartphone you can play during quiet moments and the rare moment you need to pick the path you travel through a large area, mostly you do just work your way through all the options presented to get the needed details before moving along.

With the interactivity limited, the enjoyment of the mystery falls purely on the writing and presentation. Retro Mystery Club Vol.1: The Ise-Shima Case does construct a tight knit cast where you come to get to know some of its principle players quite well, people like the vigilante reporter Nishizawa providing a more casual character to bounce the details of the case off of while the young ladies Kana and Tamami have some more light-hearted interactions with Ken to avoid the heavy revelations and grim details surrounding the murder cases from bogging down the experience with a consistently dour mood. Retro Mystery Club Vol.1: The Ise-Shima Case can be serious when it wants to be though and it’s not afraid to delve into some darker parts of life and death, and basing things around the pearl trade of the Ise-Shima region does give the investigation an interesting axle for all the interactions to be based around. At times it can be surprisingly realistic like when one of the pearl businesses has you speak with their lawyer in a rather professional exchange while at other times it does lean more towards the more entertaining methods seen in cop shows like you and Ken creating false personas to speak with someone under false pretenses, but while overall the game does have a decent idea of what a drama should include, its managing of the intrigue feels a bit haphazard and uneven.

The way Retro Mystery Club Vol.1: The Ise-Shima Case doles out new case details and vital information can feel a touch weak at times, the player puttering along without any juicy new developments for a stretch and sometimes poking around without a strong direction for their activities. Here a little bit of the comedy and character work can prevent it from feeling like you’re just spinning your wheels waiting for an event that’s going to further the plot, but at times it can feel a bit like the plot is moving on its own. Suddenly a new detail arises through no work of the two detectives and the clues you pick up aren’t always the most valuable in actually piecing together the broader truth. Retro Mystery Club Vol.1: The Ise-Shima Case is the kind of mystery story where you can’t exactly construct the most informed of guesses because revelations are often presented before the relevant details come to light, sometimes only coming up in the midst of the moment or after. The legwork investigating areas isn’t pointless and the details found earlier do add together with the information you couldn’t have had before it is dropped in your lap, but even accepting this is a story about detectives rather than a mystery you’re meant to solve yourself doesn’t quite help with the fact the narrative is still relying more on a procession of events than placing some of the foreshadowing that makes mysteries fascinating to consider.

The intrigue of the Ise-Shima case is perhaps not managed properly but overall it is a tale that will likely hold the player’s interest, and there are other elements to make it a bit more appealing. Optional interactions can produce amusing outcomes and the music can set the mood for scenes while still being a bit catchy in its own right. Oddly enough, while most of the music tries to maintain the throwback look and feel, there are beautiful songs with Japanese lyrics whose only use is to underscore reading the included digital manual. Even though the game is mostly self explanatory save for some commands on the menu that could perhaps be a little clearer, the manual is still a delightful inclusion with a nice bit of personality that shows the creators’ love for retro mystery games, that aspect of the experience definitely coming through loudest and certainly earning its spot in the game’s title for it.

THE VERDICT: An appealing approach to its old school presentation makes Retro Mystery Club Vol.1: The Ise-Shima Case charming and in broad strokes its narrative manages its dramatic moments and likeable characters well, but this visual novel’s mystery feels like it could have been unveiled in a more effective manner. The tale of a string of murders having strange ties to the pearl industry gives the mystery some intriguing elements to explore, but periods where it feels things are stagnating and the limited impact your own investigation has on the course of events does mean the plot doesn’t progress at the best pace. The mystery never goes too long without a new hook though, but a tighter course of events could have better invested the player instead of giving them a little too much time to cool down between meaningful revelations.

And so, I give Retro Mystery Club Vol.1: The Ise-Shima Case for PC…

An OKAY rating. It’s clear Retro Mystery Club Vol.1: The Ise-Shima Case doesn’t want the player to have too much of a hand in guiding the course of events so proposing it should have been more interactive would have been asking it to stray away from its intended approach of providing a somewhat more interactive visual novel without any major choices to guide the plot’s path. Looking at it purely from a story standpoint then, the things that keep the intrigue limited mostly boil down to the moments the game struggles to provide a compelling lead for a specific story section and how the work of the detective duo can feel more like they’re playing catch-up. The fact you are a detective and being asked to consider the clues is perhaps why the revelations that strike out of nowhere lose some of their impact, the player starting to see a disconnect between the activities they’re asked to engage with and the course of events. You’re still presented with a tale that is interesting to follow, but it does feel like the time spent exploring a crime scene has less narrative importance than heading into areas where something just so happens to be about to unfold. It wouldn’t be too hard to lay down the bread crumbs that lead to the tent pole moments, even if it was a quick turnover for found details to shocking developments then at least you can more clearly identify the Detective and Ken as important players in the plot, but besides a few key moments and the rare interactive sections, it can feel like you’re just along to watch things unfold rather than being one of the real contributors to this interesting drama around the pearl cultivation industry.

Retro Mystery Club Vol.1: The Ise-Shima Case’s efforts to keep you on the path to new story events does mean you don’t often linger long in a situation as you can exhaust your options and then head to the next area, but the narrative itself isn’t as quick to move along meaning you will spend some time feeling a little aimless. The overall plot isn’t lacking in intrigue though and a dash of other elements like humor and some decently built-up characters helps it survive the slow stretches, so while you maybe need to temper your expectations on what kind of detective game and mystery you’ll experience here, the nostalgic trappings and broader story elements do make it easy to stick with it for those suspenseful moments and twists that it can present well.