Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind (Switch)

Fresh prints, not since
Watson and Mr. Holmes
Have two minds (two minds), so fine (so fine)
Looked under every stone
When you need some help to save the day
They're never far away

I went and played the other games at once. And it's a murder mystery at a school setting... first impression not that good. Doesn't help that the game, even though they are stand alone games, probably work better if you play this one first since it ends with the phone call that started the investigation in the other game. Here we begin with the protagonist running away from the police and runs in to Detective Usagi that takes him under his wings as his assistant in the detective agency. Then it kicks off when the body of a school girl is found in the river, the best friend of the girl who was your co-assistant in the Missing Heir.

The girls worked together in their detective club at school where she had stumbled upon the mystery of the girl who stands behind you, a ghost tale 15 years old that is connected to the disappearance of another missing school girl, who turns out to be the dead girls cousin. The girl disappeared at the same time a loan shark was killed and his son came into a great wealth. Meanwhile another victim of the loan shark killed himself. So that was 4 dead bodies before the game start. Two more bodies turns up, but I gotta say, the first game is better in that regard since they had the deaths spaced out so you got something here and there. I mean, the bodies doesn't come until the last hour of the game.

Also, Missing Heir had an interesting end puzzle where you traversed a maze with the help of a mirror and a poem. That was an actual puzzle, here was just triggering the right words to get to the ending. They also fixed the problem with spelling out the name of suspects and such by just giving you the list of names and choosing from there. Thank you for that. Apparently the game also track responses and such with ends with a compatibility chart with the assistant girl, doesn't evolve more than an extra cutscene at the end. But I give the game this, it was a memorable scene when you are cornered by the murderer and he lunges at you with a knife, cracking a mirror in the wall, shattering it. He turns around ready to strike again, and the damned skeleton of the missing girl from 15 years ago falls on to him.

I see you!

Jesus Christ! Is this really a Nintendo game? Now I get why it wasn't released in the West in the 80's. Usagi shows up with the cops and arrest the murderer. The ending makes it feel like a supernatural event. First game had shades of it, but more as superstitious nonsense. Here it has been hinted all around that her ghost haunted the school, and people have felt watched and uneasy and questions if she the first murdered girl possessed the second murdered girl. And then she turns up and save the day. Why isn't there a third game? I would loved a game set after Missing Heir with more supernatural things... or maybe I miss another game like Gabriel Knight and this come close to it. And maybe at least put them at 18 and up? I must clearly say that I don't see the Japanese police be all right with using 15 year old kids to get information from the teachers and students at the school, especially when we go to the more seedy parts of town with a... *ahem* "gentleman club". Maybe this is the real reason it never got to the west.