Retro Mystery Club Vol.2: The Beppu Case

I adored Retro Mystery Club Vol 1, and was really looking forward to more of the same. Vol 2 attempts to add increased depth to the games characters to mixed results. Part of the magic of Vol 1: The Ise-Shima Case was it worked extra hard trying to replicate that classic Famicom command-based adventure game style. The occasional pixelated discovered body, repeating the same commands over and over to progress, the graphics and sound and everything in between were spot on. In Vol 2: The Beppu Case, the game spends an increased amount of time introducing all of the characters in a specific family and fleshing out their relationships. It's very much a tale of domestic discord with a lot less morbid imagery. This leads to a longer runtime that's mostly comprised of sifting through dialogue between the same handful of characters. While a lot of it is pretty intriguing and builds up the mystery to an exciting climax, I found myself getting tired of looking at the same character portraits for hours repeating questions over and over. You'll be talking to the maid an awful lot. There's a surplus of backgrounds that were made for the game, with many sequences involving wandering around a l…

Full review at: https://thegamehoard.com/2024/04/08/retro-mystery-club-vol-2-the-beppu-case-pc/ Retro Mystery Club Vol.2: The Beppu Case handles its core mystery well, working towards new leads and new revelations at a steady pace so its narrative momentum doesn’t run out. However, the game wisely slows down so you can get to know the key characters well, allowing you to both form your own suspicions but also come to be invested in their fates. Your role as the player is more to go through a set of menu options to progress the investigation, but there are times it will be rewarding to notice a detail and make the appropriate action and there are a few more involved sections like the underground diving maze. It even has a few moments you can indulge in a little tourism for the unique sights of the city of Beppu, giving you some extra motivation as fascinating real world places intermingle with an intriguing fictional case.

Decent homage to Portopia Serial Murder Case and Famicom Detective Club. Overall I think I might've liked Vol. 1's story resolution better but this one definitely has more content (it's at least twice as long).

Really great Japanese-style mystery adventure. I love this kinda game, and if you do too you really should give it a shot.