I always thought I would be excellent detective. I suspect it’s a side effect of the endless true crime episodes I’ve watched – but I think I’ve got some sense of the details, you know. Good sixth sense. The ability to spot those small and insignificant things is very important after all.
Of course, this is complete nonsense. Just like playing Back 4 Blood won’t prepare you for a real-world zombie apocalypse, binge-watching true-crime documentaries doesn’t teach me much that I can apply it to real-life exceptions (shout out ” Fire!” instead of “Help!” if you’re in danger, as that’s more likely to attract aid; you’re welcome), when I stepped into Singapore’s murky underbelly and became a freshman private detective Amira Dharma (Amira Darma) shoes, it became very clear, as so often happens, ended up getting involved in something she didn’t expect.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the aptly named Chinatown Detective Agency does exactly what it says on the tin, a near-futuristic glimpse into neon-drenched Singapore as a striking backdrop with a gang of shady businessmen On par with shady politicians. As a former police officer, Amira gathered some early cases from her former college colleagues, but from there she built her client list of damned, desperate and everything in between.
I like Amira. Calm and capable, she embodies everything we’ve learned to associate with PI without feeling like a caricature, her voice delivers – anyway, when you get the voice working – and the dialogue goes exactly as they do Land the way it should. Combined with an interesting caseload and natural wanderlust, she’s someone I love to get to know.
Interestingly, Detective Chinatown isn’t the traditional point-and-click adventure I was expecting. Sure, you’ll get the Monkey Island vibe by gleefully clicking everything on the screen in front of you, but Amira’s reconnaissance isn’t just spamming your interaction buttons until you accidentally tap the solution. Sometimes, she needs to select the correct dialogue to open the marker. At times, she was under pressure to quickly explore her surroundings before the criminal waltzed back into the room. Sometimes, when we’re stumped, she does what the rest of us do: She turns to Google.
To be clear, I’m not talking about some wacky in-game browser looks And act like Google; The Chinatown Detective Agency includes an on-screen button that takes you straight out of the game and into the browser of your choice. It’s a simple thing, sure, but my words are valid. As an early and non-spoiler example, your first mission is for you to unravel the secret message hidden in the book, you need to find out who wrote it, but all you have is one line. Pop it up in Google – to be fair, it’s a pretty unique phrase – and boom, that’s it: author.
So, to the developers’ credit, everything Amira has to do is in real-life culture and history. It’s easy for the Chinatown Detective Agency to fall back on its recent premise and invent tons of fake sci-fi and force you to use a fake browser, but instead, we’re on a mission to be philatelists frantically analyzing stamps from real, far-flung places.
gimmick? certainly. Fair enough, I think. But it’s also an interesting and rather novel concept — it’s not something video game critics often say, let’s face it.
Trouble is, I didn’t get my review key until after the game was released, which meant that almost every time I entered a search string into Google, a handy Chinatown Detective Bureau guide popped up to solve the puzzle.Even if someone tells you that “one of the key mechanics of CDA is that it asks the player to solve problems on their own”, it turns out that’s not the case completely Yes, because it’s backed by a useful, deserving support, if google/your internet goes down, I guess – a tip system where you can pay a friendly librarian $300 to give a tip or tell you directly solution. I’ve used both and found them both worth Amira’s money.
Sadly, most of the other features of the Chinatown Detective Agency – a flight assistant that always charges you $550 whether you’re flying out next month or hopping on a last-minute flight in the next half hour; An in-game calendar/clock instantly becomes redundant with the “wait” button; a dreary public transit system loading screen when you need to move around the city, and; a point-and-click mini-game for shooting infrequently happening troubles thing, I keep forgetting it exists – lacking embellishment and purpose.
If you can make peace with other lightweight or frustrating mechanics, Chinatown Detective Agency will introduce you to an unforgettable cast and take you to some high-profile locations.
The fact that Amira has to use her income to travel and pay for her workspace rent and utilities may also sound like an interesting addition, but I’m afraid it isn’t. In a handful of missions and a few “Snaps!” the card game presented as a “hacking” mini-puzzle, Amira had $20,000 in her bank account, and I googled “what a private investigator really earns and how can I be one of them.” member” into her very real web browser.
However, Chinatown Detective Agency’s biggest crime isn’t Amira’s case, but an annoying preservation system. At first it was sold as an intentional mechanic – you couldn’t save at all until the tutorial case was done, and even after that you could only save between missions – but in fact some missions could fail And forcing you to reboot is an unnecessary frustration if it’s an unforced mistake because the cat pours tea on your keyboard or your four year old screams no at the top of the stairs, it’s not actually bedtime time.
The unstable stability of CDA only compounds the problem. Even after patch 1.0.14 I still get a ton of glitches, mostly audio – the most persistent being my spooky ambient footsteps following me even if I left that area ten minutes ago – two game crashes, The first time this happened before autosave was unlocked.To be fair, the devs say it’s “working on a new update to allow for manual saves mid-task” and “give [the team] Some time to make it possible” – but that doesn’t help whoever has it now, does it?
Those little ones — or big ones, depending on your personal opinion — aside from the thrills, there’s a lot to enjoy at Chinatown Detective Agency, and the story is worth checking out. Personally, I’m a little tired of the penchant for retro pixel art, but if you can make peace with other lightweight or frustrating mechanics, Chinatown Detective Society presents you with a memorable cast with You go to some striking places. How criminal, then, that such a promising premise is not enough for them.