I’d rather not compare Master Detective Archives: Rain Code among the games its creative team is best known for, but I can’t help but feel that the latest crime thriller from Spike Chunsoft and Too Kyo Games really invites comparison. How Danganronpa before, rain code is a crime thriller penned by Kazutaka Kodaka, adorned with the distinctive artistic style of Rui Komatsuzaki, all set against the backdrop of Masafumi Takada’s techno-jazz score. Almost every mechanic has a near 1:1 equivalent of this Danganronpato the point where I’m playing through it and wondering if everyone involved would rather make another one of those titles but can’t because of that Danganronpa V3‘S crushing meta whatcomment It’s about bringing a series to the ground until it’s unrecognizable.
Whatever the motivation rain code still has a lot of it DanganronpaPink blood runs through its veins, and while it’s taking some time to live up to its predecessor, it’s wrapped me in its final wraps and I hope Kodaka has found a new way to indulge its fascination with mystery without return to a story that has long since ended.
rain code follows a detective-in-training, Yuma Kokohead, in a world where detectives are powerful figures respected around the world. Suffering from amnesia, he has made a deal with a death god called the Shinigami, who takes the form of a purple puffball ghost and loves carnage and death while enjoying himself with a lighthearted spirit. Much like Kodaka’s previous work, the game uses the two characters’ opposing views of the world to constantly vacillate between dark plots and absurd humor, but uses its supernatural setting to bring the team’s usual antics to an inevitably over-the-top conclusion. A lot of rain code It feels like Kodaka’s writing in its utterly out of whack form, no longer bound by the confines of a (relatively) grounded environment, and free to use magic, superpowers, and godlike entities to justify wild imagery, for better or worse .
This put me off for the first few chapters rain codeThe supernatural elements and how they framed the puzzle solving. As Yuma and Shinigami stumble into solving crimes in the city of Kanai Ward, Shinigami opens the small dimension of a mysterious labyrinth. These are pretty much comparable to a palace in persona 5 in that they are physical manifestations of the Mystery itself. Each question on a case is given a literal form, whether it’s a door to walk through to answer a multiple choice question or an enemy that Yuma must literally fight with a truth-bearing blade break through their arguments as they appear in the text on the screen.
Danganronpa represented the same concepts through mini-games that were more symbolic, such as imagining snowboarding down a slope and choosing paths that represent answers while drawing conclusions. rain code uses the Mystery Labyrinth to give everything a diegetic place in his world. I admire the dedication to the cause, but the framework initially felt like the game was bending over backwards to bring it Danganronpa Putting mechanics into a legally distinct format that justifies every moment of conclusion and argument in a tangible rather than conceptual way.
Only in later chapters rain code really started to reckon with the reality of using the Mystery Labyrinth which I started to accept. Shinigami is a ghost when she and Yuma are in the real world, but as soon as they enter the maze, she sheds her mascot character design and transforms into her true form: a tall gothic woman who harvests from the souls of the perpetrators at the end of each case. Once Yuma is faced with the truth, he is also faced with the cost of finding it out. not how Danganronpa, this method and result are not forced on Yuma, he just keeps falling for it when put on the back foot. at its core, rain code is about the search for truth and its consequences, but while shinigami leave behind bodies, the game assumes that truth is not meant to be morally right or wrong. When people uncover them, they can build on the truth instead of rushing any further.
For this reason rain code constantly invites comparisons with Kodaka’s most prolific work. If it weren’t for all the clear mechanical and artistic parallels, this core belief in humans would be the symmetry that binds this team’s past and present work together. rain codeThe final chapters evoke the same emotional outburst this team is best known for, even if it takes time to get there. In many ways the narrative and mysteries become chaotic, sometimes diluted by the supernatural setting rather than enhanced by it. But despite my initial concerns, I was surprised at how well everything worked out. Given the history of this team, I probably should have trusted rain code to reach me in the end
Apart from all the framing, rain code From a technical standpoint, it feels rough around the edges. Instead of using the 2D sprite-based visual novel style of Danganronpapretty much everything in there rain code is rendered in 3D and this game offers something wild on the Switch. Whether it’s the exploratory stages through Kanai Ward or the action-oriented set pieces in the Mystery Labyrinth, the game often feels like it’s struggling to hold itself together. There is a 3D setup during the third person perspective rain code While the game has its own twist and gives the game some pretty spectacular visual moments (Kanai Ward’s neon-soaked cyberpunk aesthetic looks great when it’s not in motion), there were periods when it felt needed the game another round for the technical fine-tuning.
At a certain point I think I became desensitized to the framerate drops, accepted the concept and was happy to dive into Mystery Labyrinth. Relatively, rain codeThe cases aren’t quite as intricate as those of its predecessor, but they all have satisfying mysteries and an explosive human element at their core. Even if I were skeptical of a revelation, rain code would quickly point out a clue I had long forgotten that ties things together. Some solutions might have felt far-fetched, but in the world they established, these cases felt airtight and satisfying when solved, even when the conclusion was devastating to watch.
rain code is being developed by a team that knows how to make games like this, and as a longtime fan of the themes Kodaka writes about, I was quite touched by the ending, even if it almost lost me at the beginning. If you’ve never been a fan of Kodaka’s mix of camp, heavy-handed themes, and theatrics, then you are rain code probably won’t grab you. But despite the feeling DanganronpaAs a distant cousin, it makes it clear that this team doesn’t have to lean on Monokuma’s death game as a crutch and can instead build something new on its bones. Hopefully this means Kodaka can continue to let old things die on its own terms and craft new things instead.
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