ebirdest
Nice review. More or less agree. Was wondering what are some examples of the sorts of bread-crumbs you think MC is missing too easily?
Do you think there
are moments when the MC's worth as a detective come through? How do you think that could be improved upon in general?
Unfortunately, I do not really recall specific examples off the top of my head. I did the whole game basically in one sitting, and like I mentioned in the review, I quite enjoyed the game overall, so there was nothing so egregious that it soured the game for me or stuck in my mind too much after the fact. More of just a general vibe I got while playing.
It just felt like there were some lines said to/around the MC by more mysterious characters (Liliah, Vali, vampire women, etc.) that seemed like they were primarily for the benefit of teasing things to the player. They were missed or easily glossed over by the MC, which felt uncharacteristic for someone who is being presented as an intuitive and talented detective.
It is somewhat of a nitpick, I just felt like it could've been avoided by having these teaser lines dropped when the MC isn't present or through internal dialogue of the other characters. It also just added to the only real "issue" I had with the game that the MC doesn't feel all that detective-y a lot of the time.
Most of the time that his detective talents seem to be present, he will simply point out that something is suspicious or doesn't quite add up. Then, sometime later in the story when the truth is revealed, it feels like he kind of just says/thinks something to the effect of "ah, I thought that was what it would be", but it didn't feel like a process of deduction or discovery ever really happened with the MC that the player was a part of. And his sense of urgency towards cases, particularly a murder that feels very personal to him, feels somewhat lacking.
I don't know the best way to improve it, and its not like the game is purely about being a detective, so I am not overly concerned with it. I would just prefer there be more of a proactive feeling of solving things and discovering new information, or being a part of the MC making deductions, rather than the answers feeling like they often just kind of fall into his lap or are reached by him in a way the player doesn't really participate in.
Ultimately, its a game I enjoyed for many reasons. If his character background was more generic rather than him being a successful detective, I wouldn't really have much to critique about the game, so it is probably just me being a bit nitpicky about an area I think things could be better rather than it being an actual issue. I would rather developers try to make something more unique and not do it perfectly than go with something safe and boring anyways, hence why I still gave it 5 stars in my review.
I guess there was one other thing that came to mind as I was typing this up, but again, it is really not something that is a big deal.
Unless it was another "fake" name for Vali, I believe the MC finally got the real name of Vali revealed to him towards the end of the update, and everyone seemed kind of chill about it even though it was presented as a big secret that should only be revealed at the right time. There was a conversation at the beginning of the game that seemed to tease that would be Vali's real identity, so it wasn't a huge surprise as a player, but I would've liked the characters to have reacted a bit more to it given the significance that had been placed on it.
This ended up being way longer than I expected/intended, but oh well. If the developer happens to read this, very good game and don't take my essay too seriously lol