izigame.me

I did like playing this game, but it took me a bit. There were times in my first play through that I didn’t understand the mechanics of what I should be doing and some extra things I wasn’t getting. The instruction video helped but I still missed some things. I knew what I was supposed to do – solve a murder, but it was some mechanics and rules of doing things that were vague. However, by the time I finished the first play that took me about 4 hours, I got it and my second play went much better and I was able to discover more FMV scenes in one play through than I did in my first. My second play took about 2.5 hours.
As always with this developer, the characters are very quirky and fun. I really liked the story and the layers in it beyond just solving the murders. I still have a couple more plays to go to get the whole picture. I also liked the non-FMV portion that, through the museum paintings, gives both a sanitized and macabre history of the town of Mirlhaven depending on whether you visit the paintings during the day or at night.
Initially, I was hesitant on replay value, but the differences in play happily surprised me. Not only is there possibly a new murderer, but the time, place, and cause of death are different. So therefore, are the goals of each night’s investigations. They change due to the new circumstances of the murder, giving new topics and videos that play as well as different messages that come from your boss and the messages you pick up from collecting new urns. Your collectibles and other progress are saved and you add on to what you have collected.
Bottom line: After some initial frustration, I was able to sink in and enjoy the game a lot and am looking forward to collecting all the lore and stories the game has to offer. Though I would put out a request that maybe the developers go back to a simpler format for their next game. Maybe something like Contradiction next time?