izigame.me

For me it was not a really good or bad game, just a slightly above average one. I would pick it up if it is on sale, but if you haven't played the nonary games or AI:Somnium files or any other classics, play those instead.
The feeling i had after this game was a disappointment, as the first few hours set up a great interactive story, but then crumbled back into a mostly linear and pretty visual novels, where the branching paths where far to short (i.e. in my opinion non existent if you exclude one off endings) and the characters far to nice to set up any great mysteries or conflict.
I will first list the good things about this game, so if this is all you need then go play the game:
1. Music: Slapped
2. Art style: The Chromatic aberration filter may burn through your retinas after 10 hours, but the great art direction and choice of colors kept my eyes glued onto the expressive characters and backgrounds.
3. Prologue: If the rest of the game was as good as the prologue I would have given it an easy 9/10, but life seems to be full of disappointments
4. Characters: It had a somewhat lively cast with some unhinged characters. Everyone acted along their personality and no one was dumb as a rock. Their where no illogical decisions made, and I was not infuriated by even one character, which is a plus in my book.
Now to the average and not that good. Keep in mind there is nothing really bad about this game, just a bit too avarage:
1. Puzzles: The prologue had the best puzzles, as you where forced to think a a bit outside the box. After that it boiled down to click on everything you see and bluntly remember the facts. No combining of clues or setting things up on the story board, just press the right answer and click through everything.
2. Story: Everything which I mentioned above should have been perfect setup for a masterpiece, but it seemed to have tripped on its own setup. To not spoil anything, I will be as abstract as possible, but if you even see meta hints as hints then avert your eyes:
In short: I think the playable characters and many involved where a bit to nice. As in danganronpa or other such games, characters often have their own goals and flaws, which made everyone a possible suspect. But in this game everyone is far to nice for such an mystery and story premise. When it is all about killing people, I don't need five of the six characters ( i am including the "partners" for every playable characters) to categorically disaprove of killing anyone.
I mean, there is no mystery to be solved when there are no real suspects, as most can be ruled out after the first chapter. Imagine having a Sherlock holmes Who-dunnit story, but from a total of 6 culprits, 4 are hardcore pacifist who wouldn't even kill a fly and the fifth was in another country when the killing happened.
Now having a weak mystery is one thing, but the second problem is that there was no conflict between the playable characters, which for me begs the question, why do i need three of them. The only reason there where three paths, is because one needs to somehow fit the story into one day, and a single detective can not possibly cover so much ground and find enough information. I would have wished that they would not share so much information with each other and instead play more against each other to make it more interesting.
It is the same problem as before: To many good characters with no ill intention. Their where great and really morbid story pieces but the charterers where to nice for the games story.
I conclusion: I wanted drama or anything resembling mature conflict but what i got was 6 friends trying to find out why the local shaman did such tomfoolery and hit some devious licks on some peoples souls.