Iwakura Aria is a mystery visual novel originally released in Japan in 2024 by MAGES., a company well-known for their work on the Memories Off series and the Science Adventure series (Chaos;Head, Steins;Gate, Robotics;Notes, Anonymous;Code, and more). Set in the summer of 1966, it follows an orphaned teenager as she gets acquainted with the inhabitants of the Iwakura […]
After another three year gap, it’s time to psync back into the ABIS once more with the third title of the AI: The Somnium Files series. While the previous installment, Nirvana Initiative, operated largely as a direct follow-up to the first title and featured different protagonists, No Sleep for Kaname Date – From AI: The […]
Three years after 2019’s AI: The Somnium Files, Spike Chunsoft released a sequel titled AI: The Somnium Files – Nirvana Initiative (sometimes stylized as nirvanA Initiative and often shortened to AiNi). Set six years after the events of the first Somnium Files, the Advanced Brain Investigation Squad (ABIS) must again solve a strange new murder […]
Following their generally successful Zero Escape trilogy, Spike Chunsoft decided once again to partner with director and writer Kotaro Uchikoshi to create another mystery adventure game. This manifested in the form of 2019’s AI: The Somnium Files. This title is a murder mystery game with elements of sci-fi, loads of drama, and a rather wild […]
The Shell Part III: Paradiso is a remastered release of Kara no Shoujo – The Last Episode, the closing chapter of Innocent Grey’s Kara no Shoujo series, which was originally released in Japan in 2020. Last year I called The Shell Part II: Purgatorio “a testament to the narrative potential of visual novels”, and both […]
In a relatively stacked year of video game releases like 2024, a few inevitably slip through the cracks at first for me. I first heard about No Case Should Remain Unsolved near the end of the year after seeing it pop up a few times in year-end retrospectives, and decided I should see what it’s […]
When I first heard of Lilja and Natsuka: Painting Lies, the points I heard about most often were that it was a girls’ love story and that the heroine was blind. I was surprised to find that the story doesn’t overly focus on either of these things. Lilja and Natsuka: Painting Lies is an all-ages […]
Note: This review will contain spoilers for MAMIYA – A Shared Illusion of the World’s End, which we would suggest you play before reading this review of MAMIYA – DoomsDayDreams. Please be aware that there will be details that are integral parts of MAMIYA – A Shared Illusion of the World’s End’s mystery. MAMIYA – DoomsDayDreams is […]
Staffer Case is a murder mystery visual novel from Korean developer Team Tetrapod that recently received an English translation. The odd-sounding title is a reference to the titular “staffers”—humans who have manifested supernatural abilities—involved in perpetrating and solving the game’s crimes. This game is something of a fantastical twist on the formula popularized by the […]
MAMIYA – A Shared Illusion of the World’s End is a visual novel series released internationally back in 2021 by independent developer Kenkou Land under the publisher Fruitbat Factory. The series is a solo project by Kokoroten, the only member of Kenkou Land, who serves as scenario writer, artist, and programmer. The publisher describes the […]