Hey I keep hearing all about these detective type visual novel games and with The Famicom Detective Club games and The new Ace Attorney coming out soon I was wondering what game of this type would be a good one to start with for catching on to the genre and learning the ropes. Whether it be one of those coming soon, an old Ace Attorney, Ghost Trick, Professor Layton, or something else entirely, I just want to try it out with something that still has a difficulty spike but is easy to catch on to.
Games I'm playing right now:
Tears of the Kingdom - Switch
Just on Switch? The Ace Attorney Trilogy is good value and avoid the Layton Switch game as it's pish, too easy and they replaced an interesting mystery from the past games with tedious mini-cases.
The actual gameplay segments of a lot of these mystery visual novel puzzle games varies quite a bit so it's difficult to say which one to start with. My vote goes to the Zero Escape series, with Danganronpa being a close second (Danganronpa isn't on Switch yet but it is available on Mobile/PC/PS4). Professor Layton, Ace Attorney, and Ghost Trick are all quality games too, but as jump said avoid the Katrielle Layton game.
"Hotel Dusk: Room 215" for DS is unbelievably good.
Its sequel, "Last Window: The Secret of Cape West" is quite decent as well.
Personally, Hotel Dusk was kind of a drag for me, mainly because it's slow getting from place to place. I would recommend this after getting into the genre more.
The Ace Attorney Trilogy should give you the start you need. Then you can play the rest of the games. I second Cynas's recommendations as well.
Hopefully after The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, Capcom officially localise AAI2 (and remaster the rest of the series on Switch, PC and PS4). AAI2 only has a fan translation at the moment.
In terms of detective games, then as others have suggested, Hotel Dusk and Last Window are great DS titles to start with. I think legit carts are quite readily available and Hotel Dusk is not too expensive right now so an easy pick up (don't hold me to it as I still have my originals bought back in the day on release). There is also Another Code: Two Memories which was made by the same developer on DS. Then of course, the Ace Attorney series. If you like physicals and want the remastered original trilogy on Switch, the Japanese physical will play in English (I bought mine recently at 365games for £28.99). I love Ghost Trick and cherish mine that I bought back in the day, but it's so expensive on ebay now I'd sooner recommend the others mentioned here as they are more easily accessible.
These games fall under the Visual Novel genre too as Cynas stated above. And as Cynas also recommended, definitely check out the Zero Escape series. They are easier to get on Vita I believe, mainly because some DS/3DS prices are insane... 999 on DS tends to sell very high on ebay, whereas on Vita it was released as a double pack (titled 'The Nonary Games') with its sequel, Virtue's Last Reward. Zero Time Dilemma was the third and final game in the series so far but probably the weakest of the three (still enjoyable though). I could go on and on about how much I love the Zero Escape series, especially VLR, but I'll just say they are very engrossing and delightfully dark games. The puzzles are fantastic and extremely engaging. Story is brilliant. I highly recommend playing at least one of them. I played them all on the Vita but I recently bought VLR on 3DS for £27 on ebay just because I love that game so damn much. So VLR is at least reasonably obtainable on a Nintendo console at the moment.
Other VNs worth looking into are Danganronpa (Vita/PS4), Root Double Before Crime After Days Xtend edition (Vita/Switch) and Steins; Gate (Vita/Switch). You could also give the free demo of World's End Club on the eshop a try.
I haven't played my copies yet, but Root Letter and Root Film have reviewed well.
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I haven't played my copies yet, but Root Letter and Root Film have reviewed well.
I haven't played my copy of Root Film yet either but I have high hopes for when I do get round to it. Root Letter on the other hand was a bit of a disappointment to me. I played it on Vita and it was okay, but the story didn't wow me by the end. It wasn't bad by any means, and this is after all, only my personal experience. Others may have got more out of it than I did.
@FroZtedFlakerZz My favourite detective games are The original Ace Attorney, Return of the Obra Dinn, Detroit, Hotel Dusk, The Last Window, Another Code R, 999(original Zero Escape), Professor Layton, The Wolf Among Us, Sam and Max games, Life Is Strange.
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Topic: Good Detective Game to start out with
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