Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir
By Marc Saltzman,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Retro murder mystery is intriguing but tedious and obscure.
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Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir
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What’s It About?
Originally released for the Family Computer Disk System ("Famicom") in the late 1980s in Japan only, FAMICOM DETECTIVE CLUB: THE MISSING HEIR is now being offered in a refreshed version for Nintendo Switch owners. Available as a digital download from the Nintendo eShop, this game features English subtitles for the first time, updated graphics, sound effects, and music (or you can choose to hear the original 8-bit soundtrack). In Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir, you assume the role of an amnesiac junior detective, who awakens to the realization that he has fallen (or was perhaps pushed?) off the side of a cliff, but thankfully has landed on some shrubbery to break his fall. While his past is initially hazy, he wants to continue working for the Utsugi Detective Agency, and returns to investigate a murder involving the wealthy Ayashiro family in the Japanese countryside. You partner with the young Ayumi Tachibana, who also works at the detective agency, to uncover the truth of both this complex murder case and your own missing memories. A P.I. assistant, your sleuthing skills include interrogating characters, including suspects, in this small village, along with searching the environment for clues, analyzing evidence, and deducing who might be responsible for a heinous crime. Much of this suspenseful adventure game is presented as a visual novel, but with animation, too, as you'll select dialogue topics from a pull-down menu, comb the screen with a magnifying class in search of evidence, and refer to your notebook to cross-reference hunches and facts.
Is It Any Good?
While the story is intriguing, this is an average sleuthing experience that suffers from obscure clues and story connections, tedious gameplay at times, and a hefty price tag. Sure, those who enjoy murder mysteries will like interrogating suspects and piecing together comments and evidence, but a lot of the gameplay in Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir is using a pull-down menu to select actions before highlighting a person to interact with. That includes discussing events with a nervous maid, exchanging info with the authorities about the matriarch of the Ayashiro family, or hearing tales of legend and lore by villagers. Those with limited attention spans will tire quickly of this process, not to mention the button-based interface doesn't allow for touchscreen controls -- even though the Nintendo Switch does -- which would have sped up this Q&A process with the dozens of people you'll talk with. Looking for clues can also be a bit of a pain, as you must "window wash" the screen and look for key words to pop up, because sometimes nothing shows up and you must click on what you think might be something (and isn't always obvious). Similarly, you must select Think during a conversation to try to tie clues together, or else you can't advance.
Another issue for the game is the lack of English audio. Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir has spoken Japanese plus English subtitles. This is a major mistake when trying to market this game to a Western audience -- especially for a title that has so much dialogue that's vital to the story. This is all too bad, as there is a good tale here, and some memorable characters. And this game shouldn't be more than $10, especially when it's competing against so many inexpensive or freemium titles to choose from on that other portable gaming platform: your smartphone.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir's mature storyline, which covers a murder investigation. Is this theme too intense for teenagers? Or is watching a TV episode focused on true crime events just as bad?
Since Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir is more than 30 years old, should customers expect to pay full price for the game? Should it be discounted to match the age of the game? Is there much better content or similar content for a fraction of the cost on other services, such as the App Store or Google Play?
Game Details
- Platform: Nintendo Switch
- Pricing structure: Paid
- Available online?: Available online
- Publisher: Nintendo of America
- Release date: May 14, 2021
- Genre: Adventure
- Topics: Magic and Fantasy , Adventures , Brothers and Sisters
- ESRB rating: T for Blood, Violence, Language, Use of Tobacco
- Last updated: September 30, 2021
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