2.5/10
A locked room mystery murder of a major character set across 3 rooms with a small cast and no court case could be compelling, tense, claustrophobic. Instead it's dull, repetitive, and drags on for far too long. There's not much substance here. We're supposed to find Nikolina very sympathetic but she bores me and I don't think the angle of her being super desperate and alone works when we've established she has the entire crew unquestioningly behind her.
I didn't hate playing through this, but that's pretty much entirely down to the wonderful Sholmes. And he of course becomes a main character and gets cooler things to do later on so it can't boost this case too much. And even then, they probably did one too many deduction dances here, and his theories are far more compelling than the truth. The tone of this case is really odd, they have instant emotional investment from the player with the brutal death of Kazuma this early on, but the case can't decide if it wants to be serious or goofy and oscillates between the two wildly.
Side note I really thought Hosonaga was going to be a long term recurring character after this, but
we only see him again once in the whole duology! And this is very minor but why did Kazuma never simply bolt his door so Ryunosuke could wander around the cabin freely in the evening?
TeamRocketElite posted... I forget, is Nikolina ever told the truth about what happened with Kazuma?
Yes, in the second game Sholmes mentions having told her the truth and helping her get to America.LightningStrikes posted... This case also introduces the best jury member in the duology.
Fair, this is a great call back (as are
the ship scenes in G2-5). But I credit the later cases for that, not this one!