I played and finished Master Detective Archives: Rain Code. I have alot of thoughts on it but to be brief: I really enjoyed it and highly recommend it.
Rain Code is a game by Spike Chunsoft, and from a lot of the same team who made the Danganronpa games. To the point that that Rain Code has been called by some as the 4th Danganronpa game, and while that isn’t true, there are alot of similarities.
Rain Code is a detective mystery game set in a cyberpunk world, where I would describe it as a most like a visual novel. While there are gameplay aspects outside of talking like explorable environments, QTEs, and mini-games to keep the interest, this is a game where you will spend most of it talking. And this is a very linear narrative, you’re not going to be making choices like in a Telltale title. But it never gets tiring, I think the game has good pacing in its story and I do think the story is very solid overall, with the second half being stronger than the first half and building to a very satisfying emotional conclusion.
A summary of Rain Code’s story: the protagonist Yuma Kokohead wakes up in the lost and found section of a train station, having no memories whatsoever, and only wearing a uniform and a train ticket to the city of Kanai Ward. That and an apparition of a death god, Shinigami, following him wherever he goes. Kanai Ward is a city that is currently being isolated from the rest of the world, held in total control by the mega corporation Amaterasu Corporation. The city has many secrets, from the reason of its isolation to the true goals of the Corporation, or to the most weird: why the city has been exposed to rain literally non-stop for the last 3 years. The World Detective Organisation has dispatched several Master Detectives, detectives who are capable of a “Forensic Forte”, a supernatural power, to the city to expose its secrets. But with forces trying to stop the WDO, its going to take Yuma and Shinigami to have to work together to solve cases and uncover the truth.
Certainly, with this being the first game in the “Master Detective Archives” series, it does seem like an obvious attempt at kickstarting a new franchise. But nothing wrong with that if done correctly, I do like world building. And indeed with Danganronpa having a very limited premise, and that series arguably struggling to expand itself (notably in the Danganronpa 3 anime and aspects of V3), I imagine it is liberating for the creators to have a far open setting with a world of possibilities this time around, with the WDO and the idea of thousands of Master Detectives running around with powers. In fact the reason we don’t have Danganronpa 4 is because the creator of the series decided he felt there wern’t more stories to tell, and wanted to do something else, a nice bit of franchise restraint. (Didn’t stop Spike Chunsoft making Danganronpa S but I digress.) I hope we get Danganronpa 4 in the future but no point forcing someone to make it when they are out of ideas.
Indeed, it means Rain Code can do cases that wern’t possible in Danganronpa’s setting, which can be quite interesting, especially the opening case which is quite a fun thrilling affair. I do think there are some slight downsides though. It does mean cases are a bit less unique, and perhaps a bit more standard fare, since you lose Danganronpa’s premise of a bunch of people trapped together in a building, and those people become suspects and victims, which builds investment overtime. In Rain Code, suspects and victims tend to get introducted in the chapter the case is part of, which isn’t bad but does make it feel a bit episodic at times.
Also in replacement of Danganronpa’s trials, when the people in the trapped building would debate who the culprit was, we have the Mystery Labyrinth, a physical manifestation of the case. I think this might be my biggest issue with Rain Code’s formula. To me the great thing about the Danganronpa trial is that the surviving people debate the case, and argue with each other, with the knowledge that at least one person is acting in bad faith because they are the murderer. In Rain Code’s Mystery Labyrinth, the case is manifested physically, and to proceed, you have to logically prove aspects about the case’s mystery little by little, often being harrassed by a Mystery Phantom. In the real world, Amaterasu Corporation’s private police force, the Peacekeepers, will try and disrupt the investigation, and one of their leaders will manifest as a Mystery Phantom. But its made clear that the real person and the phantom aren’t connected, rather the Labyrinth chooses a person to represent opposition to Yuma, which feels a bit lame. The Mystery Labyrinth’s feel a lot more focused on the logistics of the crime, rather than the personality and motives of who commited them, and that does make me lose a bit of interest, I think a great case should have a good balance of both.
Saying that though, of the cases, I don’t think there is a bad one among any of them, I never felt bored, and I think following the logic of each case was solid. I imagine how quickly you can figure out the case before the game reaches the point of unveiling everything will depend on how good you are at logic and murder mysteries. Again, comparing with Danganronpa, while I think Danganronpa still has a few cases I like better overall, it definetly never hits the lows of some of Danganronpa’s worst cases. Indeed, there is a running joke that Danganronpa 1, 2, and V3’s third cases are all the worst of their respective games. V3’s third case is so infamous it spawned its own subreddit mocking it. I’m happy to say I think Rain Code’s third case is actually one of the stronger cases of the game, it has a great mystery, and a great story for the case too. I also think the game’s final two cases are very strong as well, as they see the mysteries and plot threads the game has building upon come to a head, so it means things become far more interconnected and personal for the characters.
Soundtrack is awesome, Masafumi Takada does the OST again and his stuff is so moody and hyper, I’ll need to post in the Music Thread later with some of this game’s OST. Nothing that I think would be considered problematic this time around, compared to all 3 Danganronpa titles that all seem to have a bit of questionable content, sometimes accidently, sometimes due to that series having a more edgy feel to it, which makes this game a bit easier to recommend. And there is a character in here who is gender ambigious, possibly non-binary, and they are really cool.
I hope this is successful enough to get a sequel. The game is gorgeous, the power of the Unreal engine on a home console, whereas Danganronpa 1 and 2 were PSP titles and V3 was a Vita game. I do think some elements of this game’s formula could be refined, but hey, so did Danganronpa 1 at the time and that gave us Danganronpa 2, which I think is the high point of that series. I actually wound up buying the game’s “Mysteriful Limited Edition”, partly because in the UK Nintendo’s store is the only one that sells a physical version of the game’s standard edition, and that was out of stock for a while. I ended up making an impulse buy for the limited edition, partly because I wanted to have a physical copy, but since I really enjoyed this game, I’m really glad I did. The steelbook is gorgeous, and you get a cute plush of Shinigami which is nice, will be nice to display it once I get some shelves up in my living room.
So yeah, I do highly recommend this game, although with its similarities to Danganronpa, I would say if you haven’t, maybe try Danganronpa 1 first, you can get that quite cheap nowadays and its on multiple platforms whereas Rain Code is currently a Switch exclusive.
I really need to get around to playing the Phoenix Wright games at some point. And I also heard from a certain little birdie that a game called “Ghost Trick” is really good, should probably look into that at some point.
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It was like that in Wolfenstein 3D iirc, so it´s more a matter of honoring the classic. The important thing is to have fun with the game, so don´t let that get in the way of it 
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