Developed by Happy Meal and published by Shinyuden, Retro Mystery Club Vol.1: The Ise-Shima Case takes the original menu-driven format for the Famicom Detective Club games and reuses it in a modern retro tribute. You play an unnamed detective accompanied by a fellow detective while investigating a murder in a park in Tokyo. Clues lead you to the Ise-Shima peninsula, an area of Japan known for pearl farming. From there, it’s time to dig into the case and find out who was murdered and why!
Retro Mystery Club Vol.1: The Ise-Shima Case is your standard NES-style mystery game. Everything is accomplished by selecting menu options and reading the story, much like other interactive visual novels, although this particular style pre-dates visual novels as a genre. While you’d expect a dialogue-heavy experience, Retro Mystery Club is surprisingly light on dialogue, instead relying on the use of menu choices to drive much of the story and the visual storytelling to take up the rest.
While that approach is faithful to the roots of the game, it also lacks a number of quality-of-life functions that modern VN players have gotten used to, such as a chat log to see what has been said if you make an incorrect button press and highlighting which indicates remaining choices. You’re playing it old-school here, selecting options, reading the text, and then deciding what to do next. Missed something? Hopefully you saved because there’s no going back or rewinding and you’ll need that info to progress in Retro Mystery Club Vol.1: The Ise-Shima Case.
Even though you’re simply selecting from a menu, don’t expect Retro Mystery Club to be too easy. Many of the choices are non-intuitive and there are no indicators other than opaque dialogue to guide you on your way. In other words you’ll have to intuit what to choose in order to progress. Fail to do so and just like a Phoenix Wright game, you’ll be stuck in an endless loop of conversations and menu choices that literally cannot be broken without finding the combination of options which progresses the plot. It’s surprisingly irritating that a game this linear is this difficult to figure out on occasion but perhaps that’s part of the design to emulate a vintage Famicom experience. Or perhaps it’s just bad coding.
Regardless of the intent, eventually you’ll brute force your way through the story which has almost as many twists and turns as a Poirot novel. Everything is all about plot here and there’s not much that we can share without spoiling everything. However, it’s honestly kind of weird how pervy Ken gets from time to time and he isn’t the only one in the game to do so. There’s also an undercurrent of sexual tension in Retro Mystery Club Vol.1: The Ise-Shima Case that is entirely unexpected and can occasionally be a bit irritating. Some menu options generally don’t work either, leading to some incredible frustration on your part playing the nameless detective. Why are they there? Hard to say. Most of them get used at least a few times though.
Menu options are fairly limited in Retro Mystery Club Vol.1: The Ise-Shima Case and they’re kind of confusing. You have your choice of Change Location, Speak, Investigate, Show, Call over, Use Smartphone, and Inventory. Use smartphone also has a sub-menu with Contacts, Camera, Search engine, Game, and Case notebook. The game doesn’t tell you this but the Case notebook selection actually saves your game if you’re not playing in a single sitting; a handy feature but it’s kind of hidden. Other parts of the menu are a bit stranger. Changing locations is fairly obvious, but even when you know what to do, you can’t leave until you trigger the right sequence of conversations or events so it’s rather useless. Speaking to someone doesn’t always work either, as occasionally you’ll need to Show them something instead or Call over to them before you can speak to them. Investigation only works at key points in the story, so even if you want to look at something, you usually can’t. There are times when Investigate also shows you random facts about the location you’re at as well. Inventory doesn’t really help you at all, only showing you what you’re currently carrying, or infrequently providing a selection menu to show someone something from your inventory or use it.
Smartphone is probably the strangest menu. Not only is it weird to have a smartphone in a Famicom style game due to the cognitive dissonance created by combining the Famicom era with modern day, but the way you use the menu to play the game is quite non-intuitive. If you need to call someone, you use contacts, but the game doesn’t prompt you to do so. Taking pictures with the camera makes sense for a variety of police activities, but you are frequently warned that it’s inappropriate to take pictures. The same goes for the Search engine which you use to look up information. Use it when you’re not supposed to as part of the expected choices and you’re lambasted for becoming too dependent on the internet. Finally, there’s the Game function, which never works at all. Throughout the entire game, if you select the Game option in the smartphone menu, you’re told it’s not the time for games…in your game. Fun!
While the menu systems and subtleties of the game aren’t top tier, the story itself is fairly interesting and the mystery is enjoyable, redeeming some of the missteps in other areas of the game. Sure, you might end up stuck a few times, but working your way through the story in Retro Mystery Club Vol.1: The Ise-Shima Case is surprisingly gratifying. Along the way, you’ll pick up a handful of interesting details about Ise-Shima as well, which is a nice bonus. This is a solid story overall that gets surprisingly complex towards the end and is more enjoyable than a first glance might imply.
Of course, the visuals here are nothing to write home about, but that’s intentional so it’s perfectly acceptable. Retro Mystery Club Vol.1: The Ise-Shima Case is designed to look and feel like an original Famicom release and it manages to pull off a vintage feel extremely well. Font choices feel authentic, character portraits are suitably blocky but effective, and backgrounds are limited in detail but mange to evoke a sense of style and presence that is impressive. Character expressions are particularly communicative, something even modern visual novels fail to manage sometimes, and the overall impact is that the story feels more fleshed out and less two-dimensional, partially as a result of the excellent pixel graphic work here.
Sound is a weak point in Retro Mystery Club however. As much as a throwback tribute to 8-bit gaming is always enjoyable, the music here is not the best. Tracks are very simplistic synth music and the themes, while serviceable, aren’t particularly catchy. Sound effects are extremely limited, leaving a bit of a disconnect between music and graphics. It’s an authentic experience to be sure, with weak chiptunes that recall memories of the NES, Famicom, and Master System. Sadly, that’s not a positive association in the case of Retro Mystery Club Vol.1: The Ise-Shima Case. It’s not the only weak point either, as we encountered a fatal save glitch that required a new game start, as well as translation mistakes and some weird out-of-character statements that took away from gameplay somewhat. There are a number of minor flaws here that don’t ruin the game but definitely detract from the overall experience a bit.
While it isn’t the perfect throwback Famicom experience in terms of how user-friendly the game is or how good the sound is, the overall experience of Retro Mystery Club manages to successfully simulate the original 8-bit experience and deliver a complex and nuanced story despite its flaws. Characters are deep and interesting (at least most of them) and while the game is fairly short, weighing in at around 3-4 hours depending on if you get stuck much in the confusing menu choices, it still manages to deliver in the end. This isn’t the polished experience that the remade Famicom Detective Club games provided, but it isn’t meant to be either and you are getting exactly what’s advertised, a vintage-style menu-driven mystery game that ends up a fun time all the way through. For under $10, that’s not bad at all and players are definitely going to get their money’s worth with Retro Mystery Club Vol.1: The Ise-Shima Case and enjoy themselves along the way.
This review is based on a digital copy of Retro Mystery Club Vol.1: The Ise-Shima Case provided by the publisher. It was played on a Nintendo Switch in both docked and undocked modes and played equally well on both. Retro Mystery Club Vol.1: The Ise-Shima Case is also available for PC on Steam.
Nate Van Lindt has been a gamer since the days of yore (aka Commodore 64), and has played a bit of virtually everything out there. He's also an avid comic book collector, both vintage and current, and reads a fair amount of sci-fi and fantasy. On top of that, he watches a fair number of movies and TV shows as well. Oh, and he has a family, a full-time job, and lives somewhere in the urban wilds of Southwestern Ontario, Canada, foraging for old video cables and forgotten game soundtracks.