Zitat:
First Impressions
Thanks to YouTube gaming videos over the Sega CD, FMV games were brought to more peoples' awareness, though certainly not in a flattering way. It did provide the most life-like graphics possible for that time, but with amateur actors filling prominent roles, their wooden performances could make them seem more robotic than AI. So, I wasn't really sold on the premise when looking into The Shapeshifting Detective (SD). However, it had good reviews overall, and wouldn't take me that long to play through, so why not? Answer me that detective.
Gameplay
Even though the title of the game includes the word detective, SD doesn't play like a detective game as you might expect it to. You aren't searching around the crime scene to find clues, and the way you speak with potential suspects doesn't include confrontational questioning as you might think. Instead, since you pose as different people, you speak to them more conversationally, trying to find contradictions in what they're saying to people they trust. As you spot them, it's more about keeping them in mind and exploring them with others, instead of throwing contrary points or evidence in someone's face to trigger a confession. Ultimately, the game plays out more like a visual novel than anything else, as you progress through the vital conversations to each chapter before moving on to the next.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2781130307
Controls
Since the gameplay is so narrative driven, it plays like any other visual novel, as you use your mouse to do everything. I never encountered any problems here, so I've got no complaints.
Story
With an FMV game like this, I'd say that its success hinges on its writing and acting, and I think SD falters a bit with the story. As a shapeshifter, there's already an element of the supernatural acknowledged in the very beginning, but as I heard various accounts from the people involved in the case, the more I thought everyone was a kook. Even though I should have a higher tolerance and more suspension of disbelief due to what I am doing as the protagonist, what makes the most sense to me is that people are rushing to overly complicated, far-fetched possibilities instead of the simple truth. Instead of thinking that an alien force is possessing people in very loosely related murder sprees, there's simply a serial killer you non-detectives aren't able to catch. It's not like most criminals would heartily confess to the crimes afterwards. The other issue is that when most characters are written as dodgy and suspicious, its hard to see any of them as reliable.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2781130652
Visuals
Unlike older FMV games that suffered from compression issues and graininess, the video is much clearer in SD. In a much different way than most games are made, getting enough video footage presents its own challenges, but if you're able to compose the right shots with quality lighting, you've done a significant amount of the work necessary to get good visuals. From my perspective, this would be a great way to handle cutscenes, but for the interactivity I like most from video games, it's not ideal. However, for a creepy mystery, the moody atmosphere in many of the shots is used effectively.
Sound Design
Since voice acting is something I've covered under this section before, I thought that acting overall would be best explored here as well. Although I don't recognize any of the people that starred in this game, I'd say all of them did a decent job acting out their parts. Even though I was a bit surprised by how much people were willing to share at times, such as Violet's experience with aliens, the attitude and tone they'd present while performing those lines were believable. The audio was also recorded well, as their deliveries were clear. There's some ambient noise in the background, mostly in the form of a piano playing, but it's quite low-key since they obviously didn't want the acting to be overshadowed.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2781130129
Pros
???? Even though the game is short, recording enough footage of red herring and filler dialogue to make the characters more fleshed out and believable wouldn't have been easy.
???? There's some degree of randomness, as there's three possible culprits, which is decided randomly as you start a new game.
Cons
❌ Maybe it was supposed to match the overall mysterious tone the game was going for, but some characters are really shady and creepy. The photographer admitting that he takes illicit pictures and would happily share them with others is surprisingly stupid and disturbing. It'd be one thing for a detective to claim all of them as evidence, but for him to break confidentiality and privacy, while speaking with law enforcement, would get him arrested on the spot.
❌ Since your investigation doesn't include any clues or key confrontations to offer more clear feedback, I found myself very unsure on whether I was on the right track or barking up the wrong tree.
Tips
???? If you're stuck in a chapter, you're missing at least one crucial conversation with one of the characters, and there's no good way to figure out who without trying several combinations. I spoke with the psychics often, as well as with any new characters that were introduced in a chapter, and that seemed helpful.
???? I expected more potential failure events from saying something suspicious or going into the wrong room as the wrong person, but the game doesn't seem to have many game over routes, unless you do something as blatant as tell someone you're a shapeshifter.
Final Thoughts
Although I think the acting was pretty good, I never really bought into the narrative the game was going for. Theoretically, the psychics are pretty much right on the money, even though they have such flimsy, unpractical evidence supporting their outlandish claims. It's kind of like a movie about a bumbling detective that accuses someone nobody thinks was guilty, and being 100% correct in the end. The only reason it works is because it's a comedy, but there's not a good reason for me to believe these psychics tripped over the deep-rooted conspiracy underlying the entire cosmos. I think a lot of this stems from how you never see anything extraordinary in the game or obtain any smoking guns that give anybody's claims credence, you just have to take their word for it.
SD somewhat works as a detective game, even though what you have to rely on is how people present themselves and whether you think they're guilty or not. Compared to finding solid evidence or even some clues, you merely base it on the conversations you have with them, looking for accounts too mysterious to ignore. However, that wasn't all that satisfying to me, and I wasn't positive I was correct with my guess at the end. Also, the person you implicate isn't really guilty, so you know arresting them is meaningless. Between a somewhat unconvincing ending and having so many possible conspiracies about the supernatural lingering leaves too much to the imagination. It might work for them if they expand upon this in future games, but in a single release I would say it's not successful.
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| PC Specs |
Performance |
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Ryzen 2700
RTX 2070
16GB RAM
ADATA SSD
1920x1080
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The game ran without incident on default settings.
???? - SD is healthy
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