Adventure Corner ~ Master Detective Archives: Rain Code Plus

Welcome to Adventure Corner, a column where members of the RPGamer staff can give their thoughts, impressions, and pseudo-reviews for various adventure titles that don’t come under our usual coverage. Adventure Corner is aimed at delivering opinions on a wide range of titles including visual novels, point-and-click adventures, investigative mysteries, and so forth.

In this edition of the column take a look at Spike Chunsoft’s dark fantasy detective adventure Master Detective Archives: Rain Code Plus on PlayStation 5.

Master Detective Archives: Rain Code Plus

Detectives are always a staple in adventure games. They make for easy protagonists, and they get to be the outsider looking in on a mystery in their attempt to solve it. However, Master Detective Archives: Rain Code imagines a world full of detectives, each with unique abilities that can help solve mysterious crimes—unless your name is Yuma Kokohead. With amnesia and no special abilities to speak of, Yuma is the perfect protagonist for players to follow as a World Detective Organization Detective-in-Training, and with his partner, the murderous but loving death god Shinigami who no one else can see, the two characters offer an interesting dynamic.

The story begins with Yuma heading to the isolated Kanai Ward on a train where he meets five other Master Detectives, learning that each has a unique ability. Being the anomaly of the situation, Yuma is swiftly accused of being an impostor hired by Amaterasu Corporation, a group that has walled off Kanai Ward, making it inaccessible without special permissions. After discovering one body after another, Yuma is forced to find the solution to the murderous outbreak, and safely make it to Kanai Ward before he himself is killed.

Upon solving the initial crime, Yuma is thrust into Kanai Ward, an area trapped in endless rainfall, where he meets Yakou and the other Master Detectives who survived the journey. From here, Yuma learns that Amaterasu Corporation’s secret police, the Peacekeepers, are roaming Kanai Ward and have been given clear instructions to capture anyone they deem suspicious and send them to a special restricted zone. As the larger story unfolds, what Yuma discovers in this city of endless rain is that nothing is what it seems. With the help of other Master Detectives, Yuma attempts to uncover what is “Kanai Ward’s Ultimate Secret.”

Don’t mess with Halara Nightmare!

In terms of storytelling, Master Detective Archives is an excellent ride from start to finish. Blending horror, mystery, and some darker comedic elements, the overarching story of Yuma being a detective-in-training and attempting to regain his memories is done with a lot of care being put into his character. While many of the crimes have fairly straightforward narratives, the kernels of information they provide about Kanai Ward and the story-at-large keep players guessing, with lots of unique twists and turns that one doesn’t see coming, and work incredibly well. However, Yuma’s supporting cast varies; some have a nice amount of dimension, but others feel awfully one-note. While the overall localization is very good, Shinigami’s character is written to be obscene in ways that often go too far. Every female character, especially poor Kurumi and Fubuki, is constantly degraded by the Death God, who often refers to them as “sluts” and “whores” for no good reason. She is a character that the game presents as comedic, but for the majority of the game isn’t funny or likable at all.

The story is broken into six chapters, with Yuma moving between Kanai Ward when investigating crimes, and the Mystery Labriynth, created by Shinigami, where Yuma goes to put his deductions together. The downside of the Mystery Labriynth is that once the crime is solved, the culprit is killed in the real world. A lot of the gameplay in Master Detective Archives is very straightforward, striking a good balance between how much time players spend in the real world and the Mystery Labriynth. During the investigation, Yuma, Shinigami, and whichever Master Detective is their partner during that chapter will work through each crime scene, with the partner character assisting using their Forte, a special ability that they have inherited, such as Fubuki’s ability to turn back time or Vivia’s ability to become a ghost. Yuma can use these characters’ Fortes by holding their hands and using Coalescence, the ability to share that power during an investigation. As Yuma and friends investigate, interacting with highlighted items will net Yuma Detective Points (DP) that he can use to spend on various skills for when he ventures into the Mystery Labriynth. Skills include being able to slow down certain gameplay elements or increase Yuma’s overall stamina.

As Yuma picks up clues, Shinigami turns them into solution keys, which help unlock the truth when exploring the Mystery Labriynth. Once the investigation is complete, an important plot point commences and Yuma is thrown into the Mystery Labriynth. When inside, Yuma is tested by “Reason Death Matches” against a Mystery Phantom, a manifestation of a potential culprit attempting to hide the truth. Armed with solution keys, Yuma must select the right key to use on the correct statement being thrown about the match. Yuma can dodge, jump, or use a character assist to block out noise. Should noise hit Yuma, he loses health. These sections play very stiff, with numerous instances where players will think they have dodged or jumped at the right moment, only to be smacked by noise. Yuma also doesn’t move very quickly, and even his base walking speed is pathetically slow.

Desuhiko always has the wrong priorities.

On top of these “Reason Death Matches”, there are tons of instances where Yuma will have to choose the right door to progress or answer a rapid-fire series of questions before a timer runs out. Sometimes Yuma will have to solve a “Shinigami Puzzle,” wherein Shinigami will jump into a barrel in a bathing suit and Yuma will have to spell out the correct word by throwing solutions keys at her. The barrel moves ungodly slowly, and these sections feel like a boring spelling bee, adding nothing to the gameplay overall. There is also God Shinigami mode, where towards the end of a case, Shinigami will become giant and help Yuma literally break down the walls of the culprit. God Shinigami can jump over spikes, kick lead balls, and break through walls, these actions showing how the culprit’s logic is crumbling. These sections are not bad, but again don’t feel like they add much to the overall experience.  These two particular gameplay mechanics feel phoned in and are more of an excuse to sexualize Shinigami more.

After the climactic moment of discovering the criminal, the Deduction Denouement occurs, which has Yuma putting together the crime as a whole into panels of a comic book. Once the correct images are in place, Yuma and Shinigami will recap the events of the crime. If one has played Danganronpa, a lot of these gameplay elements will feel familiar. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make them very original for Master Detective Archives: Rain Code. While there is so much more exploration and elements to interact with, it’s not hard to see how much has been lifted from the developer’s previous titles and then given a slightly different coat of paint, taking bits away from its originality. That being said, the game’s voice-acting is wonderful, as Lucien Dodge shines as the naive detective-in-training Yuma Kokohead, while Howard Wang delivers a haunting performance as Peacekeeper Leader, Yomi Hellsmile. The voice work does a great job of matching the character’s personality, making a lot of the cutscenes enjoyable to watch. The soundtrack is also wonderful, offering futuristic beats and ambiance that fit the overall dark vibes of Kanai Ward.

While I enjoyed the narrative parts of Master Detective Archives: Rain Code, the same cannot be said for the gameplay. With a wonderfully twisted story that truly is a grand mystery, the gameplay struggles to have that same level of oomph, and unfortunately struggles to be both engaging and memorable. For those who have loved the developer’s previous works such as Danganronpa and World’s End Club, there is a lot to like here. Master Detective Archives: Rain Code is a fantastic mystery, with great characters and voice acting, wrapped up in uninspired gameplay that, while passable, lacks punch overall.

Disclosure: This article is based on a free copy of the game provided by the publisher.