#famicom detective club: the missing heir

[spankymerve]

Video Game Diary: September 2024

I managed to get this diary entry in just under the wire. Sure, you’ll probably be reading this in November, but the point is that I posted it in the month immediately following the one being discussed. So I win. Eat that, calendar! After the jump, mini-essays on Class of ’09: The Flip Side, the Famicom Detective Club remakes, and I Am Your Beast. Continue reading Video Game Diary:…

[video-game-jams]

Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir (2021) - Utsugi Detective Agency

[cru5h-cascades]

Hey guys guess what unholy amalgamation of several creepypastas got mentioned in a big ass video essay~?

Was kinda hoping there'd also be focus on the other games in the series but most of the focus was on the funny bag man. But hey at least Famicom Detective Club was mentioned in this vid :D

[mast3r-rainb0w]

[C] 'FDC Remake' Style: Summer Ayumi Tachibana by Mast3r-Rainb0w

A commission I made via DeviantArt, featuring Ayumi Tachibana in a summer-themed outfit, and I've drawn it in the artstyle of the "Famicom Detective Club" Nintendo Switch Remakes! Enjoy!

[nabateaprodigy]

So I recently just finished playing through Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir!

Just wanted to give a little quick review of how I felt about the game! Don't worry no spoilers are mentioned!

✔️Amazing Story.

✔️ Lovely Art style.

✔️ Solid OST.

✔️ Great character design's.

➖ Having to double-check areas to progress the story or find clues.

✖️ The story felt rushed during the last chapter.

✖️ The characters not being fully fleshed out as I would have liked.

(Applies to survivors and characters before their deaths. Yes, I know this is a murder mystery game; however, even before characters die, they can still be fleshed out and explored a fair bit.

Although I know this game is a remake, and for the type of game it is, I'm willing to let it slide. Especially since this is probably the first of its kind when the game was originally made. However, still disappointed, but none of what I said here applies to the MC.)

Overall an 8/10 for me. I ended up enjoying this game way more than I thought I would! Even though I did have a few issues and things I didn't I still fell in love with this game. And will definitely be looking forward to playing The Girl Who Stands Behind!

[zerosocialskillz]

Watching a walkthrough of The Missing Heir so I could catch up for Emio

[lattedecoffee]

Why did no one tell me famicom detective club goes so hard

Just finished The Missing Heir (beat it in one day, it’s relatively short), and I cried at the end. I guessed every big twist but one, but that didn’t stop the moments Taro realized them from hitting hard. I only wish there was an English dub, though the Japanese VAs were amazing (I just like knowing the language lf the voices lol

This series was one of Ace Attorney’s inspirations and you can really tell. Not only in its gameplay, but in the one character that literally just looks like the Ace Attorney judge.

I’ll be playing The Girl Who Stands Behind ASAP because holy crap I loved this one and general online consensus seems to be that TGWSB is the better one.

PLAY. FAMICOM. DETECTIVE. CLUB.

[nintendokids]

I humor him.

But seriously, Dr. Kumada may be my favorite character in The Missing Heir. He has developed into a way more fun character than I first took him for.

-Christian

[rehncohro]

August 30th, 2024 - Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir/The Girl Who Stands Behind

I was planning on getting to these for a while and the recent release of Emio got me to actually try them out. They're both interesting murder mysteries that aren't without their flaws. Gameplay is pretty similar to the investigation segments in mainline Ace Attorney, but the big problem is you often have to repeat dialogue options or take very specific actions and the games are really ever clear on which you need to choose. Some of the options that are required to progress are so out there, it's hard to figure out without a guide.

The Missing Heir was horrible about it and I had to switch to a guide halfway through. Thankfully, I was able to avoid that for The Girl Who Stands Behind. I played Missing Heir first because it's the first game in the series, but I do think it's cool how the games are set up so you can play in either order with The Girl Who Stands Behind taking place two years earlier. The 2nd game had a very noticeable upgrade to presentation too.

Both of them had interesting stories and twists, although I did figure out one of them in Missing Heir about halfway through. However, both of them managed to surprise me. The Girl Who Stands Behind did something I wasn't quite expecting near the end. For the most part, the recurring characters are okay and the side characters are just whatever, but I still enjoyed the overall stories.

I'm just a bit annoyed with the gameplay. It is way too easy to get stuck in Missing Heir. While it's easier to avoid in The Girl Who Stands Behind, it's final chapters are very bad about the whole very specific things that you have to do (sometimes repeat) and being unclear of what needs to be done. Despite some issues, I liked them and look forward to Emio.

[hodgepodgequack]

Emio Demo Observations and thoughts….this is going to be a long post.

By the way, I WILL be spoiling something that happens during “The Missing Heir” And Danganronpa 1 case 2.

18 years ago, 3 teenage girls (with no known ties to each other) are strangled to death by hand and are found with paper bags on their heads. The paper bags have a picture of a smiling face on them.

The paper bags intel was never released to the public, therefore the only people who knew were the cops, family members, people who found said bodies and the culprit.

Now theres a similar case with a teenage boy (Sasaki who I will be calling S from here on out).

There’s 3 options regarding what happened to the kid

Option 1: It’s the OG killer who’s never been caught. As for why he’s starting again, there’s two possibilities

S was either looking into the Emio rumor or he saw something he shouldn’t have and the killer wanted to nip that quickly.

S is a closeted trans person and the OG killer knows that somehow. The director of the game has stated that the ending of the game might be “controversial” Keep in mind this game takes place sometime in 1997-2000s, it’s 2024 and being Trans is still controversial. In game it would most likely be an ever bigger stir. Who’s to say that this is the controversy the director was referring to?

As for why the method of death has slightly altered, I only have one theory: fingerprints

The original case took place sometime between 1979 and 1982. I know nothing about the history of fingerprints in Japan so this is a massive shot in the dark with what I’m about to say:

Fingerprint dusting may have not been a routine procedure (or it was but there was no way to preserve said information ) and the killer knew that. But a lot changes in 18 years and it’s possible that it is now routine and said info can be preserved. Hence the strangulation method has changed and the item to use cause death it not anywhere to be found.

Option 2: It’s a copycat killer

Why someone would do this, I have no idea, but it would explain a few discrepancies.

D1: the way the person is killed

D2: victim is male (they got the teen part right)

D3: The way the paper bag looks

If you look at the paper bag the Emio of the Urban legend uses. It has holes cut out where the eyes should be (and additionally it appears he removed any eye wear before putting the bag on, just a weird detail I’ve noted)

Current bag has no hole cut out. It’s a purple circular spot in the middle of some black round scribbling.

And I know what you’re going to say, cutscenes aren’t important, but in the famicom detective club universe they are.

There’s a prime example of using a cutscene in “The missing heir” where Jiro is smoking with Kaneda, pay attention to the way he holds his cigarette. It’s a small detail, but developers who do mystery games don’t put them in for shits and giggles.

Option 3: S’s death has NOTHING to do with the original case.

The only reason why the police think that it’s connected to the previous case is because of the paper bag. If the bag wasn’t there, they wouldn’t be thinking that.

It’s entirely possible that someone else offed S and fled the scene. Someone else finds the body and instead of reporting it to the cops, pulls a Togami and alters the crime scene to include a paper bag on the kids head. Why they do that, I don’t know. They could have been inspired by the Emio rumor (which is a weird thing in itself that I’ll discuss in a bit.)

Some other observations that don’t really fit anywhere else:

The way the bag is placed on the head. The corpse looks like it it’s looking in an upward direction while the bag makes the face on it point to the side. I don’t know if it’s an important detail or if it was done to be creepy. Because the only believable way for that to happen is if S was strangled in an upward position, the bag is placed on his head and before he hits the ground the bag shifts to a different position and it’s not corrected.

Kuze knows Utsugi

The current theory is that she’s related to one of the original victims in some way and because the case was never resolved she because a detective to find the truth. Ut might have worked on the case and that’s why he knows her. Ku might not be saying anything out of fear that she might get removed from investigating at all (it’s a one liner, but someone mentions that she follows police protocol to a T so it would be interesting to see if she acts like a hypocrite because she’s personally connected to the case). It’s also a possibility that he resents Ut for not catching the guy. It would be crazy twist if the OG killer and the current killer (assuming they are not the same person) are both cops hence why they didn’t get caught. As for a guess right now (and based on the premise stated beforehand) the OG killer might be Kanada and the current one might be Kami.

3. Kami is a very sus

First of all the game does not give you his age, which is a massive red flag. Secondly he shows up late to the crime scene (yes it’s implied that he is a bit of a careless character, but that could be a facade) he might have been busy trying to cover his tracks. Thirdly he mentions that he used to go “missing” when the schools were actively trying to prevent kids from straying to far. Maybe one time he did it and saw something he shouldn’t have.

4. In the prologue there is a part where the protagonist and Ut speak at the same time and they sound like the Smiling Man.

5. In the game “The Girl who stands behind” there’s a box near the boxing gloves that you could inspect. According to the game at the time, it has something to do with UTs family (I’m pretty sure it’s a crest). In this game you can’t even examine it and that is sus in of itself.

6. The Emio legend is odd for multiple reasons. The fact that it mentions girls(who look to be teens based on the cutscenes) die with paper bags on their heads is reminiscent of an actual case implies something important. The info regarding the paper bags got leaked (and maybe some things on the girls mental health at the time pre death hence the crying imagery) and that spiraled and created the Emio urban legend. Furthermore, Ayumi immediately mentions the urban legend when we talk about the case. That implies that either this rumor has started recently enough for her to notice it, or it’s one that has persisted through time (and that begs the question why has it lasted so long and who started the rumor?

And now for some questions regarding the demo

How did S get into the area? It’s a pump station whose gates are normally not open (note that the all the trash is on the outside of the area, not on both sides. S’s bike was also left outside meaning the gate was closed. Did he pick the lock? Was the gate open and the killer put the back bike? I don’t know!!

2. How did the Jogger see the body?

Anyway. Can’t wait for the second part of the demo to drop tomorrow and I’ll see how much is right.

[owlyjules]

Alright little ramblings about famicom detective club!

Super Light spoilers ahead for "the girl who stand behind"

.....

ALRIGHT!

Firstly I want to open with the fact I love the game so far and loved "the missing heir" from the same serie. They are 80s and 90s games remake so I understand some creative descisions about why the main character is 17 in "the missing Heir" and 15 in "the girl who stand behind"...

However...

Holyshit!!

THAT DETECTIVE UTSUGI??

HE FOUND A 15 YRS OLD RUNAWAY WITH MISSING PARENTS AND WAS LIKE

"Its free real estate Assitant!"

Then I tought ok i guess its fine if he helps him a bit but then not even 20 min in HE BRINGS HIM TO SEE A DEAD BODY!!??

And then I thought "oh the mystery must be happening in the school the detective enrolled his 15 YEARS OLD ASSISTANT HE TOOK IN FROM THE STREET AT BUT NOOOO!" THE KID IS WORKING FULL TIME ON DETECTIVE WORK/MURDER CASE ALONE, SLEEPING AT THE OFFICE AND NOT GOING TO SCHOOL!

Like omg can someone make sure the kid gets all of his meals and proper sleep??

My guy!!

PLEASE just a bare minimum of care for the kid you took in please?XD

[ruinationz]

"finished wtaching famicom detective club the missing heir gameplay to prepare for emio" moodboard aesthetic

[cru5h-cascades]

Doin' research on the first two Famicom Detective Club games for the Doll Woman AU (I have an idea for what to do with the protagonist) (yeah not only are Emiko and Minoru's roles swapped but some of the other characters' roles are too) and boy howdy watching gameplay for the Missing Heir is hella weird (the UI for the game is really throwing me off)...

[hopeymchope]

Emio - The Smiling Man is a welcome return for FDC... but a disappointing one

As I mentioned once before, Famicom Detective Club is BACK. Not just the title, but also its central heroes: Assistant detectives Taro Ninten and Ayumi Tachibana have returned for a new first-person menu-driven adventure game with a new mystery.

This is a much bigger deal for Japanese fans, where this is the first new game in the series (and the first real new adventure for these characters) since 1997 — and that '97 game is pretty obscure/hard to come by (I'll get to that), so it's really the first full-fledged NEW release since 1989! But the rest of the world only had a fan translation of the second game's SNES remake since 2004, which meant it was really only experienced by hardcore adventure game enthusiasts. And we only got our first official release of the first two games in the form of the Switch remakes in 2021.

I liked those Switch remakes a lot. I especially liked how many detailed, fluid animations there were in nearly every setting, which really brought the adventures to life. For any newcomers, I still recommend both of those titles — and in fact, I think The Girl Who Stands Behind remains the best in the series even now. The Missing Heir is full of dated design roadblocks that will almost certainly send you rushing to find an online guide, but The GIrl Who Stands Behind is a pretty easy playthrough for anyone.

Time has left the third game in the series behind, rendering it to obscurity. It truly is The Past that Disappeared in the Snow.

Though I should clarify that I only mean that The Girl Who Stands Behind is, IMO, the best out of the three games we English-only fans can experience. Because Emio - The Smiling Man is actually the fourth game in the series... and the third one is extremely obscure. That game was only released via Nintendo's Satellaview service in Japan, which let you use download games over dial-up Internet back in the '90s. That third game, titled The Past that Disappeared in the Snow, was the only one (until now!) where you played as Ayumi Tachibana. When her mom was accused of a murder, Ayumi had to uncover a decades-long family feud between her own family and another... and we don't know much more than that, because although the ROM file certainly is out there, nobody has ever bothered to translate this game into English.

But... I digress. It's time I stopped meandering around the central topic and started talking about the newest release: Emio.

In terms of gameplay, this one skews much closer to The Girl Who Stands Behind than The Missing Heir. There's one late-game moment where you're likely to be stymied about what to do or where to go next, because advancement requires some outside-the-box thinking. But otherwise, most players will be able to step through the narrative without too much trouble.

One cool touch that I alluded two a couple paragraphs earlier is that you will actually swap between Taro and Ayumi's perspectives in this one. I quite like that angle, though Taro pretty consistently gets the more interesting parts of the story. Perhaps that's because he still dominates 70% of the perspective.

The game will grade your performance in each chapter at the very end of the story, so do your best on the reviews and other multiple-choice segments.

If you're just looking to have a new adventure with some compelling late reveals? Emio - The Smiling Man has you covered. The same general gameplay from The Girl Who Stands Behind is back, including the end-of-chapter reviews of information that will ultimately help determine your graded performance.

Unfortunately I also feel that, in some ways, this is the weakest of the stories we've been able to play in English. And I feel that way primarily for three reasons:

Prepare to spend a lot of time at Planet Coffee, receiving very little information.

The sad truth is that, for much of this game, it feels like you're treading water. You barely ever seem to make advancements in the story until the last few chapters—instead, it's just piecemeal drip-feeding of tiny details that don't actually seem to move the needle. The Missing Heir was dropping new murders and mysteries left and right. In comparison, The Girl Who Stands Behind was more similar to how Emio is structured... but TGWSB had a creepy overlaying atmosphere and sense of dread that helped propel it along. For me at least, Emio is comparatively... well, it's kind of boring. Not much happens for most of the game. The last two main chapters and the Epilogue are all powerfully compelling, but up until that point, it feels more like you experience almost 10 chapters where you learn random facts that don't actually link to one another, and almost no one ever seems to be in any danger?

Worse is that sometimes, some things DO happen that the narrative just kind of... forgets about. One of the most compelling twists in the investigation is never explained in any way! At one point, we follow Ayumi as she follows a mysterious figure and then gets jumped by them... and then this is never discussed or addressed again! It's hard to believe a game with this many staff members involved could see this and shrug these dropped plot points off. Maybe they were all too scared to speak up to producer/writer Yoshio Sakamoto? But it's frustrating.

Ayumi gets jumped early in Chapter 7. When we next see her, she never mentions that this happened, nor is this ever explained or referenced again for the entire game.

You know how I mentioned after playing the previous two games that I was shipping Ayumi and Taro? Well, this game kind of killed that for me. For some reason, this is the only game in the series where Ayumi is treated as this gorgeous, irresistable being that every boy she encounters (while playing as her) simps for. And our playable hero, Taro, is just such a simp, too! Maybe it just felt overwhelming to me because it's every boy (and a couple girls) that she runs into, while in reality she doesn't talk to that many characters. But for me, it felt exhausting and kind of gross to see a couple of the male characters bicker over who knows her better, get possessively jealous when they have no right to, and basically act like total toolbags whenever Ayumi is involved. Taro, for his part, has gone from "implied to maybe kinda like her" to "acting weirdly possessive and overtly pining for her whenever they interact." Which I don't care for. For Ayumi's sake, I'm glad she seems to be somehow blissfully ignorant of her hypnotic effect. :P At least their boss, Utsugi, seems like he's not gunning for her... ?

So yeah, these are the three things that I think held the game back from being as good a story as the first two for me personally. Yet that's not to say the game is bad, either — I'm still quite happy to be unraveling mysteries with the Utsugi Detective Agency. There are still lots of fluid character touches in the animated scenes, the art is consistently great, the soundtrack is good, and things REALLY get gripping by the end.

If you're wondering why this game has an "M" rating while the previous two had "T" ratings, that's entirely due to the game's epilogue. After you beat the main story, many plot threads remain dangling. And as I stated up above, some will sadly stay that way. But most of them are filled in by the epilogue, which walks you through the incredibly dark, tragic, and disturbing tale of the culprit. The epilogue is more like a 20-minute visual novel followed by a 30-minute anime, because you don't actually PLAY it much; you really just read and then watch it. You are warned beforehand that this tale will be "gruesome," and though it's still far less so than most horror-based video games, it's definitely QUITE gruesome by Nintendo standards. But it's one of the most gripping parts of the whole story, honestly.

[soundofseclusion]

46. Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind

Release: 2021, Switch (1989, FDS) Beaten: October 12th, Switch Playtime: 6h 40m

What I said for The Missing Heir remains true here; it's a fantastic story with really clunky and obtuse "navigation." I had to use hint guides far less frequently, and the general gameplay went by a little bit faster and felt mostly improved over the first game in terms of coherence, but it was still a bit awkward and relied a lot on brute forcing until I picked the dialogue option the game wanted me to use. New to this game is making "bad" choices, but it literally only affects the post-ending scene in a totally inconsequential way. It's still a very frustrating mechanic in a game where it feels like the only logical way to progress is to try every command until something works.

But despite all my gripes, it's a totally worthwhile experience just because it's so well-written and fun to unravel.