A game from the creators of Danganronpa, Rain Code is the first mystery novel style game I’ve delved into in a very long time. It did not disappoint in the slightest!
Be aware that this quick review may contain some possible spoilers, but I will minimize it as much as possible.
Master Detective Archives: RAIN CODE
This is actually the first Danganronpa style game I’ve jumped into, as I’ve never actually played any game from the series. It plays and is designed almost exactly like a Danganronpa game which I enjoyed, but your mileage may vary.
Story
The story is by far the strongest point of the game and what carries the game the hardest (which you should expect since its primarily a visual novel really). If you have ever seen or played Danganronpa, then you already know exactly what it is you’re getting: a strong, convoluted story that somehow makes sense in the end. The story is not related to that other universe at all and is entirely self contained, so don’t bring any expectations from Danganronpa in here.
The cases you encounter in the game are not crazy difficult by any means, and the game helps you out a lot, so there’s no need to feel intimidated if you’ve never played anything like this. You can make the game as easy or as difficult as you want, so its an ideal entry into this genre. While the ending in my personal opinion felt like a bullshit cop-out, the story development, the character’s unique personalities and abilities, and the fabulous music make for a fantastic game experience.
Gameplay
As I mentioned before, the cases are not crazy difficult and strike a good balance of challenge and enjoyment. The game is divided in three main portions: the story, the investigation, and the minigame solving portion. The difficulty is not standard like you’d expect in another game and is actually customizable to a very granular level in the form of the skill tree; you can invest in more skills to make specific portions much easier, or simply ignore skills in the tree to make the game more difficult for yourself.
The game does throw a lot of minigames and concepts at you which may also seem intimidating, but it does ease you smoothly enough into it and is extremely forgiving to mistakes. You have to be trying really, really hard to fuck it up.
Your partner in the game, Shinigami, is also a popular character of dispute; you’re either going to either love her or hate her throughout the game. I think she is a fantastic character with plenty of personality and carries hard, but that’s just me. She provides an immense level of support in the game, and without her bubbly personality it would be a whole lot more dull. Her voice actor definitely deserves a ton of respect for her accurate portrayal of the character!
Graphics and Performance
The graphics in this game are actually quite fitting thematically, especially considering the games dark and moody environment and the fact that its running on the potato known as the Nintendo Switch. The Switch does a fine job of rendering the game’s environment, so I really have no problems here.
Unfortunately, the problems start popping up when it involves the game’s performance. To put it mildly, the performance is absolutely dogshit. I find myself waiting for a loading screen longer than the actual gameplay, to the point where I tried to optimize my routes when completing quests to minimize loading between zones as much as possible. The FPS also leaves a lot to be desired; it felt like I was playing at a constant 15 -20 FPS, just barely enough to call it passable. What a great loading simulator!
Fortunately, nothing in the game moves fast enough where the low FPS would matter, and the story does a massive amount of heavy lifting. I wouldn’t really worry about it. If this game ever gets ported to another system though, it would be a massive improvement on the performance alone.
DLC
The DLC sunk me an additional $16, but it was definitely not worth what I paid for. It was entertaining and it fleshes out the individual characters and provides additional context a bit more, but don’t expect any of the case solving gameplay that you get in the main game. It’s more just a chill visual novel story for each of the characters.
Just do yourself the favor though and watch it on YouTube or something, and save yourself the 16 bucks.
Conclusion
Overall, RAIN CODE is a great entry into the genre, especially if you felt intimidated by Danganronpa before. The solid story will keep you hooked the entire time, but don’t go around expecting extremely complex cases. If you have played Danganronpa before, then you know exactly what you’re getting into because it plays in the same style. Although it has some terrible performance issues and an overpriced DLC, I think overall you will have a great time with this game. Buy it on sale if you can (if it ever does), and you definitely won’t regret it. Just make sure to look past the cop-out ending…
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