Summary
: Welcome to The 25th Ward. This game takes a lot of UI inspiration from Killer7, and it’s honestly kinda annoying compared to how The Silver Case worked.
: This is the first example. Instead of the simple chapter selection menu from The Silver Case, we have the uh.. chapter select triangle that we navigate in 3D.
: Prototype is much, much shorter than Lunatics was. You can finish it in about 15 minutes assuming you’re not speeding up the dialog.
: I blame Kusabi. He clearly didn’t shoot it enough.
: Wait a second, what part of the 24 Wards was a perfect utopia? It was a city ruled by an immortal despot and a guy who spent all day spinning in a chair watching anime titties.
: I wonder if their sentient, bipedal chinchillas are human-sized.
: The location bar from The Silver Case returns, only now it takes up the top-center of the screen and starts out garbled.
: I didn’t capture it, but the name above the portrait that flashes for a second before the text starts showing up reads “Kosaka”. He was in The Silver Case - he was the investigator from Central who shows up in Parade. We heard from him briefly at the end of Danwa.
: Kosaka must have found the store Baofu shops at.
: “There has been a string of suspicious deaths discovered here at Bayside Towerland, the symbol of the 25th Ward. In the four months since the condos were made available for purchase, nine people have died here.”
: I should mention that I found a copy of the script for this game partway through producing this update. This is the first time I’ve ever just been able to copy and paste.
: “All of them have been ruled suicides. We haven’t been able to get any further information. It will be hard to get a foot in the door, even going through the Metropolitan Police Department.”
: “Someone or something has been exerting their power to block these incidents off. But fortunately, we were able to obtain some info through a certain route.”
: The term highlighting is something The Silver Case never did, even in the remake, and I have no idea why.
: “This is where we’ll need you. Infiltrate the scene and find out what’s going on. An investigator from HQ is using another route to get in. Make contact with them.”
: “After that, I’ll submit a formal inquest and get started on the official investigation. I’ll be presiding over and leading the investigation. I’m putting you in charge of the field.”
: There’s a tutorial here I’m going to skip in favor of explaining it myself. The 25th Ward has a different system from The Silver Case, one which I don’t think is necessarily better.
: Our new character uses dice as their interface, because symbolism. The standard controls are a D4. We have Move..
: Look, which is half of the replacement for Contact..
: And Talk, which is the other half of the replacement for Contact. There’s a fourth command we can’t use yet. We have to start by looking at the building.
: Oh, just like that town in New Hampshire that got taken over by bears.
: The success of the 24 Wards accelerated the progress of the 25th Ward proposal. It’s supposed to be some sort of utopian paradise, populated by around 300,000 people. People’s belief in peace is unwavering."
: I’m guessing the shadow government is already cranking out sentient, bipedal bears to take over the entire ward, because that’s how this kind of thing goes.
: Actually, you know what I really want to see now? I want a Silver Case type game where you’re trying to investigate that town in New Hampshire and the twist is that you were playing as Hank the Tank the entire time.
: “This highrise apartment complex is up against the threat of ‘administrative crime’. There have been a number of suicides in which the cause of death is unknown, and they’ve been covered up.”
: “It’s proof that someone powerful is involved, reigning in reporters and keeping the media under their thumb.”
: “This is the sort of case that would absolutely be shut down if standard investigative procedures were followed. We’re going up against a huge opponent.”
: We now need to use the “Talk” option.
: “Register yourself as an administrator, and begin infiltration. We’ve acquired a fake ID for you, so there’s no need to worry about being made. Use it wisely, and sparingly. Consider this your first mission as
a 25th Ward HC Unit Special Investigator.”
: Speaking of ID, I should talk about who our new character is. Our new character’s name is Uehara.. which is kinda weird given that technically, Big Dick is now the real Kamui.
: Here’s our first reference to Killer7. This is the interface for navigating the first-person segments of the game.. and it honestly kinda sucks. While this game does have mouse control, the mouse pointer in these menus is invisible, so you more or less have to use the keyboard.
: “Please produce your ID. I will confirm your identity.”
: Hitting the “Bag” option switches the die over to Uehara’s inventory. I’m surprised we don’t have a copy of Kurayami Dance or a luchador mask.
: “Your identification has been confirmed. Please proceed.”
: A condo complex with a VIP elevator?
: I feel like if you’re ever buying a condo, and the real estate agent says it “features excellent sanitation”, that’s probably a good sign to not buy that condo.
: I’ve never lived in a condo, but I’ve helped sell a fair few of them, and I can tell you it is definitely not better than reality.
: When this pops up, it plays the sound effect that plays in Killer7 when you pick up an item.. even though this screen is a reference to Flower, Sun and Rain.
: This right here? This is how Flower, Sun and Rain works. You put in a number, the game asks if it’s your final answer, and then..
: We’re not even five minutes into the game and we’ve already run into two Killer7 references and an FSR reference.
: We can’t do anything with the two doors, but we should stop and check something while we’re here - namely the ID pass and the ID code we got from Kosaka.
: Given that all the room numbers are five digits, it’s safe to say that the room number we’re looking for is probably 75028. The password is not randomized - I confirmed it with the game script. Let’s keep going down the hallway.
: She looks.. very different than she did in The Silver Case, but this is Sakura Natsume - the only other survivor of the 24th Ward Heinous Crimes Unit apart from Kusabi and Big Dick.
: When she shows up on screen, and for the entire time she’s talking, the game plays the Transmitter theme in the background.
: “I was a bit surprised as that wasn’t what I had heard.”
: Given that we know Sakura is an Ayame maspro, and that this sounds a lot like Chizuru a few seconds before Sakura killed her, this probably is not a good sign.
: “We still need time before we can begin the investigation. Check everything out, and be sure not to leave any evidence.”
: If we talk to Sakura again..
: Hm, I wonder why we’d remind her of Big Dick. I bet Salty Vanilla can help shed some light on this.
: Meet our protagonist, Uehamster. Our conversation around this piece went something like this:
: “You can enter the room with your ID password. It’s Room 75028. Make sure you get the right room. We don’t want to disturb the neighbors.”
: Here is my first mistake. The room we want is actually on the right side, not the left.
: You have to go through a couple of these screens, which probably would’ve taken half the time if we were still using The Silver Case’s movement style. Clearly, Uehamster has not had the same level of tactical training as Big Dick.
: This is the advantage to LPing this game - I had forgotten the password, but all I had to do was go back through my screenshot folder.
: I’m not sure what significance, if any, the number 803026 has.
: My first thought upon seeing this room was “That doesn’t look like blood, it looks like someone jumped on a bottle of ketchup”.
: “The murder occurred in this room. It feels too cold and sterile for someone to live in. Don’t you think? Let’s start investigating. We don’t have much time.”
: I uh.. I think if that was possible, Kusabi would have already done it.
: “Apparently, you can see crime and everyday ‘life’… Michiru sent you into the field believing that this case would help awaken you. But I can’t go back just yet.”
: Well, I guess this explains the end of The Silver Case where they talk about a second Kamui that isn’t Big Dick.
: Oh god dammit no. I already played that! It was dogshit! Baofu was the only character!
: Next time, we’ll see the first Placebo chapter and catch up with Tokio after the events of Flower, Sun and Rain.