Summary
: There’s a monologue right at the start of this, and I’m going to use the character’s portrait for it even though it doesn’t show up in-game.
: “It’s lonely all alone.”
: “Where’d you go? There’s nobody here.”
: “Where’d you go? Do you hate me?”
: “Where’d you go? I can’t do it alone.”
: “Where’d you go? I’ll protect you.”
: “Where’d you go? Where are you?”
: “Where’d you go? Is it that good?”
: “Where’d you go? Aren’t you lonely?”
: “Hikaru is so kind. But he’s too kind… he has no sense of presence. But I really like Hikaru, and I really have a sense of presence.”
: “But just disappearing like that… Hikaru really did it this time. Maybe… he’s trying to surprise me and is hiding somewhere. The old lady won’t tell me anything.”
: “Hikaru must really mean it this time. —Not really. Maybe the kids in class have Hikaru all locked up somewhere. That would be bad. I have to help him… things have gotten pretty bad now.”
: Maybe Hikaru is locked in a shrine that is currently being lit on fire. Anyway, you’ll recall that I said that Decoyman was pretty much the last time we’d hear of Kamui until the end of the game.
: The way I understand it is that Suda had a bunch of ideas for VNs around this time, and just kinda went with whatever.
: “He doesn’t look it, but he’s really cheerful. I’ve seen Hikaru laugh lots of times… I know Hikaru’s true personality. He laughs a lot and sounds like a frog.”
: The first thing I thought of when I read this was the “Frog Kid” episode of Always Sunny. It’s too bad that show sucks now.
: “He really says ‘ribbit’. He really does… and so — to play with Hikaru again I have to help him.”
: You probably recognize this building coming from Yume - this is in fact the “Typhoon” apartment complex that Tokio lives in, and is the setting for the majority of Spectrum.
: “I went ahead and set up the Save Hikaru Special Headquarters at that base. The base is somewhere in these apartments, but it’s a secret.”
: “The base is only for Hikaru and me, as we promised each other… lots of people live here, and there are lots of grownups I don’t know.”
: “But we can’t tell the difference between grownups. We don’t really care about those grownups. But we like some of them.”
: While doing this update, I did my weekly “Does YIIK 1.5 have an announced release date yet” check. They put up a screenshot of Michael reading a book about sending dick pics to Satan.
: “He looks scary, but he says ‘that’s dangerous.’ and worries about us. ‘Quit playing games and go play outside.’ — he says that a lot. Then there’s…”
: “I don’t know anyone else; they all look the same. —One more time, I’ll try remembering Hikaru. Where did he play? Where could he be? Where is he hiding? Hikaru…”
: There’s a bunch of stock footage of various places in Japan playing behind the portrait, which is kind of par for the course for the PS1 era.
: “Mr. Muneo says to think of them as ‘pumpkins’, but… to me they all look like really scary monsters. When you move to a new town, with all the strange monsters, it’s sort of exciting.”
: “But — everyone is mean to outsiders so it’s really scary. Hikaru looked like that, too. I really understand.”
: There’s a stock footage video of two kids running up the steps to the shrine, and it plays for a good ten or fifteen seconds.
: “Our territory… I told him that the fifth grade kids hang out on 4th Street so he shouldn’t go there alone. I showed him the shortcut home, too.”
: “After school, we play together at the shrine and the park, and sometimes we find empty lots. Usually they soon turn into apartment buildings, but they’re open for about a month.”
: It’s funny because in Connecticut the opposite is true - we have a bunch of empty buildings that eventually get bulldozed into empty lots after people get sick of looking at them.
: “We play board games at Shigenori’s house… and we play video games at Minoru’s house… I don’t really like him, but he has video games so I put up with him..”
: Oh man, I remember that kid. His name was Brian and he had a PS1 and an N64 and parents who would buy him just about anything for them. Kid was a dick.
: "I don’t go to Kojima and Nakao’s houses. Because they’re mean— "
: I don’t think I’d go to Hideo Kojima’s house. I feel like he probably has a plot room for whatever his next game post-Death Stranding is and it works like Cthulhu where if you look at it you go insane.
: “Karasawa is a good guy, and he’s rich, and we can eat lots of yummy snacks at his house. Kunihiko’s house is fun, too. Kunihiko is good at drawing, and he draws really cool giant robots.”
: “What?”
: “Ayame.”
: " ‘Ayame’? The fuck is that?"
: “The ‘Kamui Case’ perp…”
: “Are you shitting me? You falling in love with a serial killer? What are you, fuckin’ stupid?!”
: “Well, yeah, but… but she’s hot, right?”
: I think it’s safe to say that yes, Sumio is an idiot.
: “Dumbass. You’re a real idiot… she destroyed Special Forces and murdered those three broads. That’s not the kind of broad a pussy like you should be fucking with.”
: “Fuck off, old man! She’s really not so bad… stop trying to break down a person’s love like that…”
: “Forget about her…”
: “I can’t… I’ll wait. For her… however many years it takes, I’ll wait for her so we can start our second life.”
: Second Life released in 2003, so Sumio’s still got four years to go.
: “Do whatever, then… what a bunch of bullshit. Fuckin’ kids.”
: Ok, grandpa.
: “Whatever, Tetsu. I know I felt something…”
: “And you call yourself a fuckin’ detective. Listen, don’t you ever say shit like this to anyone else…”
: “—Of course. I can’t talk about this with anyone else.”
: “What a fuckin’ honor.”
: “I wanna see her…”
: “Christ… just go for Hachisuka or someone instead… you two’d look good together.”
: “No way. That’d never work.”
: Something tells me Chizuru has better taste than to date Sumio.
: “Well, whatever..”
: “Come on. It’s not that simple.”
: “I can’t. We’re on a stakeout.”
: “What…?”
: “What about Morikawa? Aren’t you two partners? Go handle it as a team.”
: “He’s not here. I can’t get hold of him.”
: “Same as usual then, huh?”
: If there’s one thing we’ll learn in this part of the game, it’s that it is a miracle Morikawa has a job.
: “OK, fine. I’ll go by myself…”
: “No. Don’t move alone.”
: “He’s right. Don’t do anything rash.”
: “What else am I supposed to do? There’s nobody else…”
: “I’ve seen plenty die thanks to that kind of carelessness. I mean, do whatever you want, but…”
: “You’re exaggerating…”
: I’m sure the chinchilla can handle it.
: “It’s better than nothing, right…?”
: “That would be better. Live in the now.”
: “I don’t really get it, but… whatever. Can you get hold of him?”
: “You can get him online. Search for ‘part-time’, he’s registered.”
: Really? I mean, I just looked and all it shows me is a list of job openings.
: “His home address should be listed there, too.”
: “OK, I’ll do that.”
: “You OK?”
: “I’m OK, thanks.”
: “You’d better hurry.”
: She really should. I imagine that a talking, crime-solving chinchilla is probably in really high demand.
: “Got it.”
: “What was that? She seemed weird just now..”
: I mean, you just told her to call the talking chinchilla detective instead of either going over there or trying to find out where Morikawa was…
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: We can examine the TV for the same ghost thing we got last time, and then…
: If what Tokio said at the end of Yume is anything to go by, this is the same person who hacked into his chat with Erika.. and is probably the same person who sent us that message in Decoyman.
: As soon as we finish reading the email, the doorbell rings.
: Chizuru is just off to the right once you walk out of the apartment. It’s amazing that she can fit in this presumably chinchilla-size building.
: “Put frankly, I want your help with an investigation. Technically… I just want you to come down to the site. How about it…?”
: This scene would’ve worked way better on film, because you’d have Chizuru awkwardly approaching this guy who doesn’t talk or do much of anything except wander around and see ghosts.
: Anyway, we can talk to her again for a few more lines of dialog.
: “It’s in District D4. A body was found in an apartment complex. Sumio and Tetsu are on a stakeout and can’t come out.”
: “It just looks like a regular apartment building, but… these apartment complexes look nice, but — something about them is creepy. Let’s start the investigation.”
: “Don’t waste any time. Let’s hurry.”
: “How did it it go?”
: “Isn’t this your guys’ job?”
: I don’t think I mentioned it when we met this guy in Decoyman, but his name is Riley Kawabata.
: “We got the request… all the detectives are out on bigger jobs.”
: “I see… well, sometimes it’s nice to do more low-key work like this.”
: “So what’s the situation? What was the cause of death?”
: If this was being written today I swear there would be a scene where Kusabi somehow calls in and goes “I BET KAMUI DID THIS!”
: “Look, up there…”
: “Suicide?”
: “I wonder… we can’t be sure, but if there was a motive…”
: “From up above…”
: “Cervical fractures, complex fractures all over the body, and bruising. They’d have died instantly. The ground is dirt, so the cranium is intact, but… the way the bones broke… damn..”
: “Any leads on a possible murder? Any signs of a struggle?”
: I’m imagining this case except Kusabi and Sumio respond. Kusabi sees the body and immediately calls for an exorcism to remove the crime ghosts. Then they go get drunk.
: “Nothing in particular… not at this point. We’re waiting on the autopsy.”
: “I see…”
: "Hey Chizuru, what’s up with Morikawa?
: “Skipping work.”
: “Yeah… if you see him, tell him to show up once in a while.”
: “Mahjong?”
: “Yeah, he hasn’t been coming around. He used to like it more than work. But now… since he has a hot partner, apparently he’s really into his job now.”
: “Kawabata, that’s…”
: “Well, the rest is your job. The investigation depends on whether or not we find a proper motive.”
: “Got it…”
: “I’ll contact you once we get the results. A rookie…?”
: Who’s this guy calling a rookie? Big Dick is a highly experienced chinchilla detective.
: “Basically.”
: “I see… well, good luck, then. You too, rookie.”
: “Thanks.”
: The dialog here is a bit more complex than in Decoyman, in that we have to check every screen and talk to some people multiple times.
: “Did you see anyone at that time?”
: This guy’s name is Mizoguchi - he’s the superintendent for Typhoon.
: “After that, did you see anyone suspicious?”
: “I pretty much know everyone, so nobody suspicious…”
: “OK… thank you for your cooperation.”
: “No problem.”
: Now what we have to do is turn around to face the door we came into the parking area from.
: “I came as fast as I could… ‘Timrod’, right? Are you taking over for me? Chizuru basically pulled you out and forced you out here, yeah?”
: “I guess women like the younger ones, huh? That broad’s a real piece of work… kidding, just kidding.”
: “It’s OK. You don’t have to go along with his sexual harrassment.. just ignore it.”
: Why does Chizuru even work for the HCU? I seriously don’t get it.
: “You worried about me?”
: “Should I be…? Doing some sort of underground job, I assume?”
: “Not even… working part-time at a convenience store.”
: “Whatever you say… just get on with the investigation.”
: “I know, I know. Where’s the body?”
: “They just took it.”
: “What’s the word?”
: “It’s looking like a suicide. We can’t be sure till we get the autopsy results…”
: “So we need to finish checking the area then… what floor did he live on?”
: “Which room?”
: “We haven’t gone in yet.”
: “Get the key from the manager. We need to check it out right away.”
: “Don’t we need permission?”
: You’re a government hit squad, so I assume no.
: “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”
: “Got it…”
: This part is the only part of the game so far that I think has some design issues. It seems like we’re supposed to talk to Mizoguchi for the key, right?
: “I cleaned up the front and went out to the back garden. I was shocked… I mean… even at my age, I had never seen a dead body before. I didn’t know who it was at first.”
: “Even after calling it in, I was scared… I couldn’t go near the body, but I had seen those clothes before. Of course I realized right away that he was dead.”
: “His face was purple and blackened, so… I didn’t think it was Hiruma from the third floor… he was a good, studious kid. He always greeted me politely. I still can’t believe it…”
: That’s all the dialog he has. Let’s try walking out back to the front of the building, maybe we missed something, or we can go to the front desk and get a key that way.
: I didn’t have a guide open, but I figured this was one of those moments like in Snatcher or Policenauts where you have to ask everyone about everything and tried talking to Kawabata again.
: “Or is it just me…? Well, try your best. The HC Unit is full of weirdos. That one chick looks cute, but she does some messed up shit. I, myself, have dealt with some really fucked up autopsies.”
: “Because those guys don’t know when to stop… if you ever have any problems, come talk to me.”
: At this point, I knew I was missing something, and started looking up and down to see if I could find it. What you’re supposed to do is see that dialog box right after the conversation with Chizuru and Morikawa and see that it’s on the top of the screen. Then you look up.
: “That’s the fourth floor. Hurry to the fourth floor!”
: We can now go back to the front of the building and take a left to go up the stairs.
: You actually have to go up all four flights of stairs. There is a missable achievement (if you’re into that) for checking every door in the apartment building, but we can get that later.
: This is Suda’s love of film showing. In case you haven’t seen it, Gattaca was a 1997 film about a world with two classes of people, one of which is genetically engineered to be ‘perfect’ at birth.
: “Help Hikaru… please help Hikaru.”
: Anyway, I’m going to cut this here, because next time we have a couple of long segments.. including a thing I’ve only seen in games developed between 1999 and 2003 or so.