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- Spike Chunsoft
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- Spike Chunsoft
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- Spike Chunsoft
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- Spike Chunsoft
Master Detective Archives: RAIN CODE
Released On: Jun 30, 2023
77
8.3
Where to Buy
Where to Buy
All Platforms
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 66 Critic Reviews
77
64% Positive
42 Reviews
42 Reviews
33% Mixed
22 Reviews
22 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 66 Critic Reviews
77
64% Positive
42 Reviews
42 Reviews
33% Mixed
22 Reviews
22 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
The creative team behind Danganronpa and, now, Rain Code, are a rare group in video games. They know how to entertain – I didn’t even mention the “replacement” for Monokuma in this game, but Shinigami the ghostly reaper is somehow even more brilliant foil and source of sadistic humour than the iconic bear. But under all the hyper-colourful art, the mysteries that would give Sherlock Holmes a run for his money, and the sheer energy and panache of it all, they also offer something intensely thoughtful with a strong and blunt message to share. As much as I loved Danganronpa, by the end of the third in that series I did think they were running out of ideas. As it turns out, all they needed was a new creative playground.
While I encountered few serious technical problems during my playthrough, I did have one instance where I loaded into a cutscene before I was supposed to with Yuma sitting suspended in a void until the game caught up to me. This didn’t impact my experience but seems worth mentioning. After a pre-launch update, I also noticed a few lines of dialogue seemed to be missing audio, although it was a sporadic occurrence. All in all, I greatly enjoyed my time with Master Detective Archives: Rain Code. As mentioned earlier, it feels like a lost relic of the PlayStation Vita in the best possible way. While the egregious fanservice may be a turn-off to some, for Danganronpa veterans and fans of other narrative adventure titles like the Zero Escape series, I highly recommend taking a trip to Kanai Ward. Just be sure to pack a raincoat.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 126 User Ratings
8.3
79% Positive
99 Ratings
99 Ratings
11% Mixed
14 Ratings
14 Ratings
10% Negative
13 Ratings
13 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 126 User Ratings
8.3
79% Positive
99 Ratings
99 Ratings
11% Mixed
14 Ratings
14 Ratings
10% Negative
13 Ratings
13 Ratings
The evolution of visual novels and an excelent one about solve crimes, with the classic art of the danganronpa creators with many twists of fate.
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Nintendo Switch
Amazing mystery visual novel with interesting interactive gameplay. Defenitly an innovation from the prior games from Kodaka, you can really feel the love and passion we missed since the Danganronpa series ended and the Worlds end Club dissaappointed. This truly is a spiritual succesor of the Danganronpa series and without a doubt a must play for every Fan of the Series. This game is also my personal game of the year so far, i love that it takes Inspiration from all danganronpa titles, especially "Danganronpa 2 Another Episode" which is to this day my favourite and in my opinion the most underappreciated title of the series!
All that are pretty good signs for the future of the new IP's from Danganronpa Creators Kodaka and defenitly a right step in the right direction, so I will defenitly Look forward what the future holds for us because I see a lot of Potential in his works.
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Nintendo Switch
Master Detective Archives: Rain Code is a great detective and murder game that strives to take visual novels a little further with mini-games, RPG-like combat, scenario exploration and other mechanics, while exhibiting a superb technical aspect, even with occasional performance problems.
The genre of crime stories visual novels is alive and if you want to deep dive into demanding cases, you have a very good chance here. There is a strong script with excellent characters, tricky murders and strong investigation. The overall Atmosphere, places and music are helping a lot too.
Master Detective Archives: RAIN CODE does a good job of refreshing the mystery solving formula with fun mini-games and an attractive neon city backdrop; that is, if you can sit through hours of banter between the more enjoyable parts.
Truthfully, our stay in Kanai Ward was a lot of fun, and we want to see more of the game's setting in the future. Master Detective Archive: RAIN CODE is a great narrative adventure with some truly satisfying detective work. It mostly comes down to this: approaching RAIN CODE like a visual novel with some unfortunate action elements means it's an enjoyable jaunt, and well-worth a look; expecting more from it beyond its engrossing world, charming mysteries, and charismatic cast, however, might make for a less than stellar stay in Kanai Ward for would-be master detectives.
While it has a vast amount of ideas that work individually, Rain Code rather feels like a missed opportunity that doesn’t quite come together right.
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Nintendo Switch
A few chapters in, I have conflicting options on some of the storyline choices made in this game.
It’s essentially an advanced detective version of Dangan Ronpa. Because of that, I feel like the creators deliberately chose to make it darker and more hopeless than it needed to be, and it falls flat sometimes.
You start the game with amnesia, finding out first that you are a part **** of master detectives, and shortly after that you are a detective in training. A kid. You narrowly dodge being murdered on a train full of master detectives heading out to a secluded city controlled by a corrupt organization. Each master detective has a different supernatural power. Besides you.
Plot twist, you made a contract with a death God because you are largely useless. This contract gives you an adorable little ghost that revels in sarcasm, death, and dark humor. This adorable monster turns into a fan service demon aimed at your average basement dwelling NEET or weeb. Once you gather all of the clues after a murder, she sends you into a mystical labyrinth where you can put together the evidence, Dangan Ronpa style, to overcome the fact that you’re a bad detective. Cue the lazy script writing: when you figure out who the culprit is, they get murdered. Which you’ll need to go up against the corrupt and clownish super villains that aim to choose a person to frame for each crime. They make up their “Peace Keepers” police force.
The obstacles in the labyrinth are quick time decisions like jumping to a right answer block, while the rest crumble, and choosing the right mine cart path. The corrupt peace keepers show up looking like cheesy 70s or 80s rock stars, and you have to dodge their word attacks, and slash conflicting statements with your sword key of truth. Once they are defeated, the culprit shows up in the same style, and must be defeated.
Here’s where one of the problems enters. Finding the truth causes the culprit to be executed, rather than executing villain that’s obstructing justice and framing people. What’s the issue if they’re a murderer? Well, the city is corrupt, and the culprits only turn to murder to eradicate evil or avenge death. In other words, you’re executing people that banded together to take out the murderers, etc. that the law was protecting because of who they are. That’s right, the victims aren’t innocent, and the culprits aren’t the criminals. It adds a depressing layer to each case being solved, as the “Peace Keepers” get away with framing people, and good people are executed. Because you, Yuma, can't solve cases without the aid of a Death God. Aiding you in each chapter is another master detective with powers -called a Forte. Most follow tropes. The teen pervert, the lazy emo, the ditsy airhead, and the lazy boss. Only one, although admittedly money hungry, seems to be an elite detective.
If you push aside the poor writing elements, that the controls sometimes aren’t 100% responsive to dodging, and some clues where the answer could easily be two similar clues, it’s well done and fun to play. Not for kids because of the murder, suicide, and sexual comments.
WilL update once complete.
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Nintendo Switch
Mi è piacuta la storia, Yuma con Shinigami hanno una bella sinergia e il mistero principale della storia scaturisce abbastanza curiosita da voler andare avanti per saperne di più.
Il gameplay è simile a quello di Danganronpa, raccogliere prove, scoprire chi è stato e come ci è riuscito, la differenza principale è che il tutto è ambientato in spazio 3D, cosa che secondo me gli è riuscita abbastanza bene. Il mio problema con tutto questo spazio è che non c'è molto da fare, il gioco ha qualche subquest ma sono particolarmente semplici e in certi momenti tediose.
Un altra cosa per cui esplorare sono ''frammenti'' 5 per **** secondario, alcuni di questi sono missabili con l'unico modo per riprenderli è rifare la storia, sè questo era un modo per rendere il gioco più rigiocabile non mi piace per niente.
Il comparto sono lo trovato un pò sotto tono rispetto ai loro precedenti giochi, avrei preferito qualche traccia in più.
I **** secondari non li ho trovati all'altezza della storia e questo insieme al sonoro è una delle cose che mi rende più triste, potenziale sprecato.
Il gioco ha DLC, avrei preferito che il contenuto fosse stato incluso dato che si concentra propio su di loro.
Il gioco presenta anche sè in piccola parte censura, un pò ipocrita considerando artbook e contenuto del gioco.
Per chi è interessato alle prestazione sta sui 30 frame con qualche calo.
Vale la pena di giocarlo, spero in miglioramenti in un eventuale sequel.
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Nintendo Switch
The writing for this is terrible. I'm a huge fan of danganrompa and bought this game full priced fully expecting some comparably good story. The main plot and side quests just don't hold up with its writing for such a story heavy game. Some of the writing is just laughably bad with the side quests that I wish they just didn't include the side quests if they wernt even going to try. The horrible attempts at story telling really breaks the immersion.
For example on how bad a side quest is: you'll get a side quest from a teacher who claims to be getting stalked, everywhere she goes she sees a shadow following her, she's terrified and needs your help to find out who it is.
You then talk to 4 students that are in the immediate area, with icons above them and takes like 45 seconds to round up the information of some mindless observations by the students. You then tell the teacher that the music teacher is stalking her. Yuma then points to a music teacher behind them, who pops out and days 'oh sorry, your said you liked me' then the teacher apologizes that it was a misunderstanding. They both then metaphorically shrug their shoulders like it was no big deal and quest ends (what happened to being terrified? Why stalking for so long? Is no one going to question anything about this?). It just feels so lazy. There are so many mindless side quests like that. The quests give nothing to the story and feel painfully tacked on in both mechanics (because it's always a 'talk to # of people') and story (because the poor writing is always similar to that example I just gave).
Everytime I see side quests it just feels like a terrible waste of time and pulls me out of the games atmosphere with its bad writing.
The first few chapters are just bad too. I wish that prologue bit was handled better. It felt weird trying to go all out that quickly like that for characters you just met. It's cheap. It feels like no time was spent thinking through some of these story structures for a story driven game.
This is a walking-sim, visual novel with mini games similar to danganrompa.
The story is the main feature and I just had a hard time latching onto the bad writing and poorly developed characters.
In danganrompa you spend so much time with the same characters through out the game and can see them grow and get attached to them the more they flesh out. This game the murderers just feel so empty. Heck the first murder is a good example in the prologue on what it consistently feels like. By the end of that prologue you really know nothing about the murderer or care about them because you just don't spent enough time to attach to them to care or the victims.
Each chapter sorta rinse and repeats the same issue of trying to speed along the victims and murderers characters that ends up making them feel very wooden.
I just don't get it. Did they not playtest this story or did they rely too heavily in the zany stuff with the labrynth to distract with just how bad the writing is?
The co-stars to each chapter really don't help either other then variety to the mechanics. It's such a waste too. For example the co-star detectives are really caged in to just play into a trope like the character that just cares about money, the character who is a creep for girls, the ditzy girl, etc. etc. Their characters just rarely stray from the trope designated for them and really makes everything going on with them so predictable.
Danganrompa did this too with tropes but because you spent so much time with the characters you got to experience character growth and see how they interacted with the world. They felt less caged in to just their trope because of the time they was given to flesh them out. This game just doesn't do that and doesn't leave much room to do that.
Overall, this was a huge disappointment. It taught me to research bad reviews more and not rely on the name of a developer.
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Nintendo Switch
Would have been perfect if the juvenile mini-games are not there. I know, its for the Danganronpa fans and people who follow its creator for a particular "style" but that does not translate into better gameplay. Its just weird that a lot rides on mini-games, in a world where story and presentation is king. Graphics are great in this version though, along with almost fully voiced lines.
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Nintendo Switch
Summary A city of rain is gripped by innumerable unsolved mysteries, under the complete control of a megacorporation. Master Detectives from around the world, each possessing unique powers, must rise to the challenge of uncovering the truth. With Shinigami by his side, Yuma joins the investigation as a trainee of the detective agency. Travel fre...
Rated M
for Mature
Platforms:
- Nintendo Switch
Initial Release Date: Jun 30, 2023
Developer:
- Too Kyo Games
Publisher: Spike Chunsoft
Genres:
