Greetings Backloggers! What’s your gaming”comfort food”? When things get weird in life, in the world, or in general, what’s your gaming answer? For me it’s driving games. Nothing like focusing your world down to extracting a few tenths of a second more from your Ring time in Forza, or rumbling around Europe building your virtual trucking empire in Euro Truck Sim 2. I’ve been spending a lot of time in those worlds lately.
Fortunately I still have plenty of short games in the backlog to finish as well. This week’s choice was Jisei, the first visual novel in a series of interactive mystery VNs by sakevisual. Clocking in at under three hours, and with full voice acting for every character save the nameless protagonist, Jisei made for a nice, quick play through.
From the left: Cherry the barista, Police Detective Gurski, and Kizaki
The game concerns itself with a murder in a coffee shop. The protagonist is never named in the game itself, but the game itself is named for him. Our hero has the supernatural ability to experience the final moments of a recently deceased person if he touches the body. From this information, and various interviews with the possible suspects, the player must ultimately solve the murder. Poor choices can lead to the murderer escaping, or Jisei himself being led off in handcuffs.
As a VN, the technical requirements are minimal, making this a solid laptop gaming choice. The voice acting is competent, and the text is free from the types of grammar and punctuation errors that plague far too many VNs. Most importantly, the story is well written.
Third suspect, Miss Bergstrom.
This game has been sitting in my backlog since receiving it in a Groupee’s bundle in August 2013. So far I’ve played through 3/7ths of that bundle. But it was such a great deal at the time! Basically cheap game bundles have turned us all into digital hoarders.
Backlog Verdict: Worth Playing!
Previous Backlog Count: 1,116
Current Backlog Count: 1,115
Next Time: It’s time to go racing with a freebie from SimBin and Gamersgate!
