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Murders on the Yangtze River (OMEGAMES STUDIO)–My Official Review

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I rolled credits on Murders on the Yangtze River (OMEGAMES STUDIO) after fifteen hours, and it was mostly a fun ride. I talked about the demo in this post, which was the first two chapters of the game. That took roughly three hours–maybe four? The rest of the game is four more chapters, which is six in total. So given how long the game took me to complete, that’s just under four hours per chapter. Let’s remember that I talk at least twice as long as other people do to finish a game, so I think we can safely say that most people can finish it in seven or eight hours.

I mentioned my biggest gripe about the game in the last post I wrote about my perfect detective  game. It’s the super-shitty get through the maze to escape the giant maw of your dead father who is trying to devour you.

In the last chappter of the game, there’s another shitty gameplay section in which I, playing as Afu (Shen Chung-ping’s assistant), have to sneak around the police station at night. At least that one saves after every floor climbed. But my god, it was tedious and really had no need to be in the game.

I think that’s my biggest problem with the game. There are way too many different ways of solving the cases that could just be lumped together. And the logic doesn’t always logic. I’ll get to the latter in a bit, but I’d like to focus on the former for now.

I want to stress that I know this game takes a lot of its inspiration from the Ace Attorney games. It’s very clear that the DNA of this game is that series. I did not like those games when I tried them out for a few reasons. One is the hamminess of the games. Two is because of the ridicilousness of the logic.

In this game, I really think they could have benefited from paring back on the different kinds of deductions. I’ve included a gameplay trailer below to show the different things you can do in the  game. There’s investigating the crime scene (fine), talking to witnesses (fine), looking at the surrounding environments (fine), and then there’s the bunch of things that sound so damn similiar. These aren’t the actual names, but there’s interrogation, debate, finding inconsistencies in evidence, and a bunch of others. I don’t understand why they can’t just lump them together.


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Seeking the perfect detective game, part two

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I have played more of Murders on the Yangtze River (OMEGAMES Studio), and while I still enjoy it muchly, there are more things that are irritating me. Such as the fact that they introduce new mechanics without explaining them. Or give a very brief explanation that doesn’t really tell you what to do. Here’s my post from yesterday. I was planning to talk today about what I do want in a detective game, but we’ll see if I actually get there.

Oh, and when I went to check my achievements in game, all the ones I unlocked playing the demo unlocked for real. Since I was fretting about having to go back and doing them again, I was glad that happened.

Side note: I have a pet peeve with indie games that I fear will never be resolved. I have mentioned it many times, but I want to moan about it again. It’s bad gameplay in a game that isn’t focused on gameplay. Seriously. I would rather have no gameplay than shitty gameplay.

I mention this because there was a truly atrocious bit in Murders on the Yangtze River that had me cursing. Chung-ping is doing some research, and it stretches on for hours. He falls asleep and has a nightmare. I learn a bit more about his childhood (and it’s truly horrific), and then I have to navigate his nightmare. It’s him as a small child running away from the giant face of his father, crying, as his father devours him.

There’s a maze as it were in the library where I am. And as my father is chasing me, I have to navigate around tables, piles of books, etc. It’s up/down arrows or W/S, but there’s a micro-second of delay between input and action. And if you get snagged on an obstacle, you cannot untangle yourself fast enough to get away from the giant face. So, basically, you have to memorize where the obstacles are. This goes on for several rooms with no chance to save anywhere. And there is no skipping it.

It was incredible to me that the reason I might have to stop playing the game was a shitty maze. Honestly, I may knock a whole point off my mental score for the game because of this and other bad mechanics. Fortunately, I managed to memorize the layout (not easy either given how shitty my memory is now), but it left such a sour taste in my mouth.

I want to say that it’s because of my motor skill issues. I’m sure other people did it easily, but I really wish devs would just put in a little skip button. I could not finish Stray (BlueTwelve Studio), a lovely game about a cat, because of the QTEs and bad platforming. I really wish they would have given me the option to skip the QTEs after, say, five tries or allowed me to hold down the button instead of madly tapping it.


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Murders on the Yangtze River (OMEGAMES STUDIO)–A Quick Look

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I am still on my murder mystery game kick. And for whatever reason, I was looking at Steam. Well, no. I know exacttly why. I wanted to look at mystery games precisely because I’m on this kick. I found a game that immediately intrigued me. I think I had heard of it before, but I shrugged it off. It’s Murders on the Yangtze River (OMEGAMES Studio), and it’s an Ace Attorney-like game, but set in China during the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle era (or thereabouts–meaning early twentieth century). The protag is a Chinese lawyer who went to law school in Boston (I think–definitely overseas). There was a demo for it on Steam, so I downloaded it to give it a go.

I thought it was going to be like the first chunk of the first case, but it was much more than that. The premise is that Shen Chung-ping, the aforementioned protagonist, is trying to find out what happened to his brother, who was found dead in his apartment in London (where he’s attending grad school and/or working on an opium cessation drug).

That’s the background for Shen Chung-ping journeying with his apprentice, Afu, to the home of a famous Chinese murder writer–the Chinese equivalent of Sherlock Holmes (who gets liberally mentioned in the demo). Afu is impetuous, but technically/mechanically savvy, and he’s obsessed with food. Shen Chung-ping is more diffident, reserved, and quite the thinker.

I have to say that I’m quite pleased that this was made by an independent Chinese studio. China is starting to become better known for game development, and while I have issues with this politically, I’m glad on a personal level that it’s just not Japan (as far as East Asian developers).

I really dig the aesthetics, too. It’s chibi but not exaggeratedly cute. I like when that the dialogue is in Mandarin, except when Chung-ping is in London–and then he speaks flawless English. A bit too well (he sounds like a native speaker, which he would not as he grew up in China), but I can forgive that.

One thing I appreciate is that the characters are not without flaws. This is a trap devs can fall into sometimes, and I am glad that this studio has sidestepped that. The main character is pretty archetypal of the strong, silent type, but he’s wracked with nightmares, anger, and fear about his family situation. I’ll get to that in a bit.

In the first case, he’s going to meet the famous Chinese mystery writer, Lo Pei, because the latter’s most recent book is identical to how Chung-ping’s brother was found dead. When he arrives, he eats a rice cake Lo Pei offers him and passes out. When he wakes up, Lo Pei is murdererd, and the cop in charge (Officer Ma Ta-wei) is brandishing a sword and shouting at him. Lo Pei’s nephew is also there, sobbing his heart out, as is the judge, Judge Chang.


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