All the girls are so cute

This game is really just something special, and I absolutely recommend it. This is one that'll stick with for for years to come. While it's a bit unpolished at the moment, with more bug fixing, translation fixes, and content on the way, I'm more than confident that the dev team'll really be able to make it brilliantly shine. I honestly can't recall the last time I was so happy (and relieved!) to see a game getting DLC. The dev team should truly and genuinely feel proud of what they accomplished, and I'm very happy to see them dedicating themselves to adding more, despite being in the utter hell that is the "bug-fixing" trenches at the moment.

I found out about this game after seeing the "meet the cast" trailer as a youtube ad & thought "man, I GENUINELY have no clue what this game is about dude", but for some reason it stuck with me. A few weeks later I stumbled upon it again while looking for games during the steam winter sale, and lo & behold it's a mystery game AND a cozy game; both two genres I've been itching for, and in a combination I've never seen. Sure, sign me up I guess. After watching the trailers, I went in expecting something very lighthearted & cutesy with an alright mystery at best - something silly like a Frog Detective game. Like an "Oh Diana, you found the thief who stole aaaaall the birthday presents because they were sooooo lonely!" sorta deal.

Would you color me quite surprised when I ended up with a mystery on par with that of a Layton game! One that's not just rather well written, but one with a twist that I find to be astoundingly well set up, and even more than that, one that I personally find to be rather emotional. When figured it out about an hour or so before the reveal, I honestly went "Oh my god, it all makes sense now!!! THAT'S why I've been feeling that way!". I believe that after a good plot twist is revealed, it only provides further revelations to events in the plot prior, which this game's twist does. I'm able to reflect back and either see things in a new context, or understand the thieve's movements on a deeper level. While I'm not able to answer everything, I'm able to make solid enough of assumptions to satisfy any questions I find.

I really appreciated that the game was more than willing to delve into actual struggles in its writing. The town has a history, with some of its citizens having gone to war & the town scarred by it. There are events people don't want to talk about, and memories they wish to forget. A handful of characters have some genuine baggage they've been carrying, and this is SUCH a breath of fresh air for a cozy game to me. The last time I found myself so invested into a new game was Undertale after I played it within days of its release.

Not every character is like this, but I believe that only helps accentuate the ones that are. That being said though, I do wish the game was more comfortable exploring these topics. At times I kind of do feel like some conversations are quickly wrapped up or some things left unexplored, and really hope the developers can emphasize the emotional moments with characters like Paun or Adriano. I personally relate heavily to a good lot of Adriano's struggles, but can't muster up much more of a response other than "Yeah me too, brother. Alright, I'm gonna go hang out with Chea now" to the poor guy. With the developers stating they'll be adding more dialogues to the game, I hope some of the heart-to-heart conversations will get some more lines added to them.

With all my praise for the writing, I can't help but bring up my genuinely mixed emotions on game's ending as it is at the moment. It's to the point where I feel that I could go and make a deep dive ramble akin to a SuperEyepatchWolf video. I'm unsure if it's either due to some translation issues, or some lines from a previous iteration of the script bleeding through, but I can't help but see so much more of the sorrow than joy in it. I can very much so see what they were trying to do with it and do appreciate what they were going for, but due to the way a handful of things were written to be wrapped up, I can't help but feel conflicted. I am somebody who can handle my expectations not being met, but it is far beyond that point, so much so where many of messages I took away from game are directly contradicted by it. I truly, truly hope that there are plans for a DLC continuation of the story where things are further resolved. While I'm rather unsatisfied with where it has ended currently, I feel like the developers have set themselves up for a perfect slam dunk ending if they have us return to Borgo Marina and truly end things.

And for as much as I enjoyed the mystery, I truly do hope the mechanics used to interact with said mystery get some more revisions. There are two primary gameplay sections for going about a crime scene - the investigation phase, where you search about locations of interest for clues, and the solving phase where you play out the order of events in the form of cards on a board.

For investigation phases, clues really need to be made more obvious. After spending nearly 20 minutes when investigating the mansion, I literally had to look up a youtube video to find the last clue. Yes, you can use a Joker Card to give a hint or highlight a clue, but it isn't fun to have to have to be hand-held to the solution when playing detective like that.

For solving phases, the first case REALLY needs to be much more heavily tutorialized. I didn't even realize I could move the board until 2 cases later, and It took me until the next case later to realize there's a section of the board for characters not on the board yet but who will appear. Not having an undo function also becomes... unpleasant, to say the least, especially in the later cases. As a programmer, I cannot even begin to imagine how much time and effort it had to take for the devs to go and account for every evidence combination for the cases, ESPECIALLY the latter ones. I could easily see some of those cases taking days of time just testing them alone. I think best solution for implementing one would be to fade to black & revert the board to the card state prior, both making it quick and snappy for the players, and keeping the developers from having to figure out how to reverse the animations on the board.

The later cases also get very long, and the combination number gets REAL high, with only one solution. And it uh, really feels like you're in the dark with some of them, ESPECIALLY when you have to make an assumption at the very start. I got super lucky when solving the Mansion's second mystery, but had no luck at all with the gelato mystery. Like, that one I think genuinely has literally thousands of potential card combinations due to how it's set up, with once again, only one solution - you're getting dangerously close to lottery winning odds to solve that thing without any hints dude. I can see there are development plans to give more Joker Cards, but I personally would much much MUCH more prefer some sort of feedback that "hey, you got this part right!" over me buying a part of the answer from the game - narrowing the possibilties down through playing the game buying over hints would be far more the ideal. Reward me for being a sleuth over me skipping to the back of the book & reading who the culprit is, dangit! I truly do not feel that adding more Joker Cards will solve this issue, and is only putting a bandage on these issues. There is a GENUINELY impressive mechanic here but it needs more work. Adding the undo & rewarding players for correct guesses will really help it shine!

With all of this being said, I really do find this game endearing, and wish the dev team all the best and this game's success. I really think it's going to end up being one of my favorite games I'll play this year, and I'll excitedly be waiting for the DLC.

Even though I'm not usually into mystery adventure games nor have a played a lot of the games it was inspired by such as the Shenmue & Professor Layton series, I was drawn in by it's distinct anthropomorphic animal characters and art style.

The board game-like setup for the investigations was an interesting take, trying to figure out the right order of events even though there were certain cases that had me stumped for a bit, the best advice I can give is pay attention to which order you played your cards during failed attempts, as the correct cards and their correct order are highlighted in green, which makes future attempts much more bearable. Plus the Hint Cards are welcome addition in case you are truly struggling.
Exploring the town of Borgo Marina and doing the side activities (though some activities can have some frustrating moments) is such a chill time!

The characters are very charming and endearing, I especially love the 2D character portraits with how expressive they can be. The story and mysteries were fun to follow and piece together, with my only real complaint regarding the reveal of the identity of the Thief, which felt out of nowhere for me. (I don't know if there's certain dialogue that foreshadowed it I may have overlooked, I'll keep an eye out in a future playthrough)

Though there are some areas that feel half-baked, I did encounter my fair share of awkward glitches in the overworld & certain cutscenes and even some softlocks. One in particular involving being able to do a certain character's friendship quest earlier than intended, thus spoiling an upcoming main plotpoint involving them.

Overall, this was an endearing and laid-back game, Just like Diana did, it was nice stepping out of my usual comfort zone for once.