Chase: Cold Case Investigations – Distant Memories Review

Investigating a suspicious cold case from five years ago sounds like it would make for a thrilling premise. Unfortunately, new visual novel Chase: Cold Case Investigations – Distant Memories does all it can to turn an interesting setting into a brief, yawn-inducing affair.

The game, developed by former Cing developers of Hotel Dusk fame, is led by two detectives; Shounosuke Nanase, a stereotypical crime investigator with a gruff demeanour and a mysterious past; and Koto Amekura, the equally uninspired stereotype of the fresh faced and enthusiastic detective.

After receiving an anonymous call relating to an explosion at a hospital, the two detectives reopen the case in order to find the truth. The explosion was previously declared an accident, but after a thorough investigation of witnesses and old crime scene photos, it becomes apparent that it may have been more deliberate than first thought

The overall plot of Chase is interesting, but the game’s clunky and dull presentation make it difficult to care about any of the characters and what happens to them. Unlike Hotel Dusk, or any of the Ace Attorney games, Chase involves very little player interaction. Occasionally the player will have to pick out of two or three provided answers to respond with during an interrogation in order to progress, or identify a point of interest on a crime scene photo. If the wrong answer is chosen, a penalty will be given. If the player receives enough penalties, a game over will occur. I never came anywhere near a game over, as none of the questions required much, if any, thought in order to choose the correct response. The couple of times where I had to identify clues from a crime scene photo were slightly challenging, but this was only due to the poor clarity of the photos making it difficult to clearly distinguish individual elements of the scene. For a game with “investigations” in the title, there is a severe lack of meaningful player-driven investigating.

An oversight of the developers was the lack of an in-game notepad to write down clues on the touch screen. This would have been helpful to remember which characters were related to each other, along with a number of other details about the case. Other games in the genre such as the Zero Escape series offer this feature, so it is frustrating Chase does not include such a basic convention of the genre.

These grievances would be excusable if the writing was strong enough to carry the game. It was not. The game shoots for a neo-noir theme early on, introducing the premise with painfully basic narration pointing out the obvious. The very opening scene treats the player with the gem of a line “the phone rings” while showing a close-up of a phone ringing accompanied by the sound of, you guessed it, a phone ringing. This style of writing extends to the characters, who spit out an endless amount of clichéd lines and exposition. If you covered up the name of who was speaking at any given point, it would be nigh impossible to figure out which speaker the dialogue belonged to. A game like Steins; Gate, on the other hand, is a great example of lively characters with an immediate sense of individuality. This lack of quality writing and character development in Chase breeds apathy and makes the game a grind to get through.

Just when the plot begins to ramp up, it comes to an abrupt end. To make matters worse, an underdeveloped side-plot rears its head at the eleventh hour, ending the game on an annoying cliffhanger. I have tried to scour the internet for any news whether Chase is intended to be the first in an episodic series, but to no avail. If the game was intended as something of a pilot episode for future entries, this cold case is going to remain frozen solid for many years to come.

Rating: 2/5