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Great game! Just make sure you get the Jake Hunter Detective Story: Memories of the Past version (which is one of the most overlooked games for the DS imo), and not Jake Hunter: Detective Chronicles (which just contains 3 of the 6 cases and has a poor translation).

Here’s my user review for the game:

TimovieMan - 10 December 2012 03:24 PM

Jake Hunter Detective Story: Memories of the Past - 4 / 5

Jake Hunter Detective Story: Memories of the Past is a noir visual novel that has you tackling several cases as Jake Hunter, a gritty, hard-boiled detective who gets by solely on scotch and cigarettes, and who has a good-looking, smart and language-savvy assistant called Yulia Marks.
The pair may not sound like the most original combination, and in fact the entire premise of Jake Hunter is rather cliché (Jake is best friends with a high-ranking police inspector, and also with a high-ranking member of a mobster family, for instance). But despite the been-there-done-that set-up, it all works pretty well as a whole.
There are five cases to be solved, as well as the titular ‘Memories of the Past’ case (that can even serve as a framework for the other cases if you choose to play it that way). All these cases have a large amount of variation in them (murder, missing persons, theft, smuggling, fraud, etc.), and none of them fail to hit the mark.
One case in particular stands out above the rest, namely the fourth case, ‘As Time Goes By’. Coincidentally, this is also the first case where you not only play as Jake Hunter, but also as Yulia Marks. This particular case even manages to pack an emotional punch by its conclusion, which makes me compare it to the best that the Phoenix Wright games had to offer. This case alone is worth the price of the game, imo.
But of course, there’s more to Jake Hunter than just 6 cases that average at two to three hours of game time each. If the rather humourless, gritty and dark approach starts to get you down, you can easily switch to the *other* part of the game: Jake Hunter ‘Unleashed’.
Jake Hunter Unleashed is a series of cases with a distinctively different style: instead of the realistic graphics and the adult take on things, the Unleashed-cases are done in a very cartoony graphical style, and are a LOT more humourous. And in these cases you can actually fail and get a ‘game over’ (which is not possible in the main cases). Naturally, the shorter (30 minutes to an hour on average) Unleashed cases are little more than a fun distraction, but they’re a welcome addition. Some of them (like ‘Picture Perfect’ and ‘The Mysterious Hotel’) even manage to be both clever and fun…
Jake Hunter Detective Story: Memories of the Past may be pretty low on actual gameplay (it’s a visual novel after all) and the translation could have done with a few less spelling mistakes and typos, but the total of six main cases, six ‘Unleashed’ cases, and 20 unlockables (which feature a variety of bonus content like designer/developer comments, concept art, and even some bonus puzzles) make this a pretty meaty game that’ll easily net you over 20 hours of gaming. Not too shabby, if you ask me…

Alex Nevermind - 11 October 2014 09:02 PM

Hey Tin Man, so this game is more a “visual novel” than an actual adventure game with real gameplay for the player ?

Yes. You pick the location you go to and the action you perform out of a list of at most four items, and then you read the results. And you can’t fail, not even in a (gun)fight.
The ‘Unleashed’ cases and the bonus content add a little extra gameplay but not overly so.
But even if you’re not a fan of visual novels, I still recommend it!

BTW is “Memories Of The Past” the one case that got created specifically for the Nintendo DS in mind ?

I can’t say that with certainty. Possibly, but they didn’t alter the gameplay for it. At most it’s a framework for the other cases (there are 5 dossiers in Jake’s office that allow you to play the other cases while you’re in the middle of the Memories of the Past case - it’s not obligatory, mind you, you can just play the other cases from the main menu), with a bit more variation in the point-of-view of the case.

Alex Nevermind - 11 October 2014 09:02 PM

Hey Tin Man, so this game is more a “visual novel” than an actual adventure game with real gameplay for the player ?
BTW is “Memories Of The Past” the one case that got created specifically for the Nintendo DS in mind ?
Cause I remember reading on a review that 5 of the 6 cases were ports from mobile gaming versions and there was only one unique new story, created for the NDS.

This is correct. The first five cases are ports of the mobile phone series, the last case was especially written for the DS version and acts as a framework story (it’s also very short).

The first four cases in turn are remakes of the original Jake Hunter/Jinguuji Saburou games for the Famicom. The first three are fairly liberal remakes (the first case in particular is nothing like the original game). The fourth case (and the third case as it was for the Famicom) was written by Nojima Kazushige, also known for Final Fantasy VII, VIII, X and Kingdom Hearts).

It’s too bad they never released more of the games outside of Japan. The following three DS games are much better and the PSP game was one of the best games on the system IMHO (the 3DS game was horrible though). (And the PSX games were awesome too. I can listen for hours to the Jinguuji soundtracks…

(Also these type of games aren’t visual novels, but command style adventures. They’re actually just a variant of the point and click adventure, but because point & click doesn’t work as good on consoles (without a mouse), they simplified the UI to simple commands. The mobile phone ports in turn simplified the UI even more)

A pretty good game, not Ace Attorney which from your questions might be a better choice.

You do look for clues and evidence and talk to witnesses and suspects.

I myself found this game fun to play and well worth having in my collection.

It has visual novel attributes but does have choices to make that affect the ending of the game.