Demo unpacked from Suda51’s The Silver Case HD remaster

Written by Jack Allin — August 10, 2016 at 12:16

While Goichi Suda (or "Suda51") may not be a household name in the West, he's a big deal in the Japanese videogame industry, with such acclaimed titles as killer7 and No More Heroes to his credit, as well as the adventure Flower, Sun and Rain. One game that never received release outside of Japan was 1999's The Silver Case, but that will change this fall when the game gets its long overdue localization in an HD remaster.

The Silver Case is set in the contemporary 24 Wards of Japan, where a series of unexplained murders leads detectives in the Heinous Crimes Unit to believe that the legendary serial killer Kamui Uehara has returned. Twenty years earlier, Kamui was responsible for the the assassination of many government officials in what became known as the titular "Silver Case" before being shot dead. Or was he? The current pattern suggests he's back after all this time, but is he really the one behind the new mysterious killings? As a member of the Special Forces Unit, it'll be your task to answer this question and catch the killer before even more victims lose their lives.

Like many familiar Japanese titles that followed it, The Silver Case is a blend of visual novel and point-and-click adventure. Played from a first-person perspective, you will work your way through a text-heavy story and solve puzzles along the way in order to gradually reveal the truth. The modernized update promises to be "fully remastered, while retaining the same atmosphere of the original." Enhancements will include various graphical updates and increased resolution, as well as interface modifications designed to be more "user-friendly for modern gamers."

While the finished version of the game won't be available for PC until some time this autumn, a playable demo is already available at Steam and Playism. This sampler drops players into the start of a chapter called "Decoyman". (Note that no saved game is available in the demo.)