Famicom Detective Club series discovered in English on Switch

Written by Jack Allin — May 23, 2021 at 10:07

Capcom's Ace Attorney may have popularized visual novel-styled Japanese mysteries in the West, but the stars of the Famicom Detective Club series were solving crimes long before Phoenix Wright came along. Now English gamers can find out what they've been missing for over thirty years with the updated, localized releases of The Missing Heir and The Girl Who Stands Behind on Switch. 

In The Missing Heir, first released in 1988, players control a young man who works as a Detective Assistant at the Utsugi Detective Agency. At least, so everyone tells you, as you awaken with amnesia when "a man named Amachi discovers your unconscious body on a cliff in the Japanese countryside." Though you're unable to remember, you're informed that you were in the middle of a homicide case involving the wealthy Ayashiro family. Now, together with an eager high school student named Ayumi Tachibana, you must continue your investigation to "uncover the truth of your missing memories and a complex murder case in a haunted village."

The Girl Who Stands Behind, though originally released a year later, is a prequel that begins with you "searching for your missing parents" before being "recruited by a private detective named Shunsuke Utsugi and tasked with investigating a mysterious rumor surrounding the death of Yoko, a high school student." The victim was "investigating a ghost story of a bloody girl who haunts the school and appears behind students," and it's up to you and Yoko's best friend Ayumi  to "deconstruct this grisly rumor at Ushimitsu High School and free these students from their nightmare." 

Both games are presented in an anime-inspired art style, and the "graphics, music, and sound effects" have been upgraded for the new releases, along with brand new voice-overs in Japanese (English subtitles only). The formula is much the same in each title, so you will hunt for clues by sweeping interactive environments with your magnifying glass for hotspots, and interrogate suspects by "selecting the right question from a series of options." New information will yield new leads, new locations, and new people to question as you continue to press forward in your respective investigations.

You can download both The Missing Heir and The Girl Who Stands Behind individually from the Nintendo eShop, or purchase both together in a Two-Case Collection at a discounted price.