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44 results
Gloomhaven
Gloomhaven is a dungeon-crawling fantasy board game. First released in 2017, it revolutionized the genre and was hailed as one of the best ...
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light is a isometric action-adventure puzzle game. The story involves Lara finding an ancient Mayan artifact...
House of Earth and Blood
The first sentence on the blurb on the back cover of House of Earth and Blood is “Half-Fae, half-human Bryce Quinlan loves her life.” And t...
Turnabout Airport / 逆転空港
In the world of Ace Attorney , it seems impossible to be involved with the law without getting accused of murder once. (Or thrice .) Yet des...
Nobody Can Pass Judgment on Me / 誰も僕を裁けない
I’m fairly certain the title of the book is meant to be a defense against reading erotica in public… Anyway, Nobody Can Pass Judgment on Me...
Cat, the Great Detective / 猫には推理がよく似合う
Cat, the Great Detective is a mystery novel that, you may have guessed from the title and cover, features a cat. Our protagonist is Kaori T...
Stray
Stray got a lot of hype. If you were completely oblivious to internet discourse in the weeks leading up to its release, allow me to provide...
Vaporum
i'm gonna level with ya, the post I wanna post isn't quite ready yet, but I want to preserve the "posted" date I think the way blogger works...
Operencia: The Stolen Sun
Operencia: The Stolen Sun is a first-person grid-based dungeon crawler, which readers of the blog may already know that I love . While Lege...
Murderer vs. Maniac / 殺人犯 対 殺人鬼
While some books take a while to get into the action, Murderer vs. Maniac wastes no time. The opening scene is all about the protagonist ...
Six Pork Cutlets / 六枚のとんかつ
Feeling hungry? Six Pork Cutlets is a baka-mys short story collection that won the third Mephisto prize , so as you could probably expect ...
Those Who Cast a Curse Like the Headless / 首無の如き祟るもの
And so we arrive at the third book in the Genya Toujou series . The previous two books provided a wonderful blend of J-horror, murder myster...
Who Inside / 封印再度
Who Inside is the fifth book in the Saikawa & Moe (or, as I prefer, S&M ) series. It’s ten books total, so we’re halfway through! (…Ignorin...
The Mannequin House Murders / 人形館の殺人
I didn’t like this book at all. I don’t have much more to say about it.
Death Within the Evil Eye / 魔眼の匣の殺人
It’s difficult to succeed genius. Chrono Cross isn’t as good as Chrono Trigger , Bioshock 2 isn’t as good as Bioshock , and National Treas...
Chrono Cross / クロノ・クロス
Chrono Trigger is a stunning masterpiece with beautiful pixel graphics, engaging gameplay, fantastic music, memorable characters, and a well...
The Silver Case / シルバー事件
The Silver Case takes place in 1999 in the (fictional) 24th Ward of Tokyo , where the murderer Kamui Uehara committed the titular Silver Ca...
Overcooked! 2
I’ve taken down zombie hordes with nothing but some guns and parkour , faced down mad gods in decrepit, abandoned space stations , and battl...
Chronos: Before the Ashes
When playing Chronos: Before the Ashes , my initial impression was that it’s basically baby’s first Souls -like , although as I dwelled upon...
The Man Who Died Seven Times / 七回死んだ男
After Evelyn Hardcastle died seven and a half times, dying seven times just doesn’t seem that impressive… The protagonist of The Man Who Di...
The Black Umbrella Mystery / 体育館の殺人
The Black Umbrella Mystery is a story with the soul of Ellery Queen and the body of an anime protagonist. There are a few Japanese…
The Butterfly Murder Case / 蝶々殺人事件
While Kousuke Kindaichi is by far Seishi Yokomizo ’s most famous fictional detective, he is not the only one. Yokomizo also wrote many book...
Snow White / スノーホワイト
Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the cleverest of them all? Snow White is a light, cute and unique book, and now that I’ve read the second…
A Great Detective Never Lies / 名探偵は嘘をつかない
A Great Detective Never Lies is slightly convoluted, so bear with me for a moment.
Jack the Poetical Private / 詩的私的ジャック
Despite its focus on STEM, the S&M series sure seems to have an aversion to formula. While the previous book broke the mold by moving from...
The Seven Great Detectives / 7人の名探偵
Yukito Ayatsuji ’s The Decagon House Murders was published in 1987, and is credited with kick-starting the shin-honkaku (new orthodox) mov...
Legend of Grimrock II
Legend of Grimrock II is a masterpiece. Go give the developers your money.
Observation
I’m going to just come right out and say it: I didn’t like Observation much. It’s a sci-fi mystery thriller game with a rote linear plot an...
Rainbow Toothbrushes: Refractions of Lychee Kamiki / 虹の歯ブラシ 上木らいち発散
Returning from The ???????? Murder Case , Rainbow Toothbrushes features high-school prostitute Lychee Kamiki as she screws and deduces her...
Murder in the Hall of the Eye: The Book / 眼球堂の殺人 ~The Book~
Eye see you, heheheh… The best way I can describe Murder in the Hall of the Eye is “discount Hiroshi Mori .” Which on one hand…
The Postscript Murders
I had a snarky zinger to open this review, but it leans a bit heavily into spoilers and, no matter how worthless I think a book is (spoilers...
Mathematical Goodbye / 笑わない数学者
Mathematical Goodbye is a strange book. It’s different from the previous books in the S&M series (standing for the protagonists’ names, Sa...
Wings in the Dark: Mercator Ayu - The Last Incident / 翼ある闇 メルカトル鮎最後の事件
Wings in the Dark is phenomenal. But before I gush about it, I must proceed with the airing of grievances. Why does it have to have “Mercat...
Mystery Arena / ミステリー・アリーナ
Detective fiction is a huge genre in Japan. This probably isn’t that surprising, considering the consistent stream of Japanese mystery novel...
One of Us is Lying
A jock, a princess, a delinquent, and a nerd. One of Us is Lying is a young adult novel about four teens with totally separate social lives...
Those Who are Shunned Like a Bird of Ill Omen / 凶鳥の如き忌むもの
Shinzou Mitsuda is a menace. Do not let this man write novels!
The Labyrinth House Murders / 迷路館の殺人
The shin-honkaku movement has always been a bit meta. It’s right there in the name: it means “new orthodox,” as it’s a revival of the origi...
Call of Cthulhu
1920s New England. A hardboiled private investigator from Boston travels to a small town off the coast of Massachusetts to investigate myste...
The Sinking City
1920s New England. A hardboiled private investigator from Boston travels to a small town off the coast of Massachusetts to investigate myste...
Double-Headed Devil / 双頭の悪魔
They say two heads are better than one, but I suppose it depends on whose heads we’re talking about… Maria Arima, having witnessed the bruta...
Hellpoint
At its most basic level, Hellpoint can be summed up with four words: Dark Souls … in space! Obviously that’s reductionist, but that’s what ...
I’m Thinking of Ending Things
This review frustrates me. Normally I strive to avoid any lies in a review. Half-truths, omitted information, and misleading statements are ...
A Detective's Novel
A Detective’s Novel is a detective visual novel that costs $1. If nothing else, the developers understood the value of their product.
Decapitation - Kubikiri Cycle: The Blue Savant and the Nonsense User / クビキリサイクル 青色サヴァンと戯言遣い
Nisio Isin has written a lot of books. Like, a lot of books. But the first book he wrote (or at least published) was Kubikiri Cycle . I’ve…
Ace Attorney, Death Note, Kubikiri Cycle: The Blue Savant and the Nonsense User, Phoenix