Review: Shinrai: Broken Beyond Despair

Having gotten into the murder mystery visual novel genre through Ace Attorney and later Danganronpa, I found Shinrai: Broken Beyond Despair, an indie visual novel to be a good fit for me.

Incidentally, I've rethought my policy about a spoiler section, and decided to include my thoughts on the game that involve spoilers in a separate post, should I feel the need to do so.

Story

The story is about ten Japanese teenagers, all in ninth grade(the final year of middle school in Japan) who attend a Halloween party together at a mountain resort owned by one of the attendees. During the night, someone ends up dead, and the survivors must determine whether the death was a murder, and if so, who was responsible. As the case grows more complex, they learn that the ten of them are caught in a tangled web of betrayal, unrequited love, grudges and other issues that come to light this evening.

The story is fairly engaging, although it takes a while to get going; the first person dies at the end of the second out of five chapters. That said, the prologue and first two chapters do a good job of establishing the characters(and thankfully, much of the character introduction is contained in optional scenes), so they serve a necessary purpose. Much of what you see in them also takes on a new meaning when you play it a second time, from innocuous remarks to the events that become key to unraveling the mystery.

There's a fair amount of post-game content, especially unlockable scenes that reveal more about certain characters. That said, two characters who appear in the ending and post-game- Kagayaku and Kaleido- are never explained very well, which makes  me wonder if the creators included them to promote another project(this, by the way, is not a spoiler).

Characters

The characters are a relatively diverse lot. They initially seem to be various archetypes, but they often show a surprising amount of depth.

Raiko Shinpuku is the protagonist. While many games like this have a relatively bland protagonist, Raiko is surprisingly complex and has an interesting backstory that is later hinted at. I'd like to see a prequel focusing on her.

Nobara Akadori is Raiko's best friend. While her friendship with Raiko helps the latter open up a little, and gives her an alibi for the time of the murder, she's one of the less interesting characters.

Rie Miyamoto is the host of the party. While she hosted the party as a pretext to get closer to the guy she likes, she's someone who puts her friends first, for better or worse.

Runa Hikari is Rie's best friend. She's highly polite and respectful to others, but is still capable of feeling anger and resentment.

Mika Tamashii is a prankster who wants to scare 108 people before graduating, and is obsessed with scaring Raiko. She's a relatively one-note character for most of the story, but shows a surprising amount of depth in the denouement.

Momoko Mori is a popular musician whom Raiko had barely met as of the party. There's not much that can be said about her without spoiling the plot, but she's significantly more complex than she seems.

Hiro Shiratake is Momoko's boyfriend. He comes off as arrogant and obnoxious at first... and only gets worse with time. A post-game optional scene raises some theories as to why he became this way, but doesn't try to justify his actions. The story set out to make him unlikable, and succeeded.

Kamen Eiga is Momoko's best friend and can't stand Raiko for some reason. The most I can say about her without spoiling the plot is that the game does an excellent job of establishing her as a seemingly unlikable character and gradually building her up to be sympathetic.

Kotoba Gaikoku is a notorious pervert. Unsurprisingly, he's without a doubt the worst character in the cast.

And finally, Taiko Kikai is Kotoba's best friend and the guy Rie wants to win over. He's the most sympathetic male character in the cast(which isn't saying much), but is also reasonably flawed.

Obviously, I can't say who the killer is, or discuss various details that would spoil the plot, but it can be fun to see the characters show more complexity than was apparent at first, with many turning out to be more flawed than they first seemed and others revealing mor esympthetic qualities.

Most of the other characters are minor ones who only appear in the prologue or ending. In particular, Nobara's father Henjin could have almost completely been cut from the plot with little impact on the story save for improving the pacing.

Gameplay

Unlike Danganronpa and Ace Attorney, which give players cases of increasing difficulty and complexity, there's only one case to solve here. Luckily, though, the game eases players into the mystery by giving them a warmup mystery- who caused the power outage- and a rather basic puzzle in which Raiko turns on the breakers again.

Shinrai is rather linear for a visual novel, and there isn't much interactivity. Unlike Ace Attorney and Danganronpa, you don't have a "life bar," but are given a point every time you answer a question correctly on your first try, with your score only revealed in the good ending. You get an achievement for getting the maximum possible score and another for the minimum score. Don't get too complacent, though; making mistakes at critical points will get you one of four bad endings. The key decisions are obvious, but the right choices are less so.

While the game is usually somewhat lenient when it comes to penalizing your mistakes, figuring out the questions can be overly frustrating. Once you are posed a multiple choice question, you are not allowed to save, reread the previous dialogue or examine your evidence, making it harder to carefully come to a decision. Compare Ace Attorney, in which you can access the Court Record when faced with a multiple choice question, and you can view a transcript of previous dialogue in the newer titles.

There's only one real evidence gathering phase, so the investigation plays less of a role than in Ace Attorney or Danganronpa. Instead, you should pay attention to the clues that pop up in text, since even seemingly inconsequential remarks can prove important later on.

Without spoiling too much, one frustrating part about the climax is that the player must immediately decide whether the suspect being accused is guilty, and if the answer is no, immediately name the true culprit. Ace Attorney and Danganronpa ease players into the latter decision, by having them gradually present evidence and uncover mysteries before they make an accusation, especially since the player character may not have enough evidence to do so at first.

The game is relatively short, at about 5-10 hours, but it's worth replaying at least once after you get the good ending, since there are subtle bits of foreshadowing you might miss the first time. Steam achievements and bonus content provide additional incentives to keep playing until you unlock everything, giving you more value for your purchase.

Miscellaneous

The visual novel's graphics are nothing special; it has a vaguely anime-esque art style with a variety of facial expressions for each character, but nothing that other visual novels haven't done before. That said, the character designs are excellent, with the costumes being unique and having small details that become relevant to the story.

The soundtrack s relatively mediocre, even by indie game standards so I don't recommend purchasing the soundtrack DLC.

There's also no voice acting in this game, unlike Danganronpa, but like Ace Attorney(with the exception of "OBJECTION!" voice clips and anime cutscenes). This is standard considering the indie nature of the game, but some games were later able to add voice acting in patches.

As a minor nitpick, people who are familiar with Japanese culture may find it a bit odd that the majority of the cast addresses each other by their first names(often without honorifics), with two notable exceptions- Runa toward everyone else and Kamen toward Raiko(but without spoiling anything, at least one of them transitions to using first names as a plot point). It's reasonable enough that Raiko would have a nickname for her long-time best friend Nobara, and I could see her using first names on her friends Rie and Runa, but it's a bit hard to see her doing the same with most of the other guests, whom she doesn't know and may not like very much. It's a small detail, but it shows that the writers of the visual novel may not be familiar with Japanese culture and etiquette.

Summary

You've probably noticed how often I compare Shinrai to Ace Attorney and Danganronpa, which is inevitable considering that they're all murder mystery visual novels, even if each one has its own twist on the genre. That said, Shinrai holds up surprisingly well considering that it's made by an independent developer and goes for a lower price than the Ace Attorney and Danganronpa games did when they were new. As such, I recommend this game.