Detective Kobayashi is an Ace Attorney-alike visual novel that has you investigating crime scenes, challenging suspects, and solving murders. If you like Ace Attorney, you'll have a good time with this one, though don't come into it expecting an Ace Attorney quantity of gameplay; this is much shorter and simpler, and will take only five hours or so start to finish.
The game takes place in China, and makes no attempt to localise either the setting or the character names, meaning that it can be challenging to keep track of which character is which, and most of the wordplay falls completely flat, since it's given a bare, literal translation rather than localised into something that works properly in English. While this is odd and slightly offputting, it is only a small detail, and doesn't materially impact the game. The meat of the translation is perfectly solid (and pleasingly light on "singular they" garbage), though the choice (in the first two chapters) to have Kobayashi refer to everybody as "dude" whenever he gets excited is a bit odd.
Visually, the game is serviceable though unexceptional; the graphics are clear enough that it's never hard to spot the things you're meant to spot, and the character designs are distinctive enough to make an impression without being as over-the-top weirdo as the later Ace Attorney games. The sound is also unexceptional; it's there, certainly, and not offensive, but not exciting either. There is also voice acting, which can, pleasingly, be turned off without disabling all the sound entirely.
The structure of the cases will be familiar to anybody who's played Ace Attorney. There's been a murder, and you have to go investigate the crime scene and figure out whodunit. Unlike Ace Attorney, there are no courtroom scenes; the game focuses on the investigation, not the legal process. Our hero has a pretty female sidekick, just like in Ace Attorney, and a childhood friend who serves as a foil, just like Ace Attorney, though the difference here is that the Miles Edgeworth and Detective Gumshoe characters are combined into one. This does expose, interestingly, how important it is to keep them separate; it's difficult to take Ryu seriously as a competent professional, much less a rival, when he continues to bumble the investigations in such basic ways.
Chapter Three is the odd man out in this game, as, instead of Ace Attorney-ing, the game suddenly becomes an escape room. I enjoyed it by and large, though there are a few moments that I never would have figured out on my own, and needed a little push. The game provides that, and it's also simple enough to find a guide right here on Steam that steps you through it.
There are only two major flaws with this game. The first is with the game's "complete Kobayashi's thoughts" mechanic, obviously meant to parallel the similar mechanic in later Ace Attorney games. The trouble here is that, instead of presenting the data in an orderly fashion, it quite literally floats onto the screen randomly in bubbles, and you have to grab at bubbles and drag the data into the slots. This means you never get access to all the available data at the same time, and it's very hard to keep your thoughts organised and remember what you've already tried. This problem is compounded by the fact that many of the possible thoughts are extremely similar to one another -- should we choose "secret love" or "unfulfilled love?" Every single time, I found myself getting frustrated with it and having to look up the answer, and, every single time, my reaction was "isn't that the first thing I tried?" Obviously it wasn't, but the interface makes it intensely difficult to keep track.
The other major issue is with the way the game ends. In Ace Attorney, the final case is generally much larger in scope and much more difficult than the rest of the game; here, the final case is short, simple, and unsatisfying, leaving so very many questions entirely unanswered. It also commits the sin of [spoiler]the mastermind being a character we've never met and never even heard of before, and takes it to a whole new level; even Kobayashi himself has no idea who this guy is. The villain also appears to be preternaturally skilled and resourceful, and his master plan -- and his escape plan -- are so convoluted and strange that it strains credibility that he could pull it all off.[/spoiler]
There is a bit of scavenger-hunt replayability in that there are collectable "memories" to find, though one of them (in the final chapter) is bugged and may not register properly. There is also a very odd "easter egg" to be found in the escape room. The cases themselves, of course, remain exactly the same on a second playthrough, and each has only the one solution.
Overall, Detective Kobayashi is worth a few hours of your time if you enjoy mystery visual novels. There's nothing revolutionary here, but it's a charming, enjoyable take on the genre.
