GENBA no Kizuna

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GENBA no Kizuna presents a compelling Mesozoic mystery, especially during the ferocious finale to its Triassic trial, but much of the game outside of that finale is muddled with Cretaceous character drama that the Jurassic jubilation of its final act does not make up for. The story follows rookie cop Keiichi Genba as his supervisor assigns him officer-in-charge (OIC) of the investigation into a mysterious death at the home of indie film studio Raptor Pack Productions (RPP). Apparently, a random visitor who had come to view RPP's collection of dinosaur memorabilia fell into their centrally displayed T-Rex animatronic and was crushed in its metal jaws. From there, it's up to OIC Keiichi to lead crime scene investigator Rei, officer Himatsu, and medical examiner Shinketsu as they investigate the timeline of events that led to the visitor-turned-T-Rex-food's untimely demise. For the first half of the story, given that Dr. Shinketsu is the only official on scene with significant experience, Himatsu struggles to manage the members of RPP, Rei struggles to work up the courage to investigate her first real crime scene, and Keiichi struggles to keep the members of his team on task and acting professionally. And, to me, it felt like GENBA no Kizuna spent far too much time on this aspect of its story, only for it to not really matter in the end. During the third of five "Phases," the investigation team does stumble when interrogating RPP and makes a poor showing in front of their supervisor, and this seemingly is supposed to demonstrate that they will fail to solve the case unless Keiichi truly acts as a leader and coordinates them to work as a team. But afterwards, the team continues their investigation and discovers significantly more evidence. And in the final interrogation, much of that evidence is necessary to identify the mechanism of the victim's death and the true culprit. So it seems like, even if the team had been composed during their first interrogation of RPP, they still would have had to go back to investigate further. At the end of the day, their initial lack of cohesion is of no consequence. There's also the case of an unnecessarily lengthy exposition dump when Dr. Shinketsu is searching a medical database for anyone involved in the case. He suddenly uncovers [spoiler]a key figure in the victim's life[/spoiler], and this character gets a long-winded exploration of their tragic backstory. The specific details of their past, which receive far too much attention, aren't ultimately important to the investigation; the broad strokes would have been sufficient. Admittedly, this review has been fairly negative to this point, and while I did have major issues with GENBA no Kizuna, it's also important to note its positives. I enjoyed the game's investigation and confrontation segments, both of which were clearly inspired by Ace Attorney. As I mentioned before, the final confrontation was the highlight of the VN: it was satisfying to play through, and I was pleasantly surprised by some clever details regarding the victim's death that I realized only as they were revealed. Overall though, I disliked when I was pulled out of fun investigation segments with prattling dialogues about various characters' hang-ups. (At least, I can respect that the specific details of the main casts' backstories were reserved for bonus scenes.) I also think the character writing was handled better in this developer's previous VN, SHINRAI, primarily due to its shorter length (about half as long as this game, for me). It feels like a lot of the length that GENBA no Kizuna gained compared to SHINRAI was due to overlong explorations of every minute detail regarding its characters, whereas the latter let some things go unsaid. Ultimately, while the mystery aspects of this VN were well-done, I can't say it was worth slogging through the protracted character drama to get to it. 5/10

Pretty good Ace Attorney-like game. Even if it's just one mystery to solve it's still meaty enough to keep you satisfied.

My favorite visual novel of all time (and not just bc of Shinketsu Kikai I promise)

Bit longer than its predecessor (not sure by how much since I had to take breaks during game due to irl reasons and left it on for while, but I'd say by hour or two still) and its been ages since I played Shinrai but I do feel like the writing has further improved with experience. Characters feel less archetypical than in Shinrai from what I remember, but still has same charm and its neat short mystery story. Plus I liked character dynamics, I want to ship them :p

This was a great game! I can't wait to see what comes next. Would really love another game starring Genba and the crew. I did enjoy Shinrai, but after a few initial hurdles, this clicked with me in a big way. The murder mystery in this one is paced a little better than Shinrai's I think. It gives you clues a bit more readily, and spaces out actual time for deduction rather than backloading it. Great job, can't wait for more!