London Detective Mysteria

One of the worst Otomes that I have ever played, I love the art and the music, but plot wise it's awful. It took me forever to finish this one

I have been playing this game for 68 hours and even though I like it I will stop playing for now because IT JUST DOESN'T END! I haven't even started two of the routes and have only read one epilogue but wow, I am tired. This game feels very nostalgic to me. It has a late 2000's-early 2010's anime revolving around high school friends kind of feel to it with Black Butler aesthetic. I really like the friendship dynamics, the main cast has a genuine friend group feel. Also, you know how sometimes every boy who sees the protagonist falls for her? We don't have that here. They definitely care about her as a friend, but if you aren't playing their route, they mind their own business. There are heavy topics, but the relationships between the characters are very light-hearted so it balances it out. Do not expect anything hot&heavy, at least the routes I've played (Herlock, Jack and Akechi) all ended very teen-love like and chaste. It was cute. If you have lots of time and patience, and like high-school friendship with a dash of romance type animes, go for it.

你移植pc总要搞个高清版吧，胡不拉几的没点诚意

Could change my vote after completing the game but at the moment, I can't say I'm enjoying the ride. It's incredibly boring sometimes, so much I almost stop playing halfway. Especillay the main route (which alone takes around 6 or 7 hours I think), Watson and Holmes. I couldn't even complete Holmes's route until the end, I still need to do it. For Watson, I mostly stopped reading at the end, just clicked fast to be done with it and read a bit if it seemed interesting enough. [spoiler]And seriously ? The trope of the childhood friend ? Gosh... How I dislike that.[/spoiler] The only route I managed to finish and read entirely everything was Jack. After all, if I forced myself to complete Watson it was to unlock Jack and Lupin. I have no interest whatsoever in Akechi so his route will have to wait until I have completed Lupin, whom I'm playing at the moment. I don't care about the possible order, since I don't thing it's that important and even the MC doesn't seem interested in the murder of her own parents in some routes. I found that a bit disappointing that some mysteries are not that mysterious if I can say. Like about Lupin/Lupine. How the hell no one could connects the dots? Not even Herlock who met both ?? Same with Jack [spoiler] in Watson's route, we encounter him but we can't completely see his face because of his hat and the darkness/fog. But we hear his voice, see his hair. And still couldn't guess. But his in own route, in a similar setting, we know immediately ? [/spoiler] Yeah right... And what is going on with the volume of some voices ? Especially Herlock, it sounds weird, a bit muffled/low, as if the voice actor had a less good quality mic. The audio balance is strange anyway. Some voices are way too loud compared to others. Other than that, the musics are forgettable but blend well with the scenario. Let's talk a bit more about the story. Since I saw it talked about some mature topics as murder, poverty and all, I thought it would be interesting. And maybe, meaning the romance would be interesting as well. How wrong I was. It's really cheesy. I read in some comments that it was a teen romance, couldn't agree more. A kiss or holding hands is enough to get both the MC and LI to blush to no end. And the romance is strange, like the game forgot that it was an otome for more than half of the chapters and then throw everything to your face in the last few. With Watson it's okay because he is sweet all the way, so it's understandable for the MC to fall in love. But for Holmes I failed to see what was loveable about him, even when the MC started to fall in love with him. They didn't shared much so I couldn't understand, it felt so forced. Even for Jack, who is my favorite for now, it doesn't really make sense. They talked a bit, she found him cute, then boom fell in love ? They only talked a few times when [spoiler] she discovered he is a murderer because he literally KILLED SOMEONE in front of her[/spoiler] but still fell in love with him regardless ? When she barely knew him ?? Yeah obviously... Makes sense right ? The mystery part is... meh. You don't really have to guess most of the time. You can sometimes choose what to inspect but in the end that's a false choice since you have to inspect everything. The MC and other characters will explain everything for you, you have no choice about who is the culprit. Well no, you can say who it is like once or maybe twice. That's it. Oh about the timer, it's basically useless. From what I saw, even if you let it run out, it will start again and you will still be able to make your choice. Just once I saw that if you don't click on time, the other characters will tell you that there is no time and you have to go, not allowing you to make the choice you missed. It's not completly bad but since I can't put a neutral vote, I have to pick the not recommended. Tho, if the game is on sale and you don't mind really cheesy and not that good romance with a bit of mystery and an okay story, go for it I guess. It's a 4/10, maybe 5 because of Jack and Pendleton (not dateable unfortunatly).

[h1]TLDR[/h1] A decent medum-length otome vn. Nothing groundbreaking but a good way to pass the time. 7/10 [h2]Art:[/h2] The art is nice for the most part, though I didn't like Herock's sprite too much and some CGs had weird anatomy. Overall it's pleasant to look at though. The characters don't suffer from same-face syndrome and I think that's more imporant than correct anatomy when the artstyle as whole is pleasant. [h2]Sound:[/h2] The soundtrack isn't bad per se but also not very memorable. I think there could've been some more sound effects though (e.g. when releasing the safety catch of a gun or when someone trips and falls). [h2]Characters:[/h2] Our main character [b]Emily[/b] is mostly a typical otome-heroine though with how she always gets in trouble and is a total airhead. Especially with her back story I would've expected Pendelton (her butler) to make sure she can defend herself. [b]Pendelton[/b] the butler is mysterious and interesting but also kind of a Gary Stu, it would've been nice to learn more about his background though. [b]Herlock Holmes[/b] deserved a better name. He seems the least mature among the cast because of [spoiler]his daddy issues[/spoiler]. His route was okay. It's obvious he's his father's son but also that he's still a child, especially in his epilogue... Don't expect any grand mystery like in the reals Sherlock Holmes stories. [b]Watson[/b] is the route I only played to unlock the others. It uses the [spoiler]childhood firend[/spoiler] trope [spoiler]but of course Emily doesn't remember...[/spoiler] He's energetic and kind and a good support for Holmes not only as assistant but also as friend. [b]Akechi[/b] of course needs to carry his katana everywhere because he's an exchange student from JAPAN. If I didn't know better, I would've thought he was written by some weeb. His route is one of the more interesting ones, not only because it deals with racisim but also because [i]things happen[/i].There is actually some mystery and action involved. His epilogue is probably the best one in this game. [b]Kobayashi[/b] is Akechi's assistant (basically the Japanese Watson except he doesn't really get a route himself, only a short ending where he gets friendzoned and all the action from Akechi's route never happens). [b]Jack[/b] is 100% my type and his route is my favourite [spoiler]except for the bittersweet ending. Who cares about the family name and stuff, I just wanna run away with him![/spoiler]. His dualogue can be hard to read, espacially when you aren't a native English speaker as him being from the lower class is very apparent in his speech. Action, mystery, romance, social criticism - this route has it all, just like Akechi's. [b]Lupin[/b] is a sight for sore eyes, a true gentleman. [spoiler]and has nothing to do with our classmate with the name Lupine...[/spoiler] He and his father make his route interesting, if not for them and [i]that[/i] CG his would the most boring route. At least [spoiler] the daddy issues [/spoiler] are not as annoying as with Herlock. If you get all the good endings, you unlock the true route which finally adresses the mystery behind Emily's parents. It's nice how all the characters get their time to shine but ultimately it's too short and nothing is resolved. Suddenly new characters are introduced and there are a ton of hints for a follow up game that never got released afaik. It felt like I was force to stop reading LOTR after The Fellowship of The Ring. Overall it was an enjoyable experience but I'd recommend to keep in mind the target audience - young teen girls - so you can appreciate it as when it is and not be disappointed by the lack of depth or annoyed by the protagonist.

共通线太长了太长了太长了！！！ 我收集全结局CG快进都快进到绝望！ 而且吧，说实话，我是冲侦探学校和福尔摩斯二世等侦探元素来的，但是实际上这些元素表现实在是......非常乙女。 我也不是要求一个乙女作品要推理上怎么怎么硬核，但老实说非常多的谜题推理部分实在是过于简单粗暴......让人都感觉纯粹是为了增添侦探色彩的添头，基本没有对故事做到足够改善，添头就罢了，共通线还长，这就有点不大可。 其实吧，本作我感觉亮点都在个人线，乙女部分挺好的，合格乙女作品，但是共通线真的太长了太长了！而且我冲侦探元素来的，我就好推理这口，对19世纪伦敦有情结，我知道是乙女游戏，但既然搞这个题材就总会吸引我这样的玩家的，所以多少还是比较失望。

Overall score 5.5/10 At the time of writing; I’ve not finished the entire game. I’m at the end of Jacks route,.. but here are my thoughts… A lot of people really seem to like this game; but unfortunately from my experience it’s pretty mediocre. The common route is extremely long. There is little to zero detective work in the game, despite the game itself advertising as such… And all of the romantic interest characters … are sons of the actual cool characters. IMO; this game is really held back by its ‘high school’ setting. I’m not much of a fan of the school life setting in games… And this would be a prime example of why. Every part of this games story would’ve been far better if they WERE the adults, and not high schoolers. The school setting serves no purpose whatsoever other than to justify characters meeting and to justify them being highschool age. Because they are not adults, they constantly play second fiddle to adults in the story. The main protagonist constantly makes poor choices for no contrivable reason. And because you are a high schooler, you cannot romance the butler- who clearly is a fan favourite for a reason(the best written). This is one of the few otome I’ve had to take breaks from. While It’s not HORRIBLE by any means.. it’s just far from anything special and the story the game is trying to tell is not interesting enough to justify the games length.

I've played through one route so far and got the destined end without a guide. I agree that the story starts slow but I was engrossed despite that because I have read a LOT of Sherlock and Marple stories so seeing their "children" kept me interested. Love the story and characters enough that I plan to play all of the routes but will be using the skip button for repeating chunks. It is similar to Code Realize with the main difference being their ages and so nothing is all that "spicy". The CG for Holmes epilogue is pretty hot though. WHY NO PENDLETON?!?!