The Murder Hotel

At the time of writing, I have not beaten this game. I have merely beat the first chapter. I was initially worried about whether or not this game could deliver fully on its premise, but I am pleasantly surprised by the quality of this game so far. I would absolutely recommend this game to people off of the first chapter alone. I worried that it would either be too handholdy or too freeform, but it manages to strike a comfortable middle that allows the investigative systems to flourish.

I'm a sucker for great murder mysteries. This is not only that: it's a refreshing take on the genre with a unique, original approach.

Gerd.

In its current form, I strongly recommend this game. It contains a lot of homage to its inspirations [Umineko, Danganronpa, and Ace Attorney most obviously] and has a well-crafted series of mystery cases to solve. The ending appears to be a cliff hanger, which I hope gets a new game based off of it. There are a few minor issues I have, specifically relating to the inclusion of an interesting questioning mechanic where you use words to produce questions you can ask the other characters. It works in the context of the game, but it's quite clunky and poorly explained [you don't have to create a maximum length sentence (and need to to get clues) but this is never explained, for example], and disappears entirely after the 2nd case. That being said, I do have one point of contention: the game being sold as complete when it wasn't. That's now been fixed [as the full release just went into beta] but on release, as a complete game, one of the routes [and the main route, being an extra full chapter in length and content] was not done, but this was not stated anywhere in the game description or game itself until you reached the route branch and were told it wasn't in the game yet. This felt deceptive but we're past that now.

Great game so far!!!!!

Als riesiger Umineko Fan hat mich das Spiel und die Prämisse der im Murder Hotel gestrandeten Besucher sowie der übernatürliche Aspekt mit den Traumdämonen direkt gehooked. Das Gameplay hat auch sehr viel Spaß gemacht und war wie versprochen eine Mischung aus Ace Attorney und Danganronpa, ebenfalls Spielereihen, die ich sehr mag. Die Charaktere waren auch super, wobei ich mir etwas mehr Fokus auf Charaktere wie Roberto oder Uwe gewünscht hätte, aber das nur so am Rande. Bin schon sehr gespannt auf das Update mit dem zweiten Ende <3

A unique mystery-adventure game sure to appeal to fans of Umineko, Ace Attorney, and other similar mystery games. TMH is a great collection of interactive murder mysteries with thrilling argumentation segments that stand out due to an interesting premise that has you not necessarily searching for the truth (with the exact goal varying by chapter). The courtroom segments are easily the highlight and I loved how you were given multiple ways to approach them with different theories and counterarguments (though sadly you have less of this freedom as the game progresses). These are clearly inspired by the logic battles from Umineko, with a bit of Ace Attorney contradiction-finding and it hits the same great highs as both of its inspirations. Coming out of this game, I'm honestly dying for more of this and would love a sequel for this part alone. The game has fun characters with a ton of referential dialogue sure to get some laughs out of fans of all things mystery (whether it be book, game, film, or TV), but also has some genuinely heartfelt moments that manage to work despite the usually comical tone. I also enjoyed how the cast came from a variety of European cultures (for the human characters) or folklores (for the supernatural ones). I was not very familiar with a lot of this subject matter going in, but I still found it all to be very interesting and makes it stand out from other stories in this space. The overarching plot is complex and fun to untangle with some great twists and reveals, though most of the supernatural aspects of the story are clearly part of a much larger narrative planned for a greater franchise that I hope we see come to life in the coming years. [b]My feelings about this game are overall very positive[/b], though I can't help but note a few things that I had mixed feelings about. Across the game I found several typos, as well as numerous examples of awkwardly constructed sentences. For the latter issue, I'm not sure if it is intentional or not (many of the characters don't speak English as their first language), but it does hurt readability a bit. The investigation segments are perfectly functional for setting up the mystery and are at their best when providing interesting side objectives, but can be tedious otherwise. Aside from interrogating witnesses, you're oftentimes moving from one end of the hotel to the other repeatedly, scouring every unlocked room looking for clues. This is normally fine, but it becomes a problem if you're a completionist because there are also (optional) missable collectables which can seemingly show up and disappear without warning, so you have to scan through EVERY room again to be sure you aren't missing something after EVERY major scene. Additionally, replaying these segments can especially be a chore due to how much walking around is required, with no way to speed up movement or fast travel (and you'll likely want to replay them because they contain choices that affect the narrative). The game does include a fast forward for dialogue and cutscenes, but it requires holding down the shift button for several seconds which feels awkward on its own, but becomes even more annoying when you're trying to use it in conjunction with the rest of the game's controls (pressing shift is also mapped to certain types of interactions, for example). The skip also doesn't consider whether you've seen text before, so you have to be careful not to skip too much which leads to a painful cycle of releasing shift, skimming to see if the text is different, and then holding shift for a bit to get the skip going again. Combine all this with the limited chapter select system that will require you to replay large segments to get to one or two choices that you care about, and it makes replays feel like they aren't respecting your time. Another aspect of the investigation segments that I'd like to touch on is the interrogation system, which the developer clearly put a lot of effort into. With this system, you're able to get information from witnesses by compositing questions from a set of sentence fragments, and it's a very cool idea. However, it's only used in the first two cases and then is discarded for the endgame. In the first case, it's honestly a bit overwhelming with how many possible questions are allowed and how few are actually relevant, but it was still an enjoyable albeit stressful balancing act since you only have a limited number of questions you're able to ask before you run out of time. The second case has a much more simplified set of possible parameters and felt more manageable as a result. But after that, the system is just gone which felt disappointing. The gameplay system that replaces it in the final segments is a much simpler adventure game-esque "find X, bring it to the X-shaped hole" style of information gathering which is fine, but lacks the uniqueness and stakes of the original system. Lastly, the character writing, particularly in regards to romance. The dialogue is overly packed with innuendos and flirting, with far too many random romantic subplots shoehorned into the story in a way that feels very unnatural. Characters are constantly flirting and falling in and out of love with each other like hormonal teenagers (the female characters especially, which doesn't feel like a great way to write women). This is even true of characters who really shouldn't be so quick to jump into relationships, given what we learn of their backstories. The story tries to provide some justification for why the characters behave this way, but it doesn't really work at dispelling the awkwardness of how unbelievably lovesick and desperate the majority of the cast behaves (especially towards our main character, which ends up feeling like hollow wish fulfilment). I saw another review talk about this before I played the game and I honestly rolled my eyes at the complaint. But after playing, yeah, I get it. There is one romance that feels somewhat earned and thankfully it's the one most focused on.

I really like the ace attorney/danganronpa type games, and this is definitely a nice game in that category.

This was such a wonderful love letter to the mystery genre. Particularly as an Umineko fan, this was such a treat to play. I do wish there was a bit more active gameplay in the later half of the game, but I found the story engaging enough that I was still completely locked in anyway.

If Umineko and Ace Attorney had a child thanks to a RPGMAKER midwife. Full of lore, world building. It is fascinating and gripping.