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The Silver Case |OT| Kill The Past

So I just finished the "Parade" chapter.
Who is the girl at the end? She's the one that is mentioned at the secret Zaibatsu files?
 
Dekachin?

saikoussu9huc1.png
 

Dinjoralo

Member
Man, anyone else have a hard time with Japanese names? I'm not used to names like Nakategawa... but the characters themselves are rubbing off on me, so that's good, even if I have a tough time understanding exactly what's happening.
Also, damn is that UI slick! Then again, if the entire game is kinda spent in menus, you oughta make them look good.
 
Bought this game pretty much just to support the developer. What an awesome release.

I'll try and play a bit before the hurricane hits.
 

BBboy20

Member
Rave on, cj.

That was in...2012? The DS release was announced in 2009...how time flies. We somehow ended up with an even better version now, lol. Turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Just goes to show how patience prevails eventually.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwHPuzyh8iE It says it was about the sequel but it's been so long since being in that chatroom (and also not understanding Japanese).

Very nice OT. Went and bought the game once I got back from work this morning. Played through the prologue, first chapter, and partway through the first Placebo, Yume. Would've kept going all the way to the end, but that's a lot of text to read in one sitting.

It feels so good to be finally playing the whole thing in English. Though one thing I kinda have to watch out for is when the game quickly flashes an image with an accompanying sound effect. I'm always jumpy with that sudden kind of stuff, and the fact that it's usually meant to focus on something disturbing doesn't help. But it's still really cool. Like, I played Flower, Sun, and Rain and that was pretty quirky. This is more like killer7 in tone but without the trippy aesthetics. It feels very grounded, though there's still quite a bit of character quirks that make their way into the dialogue at points. Kusabi is already my favorite of the main cast, the man is such a great 'bad cop" characterization. Seriously, the localization has been pretty great so far and has done a good job selling the tone while also feeling distinctly "Suda." Classic Suda at least, though there's still plenty of swearing going on.

Also gonna echo the sentiment that hopefully following this the Syndrome games (Moonlight especially) get a similar treatment to Silver Case. I read through that bonus comic book that came as part of the bonus material. It's nothing that substantial, most of it is just the first bits of dialogue from Lunatics with visual references that you will appreciate if you've played FSR and Moonlight Syndrome (or rather, if you're aware of what the final scene in Moonlight Syndrome is). Also it seems I need to refresh myself on everything from Flower, Sun, and Rain if I missed the detail that
Kusabi's daughter really is Toriko from FSR, the girl with the pink alligator.

Alright, between early morning work and digging into the plot, I'm gonna take a nap and refresh. Then finish up Yume and figure out how to pace myself through the rest of the game because I can tell this is gonna take a good long time to go through and appreciate. Seriously, don't be fooled by the length of the prologue, the main chapters and side chapters have a lot of stuff to go through.
I get the feeling GhM splinted TSC by using the lighter & investigative side to make FSR and the darker & violent side with K7.

If you like modern day crime drama with a healthy dose of WTF, then yes.

I can't think of any other game, much less a VN, that has animated and live action segments.
Using different mediums to tell a story. Rarely this is ever utilized and it fascinates me so much;seems like Killer 7 was just a sampling of what TSC has to offer in regards of this.

Heh, fitting.
 
Finished up Yume and then completed all of Spectrum. The inspiration for killer7's varying stories per episode is pretty clear from this game as it does the same thing, not just in the UI presentation but also the tone and subject matter. I really enjoyed this one a lot, it felt like it had a lot of heart to it. The main case itself had some pretty emotional points and character developments, but it was broken up with some fun moments like
Sumio and Kusagi's ongoing stakeout,
and
the 100 Question Kumite held by Morikawa
.

I could also see how the central location of this chapter, the apartment complex, was like a precursor to Flower, Sun, and Rain in its progression. The same routine each days, getting a little bit more of the whole area each time, talking to everyone to trigger the next point. At least unlike FSR it didn't go on longer than it needed to. I even appreciated that you weren't being railroaded super hard in terms of where to go and how to investigate like in Decoyman, made it feel a little bit more like a traditional adventure game.

Game continues to absolutely impress. At the rate it's going it might top killer7 and No More Heroes 1 for me as far as favorite Suda 51 games go. Although my one hope is that the rest of the Report chapters don't go on for as long as Yume did. As much as there's some good additional story bits in there, the interactivity of it is pretty limited and monotonous.
 
I'm glad to see Tobias Funke still getting work.

It's kind of surreal to be playing this after years of "studying" it from afar as just a reference point to all the other games that were localized before it.

Would love to see Suda really dig in and do something similar again without it having to be a brawler.
 

Bebpo

Banned
That text sound effect is pretty grating for something that happens with every line of dialogue.

Yeah, I'm liking it but I had to turn the overall sound down and if it wasn't for the good music I'd honestly play the game on mute. Actually I need to see if I just turn off the sound effects if that'll fix it. I have no idea how this game got through QA without a single person saying "this text sound effect would be fine here and there, but for every line in a freaking visual novel this is insanity and not in a good Suda51 insanity way but in a I need to take some tylenol because I have a headache way"
 

Tomat

Wanna hear a good joke? Waste your time helping me! LOL!
Knowing almost nothing about this aside from it being a Suda51 game and a crime drama visual novel, I jumped in tonight. Finished the first case and I'm loving everything about it so far (visuals and music especially).

Did not expect exploration or puzzle elements at all either so that was a pleasant surprise. Can't wait to continue on and see what else this game has in store.

Only complaint so far would be the controls are a little wonky.
 
Initial impressions are positive enough that I'm just going to give it a go. Bummer that there weren't more reviews around at launch.
 

Sakujou

Banned
was anyone able to playthrough flower sun and rain?

i bought this game for ds only to realise, that the riddles are impossible to solve.
there were no fucking clues and the internet didnt give me any solutions.

i bought the LE of the silver case, but i hope its not as fucked as flower sun and rain.
 
was anyone able to playthrough flower sun and rain?

i bought this game for ds only to realise, that the riddles are impossible to solve.
there were no fucking clues and the internet didnt give me any solutions.

i bought the LE of the silver case, but i hope its not as fucked as flower sun and rain.
I did; there's FAQs on the net. I used one a few times if I was stuck. Did you check GameFAQs?

But yea so far this it is more visual novel and a game with puzzles like FSR. I'm early tho.
 
Oh yes, great OP. I ordered the limited edition but I may just play the steam version in the mean time while I wait. Or I might just wait.

I heard the OST by Masafumi Takada is very well composed.
 

Jockel

Member
Finished the first chapter yesterday, seems like a game I will enjoy. Random nitpicks: text sound is annoying and the Xbox One controller has a useless default layout for the game. (RT looks up, menu button looks down, d-pad directions are all over the place)
 

koma

Member
was anyone able to playthrough flower sun and rain?

i bought this game for ds only to realise, that the riddles are impossible to solve.
there were no fucking clues and the internet didnt give me any solutions.

i bought the LE of the silver case, but i hope its not as fucked as flower sun and rain.

I played FS&R years ago, but as far as I remember all the answers to the riddles are already in the game, in the Lospass digital guide you have as one of your items. It's quite easy and really a clever game: all the solutions are written in there, but you don't notice it until you know the questions.

I'm super happy about the release of The Silver Case in English, i'll have to finish another game before to play it, but already bought my copy from Playism, please support this game if you want a chance to see other Suda51 japan-exclusive games to be translated in the future!
 

cj_iwakura

Member
was anyone able to playthrough flower sun and rain?

i bought this game for ds only to realise, that the riddles are impossible to solve.
there were no fucking clues and the internet didnt give me any solutions.

i bought the LE of the silver case, but i hope its not as fucked as flower sun and rain.

There's a very good LP for FSR here:

http://lparchive.org/Flower-Sun-and-Rain/


Also, I did a translation of the original PS2 OP(which is amazing) that I'm pretty proud of:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CY9vZVBxZU


For anyone who hasn't played FSR and is considering it before TSC: don't.
At the halfway point, the TSC ties start coming full throttle.
 

Sakujou

Banned
There's a very good LP for FSR here:

http://lparchive.org/Flower-Sun-and-Rain/


Also, I did a translation of the original PS2 OP(which is amazing) that I'm pretty proud of:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CY9vZVBxZU


For anyone who hasn't played FSR and is considering it before TSC: don't.
At the halfway point, the TSC ties start coming full throttle.

wow, thanks for the tips, might give it another try.

and are there really THAT kind of ties in the game? i know there were some similarites, but like coming full throttle? funny.
 
So from case 00:
it seems like these two veterans from the silver case parted ways, each leading up divisions in different departments in different districts. and this lunatic has brought them together again?
I feel like I'm missing a beat or two.

Sound design is as good as ever. I've decided to play with the original music but everything else upgraded. The typing sound is still kind of annoying, though. I think it's something Grasshopper has always excelled at. I think there's probably two plays in this to see both the original and the HD upgrades.

I'm not entirely sold on the cinematic presentation yet. There's a weird flow to the whole thing. The passage of time, distance and urgency of the scenarios at times seem to work against each other.
 

Baust

Member
LRG started emailing Steam codes to those who preordered the physical version. Just got mine!

It's the deluxe version, but the bonuses are going to be emailed as another key later.
 
Uh, yeah so.. the game doesn't actually explain that the magnifying glass solves the puzzle for you. So yeah bear that in mind I guess.
 

Joqu

Member
Got my LRG code, yay.

Is there a "canon" save file name (which I guess is the protagonist's)? Seeing my name, Jonathan, between all these Japanese names doesn't really work for me.

I don't really get the logic behind the puzzles. So yeah, you've got that auto solve button, and I too didn't realize that's what it did, solve the puzzle for you. I thought this was actually part of solving them somehow. Maybe I'm missing something obvious.

And I wish the character names next to their dialogue didn't disappear so quickly, it's gonna be a pain for me to remember them like this.
 
For those of you playing the PC version, the desktop icon is pretty rubbish, right? Well I've made a transparent icon you can apply. Just put it through an online PNG to ICO converter and bam, you have a more suitable desktop icon to apply to the shortcut!

mkic2JN.png
 
So I just finished the "Parade" chapter.
Who is the girl at the end? She's the one that is mentioned at the secret Zaibatsu files?
I believe that is the case. I just finished the chapter myself, and even dug back up cj's "Kill the Past" thread from a while back as that has information pertaining to what it was about.

This is basically the first main chapter post Lunatics that dives directly into the Kill the Past motif. So much so I thought that this was another thing related to Moonlight Syndrome before remembering that the whole point of Lunatics was to "kill" that part of Suda's history so that the Silver Case's main thread could start off properly. It's just Sumio dealing with his past by orchestrating the death of a Zaibatsu and getting revenge on a small town that lynched him and his friends for helping a girl, which is the person shown fading away in the ending cutscene as the town gets wiped out. Also the same girl from the opening and the "fairytale" Sumio tells Kusabi.

The thing I took away most from this chapter besides that was that Sumio and his friends' physical trauma fits with the see/hear/speak no evil theme that gets reused again in killer7. Slowly more of the themes and symbols in the other Suda51 games are making sense.
 

LiamExe

Member
Oops, the magnifying glass thing skips the puzzle completely? I figured it was just a tutorial thing at the time and didn't realise I was skipping through a chunk of actual puzzles. ;_;

Well, I only used it in the first chapter before realising. Did I put myself out of getting any achievements by doing that or are all the hidden ones story related?
 

AHA-Lambda

Member
ok, this may sounds crazy but I just started it.

Is there no controls or options menu? How are you supposed to save or quit the game?
 

cj_iwakura

Member
For those of you playing the PC version, the desktop icon is pretty rubbish, right? Well I've made a transparent icon you can apply. Just put it through an online PNG to ICO converter and bam, you have a more suitable desktop icon to apply to the shortcut!

mkic2JN.png

Very nice, but nitpick: it's from 25 Ward. :p

Maybe it's possible to use a variation of these?


I also fell for the magnifying glass. Should be pretty obvious what it does after one click, though.

I had fun solving those cipher puzzles in the JP version, haha.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
Had no idea. New to this game after playing Flower, Sun & Rain and Killer 7! How about these instead? 256x256 so they scale up and down automatically when converted to an ICO and applied to the shortcut.

EHID8cN.png
HJf8CUD.png

I like the second one.

I might still use your original because of how badass it looks.


Just finished Lunatics. Sheesh, I know what happened at the end of Moonlight Syndrome and even I'm confused. Can only imagine how someone else feels, haha.

I'll elaborate a little:

Everyone who dies in Case 0 is from Moonlight Syndrome. Suda's wiping the slate clean.
 

AHA-Lambda

Member
Just finished chapter 0 and chapter 1, so a good 2-3 hours of playtime so far.

I'll be honest, I haven't the bloody foggiest as to what is going on...
 
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