Remasters are one of the big things right now, and it’s great. Games like The Silver Case may never have seen the light of day. The really important artefacts of gaming many years since gone are now being given a second life, either as full remasters, or just getting ported to newer technology. Being able to look at these and think about their significance is wonderfully enjoyable. Still, there’s a reason some of these titles are often forgotten.
There’s not much to say about The Silver Case that couldn’t be said about a lot of first big games. Suda 51 has always had a tendency to lean into the weirder facets of games, and he does so here as well. The story takes place in the 24 Wards, where a serial killer, long dormant, is back on the loose. There are two stories, one of a detective, and one of a journalist, both seeking an end to this sociopath’s reign of terror.
The story’s fairly interesting, though it gets bogged down by incredibly redundant and unhelpful dialogue. Hearing your partner bark the same order over and over, but never making that order very clear is irritating. Despite this, the serial killer thread is woven well, and the overall experience would have worked fine as a visual novel.
However, it’s not a visual novel. Instead, it functions more along the lines of a point and click game. The player will need to move between menus, selecting movement or system or whatever it is they’re trying to do. Navigating the menus isn’t always needed, as you can interact with items while in the movement menu – and let’s be honest; shouldn’t you have to open a menu to save?
Many will object to the rather difficult-to-control movement, but in a point and click game it actually makes a good deal of sense. Imagine that each room is set up in a grid, and every couple of feet each makes up a square. Each movement the player makes moves them to another square, firmly facing them in that direction. Pressing backwards just turns them around. It makes sense because it allows the player to easily hone in on important things without walking past them repeatedly. It will catch a good deal of flack because it’s just so slow.
Really, The Silver Case‘s biggest flaw is that it just doesn’t give enough insight or control. The first 25-odd minutes are filled with a rather lengthy, and for no spoken word, loud cutscene. As dialogue appears, it sounds as though it is being typed, and the sound is grating after only a few minutes of hearing it. These cutscenes happen a lot – too often, in fact – and the player is often just left to listen to the typewriter and anticipate playing.
Another bizarre choice is the background. Everything is presented in a box about a third the size of the screen. Behind it, an endless stream of words just appear periodically across the screen. It’s profoundly distracting, and doesn’t really serve any purpose beyond adding an aesthetic feel that just doesn’t work. It could presumably be to continue the idea that the game is set in the future, and to provide that idea. It mostly comes off as annoying and the first thing you will wish you could disable. Sadly, it can’t be turned off.
There are major issues with the graphics, as well. An early example comes in the form of a panel the player is supposed to read, which explains the way control panels work. Now, control panels aren’t particularly difficult to control, but the fact that the panel is illegible is still annoying. Doors also often look a lot alike, and coupled with the movement, it makes it very easy to get confused from time to time.
