Who doesn’t love a good whodunnit? When it comes to mysteries, old tropes go down just as well as fresh ideas with would-be sleuths — fake suicides, murder plots, locked room mysteries, government cover ups, and enough red herrings to open a fishmongers. Not to mention the Bowsette-like death god who is obsessed with boobs and regularly vomits up clues in a rainbow splurge.
I’ll admit, that last point isn’t your usual mystery stereotype, but it’s the usual brand of zany random humour that will be familiar to those who have played Spike Chunsoft’s Danganronpa series. Master Detective Archives: Rain Code doesn’t tie into Danganronpa, but it undeniably retains the same art style, dark fantasy setting, and quirky humour.
Rain Code puts you in the role of trainee detective Yuma Kokohead, who’s lost his memories as the result of making a pact with a death god and is on his way via train to Kanai Ward with a group of Master Detectives to uncover some big mystery. Each of the Master Detectives has a special skill known as a Forte, a superpower essentially, such as being able to converse with animals or summon the souls of the deceased.
You’ll meet various unique characters with different personalities, some standing out and others hitting typical anime stereotypes, but the main star is Shinigami. Games often fall foul of throwing in a mascot that players find irritating, but I never tired of Shinigami’s brilliant sassiness and crude, lewd quips.
Chapter 0 sets the tone in more ways than one. You think it’s introducing all the main characters you’ll be dealing with throughout the game, but then it turns everything on its head by brutally killing them all. You’re thrown into the thick of things, leaving you with a bunch of corpses to contend with and a mystery to solve before you even reach Kanai Ward, teaching you to expect the unexpected.
You fall into a familiar pattern for each chapter: explore the world and speak with characters to set up the mystery, then go into investigation mode where you find clues and analyse crime scenes before getting kicked into a Mystery Labyrinth — dungeons you have to complete to solve each case.
As well as tackling questions surrounding the case and piecing evidence together, you’ll be entering battles in these weird and wonderful labyrinths, but it’s not your usual combat system. You face over-the-top ‘80s glam punk and goth Mystery Phantom bosses in Reasoning Deathmatches, where you slash through untrue statements with the correct evidence to counter them.
Labyrinths will throw a few other things your way to keep you on your toes, too. There are plenty of QTEs, misdirection, sorting through evidence, and a Pop-up Pirate-style minigame with Shinigami where you must select letters to spell the correct word within the time limit. It all ends with the Deduction Denouement, a comic book-style retelling of the crime where you fill in the blank spaces with the correct images, paying tribute to the classic whodunnit idea of the detective running down events in their closing argument.
Sometimes this feels repetitive, however, and there are aspects of Rain Code where it feels like it’s overreaching. For example, the labyrinths seem to want to present as dungeons, but they never fully accomplish being a real location. Though there are some standout moments of recreated crime scenes, for the most part, you can’t shake that treadmill feeling in labyrinths, where you're just on the spot while everything whirls past you to move the conversation along.
The biggest dud when it comes to ideas that weren’t fully baked is abilities, which feel pointless. More stamina feels like a moot point when you never get low on stamina. There’s an Assist skill where your companions create a shield for you briefly, but you’re rarely in danger — I only ever used it by mistake. Sure, fewer incorrect options during labyrinths seem helpful, but the gameplay is never hard enough to need them. The game is pretty forgiving — a wrong answer just means you redo the last little bit, so why does it matter?
When it comes down to it, the core gameplay isn’t difficult if you’re paying attention — other than some more unforgiving timing for jumps or QTEs — but I don’t think it tries to be, as otherwise it wouldn’t give players so many tools to succeed. At its heart, I think Spike Chunsoft is still delivering a visual novel mystery like Dangranronpa, but in a 3D package with shiny extras to make it look prettier. The real selling point everyone will love the most is the narrative and the mystery. The rest is just set dressing.
I thoroughly enjoyed the game's overall narrative, and I especially liked the individual cases. They’re all done so cleverly that even though you might work out certain aspects of the mystery from the clues you uncover, you won’t quite understand the bigger picture. For each chapter, there was at least one crucial point I couldn’t figure out until in the labyrinth, where I was nudged to the right conclusion.
The same can be said of the overarching mystery. By the time I reached the end, I had most of the pieces to the puzzle, but there were still things I hadn’t realised and there were certainly a couple of surprises.
I’m not allowed to spoil the final chapter, but just know that Rain Code goes to places you wouldn’t expect, subverting expectations set by Danganronpa in a neat twist. The finale is a microcosm of the whole game, though: a strong narrative with an incredibly dull labyrinth to button mash through in order to get there.
Rain Code feels like the product of mixing Danganronpa with Persona. You have a fully 3D world with different districts to explore, side quests to tackle, collectibles, and dungeons to complete, even if they’re not quite what you expect. It’s a promising idea, and it’s exciting to imagine how Rain Code could evolve if it pushes its boundaries further.
Master Detective Archives: Rain Code delivers masterful craftsmanship of mysteries that players will delight in unravelling. Though the more hands-on gameplay mechanics aren’t groundbreaking and can feel a bit too easy, the strength of the narrative alone and cleverly created whodunnits make this a must-play for Danganronpa fans and anyone who loves channeling their inner detective.
Score: 3.5/5. A Nintendo Switch code was provided by the publisher.