Table of Contents
amazon The Centennial Case A Shijima Story reviews
The Narrative and the Storytelling
“The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story” is constructed around its elaborate narrative, which is played within the game through dialogue, cutscenes, and investigation. The entire story revolves around the Shijima family who are cursed by some mysterious and tragic fate that has haunted them for generations.
Each chapter focuses on the different time period of the family history. A player takes the role of a detective by solving some of these mysteries arising from the game timeline. The main plot revolves around investigating murder and suspicious deaths that are connected back to the Shijima family curse. As players hook onto this story, they will start to seek out hidden secrets, disentangle complex relationships and confront the dark forces with which the family is plagued.
The storytelling in “The Centennial Case” reaches traditional Japanese mystery and drama traits. Non-linear narrative structure is offered by the game, wherein players would cast jump at some different timeline, piecing clues together for the mystery that poses the Shijima family’s history. Such an approach adds to depth and complexity of a story, letting players explore distinct facets of a mystery and develop better understanding of characters as well as their motivations.
It is really strong in terms of character development. Each character has a pretty specific and distinct personality of theirs, backstory, and some importance to the narrative. The voicing and dialogues are one of the well-crafted features of the game and bring authenticity and material weight to an interaction. Writing of game are terrific in tense, intrigue, and drama as well as made characters’ struggles and conflicts seem real and penetrating.
Gameplay Mechanic
“The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story” presents a unique mixture of mystery investigation, interactive drama, and puzzle-solving; and it helps to engage the players in a very immersing and well-feh experience of gameplay. It is designed to make the participant explore, critically analyze, and deductively reason from these sources as they play.
Investigating incidents and collecting clues
One major gameplay element consists in investigating the scenes of the crime and collecting all of the possible clues. Players will have to wander through several locations, examine evidence, and talk to different characters to reveal any information pertinent to the case. Each investigative segment is going to be done by immersion and detail requiring the player to mind the environment and the dialogue closely to find hidden clues.
The game can display a range of techniques and tools of investigation that includes forensic investigation, interviewing witnesses, and examining documents. All those investigation tools will empower the gamers to be part of assembling a self-created narrative within the game (playing it individually). The whole process of investigation is intended to be methodical, connecting the dots and drawing logical conclusions based on the pieces of evidence gathered.
Applies Puzzle Solving and Deductive Reasoning
Puzzle solving happens to be another important method of play. Players are, in fact, presented with various challenges and conundrums to be solved in order to take the next step in the progression of stories. The puzzles range from logic and pattern recognition puzzles to more diverse, creative thinking-needed complex scenarios.
Players then can engage with the analytical-deductive reasoning system to produce theories from the gathered clues. One makes choices based on this knowledge. Players should thus practice deductive reasoning ability towards solving cases and consequently inferring suspects’ motivations and facts brought to light. Deductive reasoning employs arguments as core to the gameplay since it helps to propel narratives and determine investigation outcomes.
Interactive Drama and Choices
Most importantly, “The Centennial Case” also becomes the interactive drama that encourages players to make choices in the narrative and relationships with characters. Such decisions by players could shift the course of the tale, change the course of an investigation, or influence how characters see the protagonist.
It gives an advantage to storytelling as players experience dilemmas and forced decisions, as well as managing other NPC relationships. Choices lead the player in different flows toward different rooms and accomplishments, thus adding replay value and encouraging checking out all possible variations-scenarios and endings.
The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story puts us in the role of Haruka Kagami, a female detective writer.
A friend of hers, a researcher named Eiji Shijima, asked her for one thing, which is to investigate the mysteries surrounding his family.
The Shijima clan is a famous family, as they are pioneering in research on how to slow down human aging, or even “eternal immortality”.
Throughout the history of the Shijima clan, there have been many members who died from mysterious reasons, deaths that the police could not answer. Eiji Shijima believes that with the expertise of a detective writer, Haruka Kagami can unravel this mystery.
As an FMV game, most of our time will be spent “watching” more than “acting”.
However, the writer does not get bored when sitting in front of the computer screen to watch The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story.
The reason is that the questions surrounding the past, customs, and relationships between members of the Shijima family are gradually answered after each case, instead of giving too much information in one conversation, causing difficulty for writers to follow.
Speaking of new cases, the highlight of The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story, is that most of the cases that players have to solve took place in the past, in different periods.
The way the game conveys this to the player is also quite interesting. By reading the paper documents documenting the case, Haruka will play the role of the main deducer in the case.
In addition to immersing herself in the main deducer, Haruka will also imagine the people around her in the role of key individuals in each case.
The roles of the actors are also shuffled continuously, actor A may be the culprit in the first case, but in the second case, he is the victim.
Even so, the writer did not feel confused in distinguishing the characters between the periods, because the cast all gave admirable performances in each of their different roles.
Most of The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story’s cases fall under the “Whodunit” genre, which is the word for murders that take place in closed spaces, with the perpetrator being one of the people present. If you’ve been following Detective Conan, you’re probably no stranger to this genre.
Using the “Whodunit” genre, The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story has given the writer a mind-boggling case, when the writer has to think about what is the motive behind the victim’s death, as well as the culprit and how it did it.
For readers to enjoy the beauty of the game for themselves, the writer can only say that the game’s cases have presented quite interesting challenges, when the culprit is hard to guess!
The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story gives us a good movie because the player interaction factor… pretty poor!
The gameplay of The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story is divided into 4 stages.
The opening phase introduces the events related to the murder, during this phase dialogue options appear and we choose Haruka’s reaction. However, this did not have a major impact on the story of the case as a whole.
The second stage is the Hypothesis.
Taking place in Haruka’s mind, we will perform a jigsaw minigame, more specifically, attach the collected information boxes to the question box, to create a hypothesis.
This process…is boringly easy, that’s because the question and information boxes all have textures, and to know where to attach the cells we just need to compare the textures, no need to think.
After generating all the hypotheses, comes the third stage, Argument Construction, which is also the weakest stage.
This is the time for us to find the most unusual point in the case. However, whatever the anomaly selection is, it doesn’t affect the final stages of the game, making Argument Building a “yes or no”.
Finally, it’s the Punishment phase. During this phase, Haruka will use the theories she has created to find the culprit from the suspects.
Sometimes, the description of the hypotheses is so vague, with some options almost indistinguishable from others, that the writer inadvertently makes a mistake.
When it makes a mistake, the game will “kick” the writer straight back to the Hypothetical stage (fortunately, in the completion stage). We’ll have to go back into the Crime Breaking phase, and while the game has the option to fast forward to the moment of choosing the hypothesis, this is still a relative waste of time and slows down the tempo of the case.
A better way to do it would be to give the player a certain number of “lives”, representing everyone’s trust in Haruka. After each wrong choice, Haruka loses one life, and when it’s all gone, it’s time to start over.
where can you get a The Centennial Case A Shijima Story online
Square Enix The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story (Import) (PLAS-11181): Buy it now
The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story – Game Music: Buy it now
Conclusion
“The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story” is an exciting and intense mystery adventure game that is excellent in storytelling, character building, and visual design. Its convoluted plots, engaging game play mechanics, and high-end audio visual make it a game that truly stands out in the mystery genre.
The game’s branching narrative, choice-based mechanics, and replayability provide a very rich and varied experience. There are some criticisms concerning pacing, puzzle complexity, and the effect of choices, but such complaints don’t significantly lessen the fun of this game in general.
Thus, “The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story” is an exciting and thrilling puzzle game that would not fail to fascitize any aficionado of interactive drama and investigative gameplay. The story well developed, character designs that are highly detailed and atmospheric sound design, create unforgettable adventures worth delving into. For the players who love unraveling complicated mysteries and delving into intricate stories, the players will find “The Centennial Case” a truly rewarding travel through a world full of intrigue and suspense.