Developer: Hakababunko
Publisher: Shueisha Games
Platform: PC, PS5, Switch
Tested on: PS5
Urban Myth Dissolution Center – Review
Urban Myth Dissolution Center is a visual novel by indie developer Hakababunko centered around the paranormal. The single-player game takes players on an adventure through various urban myths, such as stalking and prowling worldwide. So, put on your glasses and start investigating the multiple mysteries hiding worldwide.
Story
The player takes on the role of Azami Fukurai, a timid university student with a gift: she can see glimpses of the past in the form of ‘shadows’. She visits the Urban Myth Dissolution Center to eliminate this power and meets the Psychic Center Director, Ayumu Meguriya. During this visit, she accidentally destroys a Cursed Chair that kills everyone who sits on it while investigating how to undo the curse after she sits down on it. Because of this, she racks up a debt of a few million yen, for which the Director passive-aggressively volunteers her to start working for the Urban Myth Dissolution Center so they can make good use of her gift. Azami hesitantly agrees with the promise of receiving help with her power after repaying the accrued debt.
After this, Azami joins her colleague, Jasmine, going around town to investigate rumors and sightings of paranormal activity. During this process, we learn more about the world and Azami’s life before the story occurs.
Graphics
Like many indie games, Urban Myth Dissolution Center uses a pixel-centric art style inspired by manga. This style gives the game a sense of nostalgia, like playing an old tape while letting the storytelling and lore take center stage. This pixel style also means that every part of the environment has to be designed with care. This is coupled with a simplistic color design: the background is in shades of blue, while the characters and all interactive spots are envisioned in bright red. Combining these gives you an easy-to-understand game that’s easy on the eyes while keeping the difficulty of finding clues remarkably casual.
Sound
Being a game more focused on its story, Urban Myth Dissolution Center has audio that matches the visual presentation. The sound design is simple but nothing special, mainly enhancing the scenes. One of the ways it does this is by changing whenever you use Azami’s unique ‘Clairvoyance’ ability and by adding tension to scenes featuring urban myths and paranormal occurrences. But by focusing on these more minor details, the sound design can be summarized as ‘quality over quantity’ and still adds to the suspense of the mysteries you’re solving.
Gameplay
As a visual novel game, Urban Myth Dissolution Center does not have an extensive report of game mechanics. Your investigations are divided into four distinct phases: a social media investigation where you have to collect rumors, find clues in the area, fill them in in your notebook, and then finally identify the urban myths. Your cases start with the social media investigation. You scour through posts and comments to find clues. These clues allow you to pinpoint where the incident occurred while giving you some starting information about the people who asked for your help and about the urban myth you’re dealing with. These messages can be read two-fold: you can read messages normally or by using ‘Clairvoyance’, which can help uncover hidden key phrases.
After collecting enough clues via social media, you go to the investigation, looking through people’s rooms and asking them questions. By using ‘Clairvoyance’ in these rooms, you can see afterimages of previous events, which you can also investigate. These clues through ‘Clairvoyance’ can help you ascertain if people are telling the truth and are helpful when figuring out the identity of the urban myth causing the incidents. However, just investigating these clues isn’t sufficient to progress the story. You have to write down all your clues and knowledge in your journal.
The journal serves as your knowledge bank, which is mainly seen in the connections between you and everyone you meet. Besides this, it is also your tie to the general knowledge of the Urban Myth Dissolution Center. After talking to one of the witnesses or investigating a place of interest, you must select the correct prompt to summarise what you read about it while researching. This will automatically enter their entry in the journal for you to return to whenever you wish.
After finding all the clues and entering them in your journal, you get a phone call and automatically go to identify the urban myth. Doing this allows you to finish the current investigation. While identifying, you review all the information you collected throughout the investigation, and wrong answers are gently corrected, allowing for infinite retries. After this, you must combine key phrases to form the correct hypothesis to pose to the Director, enabling you to use the same key phrases system to conclude. When this is done, the identity of the urban myth is revealed, and the next steps you have to take get info-dumped by the Director.
Conclusion
Urban Myth Dissolution Center takes a fascinating premise and gives a nice execution with a compelling narrative. Even though the story’s beginning feels somewhat forced, it still draws you in, having you become invested in the character you play, as well as her friends and the world around her. The art style and sound design give the game a pleasant personality without distracting from the story. However, the game becomes tedious very early because of the repetitive nature of repeating every clue you find multiple times throughout the entire investigation. This would have been fine on its own, but since you are not allowed to make mistakes or proceed with incomplete information, sometimes you can get stuck on parts of the investigation. Overall, it is a good game with a well-executed premise for fans of urban myths and the paranormal who have a decent measure of patience.
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