Hermitage: Strange Case Files Reviews

[h1] Cattrific Body Swap and Solved Mystery! [/h1] I am not much of a reader of Lovecraft works but this VN has a certain cosmic twist to it. I bought it thinking this is a sort of paranormal detective ghost hunting type of story, but nope I encountered an amazing group of members who found each other and interesting entities. Being someone who has not read a single Lovecraft book I was a bit confused on what is happening and I feel the story is not direct. It might take a lot of thinking to comprehend the story properly. [b] Story: smooth confusion [/b] I played the VN twice, first time to experience it. Second time to get the achievements. It was progressing smoothly throughout the first 1-3 chapters with the 4th one I couldn't comprehend much what is going on. This a story that starts mysteriously and ends mysteriously. You have the store manager his name is just that. And the real owner of the store called "the deliverer" The store manager is a scholar hiding after a mysterious incident which happened in a supernatural origin. Things did not go well and he had to take refuge inside this book store which he manages. Strange incidents starts happening around the city, mysterious phenomenons and he tries to get the bottom of them. First chapter is about a hallucination drug among high school students, second one about experimentation about fish men, third one about a mysterious machine that can swap bodies. The fourth one seems to be a past recall of the incident that seems to start it all. There is a single good ending and several bad endings. All clues need to be gathered and all puzzles needs to be solved to get to the good ending. But what happened as the good ending i don't understand. Still, join the store manager and his crew in solving the cryptic cosmic mysteries and figure out the mastermind in this 28-hour long noir love craftian inspired VN. [b] Characters: dark but warm [/b] The characters are not those bubbly ones you find in anime, they are serious, grave and are dealing with the supernatural. They have insane backstories, harsh pasts but extremely talented. But all are united to put the city out of danger at the expense of their own lives. You have the main chara the protagonist, smart and calculative yet warm person. Cigarette smoker. Scarlet, a lawyer? she has connections everywhere and seems rich. Neko who is well a kid but a tech savvy one. Joining from the chapter completion you have Cecile, a shy warm highschooler. Zack, fearless and street-smarts, very delinquent. Then lastly Justin who is a freelance detective. I love this group they are fantastic, they progress, they have emotions, they look after each other. Sometimes you get some info about their personal lives which I feel like I would love to know more about them. The chemistry between them is fantastic, especially neko and justin or neko and zack is entertaining. I would say my favorites are Zack and Justin, just love their character development. [b] Game play: interesting [/b] I found the VN has some interesting elements in terms of game play, at one point you get to direct a fight sequence, another time they give you an old school RPG like move around using arrow keys to inspect doors and such. When you play as store manager you can check your book shelf, the owner comes and give books which relates to important info. So if you are playing always check the bookshelf once or twice. You can also check the news and computer for clues at night time. I really loved the night scenarios its so creative. Sometimes when talking to new characters you can inspect their posture/behavior. The game teaches the functions clearly, the tutorials are good. The game has the skip button but I do wish the skipping is faster. You have to make deductions when you find the clues and this can be a bit tough sometimes. A save before the deduction would be good. You cannot save during the puzzle cracking. There is also a nice bulletin board same as how cool detectives have if you are looking to replay the scenes. [b] Art: Noir/Gloomy [/b] The artist uses the dark palette and undertones for the artwork, sprites and I think it's atmospheric. I wouldn't say this is everyone's favorite but it is well-polished. Also I loved the fact they went for the extra mile and added animations, 3D, smoke to make it super creative. Even the entities have their own small animations which is a nice perk. [b] Achievements: Lvl easy [/b] The achievements are okay to get, just getting all the endings, even bad ones will trigger an acheivement. Might need to replay the game twice and that would be it. Reading all the computer postings, books and just being the true snoopy detective would make you get half of the achievements automatically. [b] Overall: Lovecraftian fan then buy it! [/b] I think this is a very noir dark interesting insight into the paranormal; getting away from the usual norm and giving out something completely new with cosmic elements. Definitely deserves another sequel or prequel because of the characters, i would buy it. It is a new way of publishing paranormal based detective visual novels. If you are a fan of H.P Lovecraft I would say this is a must have.