vgperson's website describes 1BeatHeart as a "spinoff sequel" to 1bitHeart, which if read my review of, you would know how dearly I loved it. This game, while it certainly chronologically follows the original, ends up throwing out most of the original game's best elements in an oddly-guided game.

The game follows in the footsteps of the first game's bonus chapter that, as far as I can tell, was appended to its Steam release. Both of them present a post-game where the focus on making friends is entirely thrown out, instead dialing in on the detective work that made up a small portion of the original experience. For what its worth, the gameplay structure is certainly improved here, both through more tightly constructed narratives and UI enhancements. It's still a far cry from the best detective games though, like Ace Attorney and Somnium Files, and never escapes the feeling of just kinda going through the motions.

Frustratingly with this detective pivot, Nanshi, the protagonist of the first game I grew greatly attached to, is sidelined to being a helper character without much to do in the story. With the timeskip, he retains some of his mannerisms he once had and changes in ways that largely make sense, but it's hard to shake the feeling of "not my Nanashi" with this new him. In this game, he doesn't even go by Nanashi (but that won't stop me from calling him it)! He retains his repour with Misane, the new protagonist, but she just isn't nearly as interesting of a character and gets a lot less fleshed out with this gameplay structure compared to what Nanashi got in the original. The NPCs are fine, mostly there to fill in what they need to with the story and not much more, which is a major disappointment after the first game had such a wide cast of charming characters despite each only getting a short time in the limelight. Even LiEat, which Miwashiba developed between 1bitHeart and this, was able to provide a more interesting cast with a similar length and structure to this game. The characters from the original game outside of Nanashi and Misane are only present in short (albeit fun) cameos and references.

Another pivot is the games aesthetics, going more for a muted pallete and slightly reeled in soundtrack. While the original game's vibes were certainly more appealing personally, this game's fall in line well with the detective story its telling and still retain a lot of the charm from the original, so I feel bad faulting it too much. The few tracks with Spanish lyrics in them were also a fun surprise!

Heading into the end of the game, I was content on this being a fine enough 3, maybe 3.5/5. It isn't particularly notable in any way and generally disappointing following the first game, but it was a perfectly competent little murder mystery at the end of the day. And then I hit the ending of the game, or rather, the ending hit me. Abruptly.

The game somewhat wraps itself up, but not in a very satisfying way, as it shows this case being one part of a much wider case, as if this was but the first chapter of a game. It's understandable that the idea here was to give a short but sweet taste of the lives of the characters following the first game, but two key issues with it sour me.

One, the bonus chapter of the first game already did exactly that, including the ending of its case revealing itself to be a part of the EXACT SAME web as this game's mystery. Functionally, it feels like I went through the exact same type of story twice, which really makes me question why 1BeatHeart exists in the first place. This wouldn't be as much of an issue if it gave me more interactions of the characters I loved, but. two, the future Miwashiba gave for these characters just isn't very interesting! Why did they decide to transition this universe's story from a sci-fi world about a boy learning about himself through making friends to a fairly mundane detective story with a deemphasis on the sci-fi elements? Tacking it onto this world feels so arbitrary and, while it doesn't sour my enjoyment of the original game at all, does make me ultimately want to ignore this game's existence all together. Which for what is likely some of the only extension to the original game I loved so dearly, especially one so particularly niche... sucks!

Still better than Wadanohara though lmao