Lady in Mystery
released on May 15, 2021
Welcome to the detective agency in old Seoul. This visual novel provides unique mystery and lesbian romance. Players can choose which one of 4 female characters will be the closest to the main character, "Heesoo." Some of your choices might lead you to a dark and dangerous path.
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Mystery lesbian romance set in Korea during the Joseon Dynasty.
Was craving another mystery set in the past and the romance angle was another great hook to get me interested. The mysteries themselves vary from blah to genuinely exciting. Most of them (and the good ones in particular) end up heavily focusing on the class structures of the era and how the consequences of the system's abuses ripple out into these small tragedies. As a result, the game often has to pause to explain these old systems and rules and how they operate for the people unaware of them, i.e. me. This does mean there's not a lot of opportunities for the player/reader to solve the mystery before the characters, but its so engaging its kind of hard to complain. One of my favorite cases involved how fucking miserable it is to be a Nobi (essentially a slave). A nobi could be emancipated by a Yangban (the ruling class) and get to enjoy their freedom. But the children of said Yangban could also decide "uh, no, that's MY slave" and use their power to steal everything and for the Nobi's entire family back into slavery. Its the navigation of this fucked up system that the strongest writing comes from. The translation isn't perfect, but you feel like you're learning a lot about history through these tales of corruption and manipulation. Its really willing to engage these messy realities to tell its story, and its really appreciated.
The mysteries, however, are second to the romance and character building. The viewpoint shifts between Heesoo (a young woman disguised and employed as a male Yangban detective to find her father's killer), Woosung (formerly Heesoo's servant, now her brother in everything but blood), and Juhee (gay ass woman who joins up with the "Fixer Brothers" to avoid an arranged marriage). Heesoo is the central character, and Woosung and Juhee tend to fall to the wayside during the romance chapters. The romance options are... basically fine. They're fun character studies about some lesbians struggling to form bonds with each other. But compared to the Juhee route, you don't get to experience the potential love interests as viewpoint characters. So they all end up feeling a little less nuanced or deep, compared to inner monologues we get from Juhee. Which isn't to say that the other love interests aren't interesting and endearing, but I still just felt closest to Juhee. If you're looking to invest in some weird mysteries and slow-burn romances, its a pretty good time.
Was craving another mystery set in the past and the romance angle was another great hook to get me interested. The mysteries themselves vary from blah to genuinely exciting. Most of them (and the good ones in particular) end up heavily focusing on the class structures of the era and how the consequences of the system's abuses ripple out into these small tragedies. As a result, the game often has to pause to explain these old systems and rules and how they operate for the people unaware of them, i.e. me. This does mean there's not a lot of opportunities for the player/reader to solve the mystery before the characters, but its so engaging its kind of hard to complain. One of my favorite cases involved how fucking miserable it is to be a Nobi (essentially a slave). A nobi could be emancipated by a Yangban (the ruling class) and get to enjoy their freedom. But the children of said Yangban could also decide "uh, no, that's MY slave" and use their power to steal everything and for the Nobi's entire family back into slavery. Its the navigation of this fucked up system that the strongest writing comes from. The translation isn't perfect, but you feel like you're learning a lot about history through these tales of corruption and manipulation. Its really willing to engage these messy realities to tell its story, and its really appreciated.
The mysteries, however, are second to the romance and character building. The viewpoint shifts between Heesoo (a young woman disguised and employed as a male Yangban detective to find her father's killer), Woosung (formerly Heesoo's servant, now her brother in everything but blood), and Juhee (gay ass woman who joins up with the "Fixer Brothers" to avoid an arranged marriage). Heesoo is the central character, and Woosung and Juhee tend to fall to the wayside during the romance chapters. The romance options are... basically fine. They're fun character studies about some lesbians struggling to form bonds with each other. But compared to the Juhee route, you don't get to experience the potential love interests as viewpoint characters. So they all end up feeling a little less nuanced or deep, compared to inner monologues we get from Juhee. Which isn't to say that the other love interests aren't interesting and endearing, but I still just felt closest to Juhee. If you're looking to invest in some weird mysteries and slow-burn romances, its a pretty good time.