An early footnote in The Centennial Case outlines possible tricks in detective fiction, including the "narrative trick"--misleading the reader via the narrative delivery of prose writing, e.g. unreliable narrators--but notes that such tricks are considered "impossible in films and TV". Naturally, anyone in the game's target audience (the type of mystery fan who reads the sleuth spotlights at the back of Detective Conan volumes) may wonder if this FMV game will try its hand at inventing one. May build a few logic hexagons, so to speak, about what could be done with this format. I did, and the story still threw me just far enough off the scent to be surprised. They accomplished their goal in a pretty clever way, so kudos to them.

Mind, we are talking about a type of trick that hasn't been done in films and TV. Exploiting the medium for narrational meta-tricks is nothing new to video games and VNs. You can find effective uses of these twists in works from Umineko to Undertale to Kotaro Uchikoshi's entire oeuvre. And that's my sticking point: Centennial Case doesn't seem all that interested in being a video game. The interactive logic board segments are the weakest parts. They're similar to Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments' deduction system but more mechanically obtuse (albeit more aesthetically pleasing). My best interpretation of what was going on here is a simulation of the kind of wild theorizing a reader performs while engaging with a mystery novel, but I didn't have a consistent sense of what these logic chains were supposed to represent. They certainly aren't deductions. "Clues" can be evidence OR possible answers. The resulting hypotheses also often fell prey to sloppy wording, or possibly muddy translation (e.g. whatever distinction they were driving at with "the culprit burned the evidence" vs. "the culprit set a fire to burn evidence"). Basically, while I didn't dislike the logic system nearly as much as some people, I didn't feel like it added much. I would've liked the story equally if it had been a TV series.

That all sounds kind of negative, so I want to say, I did like Centennial Case. A lot. It's full of references to the history of detective fiction, situated in historical context, and that stuff is like catnip to me. While most of the cases were nothing to write home about, they were solid, and I had plenty of fun with them. The epilogue was great, and I loved Josui. Add a new Character Of All Time to the list, lads.

Un FMV bastante entretenido cuya parte de gameplay peca de ser obtuso a la vez que algo inconsecuente. No te premia nada encontrar el 100% de pistas y resoluciones más allá de un par de logros o tres y aún con esas pistas y "deducciones" lógicas, el juego abusa mucho de suponer las cosas y tirar "palante" a ver qué te encuentras.
O, al menos, es como yo lo he vivido. Algunas conclusiones no tengo muy claro que estuviesen bien traducidas (jugué en español) y daban una idea que luego no representaba lo que habías elegido. Sumado a eso, hubo un par de ocasiones o tres en los compases finales de la historia en las que los subtítulos ni siquiera estaban introducidos.
A parte de esas cuestiones técnicas, la historia de Centennial Case es interesante y tiene unos cuantos giritos muy buenos. Lo que son capaces de hacer con el reparto de actores tan ajustado para que representen a personajes diferentes en épocas distintas es honestamente genial y digno de mención.
Muy recomendado, pero sólo si te gusta el género y las novelas policíacas con muchos red herrings.

playing this right after death come true, another FMV mystery game, was a blast and a blessing. it's not solely budget, but the acting, tone and writing of this game just were so much better
i did got bored at certain moments, and there's a certain chapter where the core gameplay changed quite a bit, but the plot twists and the melodramatic flair of the scene quickly won me over again. i actually presented wrong hypothesis sometimes just to see the scenes they recorded for it, the tanuki one had me laughing out loud

and that epilogue chapter, man, just chef's kiss