I'm admittedly very unfamiliar with Goichi Suda's work. There were many instances in which I tried to get into some of his games but they don't hold my interest for very long. The only one I played through completion was No More Heroes and while I respect that game for being a subversion of both the action game genre and otaku culture as a whole, I was put off by the almost intentionally archaic combat and repetitive padded busywork the player had to do before getting back into progression. I understand their inclusions however and can respect them even if its replayability for me suffers as a whole.

From osmosis through other people though, It seemed the success of No More Heroes in the western market swayed Grasshopper into writing their action games as bad Adult Swim shows you'd find thrown away to the 2 AM time slot. Games like Lollipop Chainsaw, Killer Is Dead, and Shadows of the Damned all made me write off Suda for awhile as someone who ties his wacky absurdist comedies scripts into mediocre action games. It even seemed No More Heroes 2 from what I heard misses the point of the original entirely, trading in its groundedness for a cartoonishly over-the-top plotline painting Travis Touchdown as some unlikely hero when it was established in NMH1 the dude was really a psychopathic loser.

Then I joined Backloggd.com and from here I learned about a lot of really weird and obscure games that are about as niche as this website. I learned about this whole trilogy of visual novels that kickstarted Suda51's career, that actually ties in thematically with his other games. I figured now would be a good time to jump into this unfamiliar rabbit hole. Not only because I was curious but because from the outside of it, this looked like a murder mystery visual novel, and I love reading through VNs from time to time! I'm a big fan of Phoenix Wright and I think I'm one of the few that can actually claim I enjoyed the whole Danganronpa trilogy. While I get they divorce themselves from interactive gameplay so I understand it's a very subjective genre with a niche audience, to me reading and interpreting the story is interactive enough to me to keep me engaged, and the more I can divorce myself from boring action gameplay and let myself actually enjoy the story Suda is trying to tell the better. So yes, I was quite excited to sink my teeth into a new murder mystery visual novel.

The Silver Case was not that and I think it's better off for it.

What I found instead was a game where past the prologue you join this Heinous Crimes Unit division of the 24th ward and within the same episode you learn about this alleged serial killer Kamui Uehara, who is also responsible for the mysterious "Silver Case". What was shocking to see is that you end up capturing him and the woman who was working with him, Ayame Shimohira, within the same episode. That's it? We caught our culprit within the second chapter of the game? What's going on here?

Then with each and every episode, your character starts to learn that "The Silver Case" and Kamui Uehara's identity was a much more complex and tightly woven web that's been personally interconnected with the 24th ward than you anticipated. It even ties in with another protagonist you follow with his own episodes named "Placebo", where you follow a turtle-loving private journalist with a serious smoking problem named Tokio Morishima, who is investigating the Kamui Uehara story. You start to understand that these past events the game reveals with each episode are starting to catch up to these characters. "The Silver Case" and the events that followed were a much deeper rabbit hole than discovering this game's existence, which ties into a big central theme of this game: The past and how you move forward from it.

It was honestly a shock to see how many themes this game tackled so elegantly for its time that it'd be impossible for me to list all of them in this review without it becoming overbearing, but as a taste test, It's got corrupted politics and corporations, corruption within the police force, how crime affects public perception and mainstream media, the past and how it affects the future of both its characters and their psychology, and to my surprise, it even talks about how the internet can affect people and expose them into radical ideologies. This is a game from 1999, a point in which the internet arguably wasn't as accessible nor impactful to everyday society as it is today, and reading these themes expressed here was so oddly surreal feeling it made me think this game actually was released in 2016 rather than 1999. (You join a chat room and one of the assholes in the website writes "KILL YOURSELF" to a character which then that same character proceeded to get death threats by the entirety of that website. Can't think of another game that emulates that feeling of harassment you can take by a bunch of faceless strangers without consequence due to the freedom of anonymity afforded by the internet. Scary shit.)

What also added to this game's surrealist feeling was its visual design and aesthetics for me. I loved the low-poly PS1 visuals paired with animated or real-life filmed FMVs dispersed at plot crucial moments. They all clash together to create a concoction of an obviously budgeted and compromised visual design but at the same time, these clashing art styles add to the charm of it all for me. It really feels like you're going through some scattered police logs not meant for the public eyes. I even like the soundtrack that accompanies the adventure. It may be my least favorite OST Masafumi Takada composed but it's very understated and atmospheric while still having some seriously trademark catchy melodies the man is known for.

With all the praise I've given to the game thus far, there is one big issue I had with the game that made it hard to go through at times. It's a slooooooooow burn, and there are a lot of instances that snail-like pacing didn't feel justifiable. The most egregious is the game's opening chapter. Lunatics feels so abrasive to the entire experience that it honestly put me off for a while and the thing is it doesn't even represent what the game does for the rest of its runtime. It starts out with giant rosetta stone textboxes worth of information dumps to the player about the world of TSC followed by a scenario in which your protagonist and two other dudes who never show up again hunt down someone escaping to a tower rooftop after he attempted to attack a member of the HCU. You progress through each door of the tower with this mindless and tedious puzzle that was so boring the remaster added in an auto-solve button so players can circumvent them. I say the rest of the game doesn't represent Lunatics because the game isn't as puzzle heavy past this point, and contains its exposition a lot more naturally in Placebo, so its introduction leaves a lot to be desired. This isn't the only example of bad pacing issues though. A lot of the Transmitter chapters unfortunately have instances where your character is forced to progress by reading numerous pages of logs scattered about in a room. In the last Transmitter chapter (not counting the epilogue chapters the remaster added), you are forced to go into 10 identical buildings where all you do is discover bodies and read logs until you can finally wrap the damn thing up. The unfortunate thing about this is like I stated earlier, the Placebo gave exposition to what was happening in the Transmitter chapters in a more natural way that moved the plot forward, I think that is partly due to the fact that the Placebo chapters were made by two different writers while Suda worked on the Transmitter chapters. I wished these writers would've worked together more to cut down on the overtly drawn out pacing of the Transmitter chapters to give pieces of exposition if the Placebo chapters were going to explain them anyway because the obvious padding turned what should be a 7 hour game into a 13 hour one.

Nevertheless, I say stick with it. The Silver Case left me with a positive impression of how confident Suda can be as a writer when passionate, and I'm glad to have experienced this strange rabbit hole despite how deep and long the journey felt. I'm definitely excited to get to Flower, Sun, and Rain and The 25th Ward to really see how Suda followed up on this, considering he did leave holes for an eventual sequel, with even more holes if you add in the epilogue chapters added in this remaster. I can definitely recommend this to someone who wants something lodged in their brains for a while to really think about because lord knows The Silver Case has been on my mind for a while since I've played it.

Now, can someone lend me 50,000 Yen?

the silver case is difficult to discuss. your knowledge of suda51's work, enjoyment of visual novels, and how much you can tolerate arbitrary ass writing will make or break your experience with this game.

personally, i am absolutely in love with this game. it has an incredibly unique presentation that creates an atmosphere i've never experienced in any other game, let alone suda51's other work, through the incredible artwork and soundtrack. objectively this game has fantastic character writing, with the transmitter route featuring an amazing cast and the placebo route having one of the best protagonists ive ever seen in media.

the story is hit or miss. its admittedly word dumpy at times, and there are some plot beats that can breeze by you but suddenly be super relevant later. characters can be hard to remember across chapters, hell, theyre usually drawn completely differently depending on the chapter. i took alot of time to process this game, but i understand that not everyone is willing to OR able to make that time. these aspects don't bother me enough to dock points, but it's worth considering

the gameplay is Fine. just Fine. it's weird to get used to, but you'll have it down after the first 2 chapters. this is TECHNICALLY an adventure game, so there are puzzles and interactables strewn about- but usually it's super easy to figure out, and the game even autosolves puzzles for you if you can't be fucked. as expected of a vn, the gameplay is just there to present the story (insane)

the silver case has incredible depth for grasshopper manufacture's first release and still holds up today with its themes of criminal psychology, individuality, and wooowowaha government conspirarcy woaowow. but its true the game isnt very approachable and can be hard to sit through for some people. i think it is very, very worth it though, as a gateway to "kill the past" and especially in relation to its sequels, FSR and the 25th ward: the silver case

"i understood! i understood!!", i continue to insist as i slowly shrink and transform into a red slider turtle.

TSC comes up as a really cool cyberpunk-y hardboiled story (cyberboiled?) about the evils of goverment and the messianic powers of the blooming internet in the, then thought, wild turn of the millenium. The cigarette smoke fills the air on this game just as it does on my room right now, as I write this.
Divided in two parts, Transmitter follows the work of the Heinous Crimes Unit, with bothcharacters and the player have to reconcile with the fact they are being functional to a conspiracy aimed to maintain the people in power forever. Placebo, on the other hand, fittingly explores the work of a freelance journalist and his interactions with said conspiracy and the consequences that come with that.
On a more deep level, I believe the themes of killing the past revolve around the idea of letting go of the burdens one contracts along the walk of life. Characters constantly have to face have to face moments where they have to put their past to rest, and even the game's narrative does this, sometimes refusing to elaborate on previous plotlines. Although I don't fully agree with the idea of letting the past rest, which in this particular [silver] case takes more of a "shoot the dog laying" rather than letting it sleep, I do admire the way Suda allows the burdens of yesterday to shoot him in the back if it allows him to face tomorrow.
Overall, it's a really cool package that asks you to vibe with it rather than understand it, something that I do think is repeated in most of the works of Grasshopper.

The Silver Case é um clássico no Japão, extremamente influente, conhecido por ter quebrado convenções de interação e visual. Com uma história hiper complexa e política, é um dos melhores pontos para começar o universo Kill The Past.

Se gosta da política de Metal Gear Solid e Deus Ex, aqui as conspirações vão 500 camadas mais fundas, com uma dose de metanarrativa e sobrenatural. Tudo metafórico. Rico em temas, é um dos roteiros de games mais adultos que já vi, com uma experiência estética fenomenal.

Pena, honestamente, que a falta de intuitividade da ordem que precisa jogar os capítulos e o fato que os controles são datados segura esse jogo de ser uma obra-prima completa, mas é realmente impressionante o que a Grasshopper conseguiu fazer com menos de 10 funcionários no seu primeiro jogo. Simplesmente incrível!

50,000 yen, priceless characters

The Silver Case is an adventure visual novel released by Grasshopper Manufacture for the PS1 in 1999 originally for the Japan audience eventually coming to PC and PS4 in the west in 2016-2017. Managing to make a studio for himself, this was his debut title for his own studio and the first game in the "kill the past" series. The Silver Case is a game that manages to tell a story in a unique way with it's presentation, artstyle, themes and writing that make it a unique experience that gets really crazy during the journey.

The overall stories here are well written along with characters that feel like real people with their own motives. You really learn to appreciate the characters and the way they interact with each other. The game is split into two main perspectives with each of them giving a unique look into the overall plot of the game and how they each connect with each other. The music here by Masafumi Takada does an excellent job of providing the atmosphere of a late 90's modern adventure game with almost a hint of cyberpunk in a sense almost. The presentation here has to be one of the high points this game gets and it's surprising since this game is almost 22 years old at this point. Each case brings a new color theme, background and specific camera angles that change throughout the story that makes each case have a real unique vibe to them including one that is pretty bleak throughout.

Probably the biggest weakest link is just the overall adventure segments here which can drag on a bit while if someone that really wants more story can seem much longer along especially with buildings with multiple floors.

Suda really managed to a tell a story 22 years ago that feels just as relevant as it is now with a few growing pains from being a PS1 title. This game will keep you on your feet throughout and make you understand that you have to "kill the past".

Imagine if your friends played the game you like.

Aesthetically wonderful, immersive OST, and a full deep and complex storyline not made for those weak to reading what is beyond of the text.

Did you think i was not going to use the catch phrase? F#$% OFF
KILL THE PAST

OINK- A truly incredible master piece by the goat Suda51. SQUEEEELSS OINKKKKKK----- reminiscent of titles such as grunts Ergo Proxy and OINKK OINKKKK----- Ghost in the shell.

The atmosphere and vibes were just OINK-- fantastic. The plot squeels is way ahead of its time grunts the way it OINK- doesn't really say anything and makes no sense.

Hoping to grunts replay it in a few years and be able to enjoy the incredible experience of getting lost in the squeels silver case atmosphere OINK- again.

grunts Kill the past OINK-.

Not that I've played a lot of video games that have detective stories that have 0% of gameplay that consist of assaulting evil dudes who are not trying to hug you, but this game genuinely feels like a REAL mystery of unraveling crime even without any sort of literal way to interact with the narrative.

What this means is that you are absolutely supposed to pay attention while being forced to feel alienated/confused the whole time, something the game does incredibly well to an extreme benefit and disadvantage to itself. There are times where you are just reading and times where you are just solving some puzzle for some reason (even with the game poking fun sort of at the adventure game aspect of that). The mere fact I finished this game initially and had so many questions/misunderstandings but I can go back and slowly shift the pieces in my mind to where I feel like I have a mental cork-board with 30 photographs and string is enough to make this game enjoyable to me, but obviously that's less gameplay design and more narrative design if anything.

holy shit
where do i start with this game
actually i won't start
i feel like this is one of those games where you can't explain it properly with words, you have to experience it for yourself
please play this game, it will not disappoint at all

The localization of The Silver Case is one of the most important things to happen for Suda51's catalogue and a whole fanbase's understanding of it. This game is a sort of rosetta stone that lets us understand some of the finer nuances in Suda's longform Kill The Past narrative, a loose series of games about mystery, truth and self-actualization among other things.

It's through this familiarity with this early work that the reputation of The Dick Joke Weird Games Man kinda falls away and we just get a really well-written, bizarre art game that managed to be on some MGS2-level shit in its internet-focused narrative. The Silver Case is less a series of visual novel segments detailing interesting serial murder cases, and more a portrait of a society rapidly losing control of itself as a result of this new online frontier suddenly swinging itself open at the turn of the millennium.

The Silver Case is dense, and at times too dense, making it hard to parse. While that's part of the fun in discussing it with people online, it leaves for a conclusion that induces maybe a few too many head scratches than it should. There's also the prevalence of the ableist r-slur in the script, which is just plain unfortunate. An argument can be made in how it fits the characters speaking it, but these days it's a hard word to stomach, and the fact that the word is upsetting matters far more to me than whether or not it fits. It's there and it sucks that it's there.

This review only scratches the surface on the positive and slight negative things I have to say about this thing, but I'll leave it here. If you want a cool visual novel, play The Silver Case. If you want something a little different, play The Silver Case. If you like Suda51's work, you NEED to play The Silver Case. I think it'll be one I return to every few years.

one day I will write a proper essay and/or make a feature-length youtube video on my favourite video game but for now here's some notes:

- I have never played a game that so effortlessly deconstructs it's own medium while marrying gameplay and story and themes until this game

- Neoliberalism + the police state + the information/digital age on blast

- all of tokio's segments hit harder in post-covid 2023

- kaumi is the demon of the info age, the human manifestation of the violence of the state

- a story about power and where it lays

- if we take neoliberalism to be the capitalism of "choice" in that it exploits freedom, then mechanically and thematically, the silver case is a direct confrontation of the dichotomy between freedom and power. we can take video games to be the arch artform of the neoliberal era, a form that gives the audience the chance, the freedom to make choices, the freedom to create their own narratives in the worlds laid before them. Visual novels/Japanese adventure games generally offer the player different kinds of narrative choices to affect the world laid before, the silver case actively pushes against this. in both scenarios, "transmitter" and "placebo", we play as two characters not in control of their own narratives, powerless to affect any change. the most amount of choice we have mechanically is to walk around a 3d environment and follow, for the most part, very rigid instructions. as we learn towards the end of the game, these characters' narratives have been affected before the we even pressed start. when we play a videogame, the choice given to us is obviously an illusion, boundaries always programmed in, our freedom is always limited despite many times being actively sold to us by PR as enticing freedoms. a competiton of freedoms.

- when we explore the 3d environments, no persons exist within them, simply objective markers. within the environments produced by the state + the financial markets + land developers we are alienated to the other occupants, only the images of a person is presented to us.

- the music bangs

- the loud typing sounds make us constantly aware of 1. the primary mode of communication in the digital age 2. the often overwhelming, sometimes annoying abundance of information in our age 3. that someone (suda5, masahi ooka and sako kato) has wrote this all out for us to engage with, likely on a keyboard

- much of the tediousness is wholly intentional, integrated with game's themes of information abundance and the bureaucracy of the state as a form of power. but it also has the effect of lulling the player into it's world, repetition can be a powerful sedative to those willing to give in. it's Tarkovsky-esque lol

- just like sick UI/UX design how can you not love it pal
(more maybe later, need to play the 25th ward now)

Crime in the new millenium

My very first look into Suda51's works.

What a ride. More than a game I'd say it's an experience even if the term is a bit overdone by now. Even if I'm not that big into VNs, this game made fan of the genre and Suda51's work in general.

It's the style, the writting and some of the characters that kept me playing from start to end. Even if the game starts slow in the first three chapters, it quickly picks up the pace by the third and by the fourth is just pure insanity after another.

Not to mention is not only text based with some images and that's it, game often changes how it tells the story. Can be through animated videos or real life videos, or even CGI. Text boxes and images are deformed depending on the situation and it works incredibly well, making scenes dynamic. Though, you'll have to use your imagination to fill blank space more often that not since while you are playing, no one will be actually presented on screen. On the 3D sections I mean.

The story was really convoluted and only starts to making some sense by the end. Strangely enough it has some similarities with Metal Gear Solid 2 main storyline, regarding the flow of information, the internet and how it can shape the society. Even if it doesn't go very deep with those themes, I think it was a worth first attempt by the writting and scenario team, specially knowing this game was made before the new millenium.

Gameplay wise is, there. Can be somewhat tedious to control and hard to grasp as first, hell it was for me since I was playing on keyboard. It really feels like a old game, where actions are totally separated from context. An unecessary extra step or two is for the most part always requiered to get where you want to go. For the most part you'll following orders or a set path and exploration is kept at a minimal.

I don't know. But I do really like this game overall. Can´t state enough but the writting feels so natural, specially the relationship between Sumio and Tetsu and how Sumio changes overtime while Tetsu tries it's best to keep him on track. Good stuff.

So in short. A remaster of a 1999 game, localized to english in the best way possible. Great characters, great writting, comfy music and a good sense of style. I'm definitely going to check Suda51's other works, in the future.

The Silver Case welcomes you into a realistic and neutral world and slowly unravels it to reveal a surreal backdrop with multiple pillars holding its secrets and themes together. It takes its sweet time to build up to a grand revelation and then it diverges into multiple paths, philosophies and twists that elevate The Silver Case above any other game of its type, that is if there's anything that is even comparable to it.

Side 1 of this story, Transmitter is an avante garde mystery thriller that takes a deep dive into a complex and profound concept that follows themes of the malleability of information, the dangers of the internet and what it means to be the self. This game has simply put, the most realistically written characters in gaming history. From Tetsugoro Kusabi to Sumio Kodai to Kamui Uehara. Each character represents distinct ideas and have personalities that feel so real, it's almost like you're taking part in the mystery. That last part is true, as the silent protagonist of Transmitter is a surrogate for the player and as the story develops, so does the player's perspective on the themes of the game. It even goes meta, with the game toying with what your character truly represents. Whatever it means, the focus of Transmitter is developing the themes, world and how the characters in that world react to the events. The style is ever so present in every single one of these mysteries, with even the text boxes being resized turning into a story device for reveals and style-bending sequences. It's all topped off with a cerebral yet bittersweet ending that leaves some if not most questions up to the interpretation of the player. Some of the questions, though, are left up to Tokio Morishima.

Side 2 of this story is Placebo, which follows the aforementioned Tokio Morishima, a freelance reporter investigating the events and aftermaths of the events in Transmitter. The writing and art-style shift, as not only are these chapters written by people other than Suda51, but they also have a different idea. They not only aim to explain some of the questions and events in Transmitter, but it also tells a story with similar themes but with new, more profound ideas. What Transmitter lacks in development of a protagonist, Placebo makes up for with Tokio, who is the best written character in the game. Placebo has purposeful monotony to develop Tokio's themes of loneliness and cynicism. These chapters have some of the funniest, most profound and emotionally potent moments of the game. I can't shower Placebo with enough praise, as it elevates the overall experience by a large margin.

These two sides come together to form a melody of a surreal crime thriller that achieves everything it sets out to do. It excellently constructs a complex, yet realistic world with its slow-pace, excellent music and poignant character development and it lays the groundwork for Suda's main concept all throughout his career. The SIlver Case is about letting go of your past, to face a better future. We sulk in the mistakes and events that drag us down and prevent us from moving forward. To fully become yourself, you must accept your identity, face the music and KILL THE PAST to work towards a better future. This is the message that The Silver Case wants to push forward and it not only does it excellently, but in a wonderful, entertaining and poignant way which makes it one of the most profound and memorable games I've ever played.

“These people have the entire world as their audience, and yet they sit there writing up stuff that nobody can really understand.”

I've never cared much for VNs. Never had the attention span for them, never much cared for any of their aesthetic sensibilities, never liked their pretentious purple prose. To be frank, the only reason I ever ran this was so I could play Flower Sun and Rain, which seems infinitely more interesting to me. So, for the first full on VN I've finished (assuming you don't count the AA trilogy and Snatcher), what did I think?

Uh, it was okay.
In some ways my expectations were more than met, in some ways they were pretty thoroughly dashed. The aesthetics kinda wore off on me really quickly, I grew to not care much for the weird background thingies and the odd presentation, and I never really liked the music, which I've seen a bunch of people soy about, but for the most part I definitely enjoyed the experience. Suda's definitely great when it comes to writing engaging dialogue and interesting if fairly one note characters, and his takedown of the farce that is police and it's role to protect the status quo and the nature of information certainly are pointed and engaging, but I don't know how much he can do beyond that. Some of the exploration segments in this sure are fucking tedious, like the particularly bad sections in parade or the ending or every placebo chapter, the man can't make a good puzzle to save his life, and he sure is fond of his exposition dumps. They're some of the better exposition dumps I've seen, for what it's worth, but they definitely still are that. Also, he seems incapable of writing a character that doesn't fit into the "lovable asshole" archetype. Not a criticism, so much as an observation.

On the transmitter, the game starts out pretty fucking weak, it took me something like a few weeks to even muster up the attention to get through spectrum, but from that point on it's thoroughly engaging, parade in particular worked incredibly as a standalone piece, and kamuidrone and lifecut weren't far behind, but I had minor issues with both that held them back (A weak resolution and massive infodumps, respectively). Placebo remained consistently "good", Tokio certainly is a great protagonist but it's really monotinous looking through the same email screen, going to the same couple areas, checking Red over and over again. Ending was cool, though!

Anyway, yeah, Silver Case? More like Silver Okay-se. I don't regret reading it, it was cool. Tokio entering a chatroom and then immediately being threatened to be doxxed is the most accurate portrayal of internet chatrooms I've seen in any media. Here's to hoping FSR makes me do the soyface!