I really dislike writing these together but I wanted to be able to say everything for certain in terms of how you should go about playing it and comparisons between the two.
I'm not going to really talk about story too much because the story is the game and the game is the story but imagine a kid who's gotten into some trouble but a detective takes him under his wing. This is his first proper mission without his teacher. (He's still there but he's doing a different case).
This is an Ace Attorney style game from before Ace Attorney was even born. This visual novel has the added bonus of gorgeous graphics, designs and animations. Sometimes there are even little things in the background to catch your attention like a kid messing around in his shoe locker, it's pretty funny.
This even has Smash history. Yep. Ayumi was a Smash trophy in Melee and I believe even a spirit in Ultimate.
If I've hooked you, then let's proceed.
So which game should you play first? Originally, the games released with the Missing Heir and then the Girl Who Stands Behind released after as a prequel. I feel like it wouldn't be a wrong answer to play it either way because you learn more about these characters. Playing this The Missing Heir will give you insight to the main character because it's an amnesia story. It can add context to certain scenes in TGWSB, if you want to already have those scenes in mind, you should start with TGWSB. If you want to get the context first then play TMH. It's nothing major in terms of plot points. Neither is mandatory to enjoy the other. I personally played TGWSB first but I think I'd have rather went with TMH. But I'm also the kind of person that likes playing sequels and then going back to the ones before it, it doesn't cause me as much issue as some other might have.
There's also a naming system that allows you to carry over your chosen name (as long as you have the save data) from one game to the next (doesn't matter which order). You don't have to do that though, it's just a fun little continuity thing. As far as length goes, my Switch says "Played for 5 hours or more" for each but it matters how you play visual novels. The text boxes are voiced but you can just skip those if you want, I kind of do half and half.
There are some points where it feels like you will need to ask the same questions over again even to the same answer because there are only so many options. I don't think it runs the same way as Ace though where you have to ask in a specific order to get the desired answer or penalizes you for guessing wrong. In fact, I didn't look anything up until Chapter 11 where you have 4 places you can visit around the school, I did every option for every area but how it works is that you have done that option already but it wasn't triggered yet because you had to do something else so I guess something I did triggered the Old School Building's surroundings because ended up being the solution. It also had a mysterious "Open" option. I've noticed that sometimes it'll have an option already available that can't be used yet (like checking the trash can) but that Open option was never relevant to that area.
There are no romance options or alternate endings but there is a "personality test" and "compatibility" with Ayumi at the ending of TGWSB but that's actually gained by what order you ask things (when interacting with her specifically), as well as looking at other girls too many times but it doesn't affect anything, just what sentences you get at the ending to say "what kind of person you are" but I feel it could've benefitted by giving you actual choices to determine those things especially with a game as trial and error as this. It's just not as clear cut as I'd like it to be and the reward seems lacking.
What I will say is that The Missing Heir seems like a proper sequel graphically. I mentioned the animations with the last game being good but this improves upon it even further, which is odd considering these remakes released at the same time and I suppose were developed at the same time.
I liked TMH more than TGWSB but as a report card for both games, I think that the story is decent, Ayumi is great, the animations are exquisite, but the gameplay is sort of lacking. I've played a few visual novels so I know that sometimes you can get lost with options and have to test the grounds but sometimes you do everything and then need to do it again and don't even know why you're doing it. Sometimes they correlate to what the character is saying, and you can pick up on it but that's only sometimes. I think that's part of the reason I liked The Missing Heir more, is that I played it with a walkthrough and I played TGWSB blind.
I'm not going to really talk about story too much because the story is the game and the game is the story but imagine a kid who's gotten into some trouble but a detective takes him under his wing. This is his first proper mission without his teacher. (He's still there but he's doing a different case).
This is an Ace Attorney style game from before Ace Attorney was even born. This visual novel has the added bonus of gorgeous graphics, designs and animations. Sometimes there are even little things in the background to catch your attention like a kid messing around in his shoe locker, it's pretty funny.
This even has Smash history. Yep. Ayumi was a Smash trophy in Melee and I believe even a spirit in Ultimate.
If I've hooked you, then let's proceed.
So which game should you play first? Originally, the games released with the Missing Heir and then the Girl Who Stands Behind released after as a prequel. I feel like it wouldn't be a wrong answer to play it either way because you learn more about these characters. Playing this The Missing Heir will give you insight to the main character because it's an amnesia story. It can add context to certain scenes in TGWSB, if you want to already have those scenes in mind, you should start with TGWSB. If you want to get the context first then play TMH. It's nothing major in terms of plot points. Neither is mandatory to enjoy the other. I personally played TGWSB first but I think I'd have rather went with TMH. But I'm also the kind of person that likes playing sequels and then going back to the ones before it, it doesn't cause me as much issue as some other might have.
There's also a naming system that allows you to carry over your chosen name (as long as you have the save data) from one game to the next (doesn't matter which order). You don't have to do that though, it's just a fun little continuity thing. As far as length goes, my Switch says "Played for 5 hours or more" for each but it matters how you play visual novels. The text boxes are voiced but you can just skip those if you want, I kind of do half and half.
There are some points where it feels like you will need to ask the same questions over again even to the same answer because there are only so many options. I don't think it runs the same way as Ace though where you have to ask in a specific order to get the desired answer or penalizes you for guessing wrong. In fact, I didn't look anything up until Chapter 11 where you have 4 places you can visit around the school, I did every option for every area but how it works is that you have done that option already but it wasn't triggered yet because you had to do something else so I guess something I did triggered the Old School Building's surroundings because ended up being the solution. It also had a mysterious "Open" option. I've noticed that sometimes it'll have an option already available that can't be used yet (like checking the trash can) but that Open option was never relevant to that area.
There are no romance options or alternate endings but there is a "personality test" and "compatibility" with Ayumi at the ending of TGWSB but that's actually gained by what order you ask things (when interacting with her specifically), as well as looking at other girls too many times but it doesn't affect anything, just what sentences you get at the ending to say "what kind of person you are" but I feel it could've benefitted by giving you actual choices to determine those things especially with a game as trial and error as this. It's just not as clear cut as I'd like it to be and the reward seems lacking.
What I will say is that The Missing Heir seems like a proper sequel graphically. I mentioned the animations with the last game being good but this improves upon it even further, which is odd considering these remakes released at the same time and I suppose were developed at the same time.
I liked TMH more than TGWSB but as a report card for both games, I think that the story is decent, Ayumi is great, the animations are exquisite, but the gameplay is sort of lacking. I've played a few visual novels so I know that sometimes you can get lost with options and have to test the grounds but sometimes you do everything and then need to do it again and don't even know why you're doing it. Sometimes they correlate to what the character is saying, and you can pick up on it but that's only sometimes. I think that's part of the reason I liked The Missing Heir more, is that I played it with a walkthrough and I played TGWSB blind.