Kill the crime. For the life. Save the life.

Welcome to the Ultimate City where no crime is accepted and rules are the gods!... 25TH WARD.

The city that born from the ashes of 24th and now here to be perfected where 24th couldn't with creating it's own gods, it's own rules, it's own factions and it's own Kamui.

And this time we have not just two but three stories to tell it's theme to us, to the player. Matchmaker, Placebo and Correctness.

And In my opinion game does a worse job when it's comes to giving us it's theme on our face then it's predecessor the silver case.

Or maybe it's not about it's "themes"? Maybe that's why it's filled with setpiece moments? Or not? I don't know anymore. Btw I like the game, but I connected to it less than silver case and wanted to give it's reason with it at first.

Now let's go and look at in much more detail

Correctness. Equals the "question" part from the original silver case. There are 5 main cases just like the original(also+3 cases) and every one of them.... No... This time it's not about serial killing, at least most of them not. They are variety of things. One is about a girl that killed weirdly on a aparment complex, one is about a mystery behind a man's suicide, one is about searching a dangerous man etc. And this part's stories have my favorite and most disliked parts in the whole game. Case 3's incredibly surprising and fun hitman fights part and the goddamn digital man case as a whole.

I am not gonna go into detail but I can say this, all the cases I dislike goes full on scifi fantasy or not just that, it goes pure fantasy. While silver case had a small part of them with "silver eyes", this game pushes it's fantasy elements to the limit for the purpose of confusing the player but in my opinion this ends up making the cases feel less rewarding as a whole.

And now, when it comes to matchmaker, I can safely say that it's my favorite one then the other 2 and also applies game's theme better then all of them. It's actually more of what I expected from this game. A special cop group's slowly growing relationship (unfortunately correctness only focused just 2 people from a whole group) while the main cop tries to delve his "past" and eventually have to come to a choice when it comes to "dealing with his own past". Also it's movie like action setpieces are cream on the cake as well.

Lastly the placebo and the one that I like less and less. It's about the journalist from silver case but without what made him "interesting". There is a reason for why he acts different but that doesn't mean I enjoy with it. Actually maybe he isn't the main character? Maybe it's the ai characters he meets throughout in his journey? I mean game gives a lot of time to their story so... I don't know actually. But I can say this. You can multiply the "fantasy" element I talked about at the top here ten fold.

That's all I am gonna say about it when it comes to this story.

So yeah when it comes to story, it's a messy one in my opinion to say the least. I mean silver case wasn't perfect either but unlike silver case, it's harder to see what we gain when we look at the cases one by one.

And when it comes to puzzles and exploration...

It's three steps forward two steps back.

Exploration is simplified with the removal of looking up or down or left or right. You can only "command" the character with saying go north, west, east, south and he goes until arriving to next intersection. This is a both good thing and a bad thing. Now there is no interactables hiding in plain sight that requires you to look up down left right every damn place. But also when you press a wrong button, you need to watch your damn character to walk alllllllll the way to another intersection point.

Also puzzles are mixed bag again unfortunately. Fortunately there is no press a button on the other side of the room puzzles but this time it's full of password puzzles.... While they are harmless at first, you just want a skip button when you came across the 100th one.

There is also more choice puzzles as well and I actually quite like them, especially correctness case 3 made amazing use of them. So actually a big plus in this part.

Oh also there are labyrinth puzzles this time and they... Sorry to say this but SUCKS ASSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. Especially case 2, oh case 2.... I wanted to strangle Suda when I saw I needed to do it twice.... HUHHH!???

Oh also interact bazillion things thingy comes back at the finale with that apartment complex, that piece of shit apartment complex. That's all I am gonna say about it. I just opened a guide for it so I would not lose my mind when playing that part.

So that's what I meant with three steps forward two steps back. More variety but also more tedium as well.

So what did I left... Oh yeah music rocks hard. Remixes felt good, new songs felt good I can't say anything bad about that part.

So yeah that's 25th ward. While I look like extremely harsh into it I quite enjoyed it, but also I didn't enjoy some parts of it so yeah... It's a game where I am stuck in between but you know what I am still gonna recommend it just for it's vibes of it. Silver case was good but this is somehow a step up of it in everyway and really fills you with it's mysterious upbeat energy.

Lastly some small things I realized when playing, one is this game have an intro and I assume it wasn't in the original? It was nice. Also it was funny seeing Suda again with ghosts. Btw I respect to anyone that got 100 ending. I wasn't patient myself tho. Also I didn't realize I needed to move that white block guy to select other campaigns. I almost finished the game without playing others if I hadn't look up a guide I legit wouldn't realize it can "move".