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The way I hear it, the Japanese see the graphic adventure as a cheapie genre. Something easy to make a spec doc for, and just about as easy to program and release. Touch Detective, however charming, will not dispel any of these notions. It has obviously been made quickly and on the fly: there are only five locations, each with about three rooms. The characters, which could've been a showcase of gorgeous 2D art, are rendered and cel-shaded caricatures. But it's hard to count any of Touch Detective's fallings as true negatives. In what it loses with location monotony, it gains with a sense of place and location, especially important in a genre that too often propels plot by shuttling the player from one zany set to another.
As we become familiar with the same rooms, we become familiar with characters that inhabit them. With Mackenzie, schoolgirl-cum-amateur detective, as our guide, we discover a neighborhood of eccentric characters that revolve around her, and know them like nicely fleshed-out TV show. Mackenzie is as wry and observant as a Mulder on a good day. Her goofy robot butler is like a cross between Lurch and Professor Farnsworth. Chloe, Mackenzie's rival, reminds me of D.W. Read without her Ritalin supplement. And then there is the game's Chrissy Snow, Penelope. A ditz that occasionally reaches Zen-moments of airhead logic, Penelope stumbles her way into various situations and is instigator of Touch Detective's four episodes/mysteries.
Stylish and creepy-fascinating, Touch Detective amplifies the typical chibi design.
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The game's greatest strength is the obvious one: the visuals. Stylish and creepy-fascinating, Touch Detective amplifies the typical chibi design; the characters have miniscule bodies supporting big heads and dinner plate eyes. Along with other humans, the town is ranked with talking chickens, pirate lizards, and, for no reason at all, the undead. With their giant eyes and gazes, everybody looks simultaneously bewildered and spaced-out, fitting for a game where one solution the puzzle involves is inducing Mackenzie into a trance state by inhaling roasted mushrooms. Even if the game doesn't meet its potential, its vision is too splendid and alluring to pass up.
A portrait of Mackenzie is always in the top screen. Not only does her expression change and her arms rise up as she reacts to the environment (bewilderment at an odd remark, frustration with Penelope, shock at a grisly sight, etc), but thought bubble also illuminate her mind. While other DS games use the other screen to confirm the main action, like with maps or health stats, Touch Detective top screen is contradiction. Mackenzie's thought process is never the right one, wandering on random tangents as people talk to her or give clues below. It really is difficult to try to follow both screens, and her eventual confusion as to where she is in the conversation matches yours. At the beginning, Mackenzie doubts her capacity to become a detective; she's just a kid, and one that has no experience. But she possesses a knack for this, doesn't she? An idiot savant guided by your voice and hand.
A lot of things can go wrong when kids are the heroes in products aimed for adults, and Touch Detective avoids the pratfalls. The kids still act like kids, but they're not precocious, nor ironic. Mackenzie and Penelope share giggles when they plot something behind Chloe's back, and detention or getting in trouble with the adults is a prevalent fear. It's important that we never doubt them as kids, even when they're shaking down zombies for clues, because a kid's reality is the only one we can comprehend in the game world. As the mysteries become thematically grand (kidnapping, murders, etc) Touch Detective remains zero-sum: everything somehow always returns to how benign and cute as it was at the beginning of the episode. They're kid solutions to adult situations. |
