The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story Review - A Killer Combination
We all love the ‘reveal’ trope, right? The detective gathers all the suspects together and recounts what happened before declaring who the murderer is. The suspects sit there stewing in their anxiety, and while some will seem calm and collected, others exude the most hammed-up presentation of fear you’ve ever seen and, at that very moment, you know you’re onto a winner. Films and TV dramas pull these scenes off quite well, but it’s often far less climatic in games. You can’t help but think of L.A. Noire or Ace Attorney, where the suspects usually give themselves away with wide, fearful eyes roving all over the place and other over-the-top guilty tells.
The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story features detective gameplay blended with live-action footage. When it comes to selecting a suspect, you can switch between the characters to view them, and you’ll quickly spot that some look shifty as hell. I thought there was a good chance this would fall into the same pitfall as many other detective games of making it all too obvious who the culprit is, but I was wrong. As it turns out, some innocent people just look guilty sometimes. It’s a good job I’ve never done jury duty.
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The plot follows mystery novelist Haruka Kagami as she looks into a 100-year-old murder at the Shijima family estate. In a “shock twist” that murder mystery fans will absolutely see coming a mile away, another murder happens while Kagami is visiting the estate. As it turns out, this family has plenty of skeletons in its closet, especially murders, and it appears as though they’re all connected to the family secret surrounding the Tokijiku, a legendary fruit said to grant eternal youth.
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