Old-school point n click madness for the DS. And I really do mean MADNESS!
You play as Mackenzie, a young girl who’s trying to get into the Great Detective Society. In order to do so she must complete 4 cases and submit her reports to them. Sounds like serious business, no? Get ready for some serious sleuthing! Or…not. The characters in this game are well thought out, yet at the same time quite linear. You have your realist, Mackenzie, who tries to make sense of the things that Chloe and Penelope do; your loyal pet mushroom Funghi who, in my opinion is the best character in the game, who looks like a brown Wobuffet off Pokemon; Chloe, the hyperactive nutcase who’s constantly trying to outdo you (just think of Tomo from Azumanga Daioh); Penelope, the ditzy happy-go-lucky best friend, who you WILL grow to hate; and Cromwell, your inventor/butler/vampire?
The controls are as you’d expect from the DS. You touch things with the stylus and Mackenzie will interact with them whichever way they were meant to be interacted. The graphics are brilliant, in my opinion, despite the dark manga/anime look of it, it’s actually quite cutesy. The characters look great and well thought out, except for non-important characters who all look like that guy from the Scream painting, they really freak me out.
This is another of those silly point n click games. Okay then, touch games. Whatever. The fact is that this game requires some serious thinking outside the box to get some puzzles done. The difficulty of this game swings wildly, ranging from the screaming obvious to the downright ridiculous and this can get quite annoying. Sometimes to solve a puzzle just requires you to talk to a certain person in order to progress.
All in all, I say Mystery Detective is a brilliant game and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a decent puzzle game for their DS.
8/10