Jump into the mind of the Cold-Case investigator Shonosuke Nanase who’s job is to unravel and solve forgotten crimes. Follow him as his world gets turned around when presented with a case of 6 years ago.

Visual Novel

Chase: Distant Memories is a visual novel for the 3DS so if you are looking for fast action , you’re not going to find it here, but if you want the excitement of problem-solving and experiencing a great story, then this is for you!

You “play” as Shonosuke Nanase who works at the least exciting division of the police corps, namely the cold-cases. After some time has passed (usually a few years) they re-open forgotten or unsolved crimes. Until one day they get a very suspicious phonecall about an event that happened 6years ago. That phone call is responsible for a chain-reaction of events and newly discovered clues that may or may not  help you on your quest to solve the crime!

Very simple, but that’s the beauty of it!

It would not be fair to talk about gameplay in a visual novel because they are specially made to bring a story and they don’t focus on gameplay at all, but I’m going to do it anyway. The gameplay is very simple, sometimes you get text-based riddles where you need to select the correct answer and if you’re wrong you just try again. You also get to go clue hunting which is nothing more than a point-and-click adventure like Put-Put or Pyjama Sam. And although it’s necessary to progress, it can get a little boring after a few times. But of course, like a good visual novel should, it makes up for it with the story.

Conclusion:

If you know how visual novels work then this is a game for you, it has a great story and fine pace of telling it. On the flipside, if you don’t know visual novels you will find this game boring as ****. But yes that’s the genre and it’s a very good game of its genre. And still the gameplay could be better, I’ve played other visual novels which try to include the player more into the story with special forms of puzzels which arent too straight forward. That’s something I missed here, so I’m going to give 2 separate scores, one for the gameplay and one for the story.

Gameplay: 6/10

Story: 9/10

Total: 7,5/10