Welcome to our review of Root Letter: Last Answer, the newest visual novel to appear on the Nintendo Switch! Made by Kadokawa Games and it is a story to play!
Unravel the truth behind a 15 year old murder mystery!
The return of the best-selling interactive mystery visual novel! Follow in the footsteps of Aya Fumino, a school penfriend allegedly involved in a tragic murder 15 years ago. Explore the prefecture of Shimane, uncover clues, and use the letters you wrote to each other to track down her childhood friends for questioning. But perhaps these friends, now adults living a peaceful life, will not be eager to let their painful memories resurface…
As this is a visual novel, on the menu are lots of reading, slow action and lots of exploring. This is basically the staple of visual novel games and the story is what carries them to fame or to hell. Root Letter: Last Answer starts off with a slow approach to the storyline but everything will unfold itself and by adding intrigues, it will punch you in the gut!
Root Letter: Last Answer is your typical Japanese novel game where you pursue the story to get seemingly side tracked. I do love the approach to the story and how it often catches you off guard. Within the first two hours of the game, you are being thrown off guard as the information given to you by the old inn keeper lady tells you that Aya did not die 15 years ago but really 25…
You move from one point on the map to the next and you use the classic looking menu to advance. You ask questions, use items to ask questions and try to uncover everything that went down and most importantly if Aya really is a ghost… (Typical Japanese storytelling if you are unaware of the genre and its quirks.)
And even though the menus look like they escaped from the past millennium, they do not even bother much. They actually do a great job not to distract you from your mission and that is to find out what ever really happened. Why did their house burn down? Why did she die 25 years ago according to the inn keeper? Why are her friends not talking or seemingly brushing you off with lies?
Root Letter: Last Answer has it all. Intriguing story for the fans of the Japanese culture, really important to know this game is only recommended in this case. Even the small animations and slightly outdated graphics do not matter much, the story does the work and I did enjoy playing it. The only downside I found to the game, a silly one really, is that at first, it takes you a while before you can finally save your game. I actually upgraded to a new Switch in the middle of my first game play and had to redo around 20 minutes. Mostly my own fault for not checking properly but my cloud did say it had a back up… Ah well, I was able to skip most thanks to a great amount of options. I especially loved the increased reading speed option.
In conclusion, outdated graphics that lose big time compared to a very great, but typical Japanese story. One could say that this visual novel is genre defining in many ways, intrigues all around and it just kept dragging me into the story…
