LogFAQs > #924782823

I'm not sure if this counts as seacats content, but I read And Then There Were None this afternoon.

I wanted to see exactly what had inspired Umineko, plus learn a bit more about the mystery genre since, as we've learned, I don't actually know anything about it.

Here's the thing:

I clearly went into this game with wrong expectations. Yes, I knew that mystery novels were a genre, but also, this is a Japanese Visual Novel, so I thought my experience with Phoenix Wright, Danganronpa, and Zero Escape would prepare me.

But Umineko is much, much more in line with a mystery novel - The crimes add up with no solution, nothing gets solved until the very end. And when it does get solved, it is through exposition, not through any sort of climactic battle.

I had an expectation that at some point, the characters would debate the crimes until they came to an answer. Basically like the episode 5 trial, except, you know, actually keep going instead of stopping right as you get somewhere. Like the episode 4 tea party except, you know, actually making some leeway instead of just arguing, getting nowhere, and stopping.

I come from a background of games where the truth, and the twists, are revealed in really exciting ways, where you see the characters working it out for themselves. When the theatregoing topic says: "Why is he just giving up and not trying to solve it?" - Well, I didn't realize I was supposed to solve it. I assumed a time would come when the characters would solve it and walk through everything and go through all the possibilities, and I don't want to solve it before then, because I want to get swept up in that and receive the appropriate level of shock when the truth comes out. I didn't realize that the truth comes out in a slow expository monologue, because I was meant to just solve it on my own time between chapters with notes I had taken, you know?

That's why I was incredibly disappointed when the truth of Shannon = Kanon was confirmed, not in any sort of dramatic sequence, but just in a random scene in the chapel with Will saying "can you go get Kanon?" "lolno", confirming what I had already suspected from just going over it between chapters. That's why episode 7's format is weak to me - but as someone said, apparently it is just tradition in this genre.

And when I say "Oh, there's so much going on, it's impossible!", that's not me literally saying the crime can't be solved - I'm aware there are ways to piece things togther (if you were taking notes, which I was not), it's just the exact reaction the player is supposed to have. It was an "This is impossible! That's crazy! Can't wait to find out!", not a frustration or a giving up, you know?

That said, even Agatha Christie explained how the crimes were done...