Review — The Silver Case 2425

Discover the roots of one of Japan’s most enigmatic game developers in the bizarre murder mystery The Silver Case 2425.

There are a few Japanese game developers that have a peculiar cult following, both in their home country and in the West. While the biggest name among these would be Hideo Kojima, other popular figures include Yoko Taro, Hidetaka Suehiro (Swery) and last but not least Goichi Suda, also known as Suda51. Suda51’s most popular title is probably No More Heroes, and while we wait for the third installment in this franchise, we finally got a chance to rediscover the game that kickstarted his career: The Silver Case.

While Suda51 was involved in a few other games before the release of The Silver Case, namely two wrestling games and Twilight Syndrome and Moonlight Syndrome, The Silver Case was the first game he released with his own development studio, Grasshopper Manufacture. The game was originally released on PlayStation in 1999 and in 2016, it received a remaster for PC and later also for PlayStation 4. Five years after its initial release, the remaster of The Silver Case also made its way to the Nintendo Switch and the release included the 2005 mobile sequel The 25th Ward. It should also be noted that this remaster was the first Western release of The Silver Case, giving the Western audience finally a chance to discover this notorious Suda51 game.

Kill the Past

With The Silver Case, Suda51 tried to break through the genre conventions of the point-and-click adventure and with a limited budget, his studio made a game that was rather unique for its time. A visual novel that included more interactive point-and-click segments that play out in first person and included movement as if you’re playing a classic dungeon crawling game. All the while combining visual effects that include static drawings, FMV sequences, CGI scenes and animated scenes. The game presented itself as something rather unique for its time.

The key feature of the game, is its story however. A morally ambiguous crime thriller about a police unit that initially chases down a serial killer but ends up getting dragged down the rabbit hole in a futuristic ward of the Kanto region in Japan. It is a story that is as dense as it is erratic and subversive in its storytelling. Considering this is a game by Suda51, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the story subverts genre expectations and takes some weird turns along the way to its unforgettable finale. What makes this game even more remarkable, and complex, is that it is tightly linked to other games made by Suda51 and that to fully comprehend the story you’re also expected to to play these other games that together create the “Kill the Past" shared universe (or watch some YouTube video analyses, like I did).

A Relic from a Different Time

The game’s truly unique and bizarre narrative remains a testament to Suda51’s creativity and his uncompromizing approach to storytelling. What’s even more, with all of today’s issues around the influence of the media and the societal debate around the role of the police in our society, The Silver Case might even be more relevant today than it was when it first released. Sadly, I found this story to be the only reason to play this game nowadays. As the rest of the game feels hopelessly outdated, in part due to some of the design choices made back then, probably instigated by budget restrictions. Even if the graphics received a make-over and the game implements some quality of life-improvements such as the ability to auto-solve puzzles. The visual novel parts are pretty much in line with what you’d expect today. They aren’t voiced however and instead feature an annoying rattling sound to represent the characters talking. But this sound design is so horrible, I quickly muted the sound effects. Luckily the music in the game is pretty good, so only having this as sound wasn’t all that bad actually.

The sections where you walk around and interact with the environment are pretty cumbersome however. In the bottom of the screen you basically have a wheel with four actions (MISC) you can select. M allows you to move, where you can use the D-pad or a joystick to walk forward or backwards, and turn left or right. The right shoulder buttons allow you to look up and down. Needless to say, this control system feels very unnatural and require some time to get used to (remember that this game came out in a period where the PlayStation-controller didn’t have its joysticks yet). Commands I and C allow you to interact with objects and talk to people in the area, initially presented as a small portrait. Most of the time, you’ll walk around the area looking for clues or objects to interact with. Luckily, the game uses a system where you see triangles and stars in the level, where the stars represent areas of interest. But despite the needlessly complex control scheme, the gameplay is fairly straight forward and doesn’t offer any challenge besides finding the correct clues of sequences to trigger the advancement of the story.

Art vs. Entertainment

Another remarkable feature of the game is the visual style, labeled Film Window. Most of the story is told through smaller windows on the screen, utilizing a variety of visual styles, as mentioned above. The rest of the screen is filled with graphical elements that mostly serve as window dressing. This was probably implemented due to budget restrictions rather than story purposes, but it gave the developers a chance to almost create a new visual language in video games. My main issue with the style on Nintendo Switch, is of course that the key parts on the screen get even smaller and harder to visualize when you play in handheld mode.

But for all the creatieve dare and uniqueness that’s on display in the Silver Case and The 25th Ward, the games can be a tough nut to crack. The plodding pace, the overdose of information, where is it often difficult to seperate what’s important and what not, and the archaic style of the games make it hard to enjoy them and they require quite a bit of effort to play through (they’re also pretty long, having both an A and B side to their respective stories). Instead it is better to look at this project as a work of art and to approach it with an interest in its history, and thus as a historical object. Not all games are meant to be fun after all, if we also consider this medium as a form of art and not purely as entertainment.

3/5

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch.
Download code provided by the publisher.