{"id":103644,"date":"2019-11-13T19:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-13T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/nintendo-switch\/root_letter_last_answer"},"modified":"2019-11-13T19:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-11-13T19:00:00","slug":"review-root-letter-last-answer-a-clumsy-laughable-stab-at-a-visual-novel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2019\/11\/13\/review-root-letter-last-answer-a-clumsy-laughable-stab-at-a-visual-novel\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Root Letter: Last Answer &#8211; A Clumsy, Laughable Stab At A Visual Novel"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/3cb84b682c6ad\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/3cb84b682c6ad\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Root Letter: Last Answer Review - Screenshot 1 of 6\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/100935\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/100935\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Root Letter: Last Answer Review - Screenshot 1 of 6\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Do you have a niggling doubt about something you experienced as a child? Something unresolved or unexplained? Perhaps we all have a faint memory that haunts us; a gentle denial that we think we\u2019ll never have to face up to. Have you a tingle in your spine? A skeleton in your closet, a secret sin you\u2019ve convinced yourself you\u2019re innocent of? If you play <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch\/root_letter_last_answer\">Root Letter: Last Answer<\/a><\/strong>, you\u2019ll realise that your guilty old itch is better left alone. Because it\u2019s <em>boring<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Root Letter is a visual novel that hit <a class=\"external\" href=\"http:\/\/www.pushsquare.com\/games\/ps4\/root_letter\">PS4<\/a> and Vita in 2016, later finding its way to other platforms. It got OK reviews and a bit of a following. Kudos, then, to Kadokawa Games for backing a fairly cult property with an ambitious remake. Root Letter: Last Answer hits Switch with every single scene and character reimagined in a live-action \u201cDrama Mode\u201d, with the option to swap in and out of the original artwork as you play.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Root Letter: Last Answer Review - Screenshot 2 of 6\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/100932\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/100932\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Root Letter: Last Answer Review - Screenshot 2 of 6\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>The game opens with a young professional, whom you can name, coming across some old letters from a high school penpal. He wonders what became of the girl he wrote to, so he sets out to visit her at the other end of Japan. Reading the letters on the plane, they have a puzzling quality \u2013 something doesn\u2019t <em>quite<\/em> click \u2013 and when he arrives at her address, the house is no longer there. It\u2019s immediately striking just how exactly the new photo backdrops of Drama Mode match the original hand-drawn art. This eerie opening scarily foreshadows what\u2019s to come, but not in terms of the story \u2013 it\u2019s just that the clunky, joyless rigmarole of changing in and out of drama mode is exactly the kind of thing you\u2019re going to have to get used to.<\/p>\n<p>The game plays like many other visual novels: there are action commands on a menu (Move, Check, Ask, Think, etc.) and you need to search static scenes with a cursor, select dialogue options and piece together clues. Now seems like the right time to get into what we might generously call the game\u2019s \u201cquirks\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>For instance, when you\u2019re scouring the screen for interactive elements, the crucial item you\u2019re looking for may be directly adjacent to a useless item and not clearly distinct from it. On top of that, Root Letter doesn\u2019t let you use the touchscreen to point at things, which is one of the features that makes the Switch so great for visual novels; it\u2019s especially counterintuitive when you frequently need to operate an onscreen smartphone. You can practically hear Kadokawa Games laughing at you as you thud around the phone\u2019s touchscreen with a D-pad.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Root Letter: Last Answer Review - Screenshot 3 of 6\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/100930\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/100930\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Root Letter: Last Answer Review - Screenshot 3 of 6\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>But while the rough edges on the controls are irritating, Root Letter\u2019s writing, acting, story design, localisation and production values are all <em>far<\/em> worse. The experience is best conveyed by illustration. Consider this scene: you have cornered one of your penpal\u2019s old school friends, who now works at the civic hall. You press him for information on his high school, but for some reason, he doesn\u2019t want to share. Bizarrely, Max (the name of your character <em>regardless of what you entered as your name at the start of the game!<\/em>) basically resorts to bullying him. Let\u2019s watch:<\/p>\n<p>Max needs to prove that Tanaka is clever (long story) but he denies it. Max goes with a reverse psychology approach: \u201cYou\u2019re not smart at all\u201d. He says that about 50 times in a spiralling dialogue before declaring \u201cI\u2019ll use Max Mode\u201d. Suddenly, a throbbing power gauge surrounds Tanaka\u2019s face, filling and emptying like the saddest ever golf game, and you have to stop it next to the phrase you want to say next. There is no way to know which phrase is correct.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re a DAMN FOOL!\u201d cries Max. Tanaka explodes in fury. Talking of non-sequiturs, Max then notices that Tanaka\u2019s hair looks funny. Since the start of the conversation, the actor has been wearing a pound shop wig and we have had the dialogue option \u201cTanaka\u2019s wig\u201d. Until now, selecting that option was punished with a lost life, potentially resetting the \u201cinvestigation\u201d. In fact, selecting it now <em>also<\/em> loses you a life. You need to let Max run around the idea in his head several times before <em>he<\/em> realises \u201cThat must be a wig!\u201d Now, cautiously, you select the wig option.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Root Letter: Last Answer Review - Screenshot 4 of 6\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/100934\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/100934\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Root Letter: Last Answer Review - Screenshot 4 of 6\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>And what does Max do the second you mention the wig? He reaches out to grab it, of course! <em>What a psycho.<\/em> The whole game he\u2019s like this \u2013 it\u2019s like going everywhere with an embarrassingly socially inept friend. Tanaka freaks out, justifiably, but Max recovers very smoothly: \u201cI was just going to wipe your sweat. Don\u2019t be mad.\u201d <em>Best. Excuse. Ever.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>As a result \u2013 taking as our segue the running theme of non-sequiturs \u2013 Tanaka\u2019s tie falls off. <em>Falls off.<\/em> Wasn\u2019t it tied on? Clue\u2019s in the \u2013 oh, never mind. \u201cYou now have Tanaka\u2019s tie.\u201d And then, with startling perspicacity, Detective Max Holmes deduces: \u201cHe seems upset.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>All the while, Tanaka, having inexplicably pretended not to have glasses, is wearing the stupidest possible jam-jar clown goggles, the actor gurning for every penny of his paycheque. He honestly looks like he\u2019s going to do himself a mischief with these fishhook lip flinches and gutter-ditch frowns. He could win the rosette in some yokel church f\u00eate village thickhead competition. Or, you know, successfully audition for a bit-part in a godawful remake of a visual novel.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Root Letter: Last Answer Review - Screenshot 5 of 6\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/100933\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/100933\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Root Letter: Last Answer Review - Screenshot 5 of 6\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Next, we find out why his tie fell off: <em>we need to present it to him as evidence that he likes cats<\/em>. For no reason worth remembering, he denies liking cats. Private Dick Max argues that in fact, Goofy <em>does<\/em> like cats. \u201cOh yeah? Prove I like cats!\u201d Of course it would be too samey if \u201cTanaka\u2019s tie\u201d was a dialogue option just the same as \u201cTanaka\u2019s badge\u201d and \u201cTanaka\u2019s wig\u201d, so the solution to this <em>puzzle<\/em> \u2013 which apparently we\u2019re supposed to think this is \u2013 is to use the menu to select <em>Item<\/em> &gt; Tie instead of <em>Ask<\/em> &gt; Tie. For variety.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ll leave that scene behind \u2013 as we are privileged to be able to do since we\u2019re not playing the game \u2013 and move onto overall production quality. The majority of the story takes place in sadly-not-quite-laughably dull settings: the Civic Division of the Ward Office on a cloudy day; the unornamented pond of a shrine garden on a cloudy day; an empty, wet shopping street on a cloudy day. Why would Kadokawa choose to photograph all their backdrops on a cloudy day? And how did they manage to take photos that so closely resemble the original artwork?<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s a hypothesis that would resolve both these mysteries: suppose the original artwork was based on photos of real places. Those source photos were kept and someone had the brainwave to resurrect them for this new edition of the game \u2013 \u201c\u2018Drama mode,\u2019 we\u2019ll call it!\u201d However, since the photos were only ever intended to be traced over with sunny drawings, no consideration was given to how drab the places actually looked \u2013 the magic would come in the illustration. So if it seems like they weren\u2019t trying with the photos, it\u2019s because they <em>actually weren\u2019t trying<\/em>. In one photo there are two random passersby who were painted out of the original artwork. In drama mode, they\u2019re still standing there, oblivious to the game, irrelevant to the story, and completely unaccounted for when examining the scene.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Root Letter: Last Answer Review - Screenshot 6 of 6\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/100931\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/100931\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Root Letter: Last Answer Review - Screenshot 6 of 6\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Impressed? Well, if slapdash is what you like then has Kadokawa got a treat for you! The original game has a schtick where character drawings swoop across the screen anime-style with parallax animations and diagonal frames slicing peeks of their faces. This looks daft for a supposed drama, but that\u2019s not the problem. The original took its character drawings and zoomed tight on their mouths to emphasise key dialogue. Drama mode appears to inherit the exact same zoom and crop, but with photos of actors instead of the character drawings. That means the tight zoom is frequently on an inexplicable slice of neck: someone\u2019s talking to you and suddenly the game shows you a close-up of their shoulder and collarbone. Could this drama mode be implemented any <em>more<\/em> lazily?<\/p>\n<p><em>Yes!<\/em> How about if you had a drawing that was not based on a photo, then mocked up a photo with some CG models and stuff so it was similar enough to replace it? That\u2019ll do the job just fine. Of course, you would make sure that any interactive parts of the scene that are crucial to progressing were still present and mapped to the selectable hotspots. Otherwise, the player would be required to scan the screen with the D-pad, looking for invisible interactive elements that hang in thin air and overlap one another with nothing to indicate where one ends and another begins. Of course, you would make sure of that. You would, wouldn\u2019t you? Maybe <em>you<\/em> would. But that\u2019s why you\u2019ll never make it as a developer of third-rate visual novel re-releases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do you have a niggling doubt about something you experienced as a child? Something unresolved or unexplained? Perhaps we all have a faint memory that haunts us; a gentle denial that we think we\u2019ll never have to face up to. Have you a tingle in your spine? A skeleton in your closet, a secret sin [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103644\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}