We got a murder mystery on our hands at the Daydreamcast this week! But first, some familiar topics: We return to one of the earliest subjects of the show, tackling the recent Overwatch 2 announcements. Brogan continues to wade through the King’s Field(s). Pavlos follows in the footsteps of a recent guest, however, with a differing conclusion on whether it is, in fact, time to d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-duel (answer: it is not). We have the hot scoop on the new entry in the Resident Evil series, so tune in to find out how tall that lady really is, and stay for our game of the week, a truly influential early adventure game and genre-defining visual novel for Japanese computers and, later on, the Nintendo Famicom, called Portopia Serial Murder Case. After making our top 10 of 1985 in last year’s Game of the Year deliberations, we hereby supplement the deep dive. The maturity of themes and competence of the procedural narrative is striking in this early effort by Chunsoft and Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii, with the pre-formulated courses of action at your disposal being in equal parts intriguing and amusing due to their idiosyncratic, pre-codified nature. Designed as a game of branching paths, with a clearly defined modern day setting, and omitting the possibility of a Game Over, Portopia Serial Murder Case captured the imagination of many future game developers and has been readily playable in English for a while thanks to fan efforts. If you want to know more, you’ll have to beat it out of us!
Time Stamps:
Whatcha Playing
00:00 Overwatch 2 (2021)
12:05 Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution! (2019)
27:10 Resident Evil 8 (2021)
36:21 King’s Field III (1996) and Bro’s ongoing From adventures
Featured Game
41:55 Portopia Serial Murder Case