Root Letter: Last Answer
Root Letter: Last Answer is a Visual Novel, Anime, Detective, and Single-player video game developed by KADOKAWA GAMES Ltd for multiple platforms. During the gameplay, the player takes on the role of a detective and needs to explore the lost girl named Aya Fumino, who is missing for the last 15 years.
The game offers four different scenarios with different locations and gameplay. The player will discover various clues, pieces of evidence, and must reveal the hidden secrets by investigating the clues deeply. The Max mode allows the player to play with friends altogether, where all the players can interact with each other.
The game has five different endings that depend on the player’s route of investigation. The entire game has two different parts, such as Adventure Part and Simulation Part. The adventure part allows the player to investigate different characters that have a deep relationship with the lost girl, while the simulation part permits the player to play through earlier communications with the girl. Root Letter: Last Answer has core features, such as Two Story Parts, Detective Gameplay, Five Endings, Hidden Secrets, and Four Scenarios.
#1 Tesla Effect
Tesla Effect is an Adventure, Detective, and Single-player video game developed by Big Finish Games for Windows. It serves as the sixth main entry in the series Tex Murphy and offers the same gameplay as the previous releases. During the gameplay, the player takes on the role of a protagonist Tex where the player needs to recover the lost memory of the past seven years.
While exploring the world, the player views the environment from a first-person perspective. It comes up with the puzzles and logical conversation system that allows the player to interact with the NPCs formally. The player has to find out the lost Chelsee Bando, a person attacked at the end of Tex Murphy.
A player will find out many clues and pieces of evidence that help him to remember memories and provides him a sense to identify the objective. Tesla Effect has multiple endings as the outcome of the story bends on the player’s choices, and memory recovered. Significant features of the game are Multiple Endings, NPC Interaction, First-person, Puzzles, and Mysteries to Explore.
#2 Kono Yo no Hate de Koi o Utau Shoujo: YU-NO
Kono Yo no Hate de Koi o Utau Shoujo: YU-NO is an Adventure, Visual Novel, and Single-player video game offered by ELF Corporation. During the gameplay, the player takes on the role of a protagonist named Takuya Arima, who possesses a reflector device.
The player travels through the ultimate universe to save his world from a dreadful event. The game comes up with a lot of non-playable characters, such as Kanna Hatano, Mio Shimazu, Eriko, and more have different relations with the protagonist. As the player advances through the route, the game automatically saves the selected route in the divergence map.
The other game feature is Jewel Save that allows the player to place a mark on the divergence map. When the player returns, the divergence map will help the player to get back safely. This game has core features, such as Jewel Save Mode, Divergence Map, Reflector Device, and Several NPC Characters.
#3 Suzuki Bakuhatsu
Suzuki Bakuhatsu is an Action, Puzzle, and Single-player video game offered by Enix Corporation for PlayStation. The player takes on the role of a protagonist named Suzuki, where the primary mission of the player is to dispose of bombs as the protagonist serves as bomb disposal.
Everything turns into a bomb when the character interacts with the items, such as cellphones, tapes, eatables, etc. A player needs to disarm the increasing bombs before they explode, and if so happens, the entire city will smash in no time. The game provides a set of tools, such as screw-driver, spanner, adhesive tape, wrench, plenty of more tools to dispose of the bombs.
Each bomb has a specific time limit where the player must dispose of the bombs within the time; otherwise, a massive explosion occurs. The game comes up with three difficulty levels and several bombs to dispose of where the information for each weapon provides with some photographs. The primary features of the game are First-person, Three Difficulty Levels, Tons of Bombs, Time Limit, and Different Tools.
#4 999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors
999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors is an Adventure, Visual Novel, and Single-player developed by Spike Chunsoft for various platforms. Throughout the gameplay, the player takes on the role of a protagonist named Junpei, where the main task is to get escaped from a sinking cruise liner. It contains two different sections, such as the Escape Section and Novel Sections.
Escape Section allows the player to solve the puzzles in the escape-the-room scenario, while in Novel Section, the player needs to make decisions by reading narrations of the game. The game has multiple endings as the player has to make a decision that proves better for the player sometimes or affects the course of the game. While exploring the rooms, the player controls the character from a first-person perspective.
The player must complete all the puzzles to escape from the rooms, and at some stances, the player needs to join the two items and make a way to escape. It is a brain teaser game because the player has to use the mind to complete the puzzles. A player can replay the game to discover an even better ending for the next time.
999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors has unique features, such as Visual Novel, Two Sections, Horror Rooms, First-person, Different Puzzles, Multiple Endings, and Brain Exercising Gameplay.
#5 Umineko When They Cry: Question Arcs
Umineko When They Cry: Question Arcs, developed by 07th Expansion, is an Anime, Visual Novel, Horror, and Single-player video game. During the gameplay, the player sets off on a journey on an island with a group of eighteen companions. Some mysterious murders befall the friends, and the player needs to investigate and fetch out the person behind the scene.
The game serves as a third installment in the When They Cry series offering some advanced features. While playing the game, the player needs to make decisions based on the text narrations to reach the outcome of the story. The tips mode permits the player to read the information relevant to the murders and murderer.
The game has four main chapters where the player must complete all the chapters to get to the advance. While playing the game, the player can’t interact with the companions and has to make decisions alone to search the murderer. The game has core features, such as Eighteen NPC, Text-based, Multiple Endings, Four Chapters, and Tips Mode.
#6 Higurashi When They Cry Hou
Higurashi When They Cry Hou is an Adventure, Visual Novel, and Single-player video game offered by 07th Expansion for multiple platforms. The player takes on the role of a protagonist named Keiichi Maebara, and his main task is to reveal the criminal behind the strange happenings.
The game takes place in the small village of Hinamizawa, and the population is less than two thousand. Every year, an event held in the village and almost all the people take part in the event. This time, the event becomes horrible as some persons killed and kidnapped during the event. The player needs to examine the scenes and bring the culprit to light to rescue the villagers.
The game offers seven different characters where each character has a special sense of examining the clues. It contains text dialogues and a set of narrations through which the player can make decisions and come to the end of the game. A player can interact with the NPCs to investigate the pieces of evidence. Some core features of the game are NPC Communication, Horrible Scenes, Text-based, Multiple Endings, Seven Characters, and Choice Matters Gameplay.
#7 Raging Loop
Raging Loop is an Anime, Adventure, Visual Novel, and Single-player video game developed by KEMCO. The game takes place in the village of Japan named Yasumizu, where the ancient gods attacked to hunt the villagers, and the main task of the player is to rescue the villagers alive from the gods.
The player takes on the role of a young man named Haruaki Fusaishi and serves for the lives of villagers. The game has multiple endings as every time the player battles against the gods in a different style, and when an NPC dies, it provides some information to the player that a player can investigate to get to advance.
The revelation mode allows the player to explore the inner thoughts of the characters and see insight them to reveal several secrets. A situation in the game comes when the player finds himself in the clutch of an inextricable loop, and escape is impossible, and then the character takes advantage of the information gathered before.
The core features of the game are Ancient Gods, NPC Interaction, Revelation Mode, Inextricable Loop, Pieces of Information, Multiple Endings, Horror Gameplay, and Visual Novel.
#8 428: Shibuya Scramble
428: Shibuya Scramble is an Adventure, Visual Novel, and Single-player video game created by Chunsoft and published by Spike. The game takes place in the Shibuya ward of Tokyo where the story is presented using the combination of scrolling text, video sequences, and live action. It shares many gameplay and story elements with sound novel game Machi, released in 1998 by Chunsoft. In the game, the player partake in several events from the perspectives of a different protagonist, all serving in parallel with no knowledge. The story is set in the modern Japanese city, Tokyo, where characters are involved in the complex mystery that can’t be solved without interaction, and the plot is progressed by following clues discovered within the text of the game and accompanying video sequences. Depending on the choices of the player, several new scenarios become available, which lead the player to different outcomes and endings. There are over eighty-five possible endings, and the game introduces a cast of characters, including Achi Endo, Shinya Kano, Kenji Osawa, and more.
#9 Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai Matsuribayashi-hen
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai Matsuribayashi-hen is an Anime, Detective, RPG, and Single-player video game developed by 07th Expansion. All through the game, the player has to serve the duties of a detective who has to investigate the crimes by getting to the suspicious person.
It all depends on the player’s abilities to tackle the situation whether the victim gets justice or the criminal sets free. The sections of the game contain two classes, such as question curves and answer segments. Each question segment is an independent story taking place in a substitute reality.
On the other hand, each answer segment lies inside a similar situation as a specific question segment, and help the player in defining the precise vision of the occasions. The player can get to an element named the Staff Room, in which he can look at the endings of the game. The player has to guess his opinions about the events taking place in the village.