I played Master Detective Archives: RAIN CODE

[Finished September 4th, 2023. Rating: 2/10]

In the months building up to the release of Rain Code, my expectations for its level of quality would often uncertainly swing back and forth between eagerly anticipating how good it might be and nervously worrying about how disappointing it might end up. Danganronpa V3, creator Kazutaka Kodaka’s most recent prior release, had ended up as one of my favorite visual novels of all time, so Rain Code had a lot to live up to. But I was far from expecting Kodaka to match his previous work here. DRV3 was only one game, and the rest of his repertoire more commonly involved hit-and-miss stories with many lows alongside their absurd highs. Still, if I were to say anything about his writing style, I think it’s that his stories always have really compelling ideas that he just doesn’t always know how to successfully integrate. For all its faults, Danganronpa 2 still has Nagito Komaeda. That’s why even as Rain Code released without any promotional material I found interesting whatsoever, I still had enough faith to buy the game; I figured there must be Kodaka’s usual pieces of strong writing in there somewhere, right?

And so, Rain Code became my lesson to never buy games purely because of impressions from a creator’s past works.

I don’t even know where to begin here. I feel like there’s so much to say, but also so little, because this is truly one of the most ‘nothing’ VNs I’ve ever played. Not even a speck of compelling character work is present throughout the entire experience, and it’s so confused and non-committal to its themes that it might as well not even have any. The setting is established on a basic level in the second chapter ten hours into the game, and then takes until the sixth chapter to have anything remotely substantial done with its ideas — a testament to the abysmal pacing of just about everything, from the mysteries to the gameplay to the narrative. As a Danganronpa fan, I’ve seen frequent complaints about that series being full of one-note characters who only exist to regurgitate unfunny jokes and gimmicks. While there’s a grain of truth to that, I generally see DR as being better than most give it credit for on that front. But if that bothers you, stay away from Rain Code, because it is a game that seems to revel in being a caricature of people’s DR writing complaints. I am not exaggerating when I say there are only two or three characters who do literally anything besides repeat their same gimmicks over and over. Maybe if someone just likes seeing zany personalities and nothing else they’ll like this game?? It’s genuinely just such an emotionless experience that feels like it was only created to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

The worst part is: I’d really like to just move on and say this game has nothing of value and nobody should waste their time on it, but I genuinely think Rain Code had a decent amount of potential with its setup that just goes completely out the window since the writing is too afraid to take any risks ever. See, the premise of this story is that its protagonist Yuma is cursed with the power of automatically killing whoever he finds guilty in the cases he investigates. It’s a result of the pact he makes with the death god Shinigami, who grants him supernatural detective abilities at the cost of this deadly aftereffect, and tries to groom him into believing that detective work is the only way he can make people happy. Now, I think this is a great setup to criticize the assumptions that the death penalty is necessary in society and that the police should have unlimited jurisdiction as the sole protectors of justice. It especially seems like the story is moving in this direction with the introduction of the “Peacekeepers”, obvious analogues to corrupt police in real life that exist solely to serve the interests of capital.

But then… none of this potential goes anywhere. Yuma fighting the Peacekeepers with their own dirty methods isn’t meant to showcase how he’s internalized the mentality of the oppressors while trying to fight them; it’s just an unfortunate curse he has to eventually get rid of. Him believing that mystery-solving is the one road to happiness isn’t meant to be a flawed belief; it’s meant to be a positive ideal that the game makes his journey to live up to. Even Shinigami herself ends up being depicted as a primarily helpful and supportive force on Yuma’s side despite all of the horrible things she does and says. They kinda explore how being emotionally repressed is bad, but it feels like way too small an effort for how much more there is to critique about the story’s premise — and honestly, it feels like it’s just done out of obligation to have the protagonist learn a lesson rather than considering what it makes sense for that lesson to be. Even at its best, Rain Code isn’t telling a story to challenge its reader with its ideas. It’s writing a story to placate them.

This game is not literally devoid of any good ideas whatsoever, but they are so minimal and ineffective that I wouldn’t be compelled to mention them unless I was actively racking my brain to think of positive qualities. And really, I think that’s a sign that I shouldn’t bother. If you were genuinely interested in what Rain Code has to offer, I’d suggest you just try out the AI: The Somnium Files series for a pair of VNs with a similar focus that actually develop their characters and commit to their messaging.