The Centennial Case : A Shijima Story

I went into The Centennial Case expecting a detective game and came out the other side feeling like I'd binged a four-episode limited series with occasional homework. That's not a complaint, exactly - it's just the clearest possible framing for what this thing actually is. Developed by h.a.n.d. and published by Square Enix, it's a full-motion video murder mystery spanning three eras of Japanese history: a 1922 auction house, a 1970s nightclub dripping with Showa-era atmosphere, and the present-day Shijima estate at the base of Mt. Fuji. You play as Haruka Kagami, a mystery novelist dropped into a real-life whodunit when the Shijima family's century-old secrets start producing fresh bodies. The production values are genuinely striking - costume design, set work, and cinematography all punch well above what you'd expect, and the same small ensemble cast plays entirely different characters across time periods, which is either clever or confusing depending on your tolerance for that kind of theatrical conceit. The structure runs on three phases per chapter: the Incident phase, where you watch live-action footage and can tap prompts to collect clues (though the clues appear automatically whether you bother or not); the Reasoning phase, where you slot those clues into a hexagonal grid to build hypotheses; and the Solution phase, where you confront the cast and name your killer. On paper that loop sounds satisfying. In practice, the Reasoning phase - which is most of what the game actually asks you to do - is a slow drag of scrolling through clue tabs and matching symbols, lasting fifteen to twenty minutes per chapter with very little evolution across the runtime. The Incident phase dialogue choices have no consequence whatsoever, and the game's optional Insight feature will simply highlight the correct clue for you if you ask. Challenge-seekers will find this genuinely frustrating. The game is less interested in testing your deductive powers than in making sure you reach the conclusion it already scripted for you. What saves it is the story itself. The central mystery around the Shijima family's Fruit of Youth - a legendary object tied to every murder across the century - is well-constructed and earns its final-act twist. The cases set in 1922 and 1972 each carry their own distinct mood, and the 1970s nightclub chapter in particular is a highlight: jealousy, showbiz pressure, and a genuine sense of period texture. The cast is mostly strong in the original Japanese audio (the English dub skews campy in ways that may or may not be intentional), and the score complements every scene without overplaying the drama. Steam's community currently sits at roughly 80 percent positive across nearly a thousand reviews, which tracks: most people who go in understanding what it is come out satisfied. A free 4K video pack was also added post-launch, addressing an early complaint that the PC version launched at 720p compared to the console release. The honest bottom line is that The Centennial Case sits closer to 'interactive film' than 'video game,' and the interactivity that does exist is largely a formality. If you treat the Reasoning phase as a structured way to absorb what you already watched rather than a real puzzle, the frustration drops significantly. For fans of Japanese crime drama, whodunit fiction in the vein of Agatha Christie, or FMV titles like Her Story and Death Come True, the roughly sixteen-hour runtime is a comfortable ask. If you need genuine deductive challenge, mechanical depth, or branching consequences from your choices, this one will leave you cold. It knows exactly what kind of story it wants to tell - it just doesn't always know how to get out of its own way while telling it.

Alex · Scout Team

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