Today I’ve been playing a bunch of Root Letter from Kadokawa Games, localised and published by PQube over here. I’m honestly surprised that I’ve heard pretty much jack squat about this game except press releases from the publisher, because it’s turning out to be a most intriguing, enjoyable visual novel/adventure game hybrid.

Root Letter’s basic premise runs thus. 15 years ago, you were penpals with a high school girl named Aya Fumino. In total, you exchanged ten letters with one another before drifting apart, but one day, 15 years later, you discover an eleventh letter with no postmark. In this letter, Aya appears to confess to a murder, but gives no details about the crime, the victim or her current status. Understandably somewhat perturbed by this alarming discovery, you set off for her hometown with only her return address to guide you.

Upon arriving, you find an empty plot where her house is supposed to be, and quickly discover two rather strange stories: firstly, that while the Fumino house did indeed once stand on that plot, it burned down fifteen years ago; secondly, and more disturbingly, the only person by the name of “Aya Fumino” that people in the area seem to know died twenty-five years ago from a mysterious disease.

What unfolds from this point is a mystery story as you attempt to piece together what really happened to Aya — and, if the stories about her death are true, who the person you’ve been corresponding with actually is — by using her letters from 15 years ago as guidance. Using a combination of the information in the letters and evidence you gather through investigating scenes and conversing with various characters, you gradually come to figure out the identities of “Aya’s” classmates, each of whom theoretically hold a piece of the puzzle, but all of whom are extremely reluctant to speak of the past, and of their classmate — the girl you knew as Aya — in particular.

I’m roughly halfway through a first playthrough after a little over five hours, and I believe there are four discrete “routes” for the final two chapters to take, varying according to how you remember your replies to Aya’s letters went at the start of each chapter. It’s given me a solid idea of how the game works.

Essentially, it’s a modern take on old-school “ADV”-style visual novels such as Nocturnal Illusion in that you’re given an interface and a variety of actions to perform — including moving between locations, looking at things in a location, asking characters about topics, showing items from your inventory to characters and just standing around thinking — but in practice there’s generally only one “correct” option to push the story onward. At the end of most of the chapters, there’s an “investigation” sequence where you interrogate someone you suspect to be one of Aya’s classmates from 15 years ago, using knowledge you’ve obtained and physical evidence you’ve gathered to destroy their arguments.

If this all sounds a bit Ace Attorney, you’d be absolutely right; the structure is very similar, with the standard wandering around exploring gameplay mirroring Ace Attorney’s investigation sequences, and the interrogation sequences working much like the courtroom scenes, right down to having a limited number of chances to present the correct piece of evidence and proceed. Pleasingly, the interrogation sequences also feature some ridiculously overdramatic music that rivals Ace Attorney’s classic Pursuit ~ Cornered! theme in terms of ramping up the intensity.

One interesting mechanic the game has comes from the protagonist’s nickname “Max”, which comes from his apparent predilection to give things everything he’s got, even when it’s not strictly necessary to do so. In mechanical terms, this is represented as “Max Mode”, where a meter pulses up the sides of the screen with four different divisions, each representing a particular “intensity” of comment that you want to fling at someone. The bottom of the meter represents simple statements, moving up through lightly provocative, very provocative all the way to “I can’t believe you just said that”. When these sequences present themselves, you have a limited amount of time to determine how intensely would be appropriate to argue the point Max is presently debating, and the meter moves seemingly unpredictably at times, making it a bit of a test of reactions as much as choosing the right option. Fortunately for those blessed with less than stellar reflexes, you don’t lose a “life” if you get one of these wrong; you can simply try again.

Thus far the story has been highly intriguing and hinted at several different directions it could (and probably will) branch off into in its final chapters. The setup is an interesting one, and it’s satisfying to gradually see the truth slowly coming into focus as you progress. I have no idea what the actual “truth” is at this point, but I’m very interested to find out.

Since this game has had so little coverage on the Internet at large, I’m going to devote some time on MoeGamer to it at some point in the near future. Whether there’s enough to give it the full Cover Game treatment or if it will simply be a one-off article remains to be seen, but count on some more detailed thoughts once I’ve seen how the whole thing ends up.

For now, if you’ve been thinking about grabbing this, I’d say do so. And if you’ve never heard of it and enjoyed titles like Danganronpa or Ace Attorney, you’ll definitely want to give this one a go.