Master Detective Archives: Rain Code – it’s kind of hilarious how much Rain Code cribs from Danganronpa (Picture: Spike Chunsoft)

The creator of Danganronpa is back with a new supernatural detective yarn, but is Rain Code a worthy successor or a pale imitator?

If you know the name Kazutaka Kodaka, it’s likely because you’re a fan of his murder mystery visual novel series Danganronpa. Originally a pair of Japanese only PlayStation Portable games, they eventually came to the West in 2014 and have since spawned a multimedia franchise, cementing Danganronpa as one of publisher Spike Chunsoft’s most recognisable IPs.

Following 2017’s Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, though, the series is stuck in a weird limbo. Kodaka left Spike Chunsoft and set up a new studio called Too Kyo Games, admitting he needed a break from Danganronpa, and there have been no new games since then, barring 2021’s Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp, a microtransaction filled board game spin-off.

While there are no signs of any proper Danganronpa sequels, fans desperate to scratch that Kodaka itch have been keeping an eye on his next project, Master Detective Archives: Rain Code. It’s not his first post-Danganronpa title, but it is the one that clearly aims to be a direct successor… for better and for worse.

The concept is more fantastical than the Danganronpa games (which is saying a lot with how bizarre those could get) as it sees amnesiac detective-in-training Yuma Kokohead team-up with literal death god Shinigami. Set in Kanai Ward, an isolated psycho-pop city run by the corrupt Amaterasu Corporation and cursed by perpetual rainfall, Yuma must solve various murder cases by entering Mystery Labyrinths – manifestations of unsolved mysteries – and use the clues he obtains in the real world to identify the culprit.

Despite the more supernatural elements, and less Battle Royale-esque shenanigans, Rain Code isn’t that different from Danganronpa, which feels deliberate by design. It even has the same character designer and composer as those games, as well as the censorship friendly pink blood. The similarities will be welcomed by diehard fans of Kodaka’s work, but it unfortunately robs Rain Code of some of its own identity.

Master Detective Archives: Rain Code – your opponents in the Mystery Labyrinths are giant neon monstrosities (Picture: Spike Chunsoft)

It’d take too long to run through all the similarities, but it becomes especially obvious once you enter the Mystery Labyrinths. As a reminder, Danganronpa’s core gameplay involved you needing to find a contradiction in someone’s argument and presenting the right evidence with the corresponding statement. Instead of skimming through static text boxes like in Ace Attorney, these statements would move across the screen, meaning you also needed to aim and hit the right one with your evidence, which you shoot like a bullet.

Rain Code’s Reasoning Death Matches are almost exactly the same except the statements fly towards you, requiring you to dodge them until you find the contradiction, and then slash at it with your Solution Blade. It may have some action game DNA, but Yuma’s limited movement makes it simple to get to grips with.

On top of that, when they’re not just basic quick time events, some of the mini-games peppered throughout are just slightly different versions of existing Danganronpa mini-games. This includes the big summation at the end of each case, where you need to place manga panels in the correct order, with the only difference being it’s now a picture book instead.

It’s a fine example of ‘if ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ but it’s a tad disappointing that Rain Code doesn’t offer much originality in terms of its gameplay. It almost feels derivative and considering neither of his other post-Danganronpa games seem to have been as popular, it comes across as Kodaka playing things safe and falling back on elements fans will recognise.

Not to mention that solving each murder case can be shockingly easy. Not because they’re obvious, far from it. You may be able to work out some aspects early (and it can be annoying waiting for Yuma to catch up), but you won’t figure out how all the pieces fit together until you get closer to the end.

What makes it easy is that you take very little damage from wrong answers or from being hit by statements during Reasoning Death Matches. As far as we could tell, there are no difficulty options to make things tougher and given how you can increase your health through a skill tree, it’s all too tempting to fall back on trial and error and just guess your way to the truth.

There is a ranking system to encourage you to make as few mistakes as possible, but your only rewards are more Detective Points, which are used to level up Yuma and earn skill points to unlock helpful abilities. These are easily obtained throughout the whole game by completing simple side quests and just by examining objects.

Master Detective Archives: Rain Code – Yuma will team up with other detectives to unravel Kanai Ward’s mysteries (Picture: Spike Chunsoft)

Fortunately, when it comes to the storytelling and writing, Rain Code demonstrates why Danganronpa became so popular in the first place. Aside from each murder case being intriguing and cleverly put together, complete with some fun subversions, the wider plot of Yuma’s missing memories and the mysteries behind Kanai Ward are engaging enough to keep you invested.

This is helped by a script that can be genuinely funny, while also being disturbingly grim and tragic, with neither tone intruding on the other – as well as a likeable cast of main characters and a few detestable villains.

None of them are quite as layered or complex as some of Danganronpa’s characters, but they all have their own fun personalities and quirks. Although Desuhiko, one of Yuma’s fellow detectives, loses points for his frankly gross behaviour around high school girls (the game acknowledges he’s being gross but that doesn’t make it any more palatable).

Speaking of the other detectives, they boast individual superpowers that help make each case more unique, such as the ability to view crime scenes when they were first discovered. Rain Code’s linear and scripted nature, though, means you only use them when the game says so. Had the game offered access to all these abilities at once, and tasked you with figuring out which ones to use and when to progress the story, that could’ve added a novel spin to mystery solving.

Yuma’s death god partner Shinigami is arguably the most divisive member of the cast thanks to her overly bubbly personality and love of corpses, often coming across as obnoxious and needlessly mean spirited at points. She’s also the game’s main source of shameless fan service. While she spends most of her screen time as a cartoon ghost, she takes on a more human form in the Mystery Labyrinths; one made to be as marketable to horny teenagers as possible.

Every movement she makes causes her jelly-like breasts to bounce up and down and one of the recurring mini-games, a cross between hangman and Pop-up Pirate, rewards you with a close-up of her in a frilly swimsuit. Thankfully, the game knows when to reign her in, so as not to undermine its more sincere moments, and she does have a fun dynamic with Yuma that evolves from a begrudging partnership into a genuine friendship.

For as good as the story is, though, it is a very slow burn. While non-stop action wouldn’t be preferable, we often lost focus during the events between murders, due to the slower pace and conversations that probably could’ve been trimmed down a bit. Plus, for all our praise of the individual murder cases, identifying each killer isn’t quite as satisfying as it is in Danganronpa or Ace Attorney, since you have little to no time getting to know them beforehand.

Master Detective Archives: Rain Code – there’s a lot of running through corridors but they’re at least fun to look at (Picture: Spike Chunsoft)

Things do pick up and escalate by Rain Code’s final third and while we’d have preferred if the whole game had this level of energy and excitement, this is one of those instances where the destination retroactively makes the journey so much better. We obviously won’t spoil any of it, but many of the late game revelations left us flabbergasted in a good way, recontextualising most of what came before and delivering satisfying pay-offs to some impeccable foreshadowing. Frankly, the climax alone bumped our initial review score up a whole point; it’s that great.

We also want to give credit to Rain Code’s production values. There’s an impressive number of animated cut scenes and nearly the entire game is fully voice acted. In addition, each labyrinth is visually distinct, which really helps maintain your interst. They do repeat these segments where you run down a corridor as the characters share theories, which are rather dull, but the way the corridors constantly shift and change appearance is a fun visual.

We did spot the occasional technical hiccup (and suffered one progress blocking glitch that thankfully fixed itself upon reloading a previous save), and the game suffers from some longer than usual load times, but these are very minor issues, that do little to hold Rain Code back.

Kodaka hasn’t lost his touch when it comes to crafting perplexing mysteries, that hide dark and horrible truths, or tackling mature subject matter that lacks easy solutions – all while balancing things out with fun character interactions and humour. Rain Code may suffer from a lack of originality in its gameplay, but its conclusion turns what would’ve been a perfectly fine, if middling, Danganronpa successor into a great one. Hopefully, if it gets a sequel, it’ll try to forge more of it’s own identity.

Formats: Nintendo Switch
Price: £49.99
Publisher: Spike Chunsoft
Developer: Too Kyo Games and Spike Chunsoft
Release Date: 30th June 2023
Age Rating: 16

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The creator of Danganronpa is back with a new supernatural detective yarn, but is Rain Code a worthy successor or a pale imitator?