Review | No Case Should Remain Unsolved (PS5) - Revenge of the Adventure Game
Upon its first release on PC and Nintendo Switch in 2024, Korean indie No Case Should Remain Unsolved became one of several cult hits for the adventure game genre in the past five years. Like many within that boom, it seems to have found its true place within the Japanese market, where personalities the likes of Kazutaka Kodaka, of Danganronpa fame, heaped praise on its puzzle-like storytelling and short-and-sweet nature.
This three-hour game revolves around the disappearance of a young girl named Seowon, and the regrets of retired detective Jeon Gyeong over having listened to the little lady’s father and agreed to leave her case unsolved. The player must navigate Ms. Jeon’s hazy memories of the incident by uncovering a series of conversation logs, correctly assigning them to each person of interest, putting them in order, and wringing enough information out of them to find the final truth.
Now, the outing has been reborn on the PlayStation 5, which comes with its own challenges: controls and readability. When I reviewed the Brazilian Portuguese version of The Roottrees are Dead this year (also my first time playing the database mystery), I bemoaned the fact that porting it anywhere else is basically impossible due to how much it relies on the PC keyboard as a tool. No Case isn’t as dire a scenario, but it certainly didn’t survive the port unscathed.
Have you ever played something while being acutely aware that it wasn’t made for your platform of choice? Maybe the controls are clunky, or the resolution is a little off, or you have to suffer the thankless task of using a virtual keyboard while your peers live it up on the ‘puter (perhaps the worst part of the otherwise great experience of Big Walk on PS5). Here, it has to do with navigating and parsing the walls of tiny text that make up the bulk of the gameplay.
It’s funny: I’m playing on a larger screen, but reading strikes me as way less convenient than it would on PC, or even on a Switch set to handheld mode. It doesn’t help that I don’t feel in control of, for example, how far the text scrolls; when I must review an older conversation, scrolling is mostly either plowing through blocks of text all at once or being allowed only to head to a message that has an unused keyword (the abundant hashtags are very silly presentation-wise, since these aren’t social media posts or even text messages in-universe, but whatever). The only time I can properly scroll is when I must point to a specific message as evidence, and, as someone who likes taking in the details at all times, that just won’t do. While there is a zoom feature, I found it quite limited, so I didn’t use it often.
Technical woes aside, the text of No Case really is as good as a recommendation from the Danganronpa guy makes it sound. Everyone involved in Seowon’s story, we’re told, is lying for one reason or another; as such, the player is primed to double-check that the sky really is blue if someone’s testimony says it is. This allows the narrative to play around with audience expectations: if we’re moving the pieces around so much, what makes you believe it was this person who said that? Is it because the game told you? Don’t be silly.
Adequately, though, it doesn’t try to punch above its weight class. As a Themes & Motifs EnjoyerTM, having no lofty ambitions besides a shrug and a “wouldn’t that be messed up” is usually a con for me. On the other hand, I respect it here because the story lacks the pretentiousness of hinting at larger critiques and not following through with them, which is what made me not see the sport in MiSide’s whackadoo yandere virtual girlfriend horror last year, for example. It also doesn’t hurt that No Case is more grounded in reality and less Twilight Zone-y than the kind of media I end up scoffing a little at.
This is not, of course, to say this story stands for nothing; only that it delivers its messages with a more levelheaded opinion of its own importance. There is definitely something to chew on when it comes to what the writers think of the police force, for one, but getting deeper into that does risk ruining the fun. Ultimately, in a genre often full of spectacle, it’s nice to get something more down to earth.
No Case Should Remain Unsolved is a worthwhile treat for mystery fans, one that can be banged out in a breezy afternoon. Do, however, consider getting it for PC over console if you have the means — UX-wise, it definitely scans as something designed for the platform, as it consistently goes with this specific developer’s output (man, I gotta replay “lost phone simulator” classic Replica). In the end, no matter how Seowon’s case makes its way to you, don’t let it go unsolved.
No Case Should Remain Unsolved was played on PlayStation 5 using a code provided by the publisher.
