Parascientific Escape: Cruise in the Distant Seas - Review

Cruising through dialogue.

Console: Nintendo 3DS

With how I've just come off a bunch of longer games I was in the market for a title that I could pick up and play through in about a week. Something to act as both a palate cleanser and to keep me busy while I contemplate what my next 'big' game will be. Then I remembered that, as part of the 3DS Eshop closure, I picked up games that fit that bill perfectly: the Parascientific Escape trilogy. I had never heard of these games before but the titles intrigued me and with how they were just a euro each… Well, I couldn’t pass them up.

With Another Code: Recollection, I experienced something akin to a visual novel game. They weren't true visual novel titles but especially the second game leaned heavy in that direction. Now the chance to see how a ‘true’ visual novel would treat me opened itself up for me.

So, without further ado, let’s dive into these forgotten 3DS games and see how my first full experience with this type of game goes.

Hitomi Akeneno is a young psychic who, together with her best friend Chisono Shio, attends the maiden voyage of a cruise ship. Hitomi was given an invitation to the event anonymously through a mysterious letter. While looking through the room the invitation told her to meet in, an explosion rocks the ship, and Hitomi gets locked inside. It's now up to her to not only find out the truth behind the mysterious letter but also that of the explosion and escape the sinking ship she's now trapped on. 

As a visual novel game, the strength of the story is very important. These aren’t games that, if the narrative is on the weak side of things, can fall back on what videogames do best: gameplay. No, they are more like interactive books where the actual game elements are meant to give a touch of interactivity to the proceedings. When it comes to the story of Cruise in the Distant Seas, I'm sad to say that the narrative is only 'so-so'. 

Presented akin to something of a diary, it leans heavily into familiar anime tropes, such as psychics and schoolgirls, that I don't care for much. It’s also rather predictable. I was able to figure out the entire trajectory of the game pretty early thanks to the general direction the story went in early on.

Granted, it was a lot of fun to speculate on the 'big' reveals and such. The game is pretty generous when it comes to the clues for the, what is essentially the micro-mystery of each chapter. This gave me lots of room to speculate on, for instance, who the puppet-master behind the scenes could be. It didn't take me much thinking to get to the correct answer, with one exception, but I found the speculation fun to do.

It's this type of dialogue what I meant with 'presented like a diary'. 

The quality of the dialogue isn't great but the small cast of characters we have here all have clearly established personalities that make them a lively little group to follow. That said, protagonist Hitomi herself leaves something to be desired. Her character arc, gaining confidence and a sense of responsibility in light of her father's passing during a failed rescue attempt, feels underdeveloped and not especially compelling. She questions her own instincts, but, like, why should the latter even be a question to begin with? Why is she positioned as 'odd' for wanting to help a stranger in need? 

What struck me in my first few minutes playing this game, and which never truly left, were plenty of 'someone's first game' vibes. What do I mean by that? Well, that aside from this game being a very short 5 hours, it lacks polish. In the first minute of the game I noticed a glaring spelling error which ended up becoming a reoccurring issue. When it comes to the 2D character portraits, they're not bad drawings at all, but they give off the impression that they were drawn by someone who simply hasn't had that much experience yet.

I figured I was dealing with a small, inexperienced development team because of these things, but as it turns out its developer, the Japanese based Intense, had over a decade of experience under its belt when it released Cruise in the Distant Seas. Why the lack of polish then? A short, on-a-budget, development pipeline perhaps? Well, that's the one mystery here I won't get an answer to I’m afraid. 

Circling back to the graphics for a moment, I don't really know what to think of them as a whole. We have what looks like 3D environments rendered to be flat that serve their purpose but are, literally, rough around the edges and sometimes unclear. In some instances, a standout object is just for set dressing while in another instance, a barely visible black bar in the background is of utmost importance. Combine these points with the largely forgettable music and I can't say more than that the look and feel of the game is passable. Nothing less, nothing more. 

Now, last and actually least, is the gameplay itself. It's a bit weird to say that for a videogame but that's just how the cookie crumbles with a visual novel title. This title mixes the expected point-and-click segments, which are very snappy thanks to the touchscreen, where you can interact with a variety of things such as doors and telephones alongside lots of dialogue and a rather underwhelming type of puzzle. Well, I say 'puzzle' but what I mean is one main puzzle aside from the point-and-click exploration sequences: the maze puzzles. 

These maze puzzles consist of first using Hitomi's clairvoyance to 'X-Ray' through, say, a closed locker to see what's inside before using telekinesis to move, say, the key through the open hole. It's basically one big maze puzzle that gets harder each time as the game introduces different kinds of obstructions and whatnot. Both these abilities are on a meter, which you can increase through exploration, meaning you only have a certain number of moves to solve the maze puzzles in.

A visual example of the 'X-ray' bit so you all can visualize it better.

It is appreciated that the game ups the ante with every maze puzzle, but I can't say that I found them to be very engaging. This is a true example of 'when you've seen one, you've seen them all'. Perhaps you will find these maze puzzles a lot of fun and they thus won't outstay their welcome for you, but for me, they really should've had at least had another kind of puzzle aside from these maze puzzles here to give you some variety. 

These maze puzzles are, of course, just a part of the equation here. When you're not doing these you point and click your way through all kinds of different objects that gives you information, such as a cryptic code, to objects you can use to, say, light up that dark room from a while back. Your end goal? Make your way through all these obstacles to escape the room you're in or find your way into the next one. 

I think it's smart that most of the game is something akin to a 'locked room mystery'. Each chapter basically has one larger 'closed-off' area where you have to solve a sequence of challenges to progress. This approach keeps things easier to grasp. There are some bits that require you to go to an older area but the game clearly states that you need to do this and you can easily travel to these areas through quick travel. So yeah, that was well handled. Should you still have some trouble though, you can use the hint system to help you out but these do tend to give you nearly the entire solution. 

This is also where I found the game to be at its best. Seeing some of the solutions of these strings of conundrums to get to your goal, but you're looking for that one missing piece. Seeing the dominos falling when you’ve finally found it, making your way past each obstacle one after the other, seeing how the solution of one is a piece to the solution of another, is a great feeling. 

And on that high note, let's move on to the big, bad...

Conclusion

Parascientific Escape: Cruise in the Distant Seas is a fine but unmemorable game. The story and presentation are underwhelming and its maze puzzles undercooked and repetitive but solving its interconnected challenges like a series of falling dominos is a lot of fun. I also feel that its short length and focus on 'closed room' sequences actually makes this a very approachable visual novel game for beginners. Still, there are certainly better visual novel games out there that do all these things as well and more. I recommend seeking out one of those games and leave Cruise in the Distant Seas in the past.