Video Game Review: Kotodama: The 7 Mysteries of Fujisawa

Kotodama: The 7 Mysteries of Fujisawa

Studio: PQube

Genres: Visual Novel, Mystery, Puzzle

Platform: Nintendo Switch

In Kotodama: The 7 Mysteries of Fujisawa, you take on the role of a new student to a high school (either gender is an option and ultimately has no bearing on the rest of the game) – once there you meet a girl called Nanami who is obsessed with the urban legends of the school and persuades you to assist her in her investigations. The ‘7 mysteries’ are spread over seven chapters through the game, but what is it that connects them all? And why is Nanami just so obsessed with uncovering the truth behind these mysteries? Oh, and for some reason, you have a contract with a demon fox which enables you to use the power of ‘words’ to help in getting information out of others. Sounds weird? Welcome to the world of ‘Kotodama.’

For me, Kotodama was a rather frustrating game – playing more like a kinetic story than a true visual novel there’s a fairly limited number of choices, which makes you feel more like you’re spectating than have any real agency. To top it off there’s a certain event that happens a few chapters in which leads to you being forced to replay the game multiple times to unlock later content and the true ending. Whilst this is a tactic used in other visual novels, here it feels more forced and ultimately feels like a waste of time due to the lack of information on how to progress – you’re left just trying all the different options and combination of places to visit in the hope you get the order correct and don’t miss that vital clue. There are definitely still clever plot points and some of the mysteries are genuinely satisfying but your progress often feels hampered by how quickly you’re forced to start over again – it might have been better if you were just taken back to the beginning of the chapter but a ‘game over’ results in you being forced right back to the very start of the game, effectively destroying any momentum you might have had.

The music and visuals are bright and colourful, though the character designs are bland and come across more like manga-style drawings – this does, however, make all the characters look more real and sets them apart from the more anime-like style as in Pqube’s other games like World End Syndrome.  The backgrounds are frequently rather lazy however and while the voice acting does the job, the animation often doesn’t match well so you’ll hear the voice but just see the character’s mouth flapping open at random. The inclusion of a social media app called Quacker is pretty cute and offers an extra layer of investigation. In a game like this, it’s really the characters which should be the highlight of the story but unfortunately for me, I didn’t find many of the main cast too likable – this is perhaps on purpose as the story does focus more on the negative sides of people’s personalities. There are some rather dark themes focused on in the plot too – animal cruelty, obsession, jealousy, suicide… it’s brave that the game decides to tackle such topics but often it feels rather shallow. A theme will be showcased generally for shock value and then… dropped, never to be spoken of again. Seeing one character break down and go crazy only for them to be absolutely fine two minutes later leads to the feeling that there are no real consequences here. Whilst an explanation for this is finally revealed much later on in the game, during the course of it, it’s more disorienting than anything and makes it hard to take the more twisted scenes seriously.

Kotodama: The 7 Mysteries of Fujisawa is an odd game – as Pqube’s first visual novel it’s definitely rough around the edges and suffers from a bit of an identity crisis. The horror and mystery elements lean more towards shock value than real substance, and I personally found the True ending to the game somewhat disappointing after all the effort it takes to get there. The puzzle minigame feels like a random addition – an excuse to put another element of interaction into the game but it ultimately goes against the tone of the rest of the game and that is mainly due to the “unclothing” mechanic. The puzzle is a generally simple ‘match the colour’s’ game with an unusual twist – by completing the puzzle the protagonist is presumably uncovering the truth behind the target’s lies and the game presents that in a rather literal manner: by undressing the target down to their underwear as you progress. Whilst there is no actual nudity, for a game where there are no dating elements whatsoever, it feels unnecessary like they just decided to throw it in for the sake of satisfying a particular audience. Ultimately for the casual gamer who expected a game about a mystery, it’s more likely to turn them off from the game as the ‘unclothing’ is accompanied by a lot of moaning and sexualised body movements. My main issue with this is that it often worked against the tone of the plot – for example, one such target had been seen abusing animals right before you’re forced to ‘unclothe’ them and seeing them in such a negative light and then being forced into viewing them in a sexualised manner right after was rather unsettling.

Kotodama is a game with some good ideas but ultimately struggles to pull them off. It has some surprisingly effective scares and mysteries but the mini-game elements don’t add anything extra really and feel out of place. For a fairly short visual novel game, it overstays its welcome due to the forced replays it makes you complete and is more likely to make you quit rather than stay along for the ride to reach that elusive true ending.