Touch Detective 3 + The Complete Case Files (Nintendo Switch) Review

Mackenzie is a rich little girl with big dreams of becoming a great detective like her dad, but she needs to prove herself. In these episodic mysteries, players will guide this pint-sized sleuth with a point-and-click interface and investigate clues to solve item-based puzzles. The town where the games are set are offbeat and festooned with quirky characters like the moody goth girl who runs the clothes shop or the corn-man who tries to play evil-doer ineffectively. Even the townsfolk are all slack-jawed zombies who mindlessly work and consume, as if the game is making a statement on the grind of daily life.

Across all three titles, the writing has a very specific brand of Japanese humour which can be best described as absurdist and dry where mundanity is taken to extremes. A perfect example is the first case which features Mackenzie trying to find out who is stealing the dreams of one of her friends, which is an outlandish and surreal premise, but then the motivations behind the crime turn out to be deliberately pedestrian for comedic effect.

The first entry's episodes are disconnected and mostly serve to introduce the characters and world of Touch Detective. It is a strange and weird place that doesn't follow the same rules as Earth while it is never stated, there is a prevailing notion that the setting might be the underworld. There are many NPCs who aren't human or are some kind of animal-like creature. It is never explained why there is a man made of corn or why Mackenzie has a pet mushroom that follows her around - yet that is openly accepted in this universe.

Touch Detective 2 ½ is where the franchise figures out its identity, though it doesn't appear that way at first glance. All the graphics and background art are identical and are seemingly reused. The character sprites for these first two games are pre rendered from low-poly models as evident from their shadows that never seem to leave their feet and the lack of depth. As for the story, Touch Detective 2 ½ builds upon where the first title left off but still focuses on episodic mysteries and crime solving. The major distinction is there is a overarching plot that connects all the stories together that lead up to a climax.

While fans will have a taste of the first two games on DS, Touch Detective Rising 3: Does Funghi Dream of Bananas? for 3DS is playable in English for the first time in this collection and serves as the finale for the series. The production values are a little higher, but expect many of the same tricks and recycled visuals that made the last couple of games possible. There is not a substantial amount of growth between the games on DS and the one on 3DS. Transitioning to Nintendo Switch meant losing the touch screen interface which is disappointing since these ports don't offer direct character control. Instead, players have to rely on using a slow-moving cursor with the analog stick to awkwardly guide Mackenzie. The path-finding for the point-and-clicking is also not the best since Mackenzie can often get caught on collision or not register certain areas.

This also has the negative side effect of slowly scrolling through a list of an ever-expanding inventory of key items that need to be checked or tested with various points on the maps or combined with other items.
This also is one of the major flaws of every title included in The Complete Case Files. These games abide by very traditional adventure games rules of trial-and-error and leaps of logic. There are ways to get hints, but when having to get clues from outside of the scope of the case, then solving it takes out a lot of the sense of discovery. The puzzles and mysteries in these titles are also not clever or engaging. Most of the time the humour falls flat and the languid music makes it easy to doze off while playing.

The most innovative thing that Touch Detective 3 introduces is a new character who is also a detective and rival to the protagonist. This new character fails to be interesting because she is a retread of Chloe, a pre-existing rival to Mackenzie who is also a wannabe detective. The only difference is this new character is a male and by this point in the series, Chloe has already two games prior to be characterized.