When you hear the name Suda51, what comes to mind? Crazy over the top characters? A fondness for baseball and wrestling? Games with grind-house style violence backed by awesome tunes from Akira Yamaoka? While all of these are true, you would never think of him being the visual novel type. When he first started Grasshopper Manufacture, a visual novel called The Sliver Case was the first game he developed under his new company. The Sliver Case was a text based point and click adventure visual novel that has you investigating a series of murders through the perspective of two people, a detective and a journalist. The game at the time (1999) didn’t see a Western release due not just being text heavy but also how some of the puzzles and dialogue required a deep knowledge of how the Japanese language works. Fast forward to last year and with the help of Limited Run Games for the PC version and NISA for the PS4 version, The Sliver Case made it to the West. Now a year later at NISA’s press event last weekend, it was announced that its sequel, The 25th Ward: The Silver Case, would be making its way to the West next month as well.
Here is what NISA says game is about:
“It has been five years since the events of 1999’s The Silver Caseset in the new 25th Ward that arose in the bayside area of Kanto. In a room of the “Bayside Tower Land” apartment complex, a woman is found murdered under mysterious circumstances. This sets off a series of seemingly random events bridging across multiple protagonists including The Silver Case’s TokioMorishima. With all viewpoints assembled, a truly shocking pattern emerges…”
The 25th Ward: The Silver Case is set to release on March 13, 2018 for North America and March 16, 2018 for the EU.
