Noir Chronicles: City of Crime
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
Price: $1.90 Nintendo e‑Shop
How could I pass up buying the game for $1.90 which the e‑Shop advertised as 90% off regular price? Especially after playing True Fear? Noir Chronicles is another escape type puzzle game. The story is about a private investigator whose prior lover gets murdered. The beginning is action-packed straight away and very much similar to True Fear. Unfortunately, the story is hard to get into, the character design is strange and the controls grow progressively more lacking. There is no touch screen support which isn’t game-breaking in and of itself, but the cursor doesn’t even work properly. There are 3 knot puzzles where I could manage the first one, but the game controls absolutely refuses to allow me to succeed in the last 2. Thankfully, the game’s hint and skip functions are even MORE generous than True Fear’s, so at least I could finish the game. There is no choice to skip the find-the-object puzzles which are entirely too difficult unless your vision is stellar.
Unfortunately, I do not recommend this game. The frustrations overpower my love of puzzles, and the story is not compelling at all. The prior lover whom all men seem to think gorgeous looks more like a pig than anything else, and I still can’t get over the character art and voice-acting. Both True Fear and Noir Chronicles must utilize the same engine as the puzzles are very similar to each other, but True Fear is much more polished and well-built. It is a good thing I bought it for under $2 because I was quite disappointed.