[LEFT]Backgrounds and objects all have a washed out painting sort of appearance on them but look very beautifully done. All textures look very detailed from the rendered square pattern on the quilts to small book covers. Food from the Sweet Mountain bakery looks scrumptious too! Colours on the other hand look very dull. Despite all the cute looking characters, the artist seems to have gone for an overall darker look for the game world.
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Everything seems to be static in the game including the NPCs apart from the odd movement such as brushing their dress. They dont even walk about unless theres a cutscene. I could even say that the only animated area is the shopping mall where the fountain is running and the mini banner to the Sweet Mountain bakery is waving in the wind. Saying this however, very few games have a vibrant, animated environment although some flowing water would have been nice as a minimum.


So many inventions but not a light blinks.
Not even the buzzing sound of electricity.
Theres pretty much no sound effects in the game and youll be listening to the in-game tunes most of the time which suits the time and detective setting well. There are also no voice acting but, just the usual tone you hear with scrolling text.

Overall, Osawari Tantei is a nice small, mystery adventure game with some beautifully done backgrounds. The cutely animated cast of characters give the dark dull colour scheme a good contrast. Some light sense of humour is given during the story but, most things feel undeveloped and short. None of the events that take place in one case gets carried over and developed in another, apart from the fact that Rina is trying to prove her skills as a Touch Detective. So if youre looking for an adventure game with a well developed story, I would stay away from this game. Otherwise, if youre just looking for something to play while you wait for the next adventure game, this should keep you entertained for several hours.


Being dialogue based, you would miss out a lot on some of the humorous scenes without knowing Japanese despite some well animated characters. Without a guide of some sort, you could find yourself stuck and tapping on everything for a while.

• Beautifully done backgrounds.
  
• Cute animations and a nice cast of characters.
  
• Nice jazzy, classic detective style music.
  
• A bundle of side quests to complete.
  
• Things to collect.

• Dull colour scheme and static environments dont mix.
  
• Only one save file.
  
• Scenarios arent all that captivating.
  
• Sound effects are practically non-existent.