Wouldn’t it be great if you could just kill off all the bad guys in this world? Control people and kill off the ones you don’t like? Well, with the Death Note you can do just that. Written by Tsugumi Ooba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata, “Death Note” is a 12 volume Manga series that began back in 2003 but continues to gain popularity even today around the world selling over 25 million copies. Based mainly on the first half of the Manga, Konami has created a unique deduction adventure game where you can play the role of L or Kira.

The story centres around a dark notebook known as the “Death Note” and when a person’s name is written inside it, that person dies. These notebooks of power belongs to the Death Gods who live in a separate world from humans but one day a Death God named “Ryuk” drops his Death Note into the human world. Later, Light Yagami a top class student in Japan picks it up and after finding out what it does, he decides to try and cleanse the world of evil from the shadows. Criminals begin dying around the world and the police are baffled at what is happening. Stories spread on the internet about how justice is being carried out and Light soon finds himself being referred to as “Kira” even though no one knows who Kira really is. Eventually, the ICPO decide to call in the famous detective “L” who’s true identity is also unknown. L ends up hot on Kira’s trail and the story becomes a battle of mind games between the two as they try to find out who the other is.


Light plans to cleanse the world of evil with the Death Note.

The main part of the game “Story Mode” is composed of 11 episodes with a bonus episode 12 available for unlocking. Picking up from the point where Light already possesses the Death Note, the game doesn’t strictly follow the Manga’s storyline but most of it is essentially the same in a packed quick summary form. Episode one starts off as a short interactive tutorial to the “Kira Game”, a game that’s been created in the Death Note world to let people feel what it’s like to be Kira or L but, the Kira Investigation Team now plays it to prove a person’s skills. The Kira Game is basically where all the gameplay kicks in after the story has been told through several screens of text in each episode. Fortunately there is also a handy skip button available for you to jump right into the action.

In the Kira Game, one character acts as “L” and one as “Kira” – the keyword being “act” here. During the Kira Game, anyone can be L or Kira whether it’s Light or Ryuzaki themselves, Watari, Soichiro, Matsuda or Sayu etc. Your goal is to catch your rival out i.e., if you’re to act as L then you must catch Kira and vice-versa. L wins by proving the right person to be “Kira” and Kira wins by framing L as Kira.


You, Raye Penver is Kira here but, who could be L?
After being assigned the role of “Kira” or “L” the Kira Game begins. Every character taking part takes turns making a statement which can affect the trust between him/her and another character and also, how much another character is suspected of being Kira. Once a statement is made other characters can agree, disagree or if either doesn’t work, debates can take place as they try to convince each other about their views. Depending on whether their move was successful or not, the overall effect of a character’s statement is changed. For example, if a statement was supposed to boost trust and someone disagrees, the statement can end up increasing suspicion instead.