The Shell Part I: Inferno

The Shell Part I: Inferno is a murder/mystery visual novel! I love a visual novel and if I am being honest most of the ones that I play these days tend to be of the XXX variety. However, as someone that loves crime dramas and true crime specials, this game is something that appealed to me greatly and I was very excited when I heard that it was making its way from Japan to the West with a full translation and some flashy HD visuals as well.

Ten Years After The War

The setting for The Shell Part I: Inferno is Tokyo back in 1956 when Japan was just starting to pick itself up again after the events of World War II. Our main character is a detective called, Reiji Tokisaka and he lives with his younger sister, Yukari who goes to an all girls academy. In a local park, Reiji comes across a strange girl who has a case for him, she wants him to find her true self, he takes the case, but what does this mean?

A Series Of Grisly Murders

Also happening is a ring of grisly murders in the city and The Shell Part I: Inferno also has our hero, Reiji taking on that case as well! He has been asked to investigate these murders to try and find out why they are happening, who is committing them, and what the connection is. This is just awesome cop drama stuff and I love how the game is always dangling a little bit of information in front of you that keeps you wanting to progress and find out what is really going down here.

Going Back To The First Girl

Now, remember how I said that Reiji lives with his sister and she goes to an all girls academy? Well, the third part of the story for The Shell Part I: Inferno is that there are girls who have gone missing at this school and the principal wants Reiji to find out what has happened. He ends up going to the school to try and get information about the missing girls and comes across that strange girl he first met at the park at the start of all this! It is a very interesting tale with lots of moving parts and some very meaningful choices for the player to make and there are a whole host of cute girls that we get to chat to and interact with.

Dark, Grisly, But Beautiful

The Shell Part I: Inferno is one of the best looking visual novels that I have played in a long time. As the game is dealing with a very dark and serious subject matter, the game can be very dark and disturbing in places, but the art here is just stunning. The character designs, the backgrounds, and just the whole game in general, have this very high quality anime look about them. The game also has some amazing sound to with a very fitting soundtrack and some high quality Japanese voice acting. I do wish that they went the extra mile and gave the game English voice acting, but perhaps that could happen if the game does well enough.

Pros:

• I love the 1950s Tokyo setting
• The game does a good job of making you feel like a detective
• I was very impressed with the presentation of the game
• There are many choices and some of them feel very important

Cons:

• The Japanese voice acting is fantastic, but I wish they also had English voice acting
• Some of the stuff here may be a bit disturbing for some people