Whilst it may not be high on challenge, Urban Myth Dissolution Centre is an excellent story-driven point & click game.
Urban myths! You can probably think of a few from your childhood or popular culture like the Mothman or the Dybbuk box. They’re certainly fun ghost stories, but what if they took on a life of their own. Urban Myth Dissolution Centre is a point & click adventure game that has you seeking out and debunking supposed sightings of famous urban myths in Japan. Whilst it’s more of a visual novel in many ways, the story and presentation are excellent, making for a really enjoyable experience.
You play as Azami, a young woman who has been able to see what she believes are ghosts for a long time. She learns of the titular Urban Myth Dissolution Centre to ask them for help, but quickly ends up working for them under the mysterious Director Meguriya, a powerful psychic who quickly develops an interest in Azami. After some training, she’s sent out into the field with assistant Jasmine to solve her first case.
Each case takes place over the course of a few days, often dealing with a well known urban myth. An early one has you looking into the supposed appearance of something akin to Bloody Mary. Is it a hoax, or is there actually a spirit seeking to hurt people? Azami will need to gather clues, speak to the locals, and use her powers to see apparitions of the past. Eventually, in conjunction with the director, she will seek a dissolution of the urban myth, closing the case, and moving the main plot onwards.
As I mentioned earlier, this is really more of a visual novel, as the point & click elements are really quite uncomplicated. You’ll move around a few areas, exhaust conversation options, and look at all the points of interest before the plot moves onwards itself. Occasionally you’ll need to piece information together by answering questions based on information you’ve gathered. There’s no penalty for getting these wrong, and you’ll simply get to try again, but it does feel nice to get the correct answer first time. This element reminded me of the DS game Hotel Dusk: Room 205 a little, but it was considerably easier.
There’s a little bit of detective work that goes on via the daily social media research mini game. You’ll read through social media posts related to your case and look for keywords to dig deeper. I quite liked this, as Azami and Jasmine had something to say about pretty much every post if you want to click on them all. Social media is a bit of a theme in the plot as well, so these moments are somewhat relevant overall too.
The challenge isn’t what draws me into Urban Myth Dissolution Centre though. The characters are really enjoyable when they interact with each other. I particularly liked the moments between Azami and Meguriya, with the latter seeming to know so much more about what’s going on than he’s letting on. That overall plot keeps things moving on well too, with mysterious stalkers, powerful cults, and tarot-adjacent cards that seem to predict what will happen in future cases. I won’t spoil anything as the story is the main driving force here, but it’s a fun experience throughout.
Then there’s the presentation which is just excellent. It reminds me of FAITH somewhat, with a very pixelated art style punctuated by close ups of characters and monsters at specific moments. It doesn’t have the same level of horror by any stretch, but the visuals are really well done when at first glance they seem so simplistic. The music is equally excellent. I’ve found the question and answer music stuck in my head all week long, but that’s only one of the excellent pieces. Really, this is such a strong element of Urban Myth Dissolution Centre that this is one of the rare occasions where I might actually stump up the extra cash for the soundtrack. Sound effects are quite limited though, and I’d really have enjoyed some voice acted lines, but I appreciate that this is a very word heavy game, so it might be too expensive for a small development team to fund.
Fans of actual investigative games won’t find much to love here, but those who enjoy a mystery visual novel will likely fall in love with this one. It’s got such a strong sense of style that even slower story moments keep you very much engaged. If I had to level a criticism, it’s that some of the dialogue feels a little stilted, which may be due to the translation, but this is rare and easily overlooked in my opinion. I’m going to be very interested in seeing what devs Hakababunko do next.
Urban Myth Dissolution Centre is available now on PC, Nintendo Switch and PlayStation.
