Touch Detective 2 1/2

Before I start, no this game is not about porn in any way shape or form. And I know what some of you are thinking. "Why in the world is it 2 1/2? What happened to the original?" Well first of all, I never played the original. On my search to find the original, I managed to pick up the sequel instead. Secondly, the title is just one of the many attempts at humor. So, let's start off with...

~Plot~

You play as Mackenzie, a little girl with a white barrette and her mushroom based side kick, Funghi who goes around solving cases. It's explained that in the first game Mackenzie was accepted into The Great Detective's Society.....and that's it. The game is extremely random as hell when it comes to a plot. Matter in fact, the game starts with a quiz that has ABSOULTELY NOTHING to do with the ending of the game. It's just a random quiz that simply asks only one relevant question (whether or not the player has played the original game in the series) and then the rest of the questions are just bad puns and jokes. Then the player gets shoved into playing a tutorial, which thankfully if you’re a vet to the series (that's if you played the first game) you can skip. After that...it's just goes down a hill of random. Of course, I'm being a bit harsh. The game does develop a plot, which is the villain/new arch-rival, The Cornstalker (no, I'm not making this up) is going around stealing priceless artifacts. At first, this seems like to be the common theme in all the cases (or episodes as it's called). But by the time you reach the end of the game, this common theme gets thrown out the window for a climax that was not only unexpected but was barely hinted at as the game progresses. Don’t believe me. Well, let’s take a look at the first case shall we.

Episode 1- Robbery, The Salvation of an Ancient Relic
The game starts off when Mackenzie is asked by her friend, Penelope to find her missing colored noodles. (preferably green and pink noodles.) As you search for her missing noodles, you discover that other people in town had their colored noodles replaced with white ones like Penelope and that everyone will use these noodles in order to enter the Noodle Festival. Which then, Mackenzie remembers she doesn’t have any “noodle contribution” for the festival. And thus must go on a side quest to gather as many noodles as she can. And just to save everyone’s sanity, just know that it keeps going downhill from there.

Honestly, this kind of plot wouldn’t bother me so much if the game play didn’t revolve around the several bad puns and jokes littered in this game. Speaking of which….

~Game Play~

This game was made around 2007, which if I recall correctly developers were still testing out the mechanics and game play elements that could be used with the DS’s touch screen. As such, the game play in Touch Detective is like an old school point and click adventure for the PC. This type of style seems not only creative but also intuitive.  But, that gets thrown at the window when you try the controls. At times, I found moving around with the stylus to be very frustrating. I would either forget to not tap too many times or wouldn’t tap enough to move around, causing Mackenzie to either freeze or crash into random objects. The puzzles flow with a simple “In order to progress further, you need this item” or "You need to talk to this guy" game play. But sadly because a majority of the puzzles are based on bad puns and jokes it falls flat and becomes extremely frustrating. Let’s go back to my previous example of the first case to prove how frustrating it can be.

In Mackenzie’s quest to find noodles for the Noodle Festival, she meets the new owner of an antique store named Conor, who claims he doesn’t have any noodles. Most people would skip this store completely. But if the player clicks in the middle column of a shelf, where NO NOODLES are visible in the background mind you, he will actually talk to you about possibly trading noodles for a rare antique. And sadly, this is just one of the many frustrating puzzles in the game. I can’t even count the times I had to look for answers in a walkthrough via gamefaqs.com just to continue playing the game. But there is one slight redeeming quality to this game that I will admit and that’s…

~Music~

The music actually flows nicely with the quirkiness of the game. I found the song, “A Mother’s Lullaby” to be a soothing and relaxing tone whenever I was close to throwing this game half way across the room. Sadly, it’s only played once during each case/episode and the rest of scores get quickly overshadowed by the bad sound effects in the game. For example, the sound of Funghi’s grunting went from being humorous to being just plain annoying when mixed with some of the music it just becomes a very unpleasing experience. They could have cut out a lot of the sound effects. But game follows this cartoon image that quickly goes from being somewhat humorous to being annoying.

~Replay Value~

This game has a bonus episode which only serves a purpose as being a giant side quest for unlocking extra content. The extra content only includes the music in the game, character profiles, and pictures. For those that love to reach a hundred percent completion, this isn’t a bad concept. But considering the game play elements and overall plot of the game, most players may stop playing the game before even reaching the final episode.

~Overall~

This game has the potential of being a very humorous point and click adventure like a more notable game. *cough*Monkey Island*cough*  But sadly, the frustrating puzzle design and game play cripple this game immensely causing it to be a frustrating experience rather than a pleasant one.  There are far better games out there that utilize the touch screen and manage to have a pleasant, humorous experience. This game is just not one of them. So, take it from me and never buy this game.