Chinatown Detective Agency’s pixel-art, cybernoir image of Singapore and some compelling characters make for some visually stunning moments, but its flimsy gameplay and glitches drag it down.
I’ve always imagined myself to be an amazing investigator. I think it’s a result of watching so much true crime television, but you know, I think I have an eye for detail. a strong sixth sense. the capacity to recognize that tiny, unimportant detail that, as it turns out, matters a great deal.
Of course, it’s all total nonsense. Like playing Back 4 Blood won’t prepare you for a real-life zombie apocalypse, binge-watching true crime documentaries hasn’t taught me much that I can apply to real-life, with the exception of one thing: if you’re at risk, shout “Fire!” rather than “Help!” to attract help; you’re welcome. This became very evident when I stepped into Singapore’s shadowy underbelly and took on the role of Amira Darma, a newly hired private investigator who, like many stories, finds herself involved in unexpected situations.
Perhaps not unexpectedly, the Chinatown Detective Agency lives up to its name, providing a future vision of a neon-soaked Singapore as the spectacular backdrop to a sea of sleazy politicians and corrupt businessmen. As a former police officer, Amira received some of her initial cases from former coworkers, but she then establishes her own clientele of the hopeless and the desperate, and everyone in between.
Amira is nice, too. She is composed and competent, embodying all the traits we have come to associate with private investigators without ever coming off as a caricature. Her language and voice acting, when she gets voice work, are spot on. She was someone I loved getting to know, and she had an interesting caseload to go along with her natural wanderlust.
Surprisingly, though, Chinatown Detective Agency isn’t exactly what I was expecting—a classic point-and-click adventure. Amira’s detective work goes beyond simply pressing the interact button repeatedly until you unintentionally discover the answer; yes, you will get a sense of being on Monkey Island as you joyfully click everything on the screen in front of you. She occasionally has to choose the appropriate conversation to encourage the mark to open up. She sometimes feels pressured to quickly investigate her surroundings before the perp waltzes back into the room. Occasionally, she resorts to what the majority of us do when we’re at a loss: searching Google.
I should clarify that I’m not referring to some slick in-game browser that mimics Google’s appearance and functionality; instead, Chinatown Detective Agency has an on-screen button that allows you to tab out of the game and into the browser of your choice. Granted, that’s a really basic idea, but wow, is it powerful. To give you an early, non-spoiler example, in one of your missions, you have to figure out who penned a secret message that is concealed in a book. All you have is one line to work with. Search for it on Google (that’s a rather distinctive phrase, to be fair), and presto! The author appears.
To the developer’s credit, then, everything of Amira’s detective work is based on actual history and culture. Instead of relying on its near-future concept to create a ton of fake science fiction elements and require you to use a fake browser, Chinatown Detective Agency has given us the chore of being fervent stamp analysts who meticulously examine stamps from actual, far-off locations.
Tricky? Yes. I think that’s reasonable. However, it’s also a fascinating and rather original idea—and let’s be honest, video game reviewers don’t often get to say that.
The problem is that since I didn’t receive my review key until after the game was launched, Google virtually always returns a helpful Chinatown Detective Agency tutorial for the puzzle in question whenever I type in a query. It turns out that, despite what you’re told, “one of the key mechanics of CDA is that it requires the player to figure things out on their own,” this isn’t entirely accurate because the game also has a tip system. This is helpful, granted, if Google or your internet is down, but you can pay your friendly librarian $300 to have them give you a hint or tell you the answer straight. After using them both, I concluded that they were both worth Amira’s money.
Unfortunately, most of Chinatown Detective Agency’s other features are unpolished and unintentional. These include a flight assistant that always charges you $550 regardless of whether you’re taking a last-minute flight in 30 minutes or leaving next month, an in-game clock and calendar that is rendered instantly redundant by a “wait” button, a boring loading screen for the city’s mass transit system for when you need to get around, and a point-and-click mini-game where you have to shoot troublesome individuals—so infrequently that I kept forgetting it existed.
You’ll meet a great character and see some stunning locations in Chinatown Detective Agency, if you can put up with the other lighthearted or annoying elements.
I’m afraid there isn’t much of an exciting twist to the story, despite the fact that Amira must spend her own money to pay for her travel expenses as well as the rent and utilities for her office. After a few tasks and a few “Snap!” card games disguised as “hacking” mini-puzzles, Amira’s bank account was credited with $20K, and I found myself searching “what do private investigators really earn and how can I become one” on her actual computer.
The most annoying save system at Chinatown Detective Agency, more than the cases that come Amira’s way, is the agency’s worst transgression. Although the fact that some missions can fail and force you to restart due to unintentional errors like your cat spilling tea on your keyboard or your four-year-old screaming at the top of the stairs that it’s not bedtime, is a frustrating mechanic at first. You are not allowed to save at all until the tutorial cases are finished, and even then, you can only save between missions.
The unstable stability of CDA just makes the issue worse. I still encountered a lot of bugs even after applying the 1.0.14 patch. The majority of them related to audio, with the most annoying being phantom ambient footsteps that followed me around even though I had left that area ten minutes earlier. I also experienced two game crashes, the first of which happened before auto-saving was enabled. Although the developer did state that it is “working on a new update to allow manual saves in the middle of the missions” and that it will “give [the team] some time to make it possible,” it still doesn’t address the concerns of those who are already experiencing the game.
Aside from those little annoyances (or major ones, depending on your perspective), Chinatown Detective Agency is a fun read that is almost worth the journey. Although I’m personally becoming a little sick of the obsession with retro pixel visuals, Chinatown Detective Agency introduces you to a memorable cast and leads you to some breathtaking locations provided you can put up with the various lighthearted or annoying aspects. The fact that such a wonderful idea doesn’t exactly do enough with them is a crime.