We are living in a culture and world where crime stories are not only popular, but exceedingly common across multiple forms of media. From the everlasting empire of Dick Wolf to the innumerable podcasts that combine day drinking and night terrors, tales of horrific events that happen to everyday people is an inescapable part of the narrative. Gaming is certainly no different, from the Agatha Christie stories to the shockingly impressive Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog. So it takes a special moment to transform a banal level of crime into something speculative and engaging, a real eye for storytelling. That’s probably why No Case Should Remain Unsolved caught fire on Steam earlier this year and, for the first time, is now appearing on the Nintendo Switch.

South Korean based dev team SOMI tells the tale of Jeon Gyeong, a retired police detective who, over a decade later, is still haunted by the details of her final case. A young girl missing, a community torn apart, and countless fingers being pointed in every direction. Believing the case to be a cold, closed failure, Gyeong attempts to escape from the world, but is interrupted by the sudden appearance of a young detective. At her behest, Jeon Gyeong looks back at the curious disappearance of little Seowon, and, through the lens of memory and organization, begins to realize there was much more to the crime than meets the eye.

No Case Should Remain Unsolved is a single story that is completed through meticulous care, trial and error. Over the course of the game, you will hear testimony from several key figures, including the child’s parents, her school, a distraught teacher and her grandparents, though what they all have to say is slightly askew. Jeon Gyeong cannot remember the exact order or even who spoke these pivotal pieces of information, so she will gradually piece things together through context clues and key words that ignite other memories across the span of time.

The way the rest of the game unfolds depends entirely on how well you pay attention to clues peppered across multiple, multiple strains of dialogue. For example, the birthday of the missing little girl is needed to unlock a piece of information, but can only be found by first understanding why you know the grandmother is lying. You can only unlock a vital clue about a potential kidnapper if you first can properly arrange the timeline for a conversation and assign the paragraphs to the correct person. While it’s far from impossible, you need to very carefully pay attention to what’s being said and also how it connects to other lines and lies. Changing who says what and when can suddenly flip the direction and tone of the tale entirely.

Thankfully, No Case Should Remain Unsolved uses a fairly intuitive system to guide you along. When you have the correct information to connect something, a flashing light in the mini map of the conversation branches will clue you in. While it won’t specifically hold your hand, there’s no fail state in the game other than giving up. If you can’t figure out what is the key line someone said to progress the red colored dialogue boxes, you can brute force your way through everything that’s ever been said, one line at a time, until you figure it out. It’s not ideal and probably counter to the entire purpose of the experience,  but it’s a viable answer.

I think it’s important to note that this is quite a unique experience. For people who have played Her Story or Immortality, you’ll know that there’s a level of patience that goes into the game and potential notetaking needed to keep track of everything. While the text isn’t dense, per say, there’s a lot of it that comes at you over the course of the game, and it can get confusing to remember where you’ve put everything. Once you get a handle on the concept, it’s fascinating to watch people gradually break down and admit to truths about different things and their own guilt.  Being able to move around the text can really throw context into light, though the only absolute clue you’ll have to being on the right track is when the text glows gold to indicate it’s with the right person in the right order.

And the story and the atmosphere is amazing, I cannot dispute that. What seems like it will be just a simple case of potential murder that was covered up spirals into something so dramatic and shocking that I was genuinely taken aback by two different plot twists. The pacing is great, and, while nothing is voiced, the tone for each character feels accurate to what they’re saying and what they feel. This is only further underlined by the soundtrack, which is simple in a very low-fi sort of way, but also feels perfect to keep a player locked in to the task of sorting, arranging and carefully analyzing everything that’s being said.

With that in mind, No Case Should Remain Unsolved should have a lot more accessible visibility than the Nintendo Switch. The small screen makes this game almost painful to play in handheld mode: it’s not quite the level of Disco Elysium’s infamous port, but it’s still a ton of reading done in a very cramped space with little to divide things up. Compounding that, there’s no touch screen controls, so scrolling through information can be tedious and long. There’s the ability to quickly scan the screen with the right joystick, but you can’t lock onto anything in this way. You just can see where you want to go, then arduously climb that way using the left joystick. It takes a game that shouldn’t be terribly long and artificially extends the game time through poor controls.

Also, due to the limited nature of the game itself, the replay value is fairly low. While you can’t brutalize through it at the same speed as Gone Home once you’ve played through, knowing the clues and their order helps to rush things along, not to mention unlocking the purple clues as soon as they appear. No Case Should Remain Unsolved only has two endings, one that’s a bit okay and one that’s really sweet, and then you’ve got them both and you can call it a day. You’re not going to be unlocking multiple bad endings or whatever, but you will solve this case one way or another: it just depends how you feel at the end of the day.

The presentation, the pixel art, the purposely sparse soundtrack and the compelling tale makes this a game that’s a step above the pulp nature of Bahnsen Knights, but certainly not the caliber of any Phoenix Wright adjacent games. You will be able to enjoy No Case Should Remain Unsolved and move on in a satisfied state of mind. You will not turn this into your new weekend obsession. But, like returning to The Devil in the White City, sometimes you’ll come back to see this tale through once more. After all, the details keep you locked in, and, at the end of the day, it’s always nice to see justice being served.

Graphics: 5.5 The occasional drawings connected with dialogue give some great details about the case, but most of the view is white text on black background, and it’s entirely too cramped to be seen on the Nintendo Switch. Zooming helps to some degree, but it hampers when you’re trying to connect text.	Gameplay: 6.0 Just keep moving around blocks of text until something sticks. Does not handle well on the Switch and can become very tedious if you aren’t fully invested in the tale. Clever ideas about unlocking new clues and connecting concepts are hamstrung by the act of needing to do it with just the joysticks. Really wish we had touch screen support.
Sound: 9.0 Superb tone and ambience to match the melancholy feel of the game. If they made “low-fi hip hop beats to relive your past mistakes to,” this would be the soundtrack. Will be purchasing the OST separately so I can really sit down and hyper fixated on all the things I’ve ever done wrong.	Fun Factor: 8.0 Gripes about the port aside, the concept was really cool and the story unfolded in a way that kept me locked in until I solved Seowon’s case. Plenty of reveals kept me riveted, and I was determined to play it all the way through. Might really hit well with the right crowd, though I suggest getting it on PC.
Final Verdict: 7.0

No Case Should Remain Unsolved is available now on Steam and Nintendo Switch.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

A copy of No Case Should Remain Unsolved was provided by the publisher.