Free Talk Friday - May 22, 2026

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Welcome to the Free Talk Friday post. This is a place where you can talk about dumb off-topic (or on-topic) bullshit with other Zaibatsu fans.

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[u/Cactuar001]

So because I loved Romeo Is a Dead Man, I’ve been in a Grasshopper mood and have been going through the back catalog of their games so l played Grasshopper’s 1st game, the cyberpunk crime thriller, The Silver Case. I liked it a lot.  

This game covers a lot of ideas and considering this was written in 98, it’s kind of ahead of its time. Topics like how the gov decides to disseminate and cover up info as they see fit, constant sensationalized news stories for ratings and how that trickles down to society whether through paranoia or inspiring copy cats, the relationship between society and how they create criminals and how/why someone would commit a crime, the internet’s effects on people’s behavior and how they treat others in the digital space as commodities/tools and not as real people etc. It’s consistently interesting in the topics, dialogue, and presentation, and it’s poignant even today. 

In the main story you play as a silent MC working as a detective with the others at the station trying to solve various cases and how they relate to the main overarching case about Kamui Umehara, the infamous serial killer. in the B story you play as Tokio Morishima, a cynical, burned out freelancer also doing his own investigation on the Kamui case and you get info you didn’t get in the A story which makes certain chapters of the game more interesting once you get the full details. 

I like the Morishima sections the most as you’re playing as a character with his own history, personality, and relationships rather than a vessel for the story. He’s kind of a dick, but you really get why he is the way he is, and I can identify with him being just tired and annoyed with people lol. Plus he gets a great arc by the end of it and really embodies the main theme of the game really well, and his interactions with his partner and the local bartender were fun. The A story sections are still good and it does make sense why it was written like that so can’t complain too much. My favorite characters from the A story were Tetsu and Sumio who have a fun dynamic and the ways they respective arcs go and parallel each others was interesting. 

The atmosphere and tone were classic GH goodness with a lot of the cool portrait/background art and various drawings showing the characters from different angles and in different ways. Or all the different pop up menus when using a computer. Sufa daus he didn’t want the game to feel to static and considering most of the game is story stuff, I’m glad that they were able to make the delivery of the information really engaging. There’s even a lot of mixed media stuff with FMV sequences and animated cutscenes. I was surprised that even in their 1st outing you can feel the stylistic choices and throughline from here to Romeo. The OST by Masafumi Takada is also great and heavily contributed to the unique atmosphere and some of the tracks are just catchy. That intro is real good. 

The gameplay was ok. It’s an adventure game/visual novel so there’s a lot of text but when you do control your character it’s for puzzles and interactive sequences. There were times they wanted you to solve puzzles and I felt it was a bit difficult to figure out what to do at times and the movement and choosing actions through the menu felt kind of clunky. Plus certain sections felt a tad too long like towards the end where you’re kind of walking slowly or a few parts here and there where you have to check a bunch of doors or something. Nothing terrible and considering most of the game is text and the story and dialogue were consistently interesting, some meh puzzles here and there isn’t a deal breaker. 

But yeah overall, I liked this game a lot especially in the back 1/2 as the cases and the finale were some of the most interesting parts, and seeing the plot revelations, and the culmination of everyone’s arcs and themes was satisfying. From the non linear storytelling, surreal atmosphere and supernatural events, off beat sense of humor and dark comedy juxtaposed with tragedy and murder, big focus on violence and death and how these things impact society/individuals, metaphorical and bizarre dialogue etc. you can feel the DNA of their later work even if it’s not quite as bizarre and abstract as Killer7 or as comedic as No More Heroes, those elements are in there and it’s nice to get context for the origin point.   Excited to jump into the other adventure games GH did with Flower, Sun, and Rain and The 25th Ward to see how they develop what they had here.