The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story Reviews
The Centennial Case is not the game you should look toward for gameplay, but rather for its story. With hours of live action footage as the bulk of its content, playing it feels like watching a mystery show while piecing the clues together. If you enjoy trying to figure out a mystery yourself as the story unfolds, this game’s approach should appeal to you.
The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story is a great game hurt only by its length and occasionally convoluted mystery mechanics. I’ve been around the block and then some with the FMV genre. This particular experience has certainly climbed up there in the ranks for me. With ambition and potential reached avidly, this is frankly a type of foray I haven’t played before. Provided are mesmerising set and costume designs, along with excellent character working and acting. Topping it all off is an enticing mystery and gorgeous cinematography to immerse you further. This is one for the books and a case worth investigating indeed.
The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story is a high quality adventure game that manages to present a solid mystery built over several chapters. Both the story and the visual and sound elements are well handled, resulting in a title that anyone interested in investigative games should check out.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
This multi-generational mystery is one worth solving.
Not many games are built like The Centennial Case, and I enjoyed the ambition behind trying something different to tell a complex story and involve the player in piecing it together. It gave me the feeling of reading a great mystery novel, where your head is spinning with possibilities, but the interactivity and structure allow you to better understand the clues and what they all mean. Sometimes The Centennial Case stumbles, but it’s worth enduring for the wild ride it puts you on and the broader questions it poses about what’s ethical in the world of science.
The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story is a great example of FMV done right, with a captivating mystery and engaging investigations throughout.
The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story is surprisingly addictive, which comes down to the well crafted narrative and a great cast of characters.
I thoroughly enjoyed The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story, but it’s definitely an oddity in today’s gaming landscape. It’s more “interactive film” than a video game, and you should definitely go into it with the mindset that it’s something that’s meant to be watched instead of played.
The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story is worth looking into for novelty alone, but it also manages to be an effective and interesting tale makes it just that much easier to recommend. Mystery is a genre that demands a puzzle worth solving, and this one is a case that delivers all the requisite twists and turns to make the experience feel like time well invested.
This high-budget FMV Japanese mystery adventure is an exceptional game in almost every way, but its tedious "gameplay" sections are its largest Achilles' heel.
Years after releasing games from established franchises or western indies, Square Enix took a different direction with impressive new Japanese titles. The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story was a surprise. And a great one.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story is an engaging mystery that involves murders that span over a period of 100 years.
A unique and polished experience, with a gripping story and interesting conundrums. One of the year's hidden gems.
Review in Arabic | Read full review
That is about the only real criticism I have about The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story. It's a darn enjoyable multi-generation experience that has a lot of unusual mysteries, so it stands strong on its own merits. If you're a fan of mystery games, then it's absolutely worth a shot. The strong acting and good use of FMV help it to stand out from the crowd, and it's almost as much praise and criticism that I wished it were a movie or television show that I could just sit back and watch.
Fans of mystery novels will enjoy trying to discover the murderer of each episode in this series of cases that make up The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story. Perhaps a little more interaction would be good in a game in which the moments of discovering the murderer shine with their own light, reminiscent of the trials of the Phoenix Wright saga.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
It’s an utterly unique title that boasts astounding production values, supported by a cast of actors that do an incredible job of playing multiple characters. There are a few niggling issues with the various gameplay systems, but it’s an incredible experience that easily stands out as one of my favorites of the year.
The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story is an interactive film that proposes different cases to solve, all of them very well constructed. A different and very interesting proposal.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
While it might not be the perfect FMV game, The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story is pretty darn close. With the entwined stories, spectacular acting, and lengthy scenes, it truly is an interactive experience fans of the genre should not miss.
It presents a unique mystery by using a play-within-a-play that goes back and forth in 100 years. FMV are used as clues rather than interactive movies. And it feels much closer to the game because of that. While the story is attractive, several parts were difficult to immerse. UI/UX of clue-making clearly needs to be improved
Review in Korean | Read full review
The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story shows us a hundred years of the Shijima clan amidst mysteries, deaths and intrigues. It does so with an interesting story, which works well and which, albeit with some strange events, follows a coherent and understandable plot. Gameplay is simple, with some interesting ideas and a few too many hints that reduce the need to think and to guess what happened. Even with this limitation, it still remains a fun gaming experience, that will bring crime fans on a century-long journey for a considerable number of hours.
Review in Italian | Read full review