Tokyo Dark Reviews
Tokyo Dark is a solid if underwhelming detective noir story. It's good for a diversion but will ultimately leave you wishing it were something more substantial.
Tokyo Dark has a story that will pull you in and beat the hell out of your morality. The dark story and beautiful graphics create this amazing adventure game and prove that point and click games aren't dead.
Tokyo Dark serves as a very good primer for those who are either curious about the visual novel genre or just want more to do than click through text boxes. The multiple endings are certainly a tempting thing for completionists, while the short runtime makes it so that the journey to the endings doesn't feel so tiring. Though most of the journey is rather linear and there's a significant lack of puzzles, the various choices at your disposal and needing to actually move to the spots gives you more to do than idle mouse-clicking. More importantly, the story is engaging from beginning to end, so you'll want to see the various paths along the way. While Tokyo Dark may not drive players toward the visual novel genre, itprovides a better appreciation for the genre's capabilities.
I can count on one hand the number of times where Tokyo Dark fully takes advantage of its powerful storytelling abilities, and you're left looking for more of them.
A flawed but brave take on a traditional genre, and one which oozes enough atmosphere to keep you playing until the credits.
While the game does offer a New Game+ mode, it offers little replayability other than the discovery of all the endings, including the games “true ending.” Mostly revolves around playing the same story over and over again, but does little to explain this mechanic or even give a reason to why Detective Ito is reliving these sequences exactly. Not that I need one but it does detract even further from the immersion.
Cherrymochi's S.P.I.N on the adventure genre makes for a flawed, but compelling psychological thriller.
Although I find myself usually not replaying single-player narrative focused titles, I felt compelled to play through Tokyo Dark multiple times (the first playthrough will take around five hours). Maybe it was the inclusion of the alternate endings or the beautiful stylized visuals combined with a dark and intense narrative. The S.P.I.N. system can severely alter how other characters react to you, making you question your every action.
Square Enix Collective has picked a strong title to support, and it's one that's wholly deserved it.
Overall, I have to say that Cherrymochi did an absolutely stellar job with Tokyo Dark: the graphics and music are great, the animated cutscenes are a wonderful touch, and the amazing level of detail that went into the choice and SPIN attribute system is great. Whoever said that "the beauty is in the finer details" is absolutely correct. Despite playing as detective Ito, strictly speaking, your choices and attitude describes who she is, even though she is also given her own personality at the beginning of the game. Tokyo Dark is a game that gets you hooked and keeps you there, all throughout the game, and maybe even past the end.
This merging of Japanese-style visual novels and Western-style adventure games is an intriguing one.
A significant step forward in the interactive adventure' genre
Review in Russian | Read full review
Quite a good show for a new studio. Tasteful presentation and a great sense of atmosphere manage to elevate it above the issues I had with the scope of the game. If you're looking for something spooky to play during the Halloween season, you could definitely do worse. Like whatever new entry in an annual horror series is going to be announced and released in the span of two weeks when October arrives.
All of these little pieces come together to form something completely new and intense; I hope to see a lot more like it in the future.
An awesome experience for the classic point'n click adventures. Tense, deep and with several ending which makes the player to try again in order to change the consecuences of his acts.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
At times, Tokyo Dark feels like it would have been better as a pure visual novel, but despite some repetition, its storytelling comes through to make it an intriguing—and sometimes disturbing—experience.
Tokyo Dark offers a powerful player experience, having them solve the crime on their own terms, whatever those may be, and deal with the consequences in immediate, unsettling ways.
At first, Tokyo Dark seems to be little more than a pale replica of better Japanese adventure and horror games. The game's presentation is amateurish, its characters are stereotypical, and its depiction of Tokyo doesn't break any new ground. Thankfully, the game's innovative SPIN system and focus on player choice heightens what would otherwise be an uninspired homage. Tokyo Dark falls well short of greatness, but hardcore point ‘n' clickers looking for something a bit different may want to give the game a stab.
If you're after a horror-tinged point and click adventure game you really can't go wrong with Tokyo Dark. The few control niggles you'll encounter will quickly be cast aside as you put your nose firmly to the floor searching for the next clue, which is surely the hallmark of a great mystery.
Although the S.P.I.N. system is not without its annoyances the choices that affect Itō's personality make the game engaging and force the player to take the puzzles at a more thoughtful pace instead of strong arming every situation. The downside is that a second playthrough is required in order to have an understanding of the approaching scenes that are out of the player's control and can damage a meter of Itō's S.P.I.N. With a gripping story and overall impressive approach to a unique choice system, Tokyo Dark is a great game that fans of the point-and-click adventures and visual novel genres should get their hands on.