Review Root Letter: Last Answer (Switch)

Thanks to PQube for providing us with a review code

Root Letter: Last Answer is an enhanced edition of a 2016 mystery visual novel developed by Kadokawa Games and published by PQube.

Shimane Prefecture

You play as a Tokyo man who fifteen years ago had a penpal named Aya. You find an unopened letter from her where she has claimed to have killed someone and won’t speak again. So naturally, you decide to go to Shimane Prefecture to see her. The game takes place almost entirely in the area’s capital, Matsue. With the new Drama mode, which is a mode where all the drawings have been replaced with photographs you can really see that.

There are a couple of game play aspects not in the majority of visuals novels. The first being the check system, which is like an old adventure game. You can in any location look around the area for possible clues, and sometimes gain new items. These items are necessary to spark certain conversations forward. One problem is that it can be fairly easy to miss important items you need, so make sure to make use of the ability to save often.

Pen Pals

There are ten chapters in the game, each one starting off with a letter you received from Aya. After which you try to recall your response.

Root Letter, has quite a large number of locations many of which you will frequently traverse to on your investigation of this mystery. After you find the lot that had her address was missing you find out there was a fire that killed her mother fifteen years ago. Furthermore despite receiving letters from Aya, at that time, she herself died ten years before the letters. As Aya has described her high school friends all with nicknames, you set to find out who they really are in a bid to get to the bottom of this.

For some reason anyone you might suspect is her classmate are standoffish and refuse to acknowledge the subject or give any information. This is where getting the right knowledge by asking the correct questions, and having evidence to push forward is needed. Initially I was worried about getting things wrong, however once you’ve gone to the right place the game usually doesn’t let you leave until you’ve done the right thing.

Investigations

Your dialogue choices are mostly through the questions you can ask, which are unlocked by details you have picked up or items you’ve shown. Max Mode, is another thing that pops up where different thoughts of yours show and you have to select the right one to continue the conversation. As that is what you’ll use to push for the answers you want.

Having picked up a guidebook at the start of the game you will also need to consult that to find new locations. In extras, you can actually read pages of the guidebook to find more about their real world areas. If you find yourself getting stuck you have the option to “think”, where you will be reminded of what the next course of action may be. Sometimes, it is even required for you to use the think function to press on.

All of this investigating culminates on your cornering a suspected friend for an investigation. By which you will ask the right questions, present the proper evidence and use your Max Mode to get them to acknowledge that they were involved with Aya. The game is still pretty forgiving, as it appears you have about five chances before you can fail the investigation. Also almost all of the information that you need for an investigation is present in that chapter so it’s all quite easy to figure it out. Mostly it’s the order of questions that you need to get right.

Five Endings

As I’ve said there is some difficulty in perhaps missing key items, or losing one chance to ask someone. Yet the game is quite easy otherwise and gives you lots of hints on where to go. Such as whenever you are hungry you to to Kamiari-an. With the amount of times he goes there I have to wonder how much money your character spends on this trip.

Root Letter has a total of five endings. The game even tells you once you’ve done one how many more you have left. Which is something really nice, since most VNs don’t. These endings are actually based on the responses you wrote to Aya’s letters. So it is best to stick your responses in pairs. By that I mean if you write the first thing, then the second option should be the first prompt, and then keep doing that for every letter. The first seven to eight chapters of the game are the same, but what you’ve said in the letters will determine the last two. Thankfully, after finishing a full route successfully you can skip chapters quite easily.

Drama Mode

As I stated before there is now the option to play the entire game where all illustrations have been replaced with photographs. Even the food you eat has been done with photos. For my first play through I chose this. Then I was able to compare with the original in subsequent play throughs. Personally I actually preferred the “Drama Mode”. There was only a couple of times it looked off, as two older characters had some very clearly glued on facial hair. As well as the receptionist seeming to work at multiple places. Yet I found that it made the more hilarious moments of the game stand out. The young versions of the male characters certainly don’t look very different to their adult counterparts either.

That said, the original art is a very beautiful style and has it’s own charm. You can really tell how accurate many of the illustrations were to the locations when comparing them to the photographs. I’m also quite surprised at how accurate most of the models look to the original versions. In both modes the characters are presented with only a few expressions. Then sometimes are layered in front of each other to show someone interjecting. It looked well enough, especially with the photographs any movement would’ve looked odd. A little detail I liked was at different times of day the map colour would change, so at sunset it would be orange.

I also don’t normally pay attention to music in a visual novel unless it’s annoying. While in Root Letter I found the music to be very suitable and some tracks to be enjoyable. Unfortunately there is no English voice acting.

Overall

There are only some tiny issues I had with the game. Being two instances of text errors. While also reading letters I had to wait for the voice to finish so I could read the second page. If I skipped then it would go straight to the P.S section and I’d miss it.

If you know what you’re doing, and bothering with skipping if you don’t want to re-do the investigations all the time. The game could be as short as seven hours. Likely it will take you a bit more. This version of the game not only comes with the live action mode, but epilogues for four of the endings.

I think those who are in for a hardcore mystery game might be disappointed. As you have to go through several routes to get to the truth. While the “puzzle” aspect isn’t even slightly challenging. The game also has a few moments of bizarre humor that might be too much of a tone mix-up for some people. I however, really enjoyed playing through this, especially seeing the photographs makes me want to see Matsue for myself. Root Letter: Last Answer has quite a few things that make it stand out from the average visual novel. Yet like most of them, it culminates into another touching message directly into my heart.