Miami Law

It’s a genuine lost gem, I don’t understand how one of the best ds games of all time isn’t known very much. I hopped back on my ds a couple of weeks ago and remembered I had this game and decided to complete it, the last case is very shocking but I don’t wanna spoiler anything. I had so much fun playing this game, I hoped it was a longer so I could have played more but I completed it in 4 hours. It’s a banger and it’s a one of a kind game

Not a great game, but deserves a good score. Why? Because of the idea itself and the effort! First of all, something, anything, is good or at least better when it does what it is supposed to do, looks like it's supposed to look, feels like it should/wants you to feel. That said, this game tried to evoke that feeling of almost stereotypically american police dramas, the ones I'd usually see on early mornings when at home from school such as Nash Bridges or whatever. I'd say it did a pretty good job! They even hired a group of musicians from Miami to give a better feel of the setting! I honestly had a hard time believing the producers were japanese, who are notorious for misinterpreting foreign cultures in videogames! As for the gameplay, the base is basically a graphic novel, during which you'll be able to make choices both to change how the story will go, both to determine a game over or not, both to just choose to see a different point of view: in fact, it is kinda cool how they managed to integrate the clichè of the action cop and the cop who uses his (in this case her) brains and translate it into the game mechanic of "choose if you want to shoot the bad guys with the guy or stay here and hack a system by solving a puzzle with the gal". Which brings me to the main point of the game: the action segments. Action segments in a graphic novel! Like, Phoenix Wright but with guns every once in a while! And there are branched story patterns with different endings in something as plot-centered as a graphic novel! Should be an utopia to put together plot, action and replayability in such a way... so, awesome! Right?! Well, not really. Actually, the game doesn't excel in neither the graphic novels aspect nor the action one. It's not bad, but not terribly good either. Even the puzzles are average with the occasional added difficulty of time limit, which again is good for the setting the team was going for, as it emulates those kind of last-second bomb disposals typical of cop dramas. So overall, I think the idea was very, very good, and I hope this doesn't come off as an ignorant comment, since maybe there are plenty of games like this but better and I am not aware, but I haven't seen many. While it's not a game I would properly recommend, it certainly is a genre of game I would like to see more often. But that's not enough to justify a 7 alone, so again I'll say that the setting really "felt right", whatever that means, and also that the graphics and music are good and overall the game experience is not bad as the reviewers score make it seem. I'd say try it if it's free or cheap, but even if it's great that they tried to throw in replayability in such a kind of game where it is difficult to, don't expect to be in the mood to replay it ever, and don't expect a terribly long playthrought either.