Despite these dramatic scenes, playing as Azami feels more like Detective Pikachu than Phoenix Wright. The moment-to-moment gameplay involves wandering through scenes, gathering clues, and speaking with witnesses. You’ll also scour social media for information, searching through vicious comments and hunting for any helpful rumours.

Once you’ve gathered some details, you can form a hypothesis by piecing together bits of information. Azami has the special power of Clairvoyance which allows her to see echoes of the past, which adds a spiritual layer to the investigation. Unfortunately, there’s very little actual puzzle-solving or room for creativity within each case. Most scenes progress linearly, with the “challenge” elements being simple tests of recall. Characters over-explain and repeat information so much that there’s never any doubt as to your next step, and you’ll often have figured a scenario out early on and find yourself going through the motions waiting for Azami to catch up.

Even when there are puzzles (such as inputting a combination to a padlock or deducing how an intruder entered someone’s house), their solutions have either been foreshadowed so thoroughly that they turn into exercises in data entry, or you’re unable to even guess at the solution until Azami has had someone literally tell her the answer. It’s a shame that these opportunities for gameplay engagement are squandered – there’s definitely no need for the complexity of something like Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, but a little more of a cognitive challenge would have helped to keep me interested in the story.

There is an overarching narrative to Urban Myth Dissolution Center, involving a creepy online terrorist network that’s calling for a “Great Reset” and may be pulling the strings behind many of the game’s cases. Each case trickles a little more information about this group and about Meguriya’s obsession with stomping them out, as well as Jasmine’s true goals.

It’s a decently layered mystery, but some stilted writing and awkward narrative pacing make it difficult to get too invested. While the translation is technically quite good (particularly in social media sections, which lean heavily into online culture) it feels like some of the narrative’s nuance may have been lost in the transition to English.

The urban myths themselves are wonderfully varied and span both Japanese and Western folklore. You’ll read about various sinister yokai alongside high-school classics like Bloody Mary. When Azami hears about a new myth or discovers one on social media, she adds a log entry to her journal, which usually also contains rumoured directions on how to summon or encounter the spirit, ghoul, or curse involved. These little stories add a great touch of worldbuilding, and it’s always neat to discover a new spook to add to your own mental ledger of anxieties – browsing through the journal feels like a midnight scroll through the creepypasta wiki.