I'll Take The Case! Let's Play The Portopia Serial Murder Case!

The Portopia Serial Murder Case (PSMC) or ポートピア連続殺人事件, is an 1985 Enix game designed by Yuji Horii (from Dragon Quest). Hideo Kojima has been quoted saying that this game was one of two games (the other being Super Mario Brothers) that inspired him to enter the video game industry. PSMC was a huge hit in Japan and a big inspiration for Japanese visual novels, still being ported to cell phones and other Japanese consoles today. An unofficial translation was done by DvD Translations on June 16, 2006. One particular FAQ points out that one can say Snatcher was to Portopia, what Final Fantasy was to Dragon Quest.

Portopia has some interesting ties to Dragon Quest. The success of Portopia, helped convince Enix to pursue making an RPG like Dragon Quest in a market they previously felt was only for action games. Koichi Sugiyama, Dragon Quest composer extraordinaire met with the Dragon Quest crew after filling out a consumer response card for the Portopia Serial Murder Case.

There is a prequel to the game called Hokkaidou Rensa Satsujin Ohotsuku ni Kiyu and there a is a Yuuji Horii Mysteries trilogy released now that remain untranslated.

It's a first-person adventure where you make choices that impact your investigation and although there are certain things you must do to complete the game, the way you choose to do it is entirely up to you. The game has basically no music to it besides the opening and closing, and the rest is just sounds as you click your way around and try to solve the mystery of who murdered Kouzou Yamakawa, a successful bank company president. You assume the role of a nameless investigator who travels with his right hand man, Yasu to find Kouzou's murderer.


Backstory:

We are in Kobe City, Japan in the year 1942. A man-made Port Island has been completed and a 6 month long Portopia '81 Expo remains on the island, though most people have gone home and life is heading back to normal in the Kansai region...until for an unknown reason, Kouzou is found dead in his home, the Yamakawa Mansion. Two of his employees, his secretary Fumie and the security guard of the mansion, Komiya found him dead inside the mansion's study, with the only door leading to the room tightly locked. Once they forced their way in they found a dead Kouzou with a single stab wound to the neck and a murder weapon lying close by.

At first they think Kouzou was a suicide victim, but the facts just don't add up. He was a successful businesman and there just isn't a motive for him to kill himself. The police begin to suspect foul play and you are called upon to investigate the case.

Places we will visit:



Kobe City: a city on the coast of Japan, Area Code 078
Hanakuma: a part of Kobe City
Port Island: a man-made island in Kobe harbor
Shinkaichi: another part of Kobe, a place where American military people hang out
Awaji Island: off the coast of Kobe
Sumoto: on Awaji Island.
Hanchou: the shopping district of Sumoto
Kyoto: a city far inland of Kobe

Controls:

A) Action button
B) Switch Menus/Cancel

Menu:

Move
Question Someone
Investigate Someone
Show An Item
Look For Someone
Call Out-To bring out suspects to the Police Station for investigation
Arrest Someone
Investigate Thing
Evidence
Tap On or Hit
Take an Item
Ponder Suspect
Dial Phone: Yup you do have access to phones
Stop The Inquiry: Essentially when you know who did it you can select this

Special thanks to DvD Translations for the translations and helpful guides and information.

Without further ado, Let's Play The Portopia Serial Murder Case!

You know what is an awesome game, but not actually a very good game?

This one

I gave up at the maze. God speed!

Why the hell hasn't anyone else posted in this thread

(Seriously, I'm looking forward to this!)

My guess is that it got buried under the active LPs. I would've posted if I'd seen it or knew what it was; I've been in more of a graphic adventure mood lately, and the Japanese visual novel types intrigue me.

AHEM *cough cough*

This LP is already awesome, and I've only read the title. Really been curious about this game for a while.

I played this game. I'd like to see someone else talk about it.


Ehh...whooo! Go blitzchamp!

Oh man, I've want this in all of my investigation games for so long. I'm looking at you Ace Attorney.

I am so sad that this guy is probably not going to do this that I almost want to pick it up for him. I haven't actually gotten far in the game myself though, so I should probably stick to the Astyanax one first while beating this game over winter break before deciding to do it.

To help quench the thirst of some of you more curious ones, I'll provide some insight from the time I've had with the game. This is one of the most experimental games from the era, and in a lot of ways was the "Metroid" of graphic adventures.

In Metroid, we know that it was for the most part, our introduction to the games that feature exploration, and the consequence of being one of the first is that it was very opaque (To use one of Parish's own words in describing the game, if you don't mind). You had to discover for yourself most of the game's rules such as how bombs work, advance exploration techniques, draw your own map, etc. etc. etc. Portopia is a lot of the same, just in Graphic Adventure form.

There is little actual narrative. There is you, the detective, and your assistant, who provides general details and descriptions (Kind of like a much less interesting Percy from Princess Tomato). At any point in the game, you are able to make an arrest, but of course blind guess work does not actually solve a mystery. You have to go out there and find evidence yourself. There is no notepad or in game summary; any and all info you find you have to write down. This includes things such as phone numbers as well (Remember the phone in Snatcher? Its actually easy to see how Kojima was influenced by this game) At start, you only have access to key areas of the investigation. As you learn about new areas, only then can you go to those areas and actually begin investigating.

So to surmise, it's really as bare bones of a detective game as you can get, but that only adds a real charm. I'm not bothered by actually having to play with a notebook and pen; if anything, it only makes it more intriguing as well as real, which is quite a hefty thing to say about an old game with extremely minimalist graphics and story telling!

So yeah, that's Portopia Serial Murder case in a nutshell. Hopefully he'll pick it up again. It really is charming in its own way.

EDIT: Just realized Snatcher takes place in Neo-Kobe. Man, Kojima even takes his inspirations' settings.

Ah my apologies yet another LP left in hiatus (this one was already completed too!). Maybe I should avoid LPs during the school year -_-. Anyway since I now have time to post I'll be posting it up.




The Portopia Serial Murder Case begins. Kouzou's death will be avenged by my investigative skills.



Our assistant who will travel with us everywhere we go in this game.





Dialing straight 0s using your phone calls a woman who has a hunch who the killer is. It's an easy clue.





Hmm Toshi? Toshi is the nephew and heir of Kouzou's estate. He certainly has some motive, so let's start investing this further.

We can also dial the station as well.





110 is the emergency number in Japan instead of 911.



They aren't too happy and hang up on us.

Time for us to get moving! First we head to the Yamakawa Mansion, the scene of the crime.







I've become a little afraid of mansions after all the events in Sweet Home, but the investigation must go forward. Inside we go!

Haha, Hope I didn't pressure you into reviving this, but I am glad it's back.

Haha actually, this is supposed to the lead-in to my Snatcher/Policenauts LPs that I was reminded of today. It's summer now and I don't have 5 classes and a bunch of student organizations to run so I can finally post this

FYI: Your link to DvD Translations in the intro is broken now (R.I.P. Geocities).

I've never heard of this game at all, so I'll be watching with interest.

Thanks for the heads up. Didn't notice that.

Hey, I was just mourning over old, dead LPs before bed last night, and I looked at this. Then, I see it on the first page. That was quite a shock.

Holy crap, this thing's alive. O.O

The visual style's a bit more simplistic than I thought it'd be, but that's because I forgot this was released in the same year as Super Mario Bros. I'm looking forward to seeing more of Yuji Horii's pre-Dragon Quest adventure game.

We now venture into the mansion, coming up the study where Kouzou was murdered. What clues lie inside?



All that's left is an imprint of Kouzou's body, must have been a bloody death...



Let's do some more investigating on Kouzou.



Starting with his personal history.



Rich and alone? That's pretty sad. I could see why suicide could be speculated.



So that's where the body went. There really wasn't anything said about that until now. It could have just been a blood stain for all I know.


Alright that's enough for now, let's go back outside.





Let's head to The Harbor. That's a spot we haven't visited yet.

We arrive at the harbor.

That thing off in the distance is supposed to be a ferris wheel? I'm guessing.


Time to question some locals.


There's something that police in real life should do more often.



Hmm. Toshi was seen after 9 here, but what was he doing before?



We arrive back in Hanakuma. Time to investigate Toshi some more.




No job? Was he completely supported by Kouzou?


Time to head to his living quarters for some clues.

Looking forward to this. It looks quite interesting and as a fan of western adventure games it's nice to see how the genre diverged on the other side of the Pacific

Detective Log: Clues are far and between, but let's hope this Toshi guy has something to offer us. So far there doesn't seem to be a clear connection between the two besides their family relationship, but maybe his apartment will give us some clues. How are we going to get in there you ask? Every good investigator has a lock pick. Off we go.


We've arrived in Toshi's apartment. There is a dresser, a telephone, and a memo. Toshi is pretty careless, leaving a memo around...especially if he is our murderer.


Let's help ourselves to Toshi's memo.


The word evidence is always pleasant to a detectives ears.


Let's investigate that memo. Hopefully there's something useful on it.


Probably done on purpose! He's trying to throw us off.


Hmm. Time to use that telephone.








Thank you for playing right into my hands.


With such a cold trail like this one, there is just no way we could pass that up.


Let's head to the Harbor and find out what this mysterious item is.

We arrive at the harbor and our item holder stands perfectly in sight.


Yasu heads over to talk to the man.


He gives us some phony story and expects us to believe it. However, we are smarter than that.


Let's look at what is inside that package.


So Toshi was involved in drugs huh? He was probably using poor Kouzou's money to fuel this drug participation. Perhaps he got in too deep and needed more money than Kouzou would give and this led to Kouzou's fall.

Let's arrest this fool.







Time to head to the investigation room. Toshi has some explaining to do.

Toshi Time.


He looks like he thinks he's cool. Wearing sunglasses inside and all. Let's show him an item.


Starting with the memo.




What a little punk.


Good thing we have the package.





Speechless. Time to start grilling him for answers.




I bet he'll try to say that he was doodling during the murder.



Sure you were.

Let's ask again.






Yeah buddy. Some mistaken identity.

Toshi does not want to cooperate. So we're going to get a little violent with him.




Right on the head.






Hmm, I guess we have to believe him.


He's not scared at all. Let's arrest this criminal.


Somehow he didn't see that coming.



Well now we have nothing and Toshi was innocent (from the murder at least). It seems like we have nothing left now, we can choose to end the case, and then get scolded by the chief. However, we will continue forward with this case.

That's interesting. In my brief playthroughs, I never fully wrapped up the Toshi case, but came close. I really like how you can follow loose ends to their conclusion like that. This is a really neat game for it's era.

I approve of any detective game where playing bad cop/bad cop is allowed!

- Eddie

Let's call Rika, our unknown informant, up and see what she thinks about who the criminal is now.









Hirata? Let's investigate this dude.


Back to Hanakuma we go.


Let's ask the locals about Hirata. They always have the latest gossip.




Interesting enough. Where did Hirata go?


Let's check back into the station really quick.




Kyoto huh?


Let's head back to the Yamakawa Mansion.

We're back here.


We never investigated around the house.


We pull out our magnifying glass to search around the screen.


Checking around the door we find...






Yay more evidence! Let's head back to the station and find out what this ring is all about.

I can see it's using quotation marks for emphasis in lieu of boldface text, but I'd rather assume they indicate an untranslatable euphemism. He wanted to go to Kyoto, if you know what I mean.
I don't know what I mean.

Let's see if Toshi knows anything about this.








Hmm, but what was Yukiko doing at the mansion? Did she visit with Toshi or something?

Let's talk to the security guard of the mansion Komiya.



He looks a little old to be a guard.

He's doesn't seem to want to cooperate either so we'll have to hit the old man.




Wouldn't it be funny if he got amnesia because we hit him in the head. =P


Aha.




I guess we'll have to believe him for now. Shame on him. It's probably his fault that there was no one to protect our victim from being murdered.

Let's keep investigating the mansion.






We're taking that picture frame. Anyone who has played Snatcher knows this is a vital clue.


We find a button on the wall...


Let's hit it.


Yasu you thought wrong.

Let's go back to the study.




Jinkies!

Back at the station...


!?!


Hey now shouldn't you be remembering numbers? You're my subordinate after all.







Now that we know the area code let's dial.




Drat. Let's head elsewhere.