Here we go again, this time I’m doing it right.
Type: Single Player
Genre: FMV Mystery
Developer: Too Kyo Games
Publisher: IzanagiGames
Release date: June 24, 2020
If you would have told me that Kazutaka Kodaka, the creator and writer of Danganronpa, would make a FMV game and that I’d be playing it, I wouldn’t have believed you. To be honest, I somehow missed that Kodaka was involved when I first heard about this being in development. I just saw that a FMV game was being worked on and looked forward to playing through it and seeing how the story played out. It was only when the release date was close that I found out. Well, here we are with the FMV game out now, let’s see how it turned out.
Death Come True follows a man named Makoto Karaki that has spent the night in a hotel room. However, upon waking up to a wake-up call, he doesn’t remember anything. Even after looking in a mirror, nothing clicks as he doesn’t even remember his own name or what he looks like. He especially doesn’t remember anything about the unconscious woman (who you’ll soon find out is Akane Sachimura) tied up in the bathtub. In his confusion, he walks out just in time to catch the news broadcasting that he’s a wanted serial killer. Before he can even sit with this information, a knock at the door reveals a police officer checking in due to a noise complaint. Of course, this doesn’t go well for Makoto as the officer notices what’s playing on the TV, struggles to capture Makoto, and shoots him.
Except, this isn’t the end for Makoto Karaki as he just wakes back up in the hotel with the memories of what happened staying with him. Determined to at least find out what happened before he woke up, uncover the hotel’s secret, and why a mysterious monster is after him, Makoto decides to continue forward no matter what.
While I’m not going to spoil anything (which I wouldn’t have even if the developers didn’t want any spoilers getting out), I’d say that this title certainly surprised me both with the twists and visuals it presented.
In terms of player interaction, Death Come True leans more towards FMVs that resemble films than ones that include gameplay, like exploring the world, where the FMV aspects are more used to set the scene or as the cherry on top. Occasionally during the story, you’ll need to make a choice between two (or more) options. When this happens, the game freezes and lets you look around the room you’re in to see your options until you pick with a quick peek at what will happen if you choose it. The choices here are used mostly to lead up to death, with a few being ones that question if you remember the information you found in another loop.
Talking about deaths, every time you die due to something new, you unlock Death Medals. There are 16 Death Medals and are pretty easy to find the scenes that unlock them. These medals then unlock other extras under the DeathTube tab. The DeathTube extras include some mock news clips and behind the scene footage on how they filmed certain scenes or how the actors and crew members interacted with each other. Sadly, these extras were not subtitled (at least, not for English) so anyone that doesn’t understand spoken Japanese will have no idea what’s going on. I can understand not including subtitles for the behind-the-scenes footage, as there are times where multiple people are talking at once both on and off-screen, but it’s a shame for the mock news channel footage.
Other than that, the news broadcast at the beginning of the game isn’t fully translated and a text message important to the story wasn’t translated either. You do get the gist of it by the character’s dialogue, but it still feels like you’re missing parts of it. Hopefully, Death Come True will get an update to add the missing translations.
Death Come True also comes with a much-appreciated feature of being able to pause the game at any time as well as rewind and fast forward by 10 seconds if needed. It certainly helps if you need to do something in the middle of playing or during times when the subtitles went away too fast (which a couple of lines will, even for those that are used to watching subbed anime like me). If, for any reason, you can’t finish this game in one sitting, there is an auto save system in place that basically just saves your spot.
Verdict
With Death Come True, it’s important to go into this with the right expectations. If you’re going into this with high expectations, and maybe this is the first FMV game you’ll be playing, it’s not going to live up to them. Don’t expect this to be similar to Danganronpa and understand that this game does play it safe as this is the creator’s first FMV game. Honestly, the more I think about this, I’d say if you liked Black Mirror’s Bandersnatch episode, you’d like Death Come True.
Ultimately, I do recommend checking this title out, especially if you’re a fan of FMV games. For those that this is going to be their first FMV game, I’d say check out their trailer first to see if the story grabs your attention and makes you want to see what happens. While this does have a runtime of about three hours, some subtitles are missing, and the choices aren’t going to satisfy some; it did keep me hooked all the way through has some surprises up its sleeves and features great acting and cinematography. If you do decide to pick it up, I recommend playing through it at least twice. That way, you’ll be able to see the scenes you missed and find all the deaths.
