Published , by Timo Reinecke
Published , by Timo Reinecke
I have a problem. The occult mystery adventure game Urban Myth Dissolution Center is one of the best games I’ve played in a long time. On the strength of its actual gameplay, it might not hold a candle to other titles in the genre but if you treat it more like an interactive novel, these little grudges quickly fade away and open you up for one of the most engaging digital page-turners ever pixeled.
How do you even explain how fantastic a game is without giving away what makes it so darn great? It's a problem many visual novels share. Much of what makes these titles work depends on the impact of their reveals and character moments. I can only vaguely promise you that Urban Myth Dissolution Center delivers on all fronts and is one of if not the most satisfying mystery stories out there. It also offers a rather haunting insight into the rampant spread of misinformation in our current age sprinkled with a healthy obsession for the stranger mysteries to give it some color. Going forward I’ll try to be vague as any of the finer details could be considered a spoiler, which is more a testament to how gloriously Urban Myth Dissolution Center unfolds.
After being strongarmed into working for the Urban Myth Dissolution Center, university student Azami Fukurai needs to learn how to use her special abilities to solve the strange occurrences in her city. She is taught how to do that by the enigmatic and peculiar director Meguriya and driven around by the easygoing Jasmine. Together they form a ragtag band of investigators who try to find out what’s behind the ghosts and ghouls. With the help of her colleagues, Azami investigates hauntingly mundane environments and interrogates a cast of quirky characters to find the truth.
While it seems simple on the gameplay front, the quality of the writing more than makes up for it. Half the fun of solving the mysteries is Azami’s reaction to every reveal. Everyone in this story is a capital C character, watching them freak out while something (for now) unexplainable happens is a frequent delight that only gets better as each case reaches its fever-pitch conclusion. Each of the cases is presented as a standalone episode, all featuring an intro and epilogue that eventually tie into the larger mystery theme of the title, the Great Reset. From the first case to the last one, motifs are established that come up over and over again. These can make the title feel a little formulaic, but had me jump out of my chair the moment I clocked that the game was going for. I want to stress again, that I need to be vague about this because it rules and I’m afraid that giving even a hint will rob anyone reading this review of the joy I felt in the game's best moments. Just trust me, this game is way cleverer than it lets on at first.
A thing I can however talk about is the simple, yet focused art direction of Urban Myth Dissolution Center. All the characters are extremely expressive, and the muted blue color scheme of the background clashes beautifully with the bright red characters and points of interest. Even the menus are a delight to click and read through. All the backgrounds are playfully detailed and set a perfect mood for every scene. There is something about this calming blue tint that makes many of these mundane places look unsettling. While exploring you start expecting something bright red to jump out at you or catch your eye for the next reveal. Some of the later sequences manage to perfectly capture the sensation of your mind interpreting something odd and out of place as an unsettling, supernatural occurrence.
If you can’t tell by now, I’m deeply in love with this game. I just don’t want to give away too much yet. But I believe it tells an important story about the made-up, easily digestible realities behind the complicated, horrible events in our day-to-day lives. About social media white knight justice as a feel-good spectator sport and how we treat tragedies, culprits, and their victims in our always-online world. This game couldn’t have come out at a better time. In light of recent events, perpetrated by the convenient realities many of us love to escape into, it is important to remember that the convenient truths that most of us can live with always have innocent victims we're not aware of until looking for them. But I guess there’s no Urban Myth Dissolution Center for that.
A code for the PC version was provided by the publisher ahead of release. Urban Myth Dissolution Center releases for PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and PC on February 13, 2025.