Urban Myth Dissolution Center Demo Preview

Urban Myth Dissolution Center is a mystery adventure game created by Japanese developer Hakababunko and published by Shueisha Games. It follows the story of protagonist Azami Fukurai as she seeks answers about her strange visions. The director of the center, Ayumu Meguriya, uses his powerful psychic abilities to coerce this much younger woman into working as an investigator to pay off a debt. While that does seem strange and even a little bit creepy, my hope is that the story will show that this was all a part of some long-winded plan to have Azami realize her true potential in an ultimately helpful way.

I got a preview of Urban Myth Dissolution Center last month at PAX West, but I only had time to get through about twenty minutes of the demo. Thankfully, just last week, Shueisha Games sent me the full version of the demo (about an hour and a half of gameplay) to give me the full experience ahead of Steam Next Fest when the demo would be available to the public.

To get right to the point, this is a demo worth giving a try.

There’s certainly a bunch of caveats to that. If you’re not a fan of narrative-heavy, point-and-click exploration mystery puzzles, this might not be the game for you. But I will say I don’t typically go for those types of games either. I remember learning from PAX that this game was written by four novelists, and those novelists hired a programmer and a pixel artist to bring the vision to life. After experiencing a short glimpse of the writing (and the actually engaging gameplay) that helped me see this as something a little more interesting than the average point-and-click visual novel.

Urban Myth Dissolution Center is not a challenging experience. Finding the clues and putting them together can either be something you figure out quickly or something you get on the second or third try. But the dialogue is well written, the pixel art is excellent, and the stories are sufficiently creepy. A perfect pick for the October season.

My one major gripe with the game is how timid, nervous, and easy to push around the protagonist is. So far it’s something I’ve seen done in many other games and I have trouble connecting with the character and putting myself in their shoes. It’s also difficult not to think about how this young woman is being roped into working for this investigation center through manipulation and financial debt by an older man with psychic powers. Since this is only the first hour and a half of the demo, I would hope that as the story progresses, the protagonist manages to break out of this mold, but that will have to wait until the full game releases sometime next year.

What do you think? Will you be trying the demo for Urban Myth Dissolution Center in a few days when the October Steam Next Fest starts? Let me know what you think!