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Review of Night Cascades

SubjectNight Cascades
Night Cascades
ByHelpfulness: 1
Vote: 7
Ileca on 2022-10-31 last updated on 2023-03-30
ReviewI usually stay away from yurige as I started considering the genre as a subgenre of moege that somehow found a way to be shallower, what is quite the achievement.
Fortunately, this is not the case here. The romance is concomitant to an investigation, neither having the focus more than the other. The dynamic of this story is what we could call a "couple cop", a variation of "buddy cop" where instead of a pair of men forced to work together and ending up as friends despite their difference, you have a pair of a man and a woman forced to work together with sexual tension ensuing, imagined or not, with the "couple" ending up together for real or not. Think Bones and Seeley Booth, Mulder and Scully.

Here, our two heroines we alternatively share the POV with, Diane and Jackie, are not boring virgins being all moe, but 28 years old women who were together when they were younger, before splitting. It's pretty obvious they still love each other somehow and that the reason for splitting was some kind of bullshit for the sake of the story. Sexual tension does ensue while they gather clues, doubled with a lot of awkwardness and a little of resentment, which makes for an interesting relationship to follow.

Of course, being an alternative to the buddy cop trope, they are an odd couple, from the 80'. The ambient of that period is well depicted, feeling even more ancient if you ask me. Diane is an old maid living with a dog, her Bible and her fantasy books, and Jackie was a metalhead before converting into a more "respectable" rockabilly style.

As far as police cases go, this one is pretty harmless. No body right off the bat, what is refreshing. The twist of the investigation is that it happens in the South where intolerance runs rampant *teheu* not much differently from today *teheu*. Not only because you could be killed for being homosexual but also because Christian fundamentalism was the norm and they were pretty fond of their moral panics, the latest for these lunatics being that Dungeons & Dragons is a game for Satanists.
While the theme is here, don't expect the game to be violent. While it acknowledges the problems, it is less about confronting them head-on than depicting an unreasonable and poisonous conservative society within the scope of a phantasmagoric lesbian romance.
Some nitpickings in that regard: the chief of police is black, which is, in my opinion not sourced by anything, most likely more of a TV trope than anything remotely rooted in reality. Also, his police department is pristine and not part of the moral panic, as if.
In the end, it is more of a tour than something militant, which is not a bad thing in itself.

Of course, this review would be incomplete without talking about the great visuals. Rock C does an impressive job. Characters look perfect, and Jackie's various frowning faces are. The only drawbacks are a bit of a sameface syndrome and one expression from Diane with her mouth that was jarring, but that's very minor. Game is overall very eye-candy, even down to the menus looking like an old radio set.
The jazz/rock music is of the same quality btw.

You have bits of gameplay, point and click during clues gathering and a hot and cold game for questioning, nothing non negligible but welcomed to bring some interaction in a game that is kinetic by nature.

I wouldn't read this game expecting my mind to be blown by the case. It is more about wrapping yourself in 80's vibes with a theme that tone down the idealization that is very common in that kind of work (and is present here, at least visually), and enjoying the sexual tension between an ex couple of lesbians while they investigate an... illegal camp fire.
1 point