The Silver Case: 2425
Unfettered of any corporate meddling that he had to face during his time at Human Entertainment, Suda was faced with a complete freedom he never tasted before. With five people, the first game of Suda's newly founded studio was born on the PS1. Before Killer7, before No More Heroes, there was The Silver Case.
The result is an adventure game going to places it should not have been, treating themes it wasn't allowed to graze. And its direct sequel The 25th Ward dives even further into the garden of madness.
And this is what Suda set out to do in the first five minutes of The Silver Case.
Enter Moonlight Syndrome, the final game that Suda made before his departure from Human. This spin-off from the Twilight Syndrome series was supposed to be his first truly branded game with his input. Moving away from the ghost stories of the original series (it terrified him), Moonlight Syndrome was focusing on psychological horror, on what evil truly meant. But then the Kobe Child Murders happened.
A 14-year-old Japanese boy committed two gruesome murders of children, beheading one of them and putting the head in front of the school gate, and killing the other with a steel pipe. This highly-publicized traumatizing event tightened the noose on what visual entertainment was able to show. And it ultimately put a stop to what Suda intended to make with Moonlight Syndrome, as disturbing as the original release ended up being.
But The Silver Case was different, and it needed to make a statement.
The opening sequence of The Silver Case pits detective Tetsuguro Kusabi against Ryo Kazan, a protagonist of Moonlight Syndrome, holding the head of his sister Kyoko Kazan. Seeing he's completely lost it, Kusabi aims to end his rampage. You can guess what happens at the end of the chapter after a long chase.
Suda killed his own past
But this thinking becomes almost secondary to what The Silver Case has to offer. What makes the game shine is its ability to weave several storylines into an overarching one in the most suspenseful way possible. 2 different routes are immediately accessible that both complements each other in what they are trying to convey. Transmitter chapters, written by Suda, presents the broad strokes of his thinking on the origins of crime through the lens of the Heinous Crime Unit in this new universe he crafted. Meanwhile, Placebo chapters written by Masaki Ooka puts the focal point on the main narrative to ascertain their meaning by playing a journalist figuring out the truth. Two different styles that leaves no blind spot, only a slew of raw feelings.
What does it mean ? It means that Suda explores various topics that were uncommon to treat in the video game landscape. The internet becomes a huge part of the exploration of crime for Suda back in 1999. Abuse and harassment committed against people on the net. The birth of the only mean of communication of a young generation robbed of a voice. But also government control, corporation lobbyism, unlawful methods. All facets of Japanese society, struck while the iron is hot, even maybe too hot to be comfortable. But it was a genuine effort to speak to the player honestly about real issues, without the hand-holding and the talking down that usually comes with such attempts.
The Silver Case was also about shaking up the mostly static genre visually. The use of the Film Window engine puts dynamism with moving windows, dialogues and backdrops. The game becomes an exercise in style, with clear artistic intent in the way information is conveyed. It wasn't just about character portraits speaking, it was about the way it is communicated to you. The game also adds a twist in the art style it is brought to you: it can be its regular style, or it can be an anime style, or something else entirely. Each chapter is a surprise that uses what is needed to convey what is necessary.
It is in this in-between that The Silver Case is a successful thriller. Giving themselves the tools to experiment every aspect of the presentation while splitting the writing in a coherent way makes it so that Suda's moves becomes unpredictable. It is a detective game during the first minute, to morph into a horror game during the second, to finally settle as an RPG during the third. You are not promised answers, you are only promised an experience.
This is what good thrillers are made of.
It is in this in-between that The Silver Case is a successful thriller. Giving themselves the tools to experiment every aspect of the presentation while splitting the writing in a coherent way makes it so that Suda's moves becomes unpredictable. It is a detective game during the first minute, to morph into a horror game during the second, to finally settle as an RPG during the third. You are not promised answers, you are only promised an experience.
This is what good thrillers are made of.
As a fan of visual novels and adventure games, I can't remember the last time I managed to be this obsessed with what a video game is trying to tell me. Trying to observe and decipher every part of its narrative and the way it's constructed is an always-enriching experience for me. To see where the connections are, to be rewarded when I'm familiarizing myself with its universe, to scrutinize specific parts in order to connect the dots. It's just the kind of game that stays with you. It's the real fan-service, it's the one where you deliver something that the fans wants to pluck from. The ones where a fan can enjoy that a story decades in the making is unfolding as they grow as a person. To realize that it keeps being relevant to you as you age. It doesn't target you, it targets the world. And by doing so, it speaks about you.
The Silver Case series is where Suda is at its best. Dark, scary, humorous, it shifts its perspective as many time as it wants to. It's a series that makes you fulfilled, because it's one that keeps the player on their toes. As far as thriller goes in video games, I haven't seen one that gets any better than The Silver Case series.
Bonus: a review from The SIlver Case's booklet.
