Detective Instinct: Farewell, My Beloved was released in 2025. I first learned of its existence about a month before its release. One of the devs posted the trailer to an indie or game dev subreddit and I immediately locked in.The devs have listed Famicom Detective Club, Ace Attorney, and Hotel Dusk as inspirations. The style was explicitly “DS era”, and they nailed it in my opinion. The game is gorgeous, employing a mix of prerendered backgrounds and pixel art. It’s very reminiscent of 999, a game I will literally never shut up about.
If I had to compare the writing to other media, I would compare the character writing to Ace Attorney and the plot writing to Agatha Christie stories. Some of the characters are definitely heightened to the point of absurdity, but the mystery and worldbuilding are very grounded. Compared to some visual novels, which can be quite maximalist with their plots, the mystery is similar in scale to what I would expect from a Poirot or Ms. Marple story. There’s a lot of humour and life in the side characters, though I worry if major plot characters are always normal it’ll make it too easy to figure out the mystery in subsequent entries. Look at, the first Knives Out as an example of what I’m describing.
I’ve read some reviews where the game is described as “cozy”. I think that’s very accurate. The writing comes from a very compassionate place. I want to give a shout out to the Writer/Director Joey Lopes. We need more love in our stories. This shit is exactly what I want from video games. 100% synchronization rate.
In terms of length, the game is on the shorter side. This is not a jab. The pacing is great. DI only has one case/story, and it functions as an introduction to the universe. The game essentially comes across as a pilot. The Title: Subtitle naming suggests the intention to create more. This is a rare case where I was disappointed by the length. I don’t want to accuse this game of basically being a vertical slice, because the narrative and presentation stand on their own. I loved every second, but yeah, give me more.
The supposed gameplay is a smokescreen. Half the menu options, Check>[Person], Take, Show, don’t need to exist for this case. It almost feels like a demonstration of these features without properly incorporating them. I can’t pretend like I wasn’t thinking of how Ace Attorney will sometimes have, like, twenty pieces of evidence in the court record. The most immediate games in this genre are Ace Attorney and Danganronpa. These have cases that are extensively convoluted with countless nonsensical moving parts. DI is simply too grounded and heartfelt to justify senseless evidence. The realistic scenario is at odds with the systems it’s imitating. To be honest, I personally don’t give a heck. I’m not here for the challenge of solving the mystery. I just want to enjoy the vibes.
Obviously the solution to all my critiques is to give this studio more money. I want a bigger game with more cases, longer cases, and more of everything. The quality is obviously present and the game is reasonably priced. I’m certain that this game will become a cult hit at the very least. It’s simply too good to be ignored, even if it doesn’t blow up. So do your part. It’s like $25 CAD and it’s on Switch and on Steam, so there are options if you want it handheld or not.