The Chrono Jotter Review

You awaken in a space with no sound and no light. There is a ceiling inches above your head, making it feel as if you are trapped inside of a wooden box. The main character has a mobile phone that she uses as a source of light to assess where she is and consult her trusty notebook. We learn a lot about the main character, Ibuki Ran, from the pages of this book. She suffers from intense hallucinations and schizophrenia, but nevertheless, she has training in deductive reasoning and logical analysis, despite having issues with memory loss. This adds a whole new layer of suspense and mystery to The Chrono Jotter as you won't know if the events you experience are real or if our main character is a reliable narrator.

The notebook has three personality traits listed for Ibuki that show her current level in each and how it will influence the game during your playthrough. These traits are:

• Insight — The ability to spot contradictions in time and space, behaviour and knowledge, and things present in established law. When this stat is improved, Ibuki will be able to detect and point out contradictions to piece together the truth in a clue.

• Charm — The ability to perceive emotions and how you empathise with others, how you can manipulate feelings to attract sympathy. When this is improved, you can entice people to give up everything to Ibuki.

• Dexterity — This is the level of coordination between her physical and mental abilities. It determines how quick, responsive, and dexterous you are and helps with tasks like unlocking heavy locks or dealing with misfortune. When improved, Ibuki will be able to react to unexpected situations faster and will be able to avoid dangerous situations.

You are presented with scenarios where you select how you would react if you experienced this situation from three different options. Some of these events are very bizarre, and the choices all seem surreal. I'm not sure if that is because of localisation issues or if it's just a weird game in general, but at times I had no idea how to answer. Once you get through this question phase, Ibuki's stats will change depending on what you chose in this section. For my playthrough, Ibuki's stats were now: Insight — seven, Dexterity — three, and Charm — five.

Once your attributes are figured out, Ibuki tries to figure out where she is and how to get out of there. She isn't trapped in a box like she first thought but instead, an underground room where the exit is locked. Ibuki uses her dexterity skills to pick the lock, revealing that she is inside an old school. The only thing she can think about is finding her girlfriend, Sakura An, who has been missing for four years. Maybe she is also trapped within this school? She feels that she has encountered similar strange situations like this before, but her memory is not great, so she can't clearly recall them; she just remembers experiencing hardships each time. They all seem to be related to her search for Sakura An.

You are given the option to stay in the school and explore or to try and get as far away from this place as you can. I was intrigued as to how she got there and who or what was responsible for this, so I chose to investigate. The classroom only had seven desks that were being used, and the boot room also had seven used spots. There were no names in the textbooks or on the shelves, so she had no way of knowing who the students were here.

Once you leave the school and explore the grounds, you find the dorms and meet Yorono Sai, a girl who looks to be Ibuki's age. She is very confused about who you are and how you got there, but she decides to help you out and lets you stay in her dorm room overnight as she is the only student living there that doesn't have a roommate. In the morning, Ibuki is already calling Yoruno big sister — I'm not totally sure what happened while they were sleeping to make Ibuki so friendly with her. Ibuki meets some of the other girls as they are getting ready to head to class. Yoruno decides to go for a morning swim, so you hang out with Inudou Tama. This is where things really start to get weird. Inudou is very confused as to how you got there, as the only tunnel to get to the school has been blocked by rocks for a year already. Ibuki wonders how the school is able to get food and supplies if no one can get through the rocks. Speaking with her, you realise how messed up the localization in The Chrono Jotter is. Hearing lines like "Because this kind of clothes are only worn by ladies, so I do not dare to wear" added an unintended comedic feel to a game that is supposed to be serious.

When you arrive at the classroom, you meet the other students, but you notice that only six of the seven students have shown up. Koizumi Hinata, the class monitor, says that Miss Sakura (the same thing Ibuki calls her missing girlfriend) is the one absent. Takei Miho says that the lottery was drawn yesterday, so she may have been the selected victim this time. This lottery has the girls drawing slips to determine who's the murderer and who's the victim, and then they play it out. It's like the lottery but with death instead of cash. This school is messed up! None of the students seem concerned about the fact that their classmate was probably brutally murdered, but then you learn that once the murder is solved, the supposedly dead victims come back to life. It's a clever twist because it adds a whole new dynamic to how the characters interact. The graphic brutal murders lead to tender moments between the students, and they even tackle some dark topics like suicide and mental illness, which was surprising. The premise of the story was unique albeit kind of messed up, but it was definitely interesting. Though it felt like the students were playing a real-life version of Among Us.

The students search the school grounds for the corpse of Sakura An so that they can begin to do the investigation. Ibuki is shocked to discover that this victim is indeed her missing girlfriend. The classmates decide to let you figure out the mystery on your own, but if you need help, they are there to assist. So you do the whole investigation routine — clicking on stuff, listening to Ibuki talk — but there's no real puzzle-solving involved. Ibuki just connects the dots herself and figures out who the killer is. At one point, I was unsure of the murderer's identity until she confronted the killer, and they confessed. Guess detective work isn't my thing. It's a bit of a letdown; I thought I would get to put my own detective skills to the test and solve the mystery myself, but I just got to watch. The Chrono Jotter really seemed like it was going to be more interactive than it ended up being.

The visual style in The Chrono Jotter is quite nice. The characters look like they were hand-painted with watercolours, while the sketches in Ibuki's notebook looked like they were drawn with a pen. The crime scenes are incredibly detailed, almost to the point where they are too grotesque. Personally, I don't really need to see all the details of a neck and trachea that have been sliced with a kitchen knife. The music in the game was good, though it got repetitive at times and felt more happy and lighthearted than I would have expected, considering the story's events. Though the characters didn't seem upset when these horrible things occurred, so maybe it wasn't as dark as I thought it should be. Though I do have to say that the game's intro was very well done, and it felt like I was watching the opening of a crime-mystery show like True Detective. Both the music and visuals were great, and they really made me interested in playing the game.

I had an interesting time playing The Chrono Jotter. The crazy premise and story in this point-and-click title pulled me in, but the shallow gameplay was a disappointment. I really thought that I was going to be able to solve the mystery behind these killings on my own. The most annoying part was the horrible translation, though. Characters' names would constantly be spelled differently, and the text wouldn't make sense, so it was hard to figure out how to proceed or how I should react to it. Instead, I was laughing at the ridiculous, nonsensical things the students would say, pulling me out of the story. It really takes away from the experience. It makes me wonder what the game would feel like playing it in its native language would be like. If anyone knows where I could get a job helping fix up game localizations like this, let me know. I think The Chrono Jotter really had potential if these issues were fixed.