Urban Myth Dissolution Center is an interesting game. Set in modern-day Tokyo, this ADV from developer Hakababunko and publisher Shueisha Games features a series of episodes involving the titular Urban Myth Dissolution Center, an organisation that specializes in solving peculiar cases involving such anomalies.
University student Azami Fukurai had a sixth sense: she could sense traces of human activity that had existed in the past. Hoping to find out more about her ability, she visits the Urban Myth Dissolution Center and not only does she find herself an answer, she also finds herself working for the Center! Working for Ayumu Meguriya, the opportunistic Director of the Center who oversees the events of the game with his omniscient Vision ability, and Yasumi “Jasmine” Tomarigi, an aloof, no-nonsense girl with a jumpsuit, a van and a heart of gold, Azami is given a pair of glasses that boosts her clairvoyance ability, allowing her to see much clearer traces that will be beneficial to solve the mysteries that come their way.
Each episode begins with the Director assigning Azami and Jasmine a case that they’ll have to try to solve by finding out which anomaly fits the situation through Identification and later solving that case after finding enough clues to dissolve any possibility of supernatural foul play via Dissolution. You control Azami as she visits locations relevant to the case, interviews witnesses, examines her surroundings using her Clairvoyance and even looks for leads on social media to gather enough clues to form a hypothesis on the case at hand. Eventually, she and Director Meguriya invoke the Eye to uncover the truth and piece together your findings to (Dis)solve the case. As Azami becomes more accustomed to her new occupation as an investigator, a larger conspiracy involving a secret society is brewing in the background and Azami may be the key player in this grand scheme.
Without spoiling much, the story is definitely competent: while the core plot is linear, various details can be gathered through thorough investigation and by looking through your case logs. What may be a fun piece of flavor text in an earlier episode just may be relevant to finding a clue in a much later episode. What seems confusing as the plot goes on comes together at the final episode and it is a doozy. And if you’re into things like cryptids and kaidan, you’ll get a kick out of the urban myths and other anomalies being represented in these cases, such as “kotoribako” and “Bloody Mary”. Azami and Jasmine are very likable characters and are also very nice to look at, and while the Director is kind of a jerk, he’s a droll jerk so I like him, too. There are a lot of jerks in this story that aren’t funny nor redeeming in any way, including the victims, which makes these cases interesting. Actually, the biggest message I got from this game is that social media, while pervasive and often necessary in our lives, can be one of the greatest social evils of our time. Urban Myth Dissolution Center explores the ills of social media: trolls, fake news, morally bankrupt influencers, ideological zealotry, censorship, mob rule and vigilante “justice”, and doxxing. The advent of social media has certainly given birth to a crueler, more dishonest society where fact is falsehood and falsehood is fact with no real compassion and no real consequences.
Urban Myth Dissolution Center has beautiful pixel graphics, even with the limited use of colour, and the soundtrack is spooky enough to stay in your brain for a while even after playing. My only criticism with the graphics are that the text can be small to read when playing on a handheld like the Switch Lite, especially when doing the social media portions of the game. The syntax used when forming hypotheses is too strict, and you have to piece together the words exactly in the game wants you to piece them together in spite of other word combinations also being grammatically correct. You don’t get penalised for making mistakes, which is nice for this segment of the game, but because you can keep trying without having to worry about errors, you can brute force your way to solve a case, which is a problem with most ADV games. The game progression being linear doesn’t help either, making Urban Myth Dissolution Center more of a visual novel in ADV trappings. It’s not a long game, with six episodes total, so anyone can get through it in reasonable time. Thankfully, the story and characters are charming enough for the flaws to not be a detriment to the overall experience.
Urban Myth Dissolution Center is a novel take on the ADV genre that is worth playing, even if it can be finished within a weekend. It makes you think, and not just when it comes to solving a case: its commentary on society, social media and the genesis of urban myths has left an impression on me after finishing the game, along with that spectacular ending.
