Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

The first stretch gets its claws into you because it has a real mystery-game momentum. Yukiya wakes without his recent memories, finds his friends gathered in an imposing mansion, and then the situation immediately curdles into a locked-room killing. Rather than sending you on a grand journey, Yakata keeps you in and around one dangerous place. That focused scale is a strength: every trip through the mansion or across the island carries the promise that you might uncover the next clue.

Exploration sits at the center of the experience. You move through the mansion from a third-person view with camera angles that adjust as you go, then use a separate 3D island map to reach other locations. Conversations and triggered events give the investigation an adventure-game rhythm, so patience matters more than brute-force leveling. If you enjoy combing through a suspicious location, revisiting people after new developments, and letting a case unfold at its own pace, this is where Yakata is likely to click.

The role-playing system is much more straightforward. Random encounters lead to turn-based battles on separate isometric screens, and that can be a jarring interruption when you are locked into detective mode. The smart twist is the split between offensive and defensive turns. On defense, you can reduce incoming damage or move to another position in hopes of avoiding an attack. It is not an elaborate combat engine, but it asks for a little more attention than merely selecting attacks until the fight ends.

That tension defines the game. The combat has enough tactical flavor to avoid feeling entirely automatic, yet it is still a simple system attached to a story-and-exploration game. Go in wanting a mystery with RPG battles, not a battle-heavy RPG with a mystery pasted on top. You will get more out of its deliberate searching and dialogue than from treating the mansion as a corridor between fights.

Graphics

Yakata mixes third-person 3D exploration with isometric battle arenas, so you are looking at the mansion and island from a changing camera during investigation, then at a more tactical overhead view during combat. The isometric screens suit the defensive movement option because positions are easy to see when deciding whether to stand firm or relocate.

Anime-style full-motion sequences carry major story moments, while important conversations receive voice acting. Those scenes give the murder mystery a more dramatic break from the 3D roaming.

Story

The central setup is wonderfully direct: a group is stranded on an island, the outside world is unreachable, and someone among them may be a killer. Yukiya’s missing memories add a second thread of uncertainty without distracting from the immediate question of who murdered Chiori Nakamura inside a locked room. It is a classic closed-circle mystery premise, and it fits a mansion exploration game perfectly.

Edogawa Ranko gives the group a reason to investigate instead of simply panic. Making one of Yukiya’s companions a famous detective also adds a playful genre-aware edge, especially with the name’s nod toward Edogawa Ranpo. The game understands that the fun is not merely finding the culprit; it is spending time in a place where every companion becomes worth doubting.

The anime movie scenes and voiced key dialogue should help the important discoveries land with more force than plain text alone. More importantly, the story has a clear reason for the game’s restricted setting. You are not wandering a huge world looking for a vague objective. You are trapped in a mansion and on an island where the suspect list is right in front of you, which makes each new conversation feel potentially useful.

Overall Experience

Yakata: Nightmare Project is the kind of oddball RPG that earns goodwill by pursuing an unusual mood. A locked-room murder on an isolated island is already fertile ground for a detective adventure; blending it with third-person exploration and turn-based encounters makes it even stranger. The mixture will not suit everyone, but it is far more memorable than another routine fantasy quest.

Its main compromise is easy to see. The investigation is the star, while the RPG mechanics are functional support with one neat defensive-turn idea. Random encounters may test your patience when you would rather be following leads, and gamers looking for dense character building or complex battle systems should look elsewhere.

But if you have a soft spot for old mysteries, remote mansions, and games willing to put dialogue and exploration ahead of constant combat, Yakata is worth the time. Its payoff is the sustained feeling of being sealed inside a suspicious little world, working through an impossible murder while never quite knowing whether the next room holds a clue, a conversation, or a fight.

Retro Replay Score

7/10