If you are someone who enjoys visual novels like Ace Attorney and have an interest in H.P. Lovecraft, you will feel right at home around Hermitage: Strange Case Files. The world of Hermitage is covered in unknowable horrors and tentacled beasts. It even mentions everyone’s favorite creature, Cthulhu. The phenomenal narrative and the dialogues that follow make the story flow smoothly, leaving you wanting more. Hermitage might feel like an investigation game, but it relies on its narrative and visuals to breathe life into the world.
You play as an unnamed Store Manager who runs Hermitage, a bookstore known for its collection of odd and rare books. The story begins with Cecile, a quiet schoolgirl, visiting the bookstore looking for a particular book that can help her understand the weird dreams she has been having. The Store Manager questions her intentions for wanting such a book and discovers that she believes her dreams to be premonitions of her best friend dying. As you progress further into each of the 6 chapters, the mysteries of the events happening throughout the game become more dark and twisted due to the supernatural beings that surround them. You even become aware of the fact that the Store Manager cannot even leave the store, adding to suspense relaying on the people and items around you to solve these bizarre mysteries. The characters in Hermitage vary in development. For example, the Store Manager can seem dull at times, but gets fleshed out with each interaction he has with each character. The uniqueness of the characters helped set the atmosphere and cause you to rethink your actions as they falter and begin to question as well.
Hermitage’s gameplay is pretty simple. Gather evidence through many means and piece it all together to come to a conclusion. During the day, you gather information by talking to other characters and by exploring the unique books in the store. As you progress further, new books become available and give more insight into the world. At night, you watch tv, send text messages to other characters, and use an internet forum to gather additional details. The forums and tv programs update and give smaller details that tie into the main story. Although there is a substantial amount of information you gather, the game is nice and highlights the important parts in red. This makes it easy to not get overwhelmed and help organize data. With lots of information comes a lot of choices. I say this because each chapter has two endings. The good, which is the intended and hard to miss story, and the other is the bad, which shows a more darker and suspenseful side to the world of Hermitage. This gives you the opportunity to find not only an interesting narrative, but allows you to see the pure Lovecraftian Mythos the developers were going for.
The overall visuals for the game are simply breathtaking and show remnants of the Persona series. The still shot photos that appear throughout the game are beautiful and were handled with care. The artists showed much love in each picture. Part of me wanted that care given to the characters. The character designs can sometimes look plain, but when combined with the backgrounds, helps add to the dark grit it is going for. The backgrounds are great by showing off the unique details that get updated throughout the story. The first couple of chapters use robust 3D backgrounds. The backgrounds seem to look a little worse as you progress further into the game, but they still try to be unique.
There weren’t many issues that Hermitage suffered from. With it being localized from Chinese to English, it has lots of typos and can sometimes be a little wordy due. This does not harm the gameplay or the story much, but can dull your sense of suspense as you try to dive into it. The backgrounds were used a lot and can leave you wanting more. The difference in inner monologue and narrative is none existent. Meaning you cannot tell the difference between the store manager’s thinking and a description of what is currently happening. When you are using the deduction part it doesn’t feel like you are solving the case yourself. However, the game always explains everything in detail afterward, saving you time. Otherwise, I had a great experience overall.
Exploring Hermitage was exciting and suspenseful. The combination of a well-crafted story and stunning visuals definitely make it a recent favorite in the visual novel genre. The several nods for Lovecraft also make it much more interesting and helps build a ghastly world filled with mythos. Only suffering from a few minor issues and being a largely text based game. I would recommend buying Hermitage if you love visual novels.
