While the name may sound similar to Famicom Detective Club, this isn’t related to it in any way. This is a virtual board game from Imagineer, themed around kids solving a mystery in a spooky mansion. It came out shortly before Mario Party, however it has no minigames.

There are three game types in Detective Club 64: Theft, Lost Item and Bomb Hunt. They all involve searching around a mansion, but are slightly different. In Theft, you have to find three items and get to the front door, bomb hunt you need to disable bombs and hand them in while lost item you need to find items and return them to the correct people.

You take turns rolling the dice and moving. You can chose which direction to go in. The main space you’ll be looking for is the magnifying glass, which lets you pick objects in the room to search. These either contain cards to be used as abilities, or the special objects you need to win the game. Some special objects have duplicates, while one of them will only have one copy.

Other spaces make you gain or lose health and money, buy items and some alter your stats. NPCs will also be walking around, some you can talk to for clues, while others will trigger a battle, as will landing on the same space as another player.

The battle is a kind of “rock, paper, scissors” where certain abilities work against others. The loser is stunned and will miss the next turn. The system isn’t awful but, like with the rest of the game, is entirely down to blind luck.

Other than slightly different modes, the game doesn’t have any variety. Even the different mansions are just made up of the same randomly-selected rooms. It’s a very bare-bones release and isn’t even fun in the first place. The deceit part is just window dressing, with the game being more like a very slow version of Neil Buchanan’s Finders Keepers.

Poor

Even the shortest game of Kiratto takes over an hour. When you start, a flappy little angel comes on screen to tell you this, but jiggling with the options can extend your game time to such a degree that you’ll get the more amusing comment ‘I don’t know how long this game will take. Is that okay?’ Er, yes, okay.

Max Everingham, N64 Magazine #25. Review Score: 60%

Remake or remaster?

This game doesn’t need any special treatment.

Official ways to get the game.

There is no official way to get Detective Club 64