of the Devil – Episode 1 Review

Last year I wrote about of the Devil’s Episode 0 demo, and I liked it quite a bit! As someone who loves both Mystery games, and the general aesthetics and concepts of the cyberpunk genre, it was basically a slam dunk designed to hook me in even before you get to the red haired protagonist. When I finished that demo, I was extremely excited to see where the full game would end up going, and if it’d be able to stick the landing on its extremely killer concepts.

The first of of the Devil’s planned 5 episodes, an idle mind, has not only cemented my faith in nth circle studios’ design, but also demonstrated a love and understanding of its several inspirations in a fleshed out, well considered, and distinct style all its own.

of the Devil takes place in the year 2086, a future where megacorporations have continued to gain more and more control over society through their entanglement with both state powers, and their contributions to near-omnipresent surveillance tools in the form of sweeping security systems and robotic service workers known as Adds. Similar to the world of Phoenix Wright, the court systems have been “overhauled” to ensure quick and deliberate verdicts in the result of the violent crime, leading to a world where almost every criminal trial ends with a guilty verdict.

You play as Morgan, a defense attorney with a darkly cynical but determined attitude who views the world in a series of gambling analogies. The various conversations and situations you’ll run into over the course of the game are contextualized as such; Blackjack when you’re interrogating a witness, or calling poker tells when cross-examining, with your own set of evidence organized as a deck of cards. You’ll earn credits as you guess or bluff your way to success, but just like real gambling you can’t always win, so you have to learn when to minimize your losses by staying your hand.

While the more intensive gambling sequences are iterative of something like a Danganronpa, of the Devil feels mainly inspired by the Ace Attorney series, especially in format. You go around collecting evidence, talk to your silly little companions, and luck your way into figuring things out that even your genius rival couldn’t. Unlike Ace Attorney, however, of the Devil is much more interested in actually painting a picture of its broader world, and the political ideas that underpin it. Indeed, though I love Ace Attorney, having replayed several of them recently through their remasters has clued me in on just how much time ends up wasted on reiteration and attempted character bits, rather than actual tangible concepts about the world or history that could be fleshing those characters out even more.

Everything in of the Devil feeds into something else. I mentioned in my write-up of the demo just how much I loved their in-depth readables; short news stories that do media literacy tests on you after you read them, and Wikipedia-style articles that can either provide genuine information or a reflection of how much control the state has over the dissemination of knowledge. Episode 1 has a significantly larger number of these readables, and I was consistently impressed by just how many aspects of the world had been fleshed out and explained as they’re introduced by framing it as plugging terms into a web browser. 

It’s this specific aspect I think that paints why of the Devil works so well as a cyberpunk work where others have continuously failed; it actually takes time to meaningfully explain how the world works in terms that are understandable today, and feel like a logical extension of the modern oligarchal and fascist systems we’re trapped inside. All too often, especially in games like Cyberpunk 2077, the nihilism and absurdity are amped up to 11 to the point that it doesn’t even feel like a compelling or thoughtful critique could even be made, or that there’s even anything in those worlds that feels “real”. When of the Devil talks about a concept, like laws that exist to anonymize the wealthy, or even something as simple as the fight for right to repair continuing unsuccessfully, they’re contextualized in events, in slopes and time. These aren’t bits created just to demonstrate capitalism’s chokehold in a vacuum, they’re given excuses, the same way it’s happened since time immemorial, and continues to happen right now.

There was one specific moment where the reliance on Wikipedia in a cyberpunk setting worked really well narratively too! Morgan references a large-scale disaster, a corporate based-disaster that killed a lot of people, and naturally it gives you a search term for it. However you can’t actually see what the event is, because the wiki has blocked access to the page due to “external attacks from [variable_UserAdversaryLatest]”. This worked really well as a way of obscuring what that event actually is, if the story wants to afford it meaningful amounts of time later, and also works to show what an evolution of information access looks like further down our more cynical line.

The presentation was a huge step up even from the demo as well! While I always enjoy the style of harsh cutaway used in the demo as a means of expressing Morgan’s darker side mid-conversation, adding in softer alternatives like Monogatari-esque cutaways with stage cards, or the occasional text around the periphery to make jokes reminded me exactly why visual novels can be so good! They’re a medium focused on delivering text to you, but it doesn’t have to be static, it doesn’t have to be direct! A screen doesn’t have to just be a box with text and the character expression sheet, it can be so much more!

A thing I found myself especially enjoying as a cyberpunk fan, was the abstracted 3D environmental backings to most scenes, that immediately brought to mind the 90’s era of cyberpunk in films and animation, where 2D or live action would suddenly cut to an alien panorama of rudimentary cgi to flaunt their high tech world. When Morgan takes a cab somewhere, it usually cuts to either an internal monologue or phone conversation that plays while you just get to watch the outside of a car window as they loop around the city, and it perfectly captures the exact vibe I want out of cyberpunk; an oppressive but meditative dark world.

I’m trying to avoid talking about the main plot too much because, well, it is a mystery, but when it comes to the broad strokes of character writing there’s a really fun and interesting cast being gradually introduced. Most characters from the demo return, and functional (yet fun!) characters like a coroner and judge are introduced, but importantly the required detective sidekick in the form of the robotic Serra is thrown into the mix and provides exactly what any good mystery needs: a silly little lady. 

Whether it’s Mizuki from Somnium Files or Maya in Ace Attorney, comedic women are the backbone of mysteries to me, and Serra works perfectly as a means of engaging with and understanding aspects of the world that exist outside of Morgan’s purview, but also portraying an ignorance that allows the more complex social dynamics to naturally be explained to the reader without feeling forced or stilted. Plus she’s silly and makes little pouty faces and gets undeservedly smug all the time…what more do you need.

Honestly that aspect of figuring out how to naturally deliver information, coupled with the readables and search terms naturally popping out showcase just how well tuned of the Devil is, especially for a first time project. There’s so much thought put into character tone, and what that would sound like via spoken word or text message. The prose flows naturally when it shifts to the interior monologues, and you don’t run into any of the stilted repetition games like Ace Attorney can fall into, just to make sure you Really Get It. There’s an absolutely perfect blend of comedy and sincerity.

I highly recommend of the Devil. I feel like I’ve been overly effusive throughout this review, but I genuinely didn’t have a single complaint throughout my seven hour-or-so playthrough. If you’re a fan of any of the games I’ve mentioned, or are consistently on the lookout for fiction written by people who understand the subject matter they’re writing about and are interested in thinking about all the different facets of what it could possibly mean, I bet you’ll find plenty to love.