Murders on the Yangtze River
"Murders on Yangtze River" is an Ace Attorney-like detective game that takes you on a journey through early 20th century China as you solve a series of intriguing cases. Use your logical reasoning and deduction skills to uncover clues, interrogate suspects, and solve the mysteries.
Murders on the Yangtze River is a adventure, detective and puzzle game
developed by OMEGAMES STUDIO
and published by OMEGAMES STUDIO and NPC Entertainment.
Released on January 30th 2024 is available on Windows and MacOS
in 3 languages: Simplified Chinese, English and Traditional Chinese.
It has received 16,428 reviews of which 16,046 were positive and 382 were negative resulting in an impressive rating of 9.5 out of 10. 😍
The game is currently priced at 14.79€ on Steam.
The Steam community has classified Murders on the Yangtze River into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
Get an in-depth look at Murders on the Yangtze River through various videos and screenshots.
Requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- OS *: Windows 7
- Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4590 CPU @3.3GHz
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: Intel GMA 950
- DirectX: Version 9.0
- Storage: 8 GB available space
MacOS
- OS: Mac Monterey
- Processor: Dual Core 2 GHz
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Storage: 8 GB available space
Reviews
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
Although there is no english voiceacting yet, the translation team made a good job adapting the story. Even if some of the evidence can be gimmicky at times, the expirience is relatively streamlined and the mysteries are compeling, but above all else, it somehow made me feel passionate about chinese history (even if i have 0 chinese blood) it really made you aprecciate the struggles this nation faced through the opium crisis and the industrialization of china in the 20th century, the last case almost made me believe i was proud of being chinese hahaha.
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Absolutely loved it. Writing is good, for the most part finding the right answer is possible within reason (even if I didn't in many cases, it made sense in retrospective), and the few occasions that required slightly more far-fetched reasoning were not experience-breaking. The game is also very forgiving, you barely have to redo anything when you "die" and retry. There is a surprising diversity of mechanics, some are similar, some are not as great as others, but none of them drag for long nor become drilling or repetitive. Personally, I think the best part of the game is the depth of the historical context, not just the little notes of historical information you get from time to time (which are great), but how that context is part of the plot and is reflected in the various (and also fairly diverse) characters in the story. The complexity and detail in the steel foundry setting was fascinating. The weakest point may be the English translation. It's not terrible by any means, but it generally takes the same style as the subtitles of Asian TV shows, if you have ever watched any of that. It's fine and understandable, but has certain mannerisms that are just not usually seen in common dialogue in English. It also had a few mistakes, although fairly minor. Played it through on my Steam Deck with no issues or bugs whatsoever.
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The game automatically boots up untranslated. To change the language to English: [*]When on the main menu, click the second option. [*]On the new window that pops up select the second to last option. [*]The third option (2nd drop down) on the next window is to change the language. This game follows a detective (Shen) solving cases with his trusty assistant (Afu) in order to gather evidence for a "closed" case that has haunted him for three years. The creators were deeply influenced by different mystery medias including the Ace Attorney series (I thought it was most similar to The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles), and it shows in a good way. It features a familiar game structure in investigation segments, court proceedings/discussions, presenting evidence, and requiring suspension of belief for some aspects. Some cases had unique mechanics that were only found in those chapters, from a quick "Debate" to lengthier "Group Testimonies". The cases themselves were not terribly difficult to get through, but there were some snags I ran into. Some of it stemmed from the translation choices (which I'll mention later) while the rest just took me a second to step back and think things through. The story often touches upon actual Chinese history and had medical terms that I had never heard of before which I thought were interesting to learn about. There are multiple "bad ends" that you can collect with unique art. I haven't gotten them all yet, but some of the ones I did were quite amusing, so I recommend trying different options to see them. In total, the main story can be about ~10-12 hours long. At the time of my review, the English translation has only been out for a few days, so some of the points I make may be fixed by the time others play. I was able to get through the entire game understanding the story just fine, but there were some translated phrases/directions that I think could be worded better. For example, in the third case one of the directions was to "point out the place that contradicts with the signature," which I thought implied that there was something wrong with the text in the untranslated letter, but the answer was simply that the paper was creased when it should not have been. EDIT: Literally the day after I posted this (lol), the devs updated the translation and the following point has since been fixed. At some point during the story, some of the characters were suddenly given English translated names which were then used interchangeably at different points in the story. For instance sometimes Chung became John, Ah Fu sometimes became Franklin, and in one scenario Lyu pi ch'eng became Petra. It was confusing as they had not been referred by those names prior and I had to figure out who they were based on conversation context. At the end of each chapter there are untranslated sentences that I assume are like footnote poems. I hope this, and some of the achievement descriptions, get translated in the future. Overall, the mysteries were fun to unravel and I found the lead characters very fun. The music, English and Chinese voice acting, and backgrounds were also very nice. I'm really glad I put this on my wish list and waited for an English translation to experience it. I would definitely play a sequel.
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As the years between new Ace Attorney releases get larger and larger it's very uplifting to see more and more indie studios try to fill the gaps in between the wait. Murders on the Yangtze River is the newest who dun it murder mystery game with heavy influences to said franchise, but it also manages to establish an identity of its own through a cute artstyle, rich descriptions of Chinese culture and a style of pacing that helps the structure of each of it's 6 cases feel unpredictable. It's not just Ace Attorney that influenced this game. Yangtze River is clearly appreciative of all sorts of murder mysteries, taking the time to detail a rigid unlock able glossary detailing murder methods, court systems, autopsy methods and more. The studio also constantly takes the time to mention great detective novels of the past like Holmes and uses China's fascination of murder mystery in the early 20th century to set the tone for several of the games characters. There is a true love of the craft here and that's just great to see. As such the murders the player will discover feel rather well crafted in terms of complexity and structure. Cases 3 and 4 particularly used some neat tricks that may have the potential to rival some of the great murder mystery games out there for some. The downside is that OMEGAMES studio possesses SUCH an intelligent grasp of murder, forensics and history, that if often lets itself get over immersed in the smaller details behind HOW many things can happen that it runs the risk of alienating the player to the simple executions of its actual crimes. It also doesn't use visual aids as often as it should to help show the player exactly how these crimes are being committed. As such there were a few cases when I only understood about 90% of what actually had happened by the end. And while we'll touch on this later, the translation itself also doesn't do the game any favors when these moments happen. Also while the murders are interesting, the grander narrative that this game tries to build, while leading to an interesting place, feels like it constantly gets derailed by other unrelated cases on the way, only really building the details of its larger narrative by the games final two chapters and without feeling like there was enough setup to make the payoff feel as great as it could. Still, the ride to the conclusion will still be worth taking, although it seems likely that the team would like to create a sequel to continue furthering its characters. Speaking of which, while Shen, Ah Fu and Wen K'e are certainly leads worth rooting for, the supporting cast sometimes feel like they lack the same eccentric personalities that you'll find in AA or Danganronpa that can often keep you from connecting or caring about them as much because often times, these supporting characters will feel like no more than cogs in the machine of a murder mystery, here to deliver one fact and then be gone for good. It would be nice if the game took a page from Ah Fu (Who is easily the games strongest character) to get more characters to pop. Still, the games not without a handful of good ones, and in one instance a cases twist actually bummed me out because I found that I cared more than I realized. The only other thing worth noting is a plot device of Shen's character that is hinted at throughout the story that in my opinion goes absolutely nowhere and is easily the most disappointing part of his character. The art style is very much its own, reminding me of the cutesy looking characters from something like a vanillaware game with a much smaller budget. When the game uses its models to depict crime reenactments I find the style to be at its best as the models almost feel like toys playing out the crime. The artwork for the close ups is also good, and occasionally takes AA influence to give repeat animations for characters like Ah Fu smiling, or looks of agony when an incriminating piece of evidence is presented to a suspect. You won't find anything close to a classic breakdown sadly. The music is also good but may lack a Showstopping track that you'll want to play over and over. Though the "objection" theme and the studios take on a "cornered" theme definitely come close. The logic and gameplay itself are also quite good. While Tyrion Cuthbert, an indie game from last year borrowed heavily from the original AA trilogy, Yangtze takes a closer approach to something like the spin-off duology Ace Attorney Investigations. Keeping you (for most of the game anyways) out of court, closely examining crime scenes, interrogating suspicious people and even occasionally solving some light puzzles like measuring out a liquid formula, or connecting a series of light switches. In fact while you will Cross Examine people several times, you may be surprised to find that it doesn't happen quite as often as you might expect. This keeps the game play variety rather fresh and often times a game play sequence won't even repeat itself. It's certainly one of the more varied murder mysteries out there. The logic itself while not impossible to follow, will require a fair amount of brute forcing and in one instance a puzzle that required me to pick out multiple pieces of evidence at once to theorize how a murder device was created, tipped me over to my only use of a guide (or since one doesn't exist at the time of this review a community post). Stick with it however, and you'll appreciate the variety. However perhaps the extra brute forcing came from the games biggest problem. While this game is certainly worth your time, if English is the only language you speak, then a rather muddy translation may stifle your ability to get full appreciation from the stories largest moments. It's a problem that goes beyond simple grammatical errors and punctuation. Character names change from basic English names, to their best translated Chinese names randomly throughout the story making it often difficult to keep track of which characters are being referred to. Sometimes the game will refer to the Protagonist as Chung Shen and other times John. Sometimes his assistanat Ah Fu will be referred to as Franklin and the player is just left to interpret who it is, that the game is referring to. On top of this, when details are left to the specifics, the translation can often struggle to fully explain what it's trying to say. I recall multiple instances of a murderers motive being difficult to understand through the translation because sometimes the lines just don't flow like the proper spoken English language. Characters will speak about the person they are speaking to as though they are not even there VERY often, words will double up on themselves, and sometimes I just flat out have no idea what the game is trying to say. (Also I encountered a SINGLE line of untranslated dialogue in the second case.) It is FAR from a deal breaker as one can still understand the gist of the story and reach the end without many problems, but the lack of polish in the translation WILL keep some from being fully immersed, and probably kept this from being a truly memorable experience that i'll be playing over and over. This is a small team who have indicated from the start if players detect any problems they should let them know. While I feel that the issues with translation may go beyond simply identifying key errors and realistically could benefit from an enhanced translation altogether, to speak on this any further would be insensitive to the level of passion that was clearly put into this game. Murders on the Yangtze River is not the best indie murder mystery game I've played but it is DEFINITELY one of the most passionate ones. If you can't get enough of murder mysteries then the games 15-16 hours of sleuthing will be a worthy addition to any ones murder mystery collection...Just be prepared to deal with a rough translation if English is your only language.
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So far I have only played Case 1 of the demo, which is in English, and loved it so much that I went straight to purchase the full game hopeful that it was actually in English. Devs are estimating that the English version will be released in March so, for now, I'll wait until it's released. Based off the demo this game is a must if you're a fan of Ace Attorney, I'm very excited to play the full version next month!
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Last Updates
| Steam data | 14 January 2025 00:39 |
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| SteamSpy data | 17 January 2025 20:31 |
| Steam price | 23 January 2025 04:23 |
| Steam reviews | 21 January 2025 15:58 |
Online players
30
Developer
OMEGAMES STUDIO
Publisher
OMEGAMES STUDIO,
NPC Entertainment
Release
30 Jan 2024
Platforms