Written by. Marco Farinaccia based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2022-08-10 13:55 JST)

Square Enix has released update v1.0.3 for The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story. The update fixes issues that players had regarding the tempo and replayability of the game.

The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story is a live-action mystery adventure game that was developed by h.a.n.d. Taking place in Japan, it follows mystery novel author Haruka Kagami, who accepts a request from scientist Eiji Shijima and visits his family manor. Haruka becomes embroiled in a large conspiracy surrounding a fruit that can stop the aging process.

The game contains a number of murder cases that are broken up into different parts. First, the player watches the events leading up to the murder as if it were a film. Then the game transitions to the Reasoning phase where the player must determine the culprit and method of murder.

What makes the game unique is its unpredictable scenario and the way the player is able to make their own deductions. That being said, there are issues with the gameplay that have been pointed out in Steam user reviews and elsewhere. In short, players were dissatisfied with the pacing and ease of play. These issues also hurt the replayability of the game.

The new update adjusts some of the aspects that players had concerns with. One major change is that the Suspend function has been converted to a Save function. Previously, you couldn’t save the game during the Reasoning phase, meaning that you were unable to simply save and load whenever you wanted to redo something.

Seeing the actors perform scenes where the characters react to your mistakes is also an appealing part of the game, but the lack of a save function made it a hassle to view these scenes. Viewing different scenes is now much easier, since you can create a save before a decision and then reload after purposely making the wrong choice.

There are also control improvements. For example, it is now possible to adjust the movement speed of the cursor, making it easier to use. In addition, before the patch, the left stick controlled scrolling and the right stick controlled the cursor, but you can now set the cursor to the stick of your choice.

A number of other changes also improve the game’s playability. I (the original author of this article) played the game myself to see the changes in action and it really does feel much easier to play.

The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story is currently available on PC (Steam), PS4, PS5, and Nintendo Switch.