THE PREMISE/SETTING:
This is probably the game’s greatest strength. Both its setting and the story surrounding the MC are incredibly compelling.
The MC is a woman who has been disguised for five years as “Heesoo,” a male private detective in 18th-century Seoul. Five years earlier, her entire family was mysteriously framed for treason and executed. If the police or government knew who she was, she’d likely be executed too. She wants to clear their name and get to the bottom of the plot to frame them.
Along with her “brother” (actually her late father’s servant) Woosung, they help the local police solve crimes, while also taking up jobs that citizens pay them to do. Heesoo is a genius with a knack for quickly solving crimes, so their private detective business has become quite famous in the city.
Throughout the story, Heesoo comes into contact with four women, all of whom ask for her help in one way or another.
Before we jump into a discussion of these characters and the various other elements of the VN though, let me address the elephant in the room, which is…
THE TRANSLATION:
Every review you see for this VN mentions the translation, and that’s because it has serious issues.
There are TONS of common translation mistakes throughout the VN. Articles, prepositions, tenses, singular vs. plural are often incorrect. There are also many misspellings. It also has some very clear mistranslations and weird word choices. “Ennervated” instead of “nervous”, “smuggling” instead of “smiling smugly” and “To flare up” instead of “to become angry,” are ones you’ll see a lot. These are just the most common examples. There are many other things like that.
All that said, it is generally not the kind of thing that hurts the story or characterization, but it can certainly be distracting. The biggest problem is that these errors and odd translations blunt the emotional impact and/or humor of some scenes.
The situation isn’t helped by the fact that if you aren’t familiar with 18th-century Korean history, to understand some of the elements of the setting you have to rely on an in-game glossary that is also filled with these errors. Two of the entries are even in Korean, because I guess someone forgot to translate them, which is…something. That said, I went in with only some fairly basic knowledge about the setting, and I was still able to understand the intricacies of 18th-century Korean society by the end of the common route. Although I did have to rely on Google a few times when things weren’t super clear.
I’m not sure how they went about translating this, but I think there were different people for different routes/chapters. Yurin’s route seems to be the best translated, while Iljime’s is the worst.
To sum up: The shoddy translation does undoubtedly worsen the experience. But it doesn’t ruin it, at least not for me.
WRITING/STORY/ROUTE STRUCTURE
Many of the most well-known yuri titles available in English are kinetic novels or have two or fewer romance routes. There are exceptions to this of course (Kindred Spirits on the Roof), but they mostly prove the rule. Lady in Mystery is one of the few that currently has a localization (problematic as it may be) that is a yuri VN with lots of choices, more than two love interests, lots of endings, and a multi-route mystery. You can only uncover everything about what happened to Heesoo’s family by reading every route.
The common route is a series of different mysteries, during which you’ll meet each of the potential love interests too. Each of these mysteries is pretty interesting in its own right. There are bad endings if you don’t solve them correctly. If you’ve played the Flowers series, it’s sort of like that, but I think the mysteries in Lady in Mystery are more compelling for the most part.
After six chapters of this common route, in chapter 7 you make a series of decisions that determines which of these four women’s routes you’ll embark on.
In all, the game has a whopping 30 endings, though about 20 of them are silly joke endings or very quick “Game over” type ends without any significant story. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of that type of thing. However, the “true” endings and some of the bad endings that happen deep within a heroine’s route can hit you pretty hard in the feels.
HEROINES:
While the MC has a compelling backstory, so too do the four main heroines, who have very different personalities and are all in a difficult situation in one way or another. Some of the routes are more romance heavy than others, but I will say romance isn’t really the focus of any of the routes. It’s more like something that happens in the midst of the story playing out. In one of the routes, it’s only subtext, and that was a little frustrating.
I’m not going to spoil anything you don’t know almost immediately when you meet them, but suffice it to say (as is often the case in any visual novel) there is more to each of them than meets the eye.
Seoyeon - A damo (basically a ward of the state who works for the government as a servant) who is the assistant to a police detective. She’s very serious and comes off as a cold person. She’s a few years older than Heesoo.
Yurin - The head of a large merchant company. The elite in the city hate her because she’s making business harder for them, and very few people trust her. She’s traveled much of the world in pursuit of profit. She’s a flirty ojou-sama who is 10 years older than Heesoo.
Iljime - A Robin Hood-like vigilante who, like Heesoo, disguises herself as a man for her work. She’s a few years older than Heesoo. She’s wacky, playful and energetic.
Juhee -A noblewoman who ran away from her family because they were going to force her to marry a man, and she knows she’s a lesbian. She’s younger than Heesoo. She’s very much a tsundere. She’s the “main girl” of the VN. She’s the first one you meet, and her route is the one that uncovers the most about what happened to Heesoo’s family. Her route is also the only one that lets you branch off to the “revenge” route.
There is a “true” ending for each of these love interests, and a “true ending” where you choose revenge over any of them. The “true endings” are all fairly good, although sometimes they feel a little rushed.
MUSIC:
The game has really great instrumental music for the most part. I’m always a sucker for a VN where different characters (especially the heroines) have their own themes. Because when there is music that captures exactly what the character is about, it’s a beautiful thing. It really augments the experience of playing that character’s route. This is one of those VNs, and the themes are all excellent. Some of the more commonly used ambient music sounds like elevator music, though.
ART:
Sprites: This game has tons of sprites. They aren’t just reserved for the main characters. Any character that has more than a few lines has a sprite. I didn’t count them of course, but there have to be close to 50 of them. That definitely makes the game’s world seem vast and realistic. I wouldn’t say the sprites themselves are anything special though. Some of the supporting characters seem to have two facial expressions at most. The sprites for the main characters are solid, though.
Backgrounds: Katawa Shoujo-esque photographic backgrounds aren’t exactly what I love to see on a VN I paid for, but they aren’t bad either.
CGs: The VN has 28 CGs. That might sound like a lot, but for a VN of this length, it is surprisingly few. However, in a weird way, it made the ones you do get more special, and the ones it does have are beautiful, and very much in the Korean manhua style.
OVERALL GRADE: 7/10
I think with a better localization, it would easily be an 8 or higher. I recommend reading it, because it’s an enjoyable experience despite those issues. The characters and their stories will stick with you for a long time.
