Play Nishimura Kyoutarou Mystery - Super Express Satsujin Jiken (Japan) Online

Nishimura Kyoutarou Mystery: Super Express Satsujin Jiken came out for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1989, developed by Irem. It was part of that wave of late 80s Japanese adventure games that never left the country, a text-heavy mystery built for players comfortable with a lot of reading and methodical exploration. You don't see many games like it from that era, especially not in the West, which makes stumbling upon it now feel like uncovering a specific, curious artifact.

You play as a detective wrongfully accused of a murder that just occurred on a speeding train. Your goal is to clear your name by finding the real culprit before the train reaches its final stop. The gameplay is almost entirely menu driven; you move from car to car, exhaustively examining backgrounds for items, then presenting those pieces of evidence to the other passengers during conversations to pry information loose. The pacing is deliberate, almost slow, because missing a single clue in one car can completely halt your progress later. It feels like meticulously working through a logic puzzle where every conversation is a potential trap door.