Play Tantei Gakuen Q : Kyuukyoku Trick ni Idome! Online

If you've ever wanted to feel like a detective in one of those old-school anime mysteries, Tantei Gakuen Q on the GBA nails it. You play as part of a quirky detective club—there's the logic guy, the intuitive girl, the tech nerd—and together you pick apart some seriously clever cases. I remember getting stuck on this one locked-room murder for way too long before realizing the culprit used ice. Classic.

The puzzles walk this great line between "aha!" and "how was I supposed to figure that out?"—but in a good way. It’s got that early 2000s vibe where everything’s a bit pixelated but still oozes personality. If you liked piecing together contradictions in Phoenix Wright, you’ll dig the way this game makes you comb through dialogue for slip-ups and hidden clues.

Fair warning: some solutions are so Japanese-schoolroom-specific you might need to brute-force a few answers. Still, cracking a case feels like unwrapping a little present. The GBA screen was made for these tight, text-heavy mysteries.