Finally my doom scrolling has a use, thanks to this paranormal mystery sleuther that embraces the dark side of social media

Clairvoyance. Foresight. Visions. All useful tools in any paranormal investigation. But Urban Myth Dissolution Center, from long-time mystery developer Hakababunko, adds an even handier tool to the mix: the power of social media. Between gorgeously animated pixel art cutscenes and on-site investigation looking for clues and chatting with witnesses, new recruit to the titular center, Azami Fukurai, can bust out her smartphone to scroll the comments – providing vital leads.

In the grand scheme of gaming, social media and smartphone use is rare. When it does feature, it can be hard to make it feel right, occasionally ending up as just a clunky way to view chat logs or menus. Urban Myth Dissolution Center is refreshing in how it focuses the feature on key moments of investigation, and how it revolves around often acidic and gossipy comments sections.

Doom scrolling

Set in modern day Japan, this isn't just any paranormal mystery game – Urban Myth Dissolution Center is all about, well, urban myths. Beyond the events of each episodic conundrum are the people who stoke the flames of rumor, and while there are facts in there that Azami has to puzzle out, you'll also frequently see commenters getting information slightly wrong or mixing things up. More than color, it plays directly into the mechanics and the story, tasking you with tracking down and highlighting clues within them to progress.

Sure, you could theoretically click everything until you move on – that's essentially what you do in Urban Myth Dissolution Center's other scenes – but the social media comments are dense and filled with just enough variety for you to be able to skim through them just like you would a real comments section, watching out for the right words to hook you back in. Some comments are interesting to investigate further just to see what Azami and partner Jasmine will have to say about it, often with dismay.

There are also search terms to gather, which aren't clues in and of themselves but act as stepping stones for securing the info you need. Some are so broad that you'll even need to combine them into pairs to access relevant chatter. It's prescriptive to a point, but, again, there's just enough freedom to poke at it that it feels good to nose around.

I love that some of these search terms aren't always necessary to find what you're looking for, giving you the opportunity to peer just a little further into extra internet threads to give the sense of an expansive and connected web. Checking out these related topics can even reward you with more urban myths, which get added to your journal along with a nice description and some wonderful artwork.

Given the density of the comments, all well-written (including some deliberately bad and cringey ones, of course – a skill of its own), could almost be overwhelming when it comes to collecting these phrases.

Cleverly, however, Azami's own supernatural power can help cut through this noise to scoop up searches – her clairvoyance that allows glimpse into the past, honed by wearing special glasses, can also allow her to see how keywords connect together. Essentially, giving you a nudge towards how to navigate through posts. It makes these palette cleansers between the rest of the game a nice change of pace, while also giving you some slack with how deep you want to get into them, whether you want to pore over every comment or zip through clairvoyance-detected words as quickly as possible.

Logging in

The rest of Urban Myth Dissolution Center is similarly satisfying, if a little more straightforward. Plugging clues into gaps in summary statements, Golden Idol-style, is tried and true – though a bit clunky and incredibly simple here. Yet, even beyond interactive elements the mysteries here are just twistier and turnier than you might expect to be surprising and compelling to follow in and of themselves.

For the most part, wandering around side-on 2D scenes just revolves around clicking on everything and enjoying the dialogue until it's done, but, similarly to the layered approach of the social media scenes, there's two sides to every environment you explore. Already strikingly monochrome aesthetically, with bright red highlights popping out, Azami can slip on her glasses to plunge the whole world into a deeper purple hue where red ghoulish creatures roam.

These strange visions are, as explained in the prologue to Azami, simply glimpses into the past rather than actual hauntings. These mean Azami can cross-reference what she sees with witness statements by having a little peek through time. Yet, the less Azami knows about what she is seeing, the more abstracted they become, with sometimes wonderfully drawn and animated results.

When seeing a close friend of hers hiding, for instance, she'll be able to make out her form just as she would in the present, yet when a stranger has been moving their limbs frequently in one place, she observes them becoming a strange, many-limbed centipede like creature. Often, making sense of how these visions have been warped to get to the truth is the key to figuring out what really happened.

Urban Myth Dissolution Center knows how to do a lot with a little, and the end result is a seriously stylish series of well-written paranormal mysteries. Wonderfully embracing modern social media to create the sense of a world where everyone – like it or not – has something to say, it then tasks you with cutting through the noise.

Want more pondering? We've got our best mystery games list!