Mysteries of Old Tokyo Review
Mysteries of Old Tokyo turns historical research and deduction into a deeply unusual detective adventure.
Mysteries of Old Tokyo. Credit: Bolerosoft
Bolerosoft’s Mysteries of Old Tokyo is an unusual historical detective adventure that turns research, deduction, and genuine intellectual curiosity into gameplay. It’s one of the strangest and most ambitious indie releases I’ve played this year, even if it will appeal only to a very specific niche of weirdos who think research is fun, like me.
You’re a new employee of the mysterious Rare Items Acquisitions Ltd, tasked with investigating supernatural disturbances spreading across Tokyo. Spirits from different eras have begun appearing throughout the city, each carrying fragmented memories and contradictions tied to the city’s history. This is just window dressing. What the game is actually asking you to do is understand Tokyo as intimately as possible. You’re not really an investigator. You’re a historian doing research.
Mysteries tickled an unusual bit of nostalgia buried deep in my brain: my fondness for the classic Carmen Sandiego games. As a kid, I spent a lot of time with Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? and especially Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego?, those old Broderbund educational games that expected you to flip through packed-in reference books to interpret clues and solve mysteries. Mysteries of Old Tokyo taps directly into that same design philosophy. You spend your time traveling across meticulously recreated train lines to real landmarks, comparing 1930s postcards against modern photography, digging through archival documents, and cross-referencing evidence to answer historical questions or catch spirits lying about their own past. All of this isn’t just superficial similarity. Bolerosoft clearly understands exactly what made those games feel like they did, down to tactile interface details like orders from your bosses coming through on pages that print on-screen.
Mysteries of Old Tokyo. Credit: Bolerosoft
The learning isn’t incidental; historical research is the puzzle design. The spirit investigations especially demand careful reading and genuine deduction, forcing you to examine source documents against a spirit’s time period to catch them in a lie. There are no reflex tests here, and no random chance in the design. Instead, the game tests your critical thinking and attention to detail.
I love what the game does, but there is a downside. Repetition becomes obvious fairly quickly in the episodic structure, and if the central appeal isn’t grabbing you, all the reading and document analysis will feel like work rather than discovery.
A big part of the game’s charm, which hit me right away, is its resemblance to mid-to-late 1990s CD-ROM encyclopedia software. The deliberately ugly, unintuitive Windows 95-era interface feels like you’re running Encarta. Combined with the archival photography, obsessive historical detail, and the sheer amount of research behind the project, Mysteries of Old Tokyo has an identity unlike any game I’ve played recently.
Mysteries of Old Tokyo. Credit: Bolerosoft
A lot of players will bounce off this game if they aren’t already turned off by the look or the educational pitch. This absolutely won’t be for everyone. But if the idea of a game asking you to sit down, pay attention, and actually learn something sounds appealing, Mysteries of Old Tokyo is made for you. Games rarely focus on this kind of intellectual curiosity.
Mysteries of Old Tokyo. Credit: Bolerosoft
Mysteries of Old Tokyo
Mysteries of Old Tokyo is one of the most unusual and intellectually rewarding indie games I’ve played this year, provided you’re willing to meet it on its own terms.
