DRAMAtical Murder is a visual novel of the yaoi/BL genre, released in 2012 by Nitro+CHiRAL. It is extremely popular in the BL conmmunity, and considered by many one of the best pieces of yaoi media ever produced. A sequel by the name of DRAMAtical Murder Re:connect was released in 2013, and the franchise also counts with a manga adaptation, an anime, multiple Drama CDs, and a theatrical stage adaptation.
In the story, we'll play as Aoba, a 23 year old man that carries as fairly simple life, working at a parts shop and taking care of his grandmother and his pet Allmate, Ren, in the fictional island of Midorijima... Or what's left of it after the Toue corporation bought the majority of it to build the Platinum Jail luxurious resort. But Aoba's calm life in this colorfully futuristic world will be interrupted by the rumours of mysterious disappearances involving fight gang members, as his long-time friend Mizuki starts acting weird, and Aoba is dragged into a virtual reality game against his will. Aoba will start a journey of self discovery as the mysteries about his past are unveiled, all while having to take on a task much bigger than himself.
Technical stuff
-H subgenre: Yaoi/BL.
-Playtime: It took me a little over 30 hours to finish all the routes, but I'm not particularly fast with these games, so maybe a normal playthrough is closer to 25 hours.
-Where to get it?: It's available on Steam for 16'79€ ($20 I believe), and on the JAST USA online store for $24'99.
-Does it need a patch for +18 content?: The version from the JAST online store doesn't, but the Steam version does. The patch needs to be purchased from the JAST USA store for $3'99.
-Languages it comes in: The Steam and JAST USA versions are only in English with the voices in Japanese, but this localized version was released in 2021, the original version has the texts in Japanese.
-DLC's: Only the +18 patch for the Steam version.
Fetishes/kinks/sexual themes:
This game is... Surprisingly vanilla, considering its fame. Most of the NSFW scenes are pretty normal consensual gay sex scenes, though a few of them have a public setting for extra kinkiness. There is a little bit of orgy/gangbang/threesome too, some blood, and some noncon, but those never go too far or for too long.
Ratings & reviews
-Art: 9'5/10. The art in DRAMAtical Murder is gorgeous. The designs are interesting, the sprite and portrait art is varied and there is a lot of it, the backgrounds are amazing and full of details and the CGs are beautiful. All of it nicely wrapped up in a colorful, clean, cohesive art style that's very easy on the eyes. Some pieces might look a bit weird, but that's bound to happen at some point when dealing with sprites or CGs that have multiple variations. The sprites and CG's make a very clever use of simple animations (such as zoom-ins/zoom-outs or just moving the image across the screen) to emphasize certain actions. As for the UI, it's a very neat and clean looking UI that doesn't distract the player.
-Voice Acting: I expected an amazing voice acting, and the game did not disappoint in the slightest. The audio sounds great, the voices are fitting for the characters and the acting is awesome and really complements the text, making the dialogues pop and adding a lot of feeling. I really can't think of anything I didn't like about the voice acting.
-Gameplay: The gameplay is classic visual novel gameplay, you read through the dialogues and make choices. However, it does add a few interesting elements with "special" choices, some of which can almost be classified as minigames. There aren't many of these, only one per route, and they ultimately determine the ending you will get. However, this makes the rest of the choices within a route feel quite pointless, since the ending seems to rely solely on these special final choices. The game has a total of 5 routes, each with 2 or 3 endings, for a total of 12 endings. Apart from that, it counts with a full CG gallery, with the pictures neatly organized by character; a Media gallery with the opening, the OST and the vocal tracks; and a Recollection gallery where you can replay the NSFW scenes. I would've appreciated that the endings and other important scenes were available for replay in the Recollection gallery too, but oh well.
-Story: 6/10. I'm sad to say this, but I didn't enjoy the story that much. It's decent, but I had some issues with the way it was written. It feels like the plot is just pushing these characters around, constantly taking them from point A to point B without them questioning it even once. They never have a plan going forward, they just... Go into the unknown, quite literally, and expect things to just work out in the end. The second half of the story, when the common route ends and the branching paths start, was kind of annoying to read too. All routes start the exact same way, and follow more or less the exact same structure from beginning to end. The content changes, obviously, but they're all very similar, the only thing that really changes is the character Aoba is with, the plot is roughly the same for every route. So they get repetitive really fast. Still, there were many things I did enjoy of the story. The characters aren't plain, and the way they show you each character's specific trauma and the ways Aoba helps them overcome it was original and interesting. The romantic scenes were very emotive and cute, and the good endings left me with a very nice feeling.
-OST/Sound design: I enjoyed the OST a lot. The tracks were good, none of them were annoying or hard to listen to despite the futuristic sounding synth base some of them had, and many of them stuck in my mind (shoutout to Tears, one of the vocal tracks, for managing to make me listen to it on loop for days), so they're not easily forgettable either. If anything, I did feel like sometimes, the used track didn't fit the scene too well, but those moments were few and far in-between. The OST also has a selection of vocal tracks, used as the credits roll after each ending, so every ending (with a few exceptions) has its own theme. As for the sound effects, they were good, too. I didn't find that there were too many or too few, and they added immersion to the story just fine. I did find the high-pitched sound effects of the UI somewhat jarring, but I got used to them eventually.
-Bugs: There were a few, along with several typos. One particularly annoying bug wouldn't let me see one of the retro game video sequences, one that repeats through all the routes. But keeping in mind this game is more complex than your usual visual novel, it worked pretty well in general.
-Fap worth: It's pretty decent in the H department. The game has a total of 9 NSFW scenes, though a few of those aren't fully H, because the action gets interrupted somehow. Most H scenes have two or three very nicely drawn CGs, with a few variants each, some of them being explicit. They're also fully narrated in first person and voiced, and even though nothing really hardcore or crazy happens in them, they're well written and are good erotica.
Recommended?
Yes, absolutely. DRAMAtical Murder is a classic, and a must read (or at least check) for BL fans. Despite my complaints about the writing, it is a very good visual novel, full of interesting characters, emotive romance stories, endings to explore and very good BL erotica. It's not expensive for the content it has, being about 10$ cheaper than most modern long visual novels, so I would definitely recommend picking it up if you're a BL/yaoi fan.
Final rating is 7'5/10.
Steam page of the game (link won't work if you aren't logged in Steam).
Official 18+ patch for the Steam version on the JAST USA store
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the images in this entry. They are there for illustrative purposes only. Credits go to the respective owners
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