Touch Detective 2 ½

Touch Detective 2 ½
Developer(s)	BeeWorks
Publisher(s)	JP: Success Corporation NA: Atlus USA EU: 505 Games
Director(s)	Takahiro Anto Shingo Kawai
Producer(s)	Iberia Iberiko Takashi Isoyama
Programmer(s)	Takuji Imai
Writer(s)	Kingo Hirako Fujiko Shibuya
Composer(s)	Hijirido
Platform(s)	Nintendo DS
Release	JP: May 24, 2007 NA: October 9, 2007 EU: November 23, 2007
Genre(s)	Adventure
Mode(s)	Single-player

Touch Detective 2 ½ ^{JPN EUR} is an adventure game for the Nintendo DS. It is a sequel to Touch Detective, also on Nintendo DS. It was released in North America on October 9, 2007.^[1]

Gameplay

Players take control of Mackenzie, the Touch Detective. The game for the most part is played out on the Nintendo DS touch screen, though at times, Mackenzie's inner monologue will be displayed on the top screen. Clicking around an area will move Mackenzie. Players can also click on the townspeople to talk to them, or on items to pick them up. Players can use items they've collected to solve puzzles or gather valuable information from the townspeople.

Characters

• Mackenzie: The main character of this game. Recently accepted into The Great Detective's Society but she does not like her title, Touch Detective.
• Funghi: Mackenzie's faithful pet mushroom and companion. He also comes in handy when secret documents need to be destroyed. Always follows Mackenzie around town.
• Cromwell: Mackenzie's butler, and a genius inventor. After Mackenzie was accepted into The Great Detective's Society, he decides to train her manners, although some of it annoys her.
• Penelope: One of Mackenzie's best friends. She enjoys having a lavish lifestyle since she comes from a rich family. She is rather an air-head. Most of Mackenzie's cases come from her since she always seems to be in trouble.
• Chloe: Mackenzie's rival. Calls herself 'Chloe the Super Sleuth'. She's always trying to beat Mackenzie when it comes to solving the case. She always appears out of nowhere around Mackenzie's office when a client asks Mackenzie for help solving a case. A recurring joke that whenever she has a great idea, Mackenzie will always leave and she will confront her into giving her ideas as they are friends.
• Inspector Daria: A red-headed inspector who has no patience for Mackenzie. She tries to solve cases before Mack can when The Cornstalker is involved. She is the self-proclaimed rival of The Cornstalker. She often throws out her back while making her extravagant entrance poses. She gets motion sickness when traveling.
• The Cornstalker: A professional thief and master of disguise. Always trying to steal the rarest and most valuable items in the world. Always calls Mackenzie "Touch Detective", though no one knows how he knows about it.
• Ace and Friday: A mysterious young man with a grudge against the rail conductor, and his rodent associate "Friday the Freeloader."
• Mayor Tom: The mildly corrupt mayor is even more of a turkey than the ugliest politicians. Always panics or faints if anything happens to his items.
• Eric: A petty, smooth talking salesman who cheats on his clients to make a profit for himself.
• Harrison: A tough, hairy archaeologist who seeks to find rare artifacts, fossils and relics and make a name for himself.
• Colleen: The mysterious young curator who runs the haunted mansion although it actually holds a dark secret of her and the mansion itself.
• Silver: A living puppet that sleeps for many years. He could sing beautifully until a freak accident makes him lose his voice.
• Connor: A young man who has recently moved to the town and opened an antique shop. He often gives Mackenzie information on antiques, and sometimes gives her useful items. His shop seems to be closed quite often. Mackenzie thinks he is rather cute, perhaps having a mild crush on him.

Screenshot from Touch Detective 2 ⅓.

Cases

Episode 1 - Robbery, The salvation of an ancient relic

Penelope comes to Mackenzie's office because her colored noodles have been stolen, leaving her with only white noodles. Mackenzie starts the investigation only to find out that no one in town has any colored noodles anymore. Mackenzie enters the Noodle Festival and wins first place in the dance competition (by luck, guided by a mysterious stranger). She later finds out that a page was torn out from Mayor Tom's "Top Secret Picture Book", which is about the "Legend of the Three White Falcons". She manages to find the missing page with Yvonne, who calls it the design for her "noodle chute", and tells Mayor Tom about it. Whenever he confronts Yvonne though, he forgets about it and just compliments her on her noodle making. Mackenzie finds a heart-shaped fossil that was dropped by the Mayor and after further investigation, she finds out that someone is trying to destroy the town to retrieve a hidden treasure, by opening a portal to the dimensional fault. They plan to do this by recreating the legend of the White Falcons, in which the sorcerers of old saved the town, by getting three white falcons to draw a certain symbol to open a portal to the dimensional fault, and placing a treasure inside that stabilizes the town. Something "white" is needed to recreate this, hence why the colored noodles were being taken. Mackenzie suspects Mayor Tom due to his weird behavior. She is correct, and Mayor Tom reveals himself as The Cornstalker in disguise. Thanks to Mackenzie's cunning plan and the help of the Heart Tree, she foils The Cornstalker's plans to use the white noodles and the noodle chute to steal the treasure, but he still manages to escape.:

Episode 2 - Deception, A noble fight against injustice, Mackenzie is rewarded with a train ticket by Mayor Tom (although he doesn't think she deserves it). While Mackenzie, Cromwell, Penelope and Chloe are having a great time, a robbery occurs in another cabin. It turns out that one of Eric's suitcases, which contains the relic of the Seabottom Dwellers, is stolen by the Cornstalker. Coincidentally, Inspector Daria is there to investigate, but she isn't any help due to her recurring motion sickness. After investigating the passengers and luggage, Mackenzie discovers that the old lady is actually the Cornstalker, and that the stolen suitcase is in "her" luggage, but he again manages to escape by getting off the train when it's at a station. What is more surprising is that Eric is the true culprit. He swapped the tags on the two suitcases, one containing the relic and another containing a valuable collectible card, and took the card for himself, so that the Cornstalker would end up stealing the empty suitcase, thus framing him. The Cornstalker isn't fooled by his plan though, and comes back to steal the suitcase containing the relic. Mackenzie gives chase and manages to recover the relic, with some unintentional help from the train's manic conductor, while The Cornstalker escapes again.

Episode 3 - Deliverance, The curse of cumulative destinies

Harrison has recently discovered an amber gem and a human fossil in the pyramid. Mackenzie, Penelope and Chloe are on a field trip to the museum (which turns out to be a museum about Mayor Tom only) when suddenly someone vandalizes his statue by removing it's eye. Mackenzie decides to investigate, using this chance as a report, and accidentally becomes Harrison's assistant. With the help of Penelope and Chloe, they manage to move the human fossil into Mayor Tom's museum only to be given the shocking news that the human fossil is actually the Fossil Hunter who is supposed to be cursed. The next day, Mackenzie receives a warning letter from the Cornstalker announcing that he plans to steal the amber from the museum. Harrison is about to hold a press conference (although no one came to listen) when Inspector Daria arrives. With the help of the security guard and her new partner, Chloe, she decides to guard the museum. She makes everyone leave the museum to prevent the Cornstalker from entering under a disguise. Thanks to a trick, Mackenzie manages to enter the museum only to witness the shocking appearance of an alien hitting a hole in the eye of the Mayor's portrait. After that commotion, Harrison enters to ask her where the artifact is. She lies to him and manages to replace the real amber with a fake one. Suddenly, another Harrison comes into the room exposing the first one as the Cornstalker, who quickly steals the fake amber before Harrison gives chase. Mackenzie puts the real amber back into the Fossil Hunter's eye socket bringing him back to life. He explains that he comes from another dimension and is only able to live in their dimension thanks to his eye. His tear glands are connected to the Cambrian ocean and his eye came out when his tears began flowing in reverse with tremendous force as a premonition regarding the events of the Noodle Festival, which caused him to turn into a fossil. It is revealed that the "alien" is actually part of the ancient Seabottom Dweller race, who were trying to alert people to the crisis through primitive communication, by poking out the eyes from various objects.

Episode 4 - Recollection, An illusion hidden in the melody

Penelope rushes into Mackenzie's office to tell her that she has seen a corpse inside the Haunted Mansion's greenhouse. When both of them return there, they (and Chloe who suddenly appears) realize that he is not actually a corpse and assume that he is sleeping. They then try to devise a way to wake the person up. After a large alarm clock fails to wake him, Mackenzie manages to touch the body and tells them it is only a doll. She also finds a hole in it and uses the wind-up key that she found inside the mansion. The doll wakes up and introduces himself as Silver. He says he doesn't know why he can talk and thinks he has a problem as he lost his voice and cannot sing normally anymore. A long time ago, he was singing in a party when a bright flash blinded him and after that, he couldn't sing. He mentions a girl, who he thought lived in the mansion, that always sat in a far corner to listen. The flash happened when she moved closer to the window, and he never saw her again. Mackenzie decides to help Silver find the missing girl even though the mansion has been empty for many years. After gathering information, Mackenzie makes her own ghost detector in order to find out the truth. When she enters the mansion, Mackenzie makes a shocking discovery that Colleen, the girl who was inside the mansion, is a real ghost and the mansion is truly haunted. Mackenzie figures out that Colleen is the same mysterious girl that Silver mentions. The time when the incident of the glass occurred was also when people began to be able to see her. Mackenzie tells her about Silver but she is too afraid to face him and runs away. Mackenzie goes back to the greenhouse and asks Silver to sing again to guide Colleen to him. As he sings, the Cornstalker, who is supposed to steal him, appears. He decides not to take Silver since his singing is bad. Silver feels very sad about this insult. Luckily, Mackenzie finds Colleen outside the greenhouse hiding, thanks to Silver's voice. Mackenzie convinces her to apologize to him and she does. Not brave enough to go inside, she stands near the window and apologizes to Silver. Silver sings happily (although still off key) but suddenly, Spooky the cat scares Colleen and she goes through the window with a big flash. Mackenzie decides to check it out only to see that she has disappeared. Surprisingly, Silver can sing normally again. As she leaves the building, Mackenzie realizes that Colleen is still there beside Silver through the silver window.

Episode 5 - Invasion, A vendetta of afar

Chloe and Penelope burst into Mackenzie's office to inform Mackenzie that Chloe has found a raffle voucher for which the grand prize is some Mongolian beef. At the same time Penelope wants to visit the Ancient Artifact exhibition that shows the Seabottom Dwellers' artifacts. The three of them decide to search for more tickets in order to join the contest. During that time, Mackenzie finally receives her ID card from The Great Detective's Society, although she hates her title name. After collecting all five raffles, Mackenzie was also given a VIP pass to visit inside the exhibition and invites Cromwell to come along with them. During their time in the department store, Chloe wins the fourth place prize (which is only a backscratcher), while the artifact is stolen by the Cornstalker. Mackenzie and her friends manage to track him down inside a pink elephant structure. He tries to escape, but as he connects the artifacts together, a spaceship appears, taking the elephant room along with everyone inside. Mackenzie then wakes up to find herself alone as the rest of the gang (even the Cornstalker) have been captured. Mackenzie soon discovers that the Seabottom Dwellers are actually the servants of aliens from outer space planning to vaporize all of the cows on Planet Earth. After Mackenzie frees everyone and retrieves the stolen artifact, she plants Cromwell's time bomb and they escape inside the modified elephant structure and foil the aliens' plans. In the end, they reach home only to be welcomed by Men in Black.

Reception

GameSpot gave it a 5.5/10, stating, "Touch Detective returns with wacky new adventures and a fresh coat of paint, but the frustratingly esoteric puzzle design is the same as before."^[2] GameZone gave the game a 7/10, citing the lack of change from the previous title.^[3]

Legacy

After this game, a lot of Funghi based spin-off games were released for IOS and Android, and another Puzzle-game spin-off called Osawari Tantei Nameko Daihanshoku was released for Nintendo 3DS.^[4]

A new game was announced on May 30, 2013. Touch Detective Rising 3: Does Funghi Dream Of Bananas? was released in Japan on May 2014 for Nintendo 3DS.^[5]

Notes

References

External links

• Official website (in Japanese)
• Touch Detective 2 ½ Official website