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February 7th, 2008 saw the release of the Japan-only Death Note Nintendo DS prequel game, L the ProLogue to Death Note. Konami’s first-person point-and-click adventure title brings back memories of the recent mystery-murder game, Hotel Dusk, and stars one of Death Note’s most revered and well known characters, the elusive crime-solving “L”.

As a rookie FBI agent, you will engage in battles of wit with foes, as well as disarm a number of uniquely constructed bombs with an array of items littered throughout the environment as you attempt to escape a seedy hotel with the assistance of L. Being that the entire game is in Japanese text, we relied on luck since L’s voice-over dialogue and written words weren’t able to help us comprehend what the hell to do.

We’ll give the Death Note game some props - it did have a fair amount of English text in the menus, which made getting through them much easier, but being that the game is absolutely jam-packed with choices, it makes it difficult for English-natives to actually play the game. Still, we did manage to disarm 2 bombs and look through about 5 different environments in about an hour. Unfortunately, multiple attempts at fiddling with a screwdriver in places we shouldn’t have resulted in the third explosive device literally blowing up in our faces.

What Purple Wire?!

Each of the three bombs we were presented with posed a unique challenge. With the clock against you, you’ll need to think on your feet, and quick. The individual explosives were not only aesthetically different, but were physically constructed in a challenging way. Some require wire cutting, others demanded dismantling of the shell. The situations came a little fast for our liking, like a one-two punch in succession, but we were given the tools needed for the job, and they’re used in a smart way. You don’t use the scissors to just cut the red wire, you need to deduce through calculations which wire gets cut first if there are multiple colors. You don’t just remove the screws with a screwdriver, you need the right screwdriver. If you don’t have it, you’re not totally boned either.

By picking apart the device piece by piece you gain a percentage of time back as well as information about it, which will help a great deal when you make the decision to finally disarm it. The final sequence, should you make it there without wiping yourself out, takes the amount of information you’ve received and applies it to a thin, horizontal bar in the middle of your screen. A jumpy icon will float in and out of the “SafeZone”, and when you think you’ve got it in, touch the screen! If you succeed, the rookie lives to die another day. Learning more about the devices makes the end event easier as well, so make sure to poke and prod, but only in the right places, and only with the correct tools.

This guy must have just read Vol. 5 of the manga. Sorry, bud.

Cutting bomb wires got stale considering how rapid-fire they came, and the very brief look we got at the dialogue-challenges, pitching your wit against an enemies in a battle of words (or something) looked like a lot of fun, but again, dialogue restrictions prohibited us from fully enjoying this aspect of L the ProLogue to Death Note.

With no Stateside release in site, fans of the show/manga/ DS games are forced to import, and a lack of Japanese reading ability will seriously hinder your enjoyment of this adventure game. Again, reminiscing of Hotel Dusk was abundant while playing this, so if the allure of mysteries, solving intricate puzzles and pointin’-and-clickin’ are up your alley, don’t hold your breath for a North American release. Play the online demo here, and click the “WEB” tab when the Flash player loads to check it out for yourself.