Kagi o Kakushita Kago no Tori (鍵を隠したカゴのトリ) Review

The “caged bird” that got delayed for over a year

Cabbit, a brand under Skyfish, is a company I find genuinely interesting. They’ve put out a whole series of “mystery-flavored” games — starting with Midori no Umi, then Sora no Hana, then Hakoniwa Logic, and so on. The premises are always fun, dripping with suspense from the very first scene, and they usually land on a decent ending. But Cabbit’s real signature isn’t the “mystery” — it’s the way they serve up the fear lurking behind it with zero restraint. Their earlier games had bloody scenes, heroines getting broken in every sense, and combined with the fog-of-war plotting, it always hit hard.

My guess is that the man behind Cabbit is Mikuri Mikuri (御厨みくり). He’s not officially attached to the brand, but he’s been involved in every single one of their games, often as “planner.” I don’t really know his style — he’s worked with bigger companies too, and nothing about those credits stands out — but compared to what Cabbit was doing before, you can at least infer the guy has some chops.

So after nearly two years of silence, Cabbit announced a new title last year: Kagi wo Kakushita Kago no Tori (鍵を隠したカゴのトリ), set for release on August 30, 2019.

And then, surprise — this damn game got delayed for a whole year. Various reasons along the way. At first it was probably just not finished, then at the end of the year COVID hit, and there were rumors the producer was hospitalized. Anyway: push after push, delay after delay…

Aug 30, 2019 ⇒ Oct 25 ⇒ Dec 20 ⇒ Feb 28, 2020 ⇒ Apr 24 ⇒ Jun 26 ⇒ Aug 28

Finally, a year later on September 25, 2020, the game actually came out!

A lot of people were looking forward to this one, me included, but after a year of delays we’d basically all forgotten about it. The sudden release caught everyone off guard. There’s a saying in eroge history: “the longer the delay, the more likely it’s a masterpiece” — Blizzard did the same thing before they got canceled.

The game is finally out, and out of good faith I put aside every big release this month and played this first, hoping it would surprise me.

And to be fair, this game did give me a big “surprise.”

A self-imprisoned caged bird, and a nonsensical soap opera

The setup is extremely orthodox, and full of Cabbit flavor. The protagonist was abused by his mother as a child, then taken in by his current grandmother. Along the way he was helped by another abandoned kid, Tōko Kujaku (孔雀石透子), and he’s close to her — for him, Tōko is his savior.

Then one day, his “savior” gets arrested. A murder happened in the city, and the prime suspect is Tōko Kujaku.

The protagonist can’t believe his “savior” would kill anyone. He’s about to ask what the hell happened when Tōko gets released on bail for lack of evidence, ordered to stay confined to an apartment and not leave. Once they’ve gathered enough evidence, they’ll convict her.

After being confined, Tōko keeps confessing to the murder, but the police still need evidence. The protagonist moves into the apartment to look after her, and somehow two other unrelated people show up: Tōko’s fangirl “Mion,” and the class president, plus a delinquent girl who barely attends school. They all inexplicably move in too.

Did Tōko actually kill someone? Who’s the real culprit? Why is Tōko confessing? Is she covering for someone? The truth awaits…

…

The actual killer is the class president’s mother. After her divorce she got a younger boyfriend, they had a falling out, and she killed him. She wanted to pin it on her own daughter because she doesn’t like the girl — she doesn’t look like her, she looks more like her ex-husband. Tōko gets along well with the class president, so to cover for her, she confesses to the murder. The delinquent girl, to cover for Tōko and the class president, offers to take the fall for Tōko.

As for Mion, she’s just a fangirl. That’s it.

And then the game is over. The final truth could theoretically be explained in about 10 minutes, but the game runs 25 hours. What’s all that content about?

All of it is about “living together.”

Yes, after everyone moves in, nobody cares whether Tōko killed someone or who the real culprit is. Everyone starts a happy cohabitation life — flirting, cooking, chatting, grinding mobile games, playing Honor of Kings, having a great time. It’s the usual visual novel padding, except this game is like 95% padding. There’s no tension at all. Combined with how long it was delayed, I honestly suspect the script was never finished and they padded it out with cohabitation filler to reach the length.

Sure, padding is understandable. What self-respecting eroge doesn’t pad these days? But this game also has a route lock, which is going too far.

So if you want to see the final ending, you have to endure almost four routes of filler before you reach the Final Ending.

It’s not that the individual routes reveal zero key information. The class president’s route reveals she’s abused by her mother at home, and since her mother isn’t around, the girl often has to live with her mother’s… oh, not “anal” — newly acquired boyfriend. A man and a girl alone in one room is pretty dangerous. The protagonist helps the class president deal with her mother. Mion’s route has the protagonist and her pretend to investigate the case, then it’s back to sex. In between you get some backstory about the protagonist and Tōko as kids, and his grandmother being hospitalized…

And none of this has anything to do with the main plot.

If anything, the real killer’s motive gets a couple throwaway lines and that’s it. And I suspect almost every player felt nothing when they learned who the culprit was. Nobody ever suspected Tōko of murder, even though Tōko keeps saying she did it. Everyone knows none of the heroines killed anyone. We’re all just waiting for some random scapegoat to take the fall so it can be over.

And that random scapegoat doesn’t even have a sprite.

The only thing that actually fits the title is a speech from Tōko. The protagonist keeps trying to clear her name, get her out of this apartment arrest, and restore her freedom — but Tōko seems to have zero interest in that. She says: from the outside, it looks like we have no freedom here. But look — we have food, clothes, internet, we can do whatever we want. Isn’t this great? Why would we need to leave?

Just like the title says: “Tōko is the caged bird. She hid the key to the cage, imprisoned herself, and doesn’t want to leave.”

And yet in the Final Ending, Tōko leaves anyway. Emma, so much for that! (Translation: “wow, delicious,” i.e. she immediately contradicts herself.)

Overall, the main content of this game is “four girls living together” — basically a long, tedious soap opera. The so-called “mystery” and “who’s the culprit” get almost no attention, just a few scattered discussions, and no actual deduction. If you came for the old Cabbit suspense style, you’ll feel disappointed and, more than that, baffled.

Rock-bottom budget, missing atmosphere, baffling premise

By every measure, I think Kagi wo Kakushita Kago no Tori is a failure. Beyond the story going off-topic, the game’s budget is pitifully small.

The background art and some of the CGs are on completely different tiers. From the staff credits you can see the main artist, Yukie (ゆき恵), personally did the coloring and color adjustment — which means there was literally nobody left, the artist had to do it herself. Some backgrounds look like cheap 3D CG renders, nowhere near the quality of the CGs the main artist handled alone. And many of them contradict the story. The game says the apartment is well-equipped, then shows an empty interior background — the irony is painful.

Voice acting isn’t great either. All the CVs, Tōko included, are thoroughly average. The class president’s CV especially doesn’t match her face at all — I still can’t imagine that voice coming out of that character’s mouth, the dissonance is off the charts. Cabbit was clearly broke before yet somehow still got Yui Ogura to carry a game; now they can’t even get her. Is it really just poverty, or did Yui Ogura go home to have a baby?

Aside from selling sexy art, the game’s special feature is a “game original soundtrack”… download code. You download it and… it’s MP3s. Holy shit, that’s a new level of broke. Shame the ED is actually pretty good — will I have to buy the lossless version on a LittleWing doujin CD someday?

The premise from the promo material really isn’t the problem. It has that Midori no Umi vibe — a bunch of people inexplicably confined together…

Wait, no, there’s no confinement at all. Everyone except Tōko can go out freely. It’s less strict than a COVID quarantine. The game spends most of its time bullshitting, with no discussion of the actual subject. If you like slice-of-life, you might enjoy it, but…

Would a title and synopsis like this attract slice-of-life fans in the first place?

So only those of us who like suspense get pulled in, and then we get played for fools — the game has zero suspense atmosphere. Think back to Midori no Umi: it also depicted daily life, but that daily life was always wrapped in an “eerie, terrifying atmosphere.” Everyone had no memories, didn’t know how they got there, were just told to live there with no idea what the future held. That uncertainty, set against the slightly creepy BGM, made the daily life feel even more terrifying.

The premise, viewed this way, is genuinely baffling — better to just rename the game “Cohabitation.” That’s what it is: a group of people start living together for some reason, and when the problem is solved, the cohabitation ends. Whether the reason is a murder case — who cares! Don’t sweat the details. Cohabitation is the main body of the game, over 90% of the content!

Of course, none of that exists in Kagi wo Kakushita Kago no Tori. Everyone knows Tōko isn’t the killer, everyone can go out freely, and the BGM is minimal because of the budget — no highlights. And Cabbit’s traditional specialty, “bloody CG,” is completely gone in this one. It loses its edge from start to finish, and all you’re left with is the feeling the title and synopsis gave you.

Probably Cabbit’s last game

The new Cabbit game took over a year of delays to come out, and there’s no quality guarantee — it has that “we finally finished it, here’s the product, delivered” feeling. This has happened to plenty of visual novel companies, and they all share the same ending: bankruptcy.

Feng went under last year. This year it might be Cabbit’s turn. Cabbit itself is just a brand under Skyfish, but Skyfish hasn’t put out a game in nearly two years, just getting by throwing old titles onto Steam. If Skyfish has a new game, it’s probably that Frankenstein cat café thing co-produced with an American brand.

Anyway, 2020 is rough for everyone. Cabbit delayed for that long and delivered this piece of junk — they can probably rest in peace now.

Honestly, this game should’ve just died in the womb. It wasted the time I could’ve spent on madosoft.