Unmei Senjou no Phi (命运线上的φ) Review

A gentle sea breeze blows on this remote little island.

Mr. Iori arrives alone and meets a girl.

“Sir, this isn’t a place ordinary people visit. So may I ask… what brings you here?”

Iori flashes the long sword in his hand. It’s still in its sheath, but it radiates a chill.

“Are you… a swordsman, sir?”

“No…” Iori bends down, quietly closes in on the girl, and says slowly, “I’m a detective.”

The girl’s distant gaze contracts; she’s about to cry out in excitement.

“Shh… keep it low-key.”

She stops talking and leads Iori to a villa on the island. The moment they enter the room, the atmosphere changes completely. Because in the corner of the room, a girl lies collapsed—she looks dead…

The girl who came along is calm. She looks at Mr. Iori: “Detective, the time has come for you to show your stuff.”

Iori begins examining the corpse. The black blood around it has coagulated. No traces on the doorknob, no traces on the carpet nearby. Iori checks the girl’s wrist—the part above the wound—then pinches the blood… and slowly stands up…

“Detective, how… did she die?”

Iori nods, signaling he has the answer. He takes his position and shouts:

“Seek the cause of the past, pursue the unknown effect—the truth lies beneath this blade!”

With a shing, Iori draws his long sword and traces an arc in the air.

“She!” Iori points the blade at the body on the floor. “She’s faking it!”

“Ehhhh??????” The girl who came along doesn’t get it. “Why?”

“Because she still has a pulse. And that black blood-like stuff…” Iori sheathes his sword. “It’s just soy sauce.”

“As expected of the detective!” The ‘corpse’ springs to her feet… “What a brilliant deduction!”

Brilliant my ass!!!!!!!!!!

I honestly had no idea how else to convey the feeling Unmei Senjou no Phi gives off, so I wrote that little scene. That’s roughly what it’s like…

The game introduces itself as a “large-scale puzzle-solving interactive detective AVG.” If that opening bit of so-called puzzle solving gave you the right vibe, then stop reading and go download it right now.

Generally, I rarely drop games. Even the shittiest ones I’ll grit my teeth and finish. But Unmei Senjou no Phi was a real struggle—not because it’s disgusting (most disgusting scripts at least have some logic you can try to follow in a disgusting way). What this game lacks isn’t decency or plot; it’s IQ.

Like that opening scene—the protagonist, Mr. Iori, is set up as a sword-wielding detective. Oh, okay. First time I’ve seen a detective with a katana. And unlike most detective stories, the protagonist loudly announces he’s a detective from the start, and every girl calls him “Detective” to his face. It gives off a Kogoro Mouri vibe, except the protagonist is even dumber than Kogoro. Oh, that’s not the protagonist’s fault—it’s the script’s fault, because the script itself is at a level no higher than elementary school. From what I could get through on Nagi’s route, the protagonist receives a letter claiming to be from his sister, saying she’ll be waiting on this island. The thing is, he doesn’t even know he has a sister, so he comes to the island full of doubt. Then various incidents start: the young lady Karen’s soy-sauce suicide at the beginning, later the vegetable-growing phantom thief’s threatening letters, and other random nonsense.

Otherwise, it’s just boring daily life centered on Lady Karen… Yes, boring daily life. Genuinely boring daily life. Of the voice cast, the only one I recognize is Yuika Tori, aka Natsumi Takamori. The rest can’t hold a candle! Seriously, they can’t hold a candle! The daily scenes feel like Natsumi Takamori single-handedly carrying a radio drama. The references, the snark, the voice shifts, the plot pushing—all on her. Must’ve been rough…

Since it’s a detective puzzle game, the system got some effort. Lump of Sugar tells you during installation and first launch that the engine is super cool and supports touchscreens—touchscreens, baby! And there’s an investigation system similar to Danganronpa. Even cooler: at choice prompts, besides picking A or B, you can also choose to draw your sword and slash the choice itself, spawning new options.

Looks super cool… not.

First off, Unmei Senjou no Phi uses the same engine solution as August. As for the hyped touchscreen support, I tested it—both The Shepherd of the Great Library and Eustia of the Tarnished Wings already had those features. Phi just puts it on the box as a selling point. The investigation system is way worse than Danganronpa’s, mainly because it has zero connection to the main plot. And once you directly investigate a key point, you can’t look at anything else—the story just jumps ahead. What kind of investigation is that? Shouldn’t you investigate everything and then draw a conclusion? The touchscreen watermelon-slashing is meaningless beyond looking cool and flexing… The choices are A and B, but you can slash A and B to make C appear. How is that different from just giving you A, B, and C?

The only valuable feature is the route branch display, which clearly tells you which branch you’re on. Other than that, the engine’s selling points aren’t worth bragging about. Even if you say Phi supports 4:3 screens—The Shepherd of the Great Library does too, and they didn’t brag about it…

The main plot should be finding the sister, but the protagonist himself doesn’t even remember if he has one. Along the way, several choices let you pick who the sister is. I first picked the similarly sword-carrying Murasaki, and she admitted she was the sister. Halfway through I felt something was off, so I loaded and went Nagi’s route, and she also admitted she was the sister.

What the hell, how many sisters does he have? Or are they all just claiming to be his sister? At heart this is a siscon game, isn’t it? In that case I’d rather play Imouto Paradise…

The choices are bizarre, often branching at random spots and throwing in random gags. For example, when letting your sister decide what to call you, you get a whole screen of options. What’s the point?

Looking at a guide, full completion seems complicated. I only did Nagi’s sister route (whether it’s the true sister route is hard to say). When to draw the sword and when not determines different routes. Not that it matters—I couldn’t understand the plot anymore. I once tried lowering my IQ to a sixth-grader’s level to comprehend the story, and found I was still too smart… Even Nagi’s route is basically nonexistent. The protagonist accepts Nagi as his sister, they bang a few times on the island, then leave… and it’s over.

Ultimately, the title “Unmei Senjou no Phi” might give science geeks a weird thrill, but the φ here is just a pictograph. It’s meant to express that when you hit a choice you don’t like, you can slash it. In the opening movie, φ is written as a circle with a slash through it, like cutting a watermelon. Honestly, the game should’ve just been called “Watermelon-Slashing on the Line of Fate.”

Oh, by the way, the OP is godawful. Saori Sakura’s piercing voice over the electronic music is literally mental pollution. Maybe I’m a masochist—after listening 15 times it somehow became tolerable, but the first listen is absolutely unacceptable.

How to rate this game… A moe work with an incomprehensible plot? But the moe isn’t executed well, the character designs aren’t particularly standout, and aside from Natsumi Takamori the voice acting is mediocre. Maybe the only memorable thing is the watermelon-slashing choice system.