Murder on the Marine Express from Rainy Frog and Ratalaika Games is an interesting visual novel adventure that takes place during the maiden voyage of the titular submarine train. Check our Murder on the Marine Express review!

 

Murder on the Marine Express from Rainy Frog and Ratalaika Games is an interesting visual novel adventure that takes place during the maiden voyage of the titular submarine train. It’s presented on Nintendo Switch with an old-school pixel art style used back in the day. The St. Joachim Academy for elite girls has been selected for the first trip of the Marine Express, which runs along the ocean floor from California, connecting the West Coast to Japan. Who wouldn’t want to be part of such a trip?

Relax and unwind as you enjoy the beautiful underwater scenery of this journey, learn about marine biology and take a break from your regular days at school… right? Unfortunately, things don’t go as smoothly as planned. Why? Because someone has killed one of the teachers on the submarine train, and you must find the culprit before it’s too late! As its name suggests, this one offers a murder mystery experience to play at home or on the go, split into five chapters.

 

This one is a full-on visual novel experience, doing the genre’s name justice. There are no items to collect, no inventory from which you can check them out and use them to solve puzzles. No branching story paths. No multiple endings to reach. What Murder on the Marine Express offers is a story that will take you from point A to point B as you read all of the text on offer. And no, there’s no voice acting in this one since it’s a budget release.

The game can be played either with the Nintendo Switch Joy-Con, the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller or by using the console’s touchscreen when playing in Portable or Tabletop Mode or if using a Nintendo Switch Lite. If using physical inputs, you’ll move a cursor around the screen with the left or right analog stick as you press the A button to move the dialog forward and interact with others. You can click on the icon on the upper right corner of the screen to gain access to your phone, where you can review a lot of valuable information.

 

You can check the log to go back and re-read the many messages from the different interactions you’ll have, check additional information on all of the contacts on your phone, including main character Ranko Togawa and her friend Astrid Larsson, as well as on everyone else on the Marine Express – Irene Baker, Lena Hastings, Frank Brown, Erica Bayland, Catherine Glass, Katya Svetlova, Mao Mao, Lawrence Sheppard, Madeleine LaSalle, Jessica Marble, Spike Johnson, and Clarisse Rossellini. There’s also Marinet Chat, the general chat for the trip, where you can see what everyone else is thinking about the situation at hand.

Murder on the Marine Express is an interesting visual novel in which you will work on finding the one who has killed your teacher during the maiden voyage of the titular submarine train. There are no branching story paths or multiple endings to work on, but the story will keep you going until you find out what really happened. You can complete this one in around 3-4 hours. Murder on the Marine Express is available on Nintendo Switch with a budget price of only $4.99.

Disclaimer
This Murder on the Marine Express review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by Rainy Frog.