Detective Debut - A Persona 5 Story

"Detective Debut" is a visual novel about how Akechi became... the kind of person that he becomes in Persona 5.

After my associate Mareeta and I had finished playing Persona 5, we both agreed that Joker should have done something when Akechi was on the boat and stuff went down. We felt that there should have been some sort of redemption arc for pancake boy. At the same time, we had also come up with some loose theories to explain some details that were left mysteries in the original game.

I had also recently finished working on a translation of an NES visual novel game called "アイドル八犬伝" (see my released patch here https://www.romhacking.net/translations/4972/ ), localized as Pop Star Debut. In short, the game followed the efforts of a ditzy young girl named Sabrina who sets off on a wacky adventure to become a world famous pop star and saves the day by making friends and singing songs.

So, at some point we decided it would be hilarious if we wrote a visual novel in the style of Pop Star Debut to tell the story of how Akechi became a "detective".  We devised the story by tying together our little theories, ideas about the lore, and whatever funny ideas we came up with. We tried our best to stay true to the characters and tie the story into the original game, but we also added an option to follow a different path because of this: I believe that everyone deserves a second chance, nomatter how far you've gone.

Detective Debut is a visual novel with a very simple control scheme. You can Look, Talk, Take, Use, use Akechi's unique abiliies, and Ask those with Akechi. There's even a basic combat system where you must use your wits to take down Shadows! Choose wisely, or you could end up hurt!

We originally built this entire game in about a month and released it on a few forums back in 2020 to no response. So, I've decided to add a few improvements to it and put it up here in case someone gets a kick out of it. I've even included a mobile port so you can play it on your phone! It's my first mobile port, so please let me know if there are any issues. I won't be adding any new content to this game or making any significant changes to the story, but I will do my best to solve any game-breaking issues as they come up. The end of the game  talks about a Detective Debut II coming soon, and... nah, that's not happening.

This game by itself may not mean much, but it was very important in the creation of my greatest game to date, "Octo Vinctum"! If you want to support me and my future games, then please check out Octo Vinctum: Revenge of the Czar on Steam! ( https://store.steampowered.com/app/1899110/Octo_Vinctum_Revenge_of_the_Czar/ ) Octo Vinctum is an original story that combines the visual novel elements of Detective Debut with classic RPG gameplay like EarthBound, Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy.

Controls:
Arrow keys : Move cursor
Spacebar : Select option
Shift key: Back
M : Mute sound

Controls for mobile are on-screen.