After seeing it on a hololive-EN livestream, my curiosity got the best of me when it came to wanting to play the Frog Detective series. While I missed the original launch of the series back in 2018, as a fan of visual novels, and 90s adventure games, the quirky blend of witty writing and children’s style illustration immediately drew my attention and I’m glad it did. After having played through the first two games, I can say that this series is a fun and wholesome way to spend a few hours engaging with the series' colorful cast of anthropomorphic characters and of course the detective himself.

From the creative mind of Grace Bruxner and worm club, the first thing that jumps out to me is the game’s aesthetics. Although simple, combining fun cinematography with children-style visuals allows the series to stand out from the crowded adventure gaming field. In a lot of ways, it reminds me of the classic book The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which was one of my favorite books as a kid. From the simple shading to cute animations, the series is very pleasant to look at and oozes charm, which is quite the feat considering the game’s small staff. 

While its presentation is certainly not going to push your PC (or in my case my Mac) to its limits, the team is completely self-aware of that fact and embraces it. Including references to it in the game’s launcher, setting the tone for the series the moment you hit click. Just as strong as the game’s visual appeal is the soundtrack. While simplicity remains the theme here, the game’s jazzy tunes are a joy to listen to and help set the appropriate mood.

For the rest of my review, I will filter the narrative down into the two respective games.

The Haunted Island, a Frog Detective Game:

Starting with the Haunted Island, we’re introduced to the detective, appropriately named as he’s well...a frog that’s a detective. He’s assigned to investigate a case revolving around strange noises coming from a cave on a remote island. Without going into details, the gameplay is mostly linear and involves investigating items and then talking to the game’s cast of animal characters and bringing them item A and trading it for item B.

While not an overly complex game by any stretch, it's short < 1-hour nature doesn’t overstay its welcome with decent pacing so it’s easy to overlook the Haunted Island’s flaws. As an introduction to the series, it simply works by introducing the player to the frog detective and the series premise.   

Frog Detective 2: the Case of the Invisible Wizard:

As with most sequels, we bypass any sort of introduction as things pick up where we last left off from the Haunted Island. While the sequel’s mechanics do largely revolve around the same concept of talking to the game’s various NPCs, the developers did include a few additional game mechanics this time around including searching for items and the use of a notebook to log information. Although seemingly minor, this is a decently large improvement over the previous game, making it much more intuitive and in-depth. 

Storywise, it remains just as charming as the detective investigates warlock woods to find out about the titular invisible wizard. While investigating the mystery, he’s introduced to a number of the local townsfolk who once again have items that they are looking for and it is up to the detective to acquire these items.

Thankfully, there are a bit more branching points to Frog Detective 2 that invites players to play through it at least two times versus the strict linear structure of the Haunted Island which is highly welcome.

As a series, Frog Detective is an entertaining and quirky addition to the adventure gaming scene. Although a lot of players might dismiss it as a childish game, its wholesome nature really reminded me of the simple days as a gamer when I would spend my elementary school days playing Putt Putt and Freddi the Fish. It’s that specific demographic that the game is targeting and for those gamers, it’s great. 

With the leaps of improvement between the first two games (frog pun intended), I’m personally looking forward to seeing how they improve upon the two previous games once Frog Detective 3: Corruption at Cowboy Country is released later this year. I’m certainly looking forward to it! 

SCORE: 7.5/10

Review Copy Courtesy of Worm Club