FLAM EVAW Review

The detective returns, this time by sea

FLAM EVAW is a live-action FMV detective thriller crossed with a romance sim, a direct sequel to Detective Please Keep My Secret that moves its returning protagonist, community detective Kurosawa, from that game's setting onto a luxury cruise ship for a new investigation into a criminal organisation known as the Rainbow Crime Organization. Developed and published by Beijing Wanhe Ruisheng Cultural Media Co., Ltd. in collaboration with Xirui Interactive Studio, it released on Steam on 17 October 2025 at NZ$17.00, and Steam's own news history confirms the date without ambiguity: a release-day announcement addressing an in-game numeric-value issue was followed within two days by version 1.1 and 1.2 update notices, a pattern consistent with a genuine new launch actively being patched rather than a relabelled rerelease.

The reception has been strong and fast: 1,384 reviews at the time of writing, 1,318 of them positive, an Overwhelmingly Positive rating that one English-language reviewer calls "pure fantasy" for the genre, noting that "sequels are incredibly rare in the FMV romance genre but a sequel releasing six months after the first is pure fantasy." That reviewer and several others specifically credit the game's cinematic presentation -- one calling it "one of the better-looking FMV games out there," crediting the cruise ship setting for "a high-budget, cinematic feel" -- alongside the addition of full English support this time, addressing a specific complaint about the first game only being partially translated. Several returning-fan reviewers describe the game building meaningfully on its predecessor, with one detailed English-language review noting it "builds noticeably on the previous title," expanding both the detective mechanics and the scale of the setting, while multiple reviewers highlight branching character-specific storylines and endings, particularly for the game's cast of female assistant characters, as a genuine strength encouraging replays.

Set against that enthusiasm, a large and detailed body of Chinese-language reviews -- the game's primary review-writing audience, given its developer and setting -- converges on a specific, widely shared structural complaint: the deduction system is flooded with far more clues than any single puzzle actually needs. One detailed review reports accumulating "at least a hundred clues" across the playthrough with only a handful relevant to any given deduction sequence, while a separate reviewer puts the number even higher, describing roughly two hundred clues gathered by the third chapter with just eight actually useful. Multiple reviewers independently describe the practical result as forcing players into what one calls an "exhaustive method" -- clicking through irrelevant options by trial and error rather than reasoning toward a solution -- a complaint that recurs often enough across independent reviews to read as a genuine design weakness rather than isolated frustration.

A second, closely related pacing complaint appears just as consistently: long stretches of static, minimally cut dialogue between characters, described by more than one Chinese-language reviewer using the same colloquial phrase that translates roughly to "standing and delivering lines," evoking a sense of characters simply talking at length without meaningful cinematic variation. Several reviewers specifically note this problem persists well past the opening chapters that a demo build let players preview, with one writing that they expected the pacing to improve once the story proper began, only to find "these two points still hadn't improved" in the full release.

Translation quality is a separate, specific complaint independently raised on both sides of the language divide. Multiple English-language reviewers describe the localisation as leading to "confusing directions and hard-to-follow storylines," while a Traditional Chinese-language reviewer flags a specific mistranslation in a plot-relevant line describing a character's death, and a Korean-language reviewer expresses regret at buying the game at launch rather than waiting for a sale specifically because of translation quality. Several specific, reproducible bugs also surface across the review sample: one reviewer describes a QTE sequence that can softlock into a repeating final frame if a results popup is clicked before the sequence properly ends; another reports a character's affection meter remaining stuck at zero for an entire playthrough despite repeatedly choosing dialogue options intended to raise it; and a third describes an exploration area becoming permanently unresponsive after leaving and re-entering it, forcing a restart to recover lost progress. A specific minigame -- a ball-dodging, laser-avoidance sequence during a late-game infiltration scene -- draws pointed, repeated criticism by name from multiple reviewers as a frustrating, poor-fit departure from the point-and-click detective gameplay the rest of the game is built around.

Beyond individual bugs and mechanics, a substantial and detailed critical minority argues the story itself represents a genuine step down from the original. Reviewers in this camp describe a weaker antagonist, a noticeably rushed ending, and a protagonist several find less likeable than in the predecessor, with more than one explicitly contrasting this game's resolution unfavourably against the first game's more considered plotting. One reviewer goes further, openly questioning how the game maintains such a high review score given how many detailed, specific negative reviews echo the same core complaints -- a fair point given how consistently independent reviewers converge on the same clue-overload and pacing issues described above, even as the overall numbers remain solidly positive.

Set against the wider field of FMV and interactive-movie releases this coverage tracks, FLAM EVAW's clearest strength is cinematic production quality and a returning cast that fans of the original clearly wanted more of. Its clearest weakness is a deduction system that several detailed, independent reviews describe as overloaded to the point of undermining its own puzzle-solving premise, paired with real, reproducible bugs and a translation quality both English- and Chinese-speaking reviewers separately find lacking.

Verdict

FLAM EVAW delivers a cinematic, well-produced sequel to Detective Please Keep My Secret that its large, Overwhelmingly Positive review sample clearly enjoyed, particularly for its returning cast and cruise-ship setting. A wide, detailed, and consistent body of criticism -- clue-flooded deduction puzzles, static dialogue pacing, real bugs, and a translation several reviewers on both sides of the language barrier call rough -- means this is a solid pickup for existing fans specifically, rather than an easy universal recommendation.