• Price: $9.99 USD
• Developer/Publisher: Sungazer Software
• Release Date: August 21, 2025

A review code was kindly provided by Sungazer Software. We thank them for allowing us to cover something they’ve worked so hard on.

Content warning: Rated T. Dystopian society, multiple murders, mentions of war. Bodies displayed on screen but not overly graphic.

From the developer behind The Tenth Line Special Edition and Eden’s Last Sunrise, Dragon Detective: A Friend from the Shadows is a visual novel “inspired by legal thrillers of the past.” I quite like dragons, and this sounded like a fun game. I enjoyed The Tenth Line when it came out 6 years ago (still need to play ELS) so I had high hopes for Dragon Detective.

The game is divided into 4 cases; you can choose between Casual difficulty and Detective difficulty for each one. Detective difficulty includes a Detective Rank, which starts at S rank and gradually decreases as you make mistakes. Additionally, “incorrect intuitions” – or red herrings – will appear in Detective difficulty, and hint coins are limited.

I am not always the best at solving mysteries in these games. But I decided to play on Detective difficulty for all 4 cases, and earned at least an A rank for all cases except for the second one. I wouldn’t say that it’s super easy, but it also wasn’t so hard that I couldn’t figure things out.

The game opens with some children asking the Dragon Detective to help them find their mother. Sevyn Noxley is a miasma dragon who used to work for the tyrannical government of the “Free State of Rivulette.” After deserting his post, Noxley has lived in a swamp on the outskirts of the capital city for a decade in an attempt to avoid attention from the government.

Although he initially refuses to help the children, in the end Noxley finds himself unable to resist their pleas for help. Traveling with his new clients to their mother’s last known whereabouts, he’ll use his 6 Draconic senses to gather information.

These senses include the standard 5 that we possess, as well as magic for his sixth sense. The explanations of Noxley’s abilities are really interesting. I loved people’s reactions to him going around licking things. 😂

While there are certainly some humorous moments here and there, the cases he solves are quite serious. With each sense he uses, Noxley gathers multiple “intuitions,” which are then combined to “build” clues. You’ll then insert the clues you’ve built into a “hypothesis chain,” which lets you move forward with your investigation.

Since I played on Detective difficulty, they did trip me up a little at times. Part of the reason I got a lower Detective Rank in the second case was because I didn’t realize there was another object I could click on for more intuitions, so I tried to insert the ones I had into the wrong spaces. 😅 Perhaps it could have been helpful if they’d included an option to see if you’ve gathered all of the information in a room.

That being said, I didn’t have too hard of a time with the information gathering. The interrogations were where I had more trouble. Sometimes Noxley will need to drag information out of a witness or suspect, and you have to select the right options to whittle down your opponent’s composure meter. If you make the wrong decision, your composure goes down instead.

I did get close to losing some interrogations, but thankfully I always managed to win in the end. I don’t know what happens if you lose; the game doesn’t allow players to manually save, and there’s only an auto save option. It’s possible that losing an interrogation could cause a game over, but I kind of doubt that.

It took me around 10 hours to finish all 4 cases, and I really had a good time with the game. I found the cases intriguing, and thought they did a good job of creating characters with complex motivations, considering the conditions they live in in Rivulette.

As I continued to solve cases, I was excited to learn more about the history of the country, its hierarchy, and its relationships with other countries. Some recurring characters help Noxley with his cases while also providing us with insights into society.

I liked a lot of the characters; Asher and Roy were probably my favorites. There are a lot of characters who I wasn’t sure about because of the things they did, but I still sympathized with some of them due to the oppression they’ve experienced.

Noxley did some bad things in his work for the government, and he tries to make up for it through his (private) detective work. Towards the end of the game we get a small glimpse into his past, and how he got to where he is now.

Although he’s distanced himself from the government, he still uses his authority to break through any red tape that would have otherwise prevented him from learning more about the case. Noxley treads a fine line between submitting to the oppressive government’s authority and quietly defying it.

The moral complexity of the characters extends to the game’s endings. There appear to be 2 main story endings with some sub-endings for a few minor characters based on choices made in the fourth case. Interestingly enough, the ending you wouldn’t think would be “good” felt more satisfying even though there was a key aspect that still wasn’t resolved in a positive way.

Neither ending is necessarily satisfying, but they make sense in the context of the setting. The story doesn’t end with a cliffhanger, but I really want to know more about what happens next for Noxley, his new acquaintances, and Rivulette as a whole. And I wouldn’t say no to learning more about the other countries they mentioned.

There is a lot to like about Dragon Detective: A Friend from the Shadows. I liked the way they developed the characters and the story, and they did a great job with the art as well. The characters are all quite expressive with their animated character portraits, and the backgrounds were very well done. I also thought the soundtrack really enhanced the mood of each scene.

I can’t think of any major negatives to this game, and would recommend it to players who enjoy mysteries – or even those who don’t usually engage with the genre. Dragon Detective respects your time without being too short, and it’s more than reasonably priced at $9.99.