Deja Vu: Won!

Miss Vickers' combination opens Siegel's wall safe, but no antidote is found there. Just a file marked "Ace's bad checks" and a key to his trunk, where Mrs. Sternwood is indisposed.

I noted, this time, that the cabs are parked on Peoria Street, and you don't need to give the drivers a specific address in order to return. The street name alone will do.

I still needed an antidote, and there was only one other place that it made any sense to find one - Dr. Brody's office. I went back there and realized that it was there the whole time, on an unlocked medicine cabinet. I had seen several vials of drugs on it, but because some vials were on an open stand, and others appeared to be behind a display case, I assumed the case was locked, but it turns out you can just take them. But I need a syringe. And the only syringe I've seen is in Joe Siegel's trash.

 

I reloaded again. We're on a tight time limit and a budget. I raided the office, grabbing the evidence, the various keys, and the dirty syringe. It's a sequence break, since I shouldn't have the office safe combination yet, but I'm okay with a slightly dirty run.

I also grabbed the map from Siegel's car. I don't want the cops to find that!

Next, I take a cab to Vickers', skipping Siegel's apartment, and take the earring, the key, and diary.

Then to the office complex, where I immediately give myself a bisodiumitis injection. And more time.

I also take the sodium pentothal orders as evidence, and a few samples for myself. If anything else is going to be useful, this is.

Then I enter my office, taking care of the hitman first, and grab the ammo. And the job offer letter.

I revisited some of the deja vu spots to trigger better memories; Joe Siegel ruined Ace's boxing career by fixing fights, and Ace failed to land on his feet as a private eye, accruing a gambling debt and a bounty on his head. He has no memory of kidnapping Mrs. Sternwood, but rather, of being approached by Mr. Sternwood and asked to be the bagman for her ransom. A setup, obviously, which Siegel would have had to be in on, and his hitman must have planted a phony job offer into my abandoned office, and left phony instructions in his car.

It seems there's not much more for me to do, but Ace is still in a very bad spot, even though he has his memory back.

You can end the game by going to the police, but this is a bad move.

Ditching the gun is no good. They'll find it and fry you all the same... unless you lose it in the sewers.

There's some damning evidence on my person, but the game doesn't mention it, or resolve differently if I drown it.

 

Gotta find more evidence. And Mrs. Sternwood is the key. It seems cruel, but I give her a dose of the truth serum.

 

A ransom note is found in the mailbox, and I force my way in.

I explore, but the only things I find here of note are an incriminating letter,

 And a "blank" notepad.

That old chestnut. Joe's pencil fills in the blanks.

 

This is enough.

The MacVenture universe's legal system operates on Phoenix Wright rules.

 

GAB rating: Good

This is easily the most enjoyable adventure I've played in quite a long time, and I chalk much of it up to the quality of its writing, which, free of its 8-bit contemporaries' capacity constraints, is by far the best I've seen this side of Infocom. I can only imagine that Kemco's NES conversion loses a lot in the translation. It invites comparisons to Deadline, which boasts the stronger mystery and character interactions, but Deja Vu is the better adventure overall, with a fairer solution, stronger worldbuilding, and crisp, monochrome graphics that don't just complement the prose and fit the noir-like atmosphere, but are integral to the interface and gameplay.

"D" tried this one too, and enjoyed the writing and humor, though she wished the mystery itself had been stronger. She was particularly impressed by some of its technical sophistication given its age, such as the window-based interface, the clear visuals, and tricks like awareness of the system clock for time-of-day and day-of-the-week.

There are some issues. It's not a long game, nor difficult, and the puzzles mainly amount to following leads until you find the exonerating evidence, which are all convenient records written and/or kept by the perpetrators themselves. The time limit, the backtracking, and the various ways you can get screwed over by bad luck are irritating, and yet because the game is a bit short and easy, I can forgive it, and even appreciate the sense of urgency and danger that it forces on you. The relative lack of conventional puzzles is a merit too; everything you do fits the game's theme and setting, with no silly adventure logic to distract from it. Condor wouldn't build a human dummy out of produce to throw the CIA off his track or wear a cat hair mustache to fool the police, and neither would Ace.

Overall, Deja Vu is a solid, well realized, and well balanced adventure game, with a clear vision, good design chops, and a unique style that owes much more to interactive fiction than King's Quest while still being graphical in a meaningful way. I award it a place in the ivory deck, and a harpoon; a rarity for this genre.