YMMV / 428: Shibuya Scramble

• Accidental Innuendo: In context, "dick" is used as being a synonym for detective. Since the use of the word has changed over time, let's just say that seeing "Dick Dictum" confused some players at first. The game's localization director noted in an interview that it was tempting to call them "Dick Tips" instead.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Detective Kajiwara, for all his quirks, is a competent detective and a higher ranking one at that. It calls to question whether his behaviour around Osawa is just how he usually acts or if he was pretending to be like that to get Osawa to pay more attention to his surroundings. For the record, he's apparently nicknamed "Japanese Columbo" at the station, which suggests the latter.
  • Ai Osawa falls under this by the end of the story. Did she call her father to let Kenji save Maria out of genuine love for her family? Or was it to protect the company and make sure her decade of sacrifice wasn't All for Nothing?
• Awesome Ego: Minoru Minorikawa may be the most overconfident, egotistical journalist on the entire planet. But he commits so hard to pursuing every lead and every story, no matter how much danger he’s in, that you can’t help but admire his sheer audacity.
• Awesome Music: The OP track hypes the player, conveying an intense feeling of thrill and mystery.
  • Basically the entire soundtrack counts. Each track fits closely with the scenes it's in, elevating the mood the player feels for each character and situation.
  • Of all the character motifs, Yanagishita's funky tune takes the cake, giving it a game-show feel and portraying him as a sleazy conman.
• Base-Breaking Character: Canaan has detractors despite being popular enough to have her own spin-off series, as her bonus scenario is often considered isolated from the main game and the other sub-scenarios. Setting aside the fact that it's the only one to feature voice acting and anime-style visuals, its writing style and the general tone is drastically different from the others (owing to that it's written by Kinoko Nasu and Takashi Takeuchi of Type-Moon), and because it's more related to the anime Canaan than the game itself, its story will feel superfluous if you don't plan to watch it. Because of this, opinions are divided on whether she's an interesting character fitting to the eccentric cast or a ridiculous Genre Refugee with unnecessary backstories.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The Labyrinth segment in Minoru's route, which takes place in a totally different plane of reality. It eschews the live-action setting and has little significance or relation to the main plot. Also acts as a Mind Screw where Minoru's route heads towards an absurd, surrealist turn.
• Ho Yay: Kajiwara and Osawa have more than a little. The detective quickly works to entertain Osawa and try to bring him a measure of comfort. Osawa frequently notes that Kajiwara is one of the first people who's ever sparked an emotional reaction out of him and begins to find comfort in the man's presence. By the end Osawa's route, the two reiterate their complete admiration and support of the other.
• Magnificent Bitch: Alphard is an elusive terrorist who seeks an antiviral agent for the Ua virus to sell to the CIA. Having Hitomi Osawa injected with Ua and assisting her father attain the antiviral agent so it's in Hitomi's bloodstream, having her kidnapped for her purposes. When Hitomi's twin Maria is inadvertently kidnapped instead, Alphard masquerades as "Canaan", helping Hitomi to gain her trust to gain access to the antiviral lab, making many ploys to force Hitomi to work with her. Having the characters split into two teams: Alphard has one go after someone pretending to be her, intending for them all to be killed in an explosion along with the imposter; and the other is sent to the antiviral lab. Caught with her identity exposed, Alphard avoids being killed by attempting to exploit the weaknesses of her captors and accepts her arrest, knowing her connections will see her set free.
• Pop-Culture Isolation: A real-life Japanese singer Aya Kamiki is offhandedly mentioned many times and even briefly shows up, acted by herself in the game. Her appearance helps giving some tongue-in-cheek mood, but since she's relatively unknown outside of Japan, she may come off as a mere background character for non-Japanese players.
• Sequel Displacement: 428: Shibuya Scramble is a sequel to Machi and there are many Continuity Nods to that game, but 428: Shibuya Scramble is the only game most players remember, even in Japan. This is because Chunsoft deliberately hide this fact in the Japanese marketing (probably because Machi was a flop). It's an even more glaring issue for non-Japanese players, as not only did 428: Shibuya Scramble take 10 years to get an official English localization, Machi still wasn't internationally released at the time.
• Unintentional Period Piece: The game is clearly set in the late 2000s, most notably with the clamshell mobile phones most of the characters seemed to be using and the shots of several locations/landmarks in Shibuya that were already demolished at the time of Western publication (September 2018).

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