Flower, Sun, and Rain
Encyclopedia
is a video game developed by Goichi Suda
Goichi Suda
, is the CEO of Grasshopper Manufacture. The "51" in his nickname, Suda51, is a pun on his given name. In Japanese, "Go" means 5 and "ichi" means 1. His works include Moonlight Syndrome, The Silver Case, Flower, Sun and Rain, Michigan, killer7, the No More Heroes series, and most recently, Shadows...

 for Grasshopper Manufacture
Grasshopper Manufacture
Grasshopper Manufacture, Inc. is a Japanese video game development house founded on March 30, 1998 in Suginami, Japan. Grasshopper gained mainstream attention in 2005 for the Nintendo GameCube and PlayStation 2 game Killer7...

. The game was initially released for the PlayStation 2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...

 in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 on May 2, 2001, while an enhanced Nintendo DS
Nintendo DS
The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...

 remake entitled Flower, Sun, and Rain: Murder and Mystery in Paradise was released in Japan on March 6, 2008, Europe on November 14, 2008 and North America on June 16, 2009. Publishing for the reissue of the game in Europe and North America was handled by Rising Star Games
Rising Star Games
Rising Star Games is a video games publisher formed as a joint business venture between Scandinavian distributor Bergsala and Japanese video game publisher and content developer Intergrow....

 and Xseed Games
XSEED Games
XSEED redirects here. For the proposed supertall structure see X-Seed 4000.Xseed Games is a video game publisher and distributor founded by former members of Square Enix USA. Their goal is to bring high-quality interactive entertainment to the North American market...

 respectively.

Plot

Sumio Mondo is a "searcher" who makes a living looking for people's lost things. He arrives on the Micronesian resort island of Lospass and takes a room at the Flower, Sun, and Rain hotel after being tasked with detecting and defusing a bomb, planted on a plane which is soon to leave the island's only airport. On the way to the airport however, Mondo encounters other hotel guests and island residents requesting his help with various problems, including searching for missing items. While Mondo is distracted by them, the airplane with the bomb on board takes off and explodes, crashing into the island.

The next morning however, Mondo awakens in his hotel room and discovers that something strange has happened. He has not even departed for the airport yet, nor has the airplane explosion occurred. Mondo attempts to head to the airport to prevent the explosion, but again his sidetracking to help other guests leads to a repeat of the previous day's explosion. Mondo once again awakens in his hotel room before any of the day's events have taken place.

After two weeks of the same day transpiring, Mondo is still going about his helping others when he is encountered by an assassin, Sandance Shot, on the roof of the Flower, Sun, and Rain and is shot to his death five stories below. The next morning, two federal agents, Yoshimitsu Koshimizu and Remy Fawzil (recurring characters from The Silver Case
The Silver Case
is a video game developed by Goichi Suda for Grasshopper Manufacture. The game was originally released only in Japan for the PlayStation, although a planned worldwide re-release for the Nintendo DS is currently in development.-Gameplay:...

) travel to Lospass to investigate the murder. During the investigation, a high school student named Toriko Kusabi confronts Shot to avenge the death of the island's "savior." Instead, the two strike a deal resulting in Mondo's resurrection.

Mondo continues his quest, during which he meets Tokio Morishima (another character from The Silver Case), the man responsible for the time loop. Tokio agrees to restore the flow of time and allow Mondo to reach the airport.

In the game's final chapters, it is revealed by Tokio and the hotel's manager, Edo Macalister, that Lospass Island is an artificial island which was colonized as a breeding ground for an elusive species of hyena
Hyena
Hyenas or Hyaenas are the animals of the family Hyaenidae of suborder feliforms of the Carnivora. It is the fourth smallest biological family in the Carnivora , and one of the smallest in the mammalia...

 whose silver eye, when placed into the eye socket
Orbit (anatomy)
In anatomy, the orbit is the cavity or socket of the skull in which the eye and its appendages are situated. "Orbit" can refer to the bony socket, or it can also be used to imply the contents...

 of a human being, would give that person immortality
Immortality
Immortality is the ability to live forever. It is unknown whether human physical immortality is an achievable condition. Biological forms have inherent limitations which may or may not be able to be overcome through medical interventions or engineering...

. This discovery led to the birth of the Sandance Tribe, aborigines on Lospass. Edo declares that because of this revelation, it was he who planned to destroy the island with the bomb, however the bomb was stolen by Sandance Shot and taken aboard the plane to prevent its destruction.

Mondo proceeds to the airport where he meets Toriko, Koshimizu, Fawzil and Shot at the flight gate. Shot reveals that Sumio Mondo is actually the sixteenth genome
Genome
In modern molecular biology and genetics, the genome is the entirety of an organism's hereditary information. It is encoded either in DNA or, for many types of virus, in RNA. The genome includes both the genes and the non-coding sequences of the DNA/RNA....

 clone of Sumio Kodai (the main character of The Silver Case), and that Shot is one of the other fifteen clones. Mondo then catches a plane with an agent named Peter Bocchwinkur and escapes the island. The game ends with a cliffhanger
Cliffhanger
A cliffhanger or cliffhanger ending is a plot device in fiction which features a main character in a precarious or difficult dilemma, or confronted with a shocking revelation at the end of an episode of serialized fiction...

, in which Peter reveals himself to be Tetsuguro Kusabi (another character from The Silver Case) in disguise, making him the father of Toriko Kusabi, and Kodai's former partner from the Felonious 2nd Division.

Gameplay

Players control Sumio Mondo, the "searcher", to seek people's items in a seemingly-endless loop. Sumio uses a suitcase-shaped versatile instrument named "Catherine" to solve the mysteries about the people's items. Sumio can crack any secret code by using Catherine with a "Dial" for inputting numbers and a plug compatible to many specifications around the world. The player will discover some hints from what people say, combined with a tourbook of Lospas Island to input numbers into "Catherine" to crack the codes and find the people's items. There is a luxurious atmosphere of the southern island resort and the hotel, with waves of unexpected mysteries, and witty, characteristic - but sometimes poisonous - characters' lines. The DS version has a feature called "Lost and Found" which allows players to find additional hidden capsules, crack their codes and unlock items. At the beginning of every chapter, the player is given a "Lost and Found Report" which gives him/her three clues of the items and their locations.

Reception

The reviews for the English DS version of Flower, Sun, and Rain were mixed but generally average, some reviewers criticize the game's difficulty and camera angles, but praised its good story and colourful theme. Many reviewers felt that the game should only be recommended to fans of Suda 51.

External links

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