Flower, Sun, and Rain

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Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 0.Flower, Sun, and Rain (花と太陽と雨と) is an adventure game for the Sony PlayStation 2. It was directed by Goichi Suda and developed by Grasshopper Manufacture. While the initial 2001 PlayStation 2 version was only released in Japan, a port to the Nintendo DS with the subtitle Murder and Mystery in Paradise (Neverending Paradise in Japan) was released around the world in 2008.

Gameplay

Flower, Sun, and Rain is a 3D adventure game in which the player controls their character in open environments, talks to characters and examines objects. Although the player can generally move anywhere within a given map, the plot progression is highly linear and there is usually only one thing they must examine to move on, and areas unnecessary for the current chapter cannot be entered. The majority of interaction comes in the form of puzzles that protagonist Sumio Mondo must solve using his computer-briefcase Catherine. Catherine can be plugged in to various objects or even characters; upon successfully doing so, the player must enter a numerical code. Entering the correct code will solve the puzzle and allow the plot to move forward.

The majority of these puzzles are solved by locating the code within an in-game guidebook known as The Lospass which is issued to Mondo early in the game. Generally, the code is in the form of a number tangentially or directly related to the object Catherine is being jacked into. Hints as to what page they should look for can, and sometimes must, be found by talking to characters in the environment. There are also certain instances in the game in which you do not play as Sumio Mondo, or when Mondo does not have access to Catherine; at these times, there are no numeric puzzles to solve as Catherine is not present.

Plot

Requests

Summary

The game opens with its protagonist, Sumio Mondo, having arrived on Lospass Island. Mondo explains to the player that he is a "searcher" who has the ability to find almost anything with the help of his computer-briefcase, Catherine. His mission on Lospass Island is only his next in a long line, but at the onset, he is not aware of the details of his assignment. Over the course of the opening chapter of the game, Mondo makes his way to the Hotel Flower, Sun, and Rain, where he will be staying over the course of his time on the island, and meets his client, the hotel manager Edo Macalister.

Edo explains Mondo's mission to him: a terrorist is targeting the island, and has placed their bomb on a plane leaving from Lospass Airport. Sumio's job is to find the bomb before the plane takes off so it can be removed. However, he is also warned that Lospass Island is home to a "crazy magnetic field" that causes a "certain instance of time" to repeat eternally. Mondo finds himself confused by this idea, but agrees to do his best to find the bomb.

However, on his first day of searching, he finds himself sidetracked by a mischievous spirit that his trapped him in a room called the Sealed Space. By the time he manages to deal with the issue, he sees the plane fly through the sky and explode; he was too late. Soon after, though, Mondo wakes up on his first day once again and is instructed to reach the airport to find the bomb as soon as he can. Mondo finds himself seemingly repeating the same day over and over, each day making it a little bit closer to the airport, but always having to deal with other problems that prevent him from ever reaching it in time.

Parallel to this are small vignettes starring a young girl who is also staying in the hotel, Toriko Kusabi, attempting to catch up to her runaway pet alligator, Christina.

Connection to The Silver Case

Although not advertised as such, Flower, Sun, and Rain actually takes place in the same world as The Silver Case (informally known as "Kill the Past"). While signs of this can be spotted from the very beginning - familiar names like "Sumio", "Kusabi", etc. - attention is not called to these connections, leaving players who have not played The Silver Case unlikely to notice.

More concrete connections can be found in The Lospass, a guidebook provided to Mondo and the player by Edo Macalister. The Lospass explicitly mentions Ward 24 and Sayaka Baian, in contexts that match up with their appearances in The Silver Case.

The connections become more and more apparent the longer one goes into the game. By the halfway point and onwards, there are several explicit references in the main story, and knowledge of the events of The Silver Case becomes necessary to follow the plot. The conclusion of the game directly ties into The Silver Case and establishes Flower, Sun, and Rain as a sequel.

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