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Key facts
- Cheapest right now
- € Standard · Account · Global · Key4Games
- Live offers
- 4 offers · 4 stores
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Nintendo consoles have always been a good home for detective stories, from the text adventures of the Famicom days to Phoenix Wright shouting "Objection!" on the DS. We went through the games Steam tags as Detective, looked for the ones with a Switch or Switch 2 page on Gocdkeys and offers in stock this morning, left out the ones where the case is just decoration, and ended up with fifteen.
The player scores come from Steam, so they describe the PC version. Two games on the list never came out on PC, Emio and Detective Pikachu Returns, and for those we give the critics' average from OpenCritic or Metacritic instead. Every price has the store's payment fees added, and the format is always spelled out, because on Switch that changes what you're actually buying.
Most of these offers are accounts: here's what that means
Out of fifteen games, only four had an eShop code in stock this morning: the Phoenix Wright trilogy, The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, Blacksad and Detective Pikachu Returns. Everything else is sold digitally as an account, so it's worth knowing the difference before you look at prices.
- Account: Key4Games, Difmark, Kinguin and G2A sell access to a Nintendo Account that already owns the game. You sign in on your Switch and play, but the purchase isn't in your own account, and if the seller ever recovers that account the game goes with it.
- eShop Code: a code you redeem on your own Nintendo Account, so the game stays with you. Region matters: European codes are for accounts registered in Europe. All the codes we quote below are European, apart from Blacksad's, which is sold as Global. If you've never done it, here's how to redeem a Nintendo eShop code.
- Physical copy: Amazon and a few other shops sell cartridges for some of these. On the list, it only makes sense for RAIDOU Remastered on the original Switch.
Accounts and codes aren't the same product, so we never compare one against the other. When a game has both, you'll see both prices.
Ace Attorney: ten courtroom games in four collections
If you only know one detective series on Nintendo, it's probably this one. Capcom has put almost the whole saga on Switch, and the format hasn't changed much since the Game Boy Advance: you investigate the crime scene, collect evidence, then go to court and find the contradiction in each witness's testimony. The writing and the characters do most of the work.
Start with Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy, which bundles the first three games: Ace Attorney, Justice for All and Trials and Tribulations. Rookie lawyer Phoenix Wright, his assistant Maya and prosecutor Miles Edgeworth carry the whole thing, and the third game ties the trilogy up beautifully. It has the best Steam score on this list: Overwhelmingly Positive, 98% of 35,903 reviews. It's also one of the few here with a European eShop code in stock: Gameboost sells it for €10.40 with coupon GCDK13 (€10.88 with fees). As an account it starts at €7.22 with GOCDKEYS15 (€7.80 with fees) at Key4Games.
The next two collections we already covered in more depth in our guide to the best visual novels on Switch, so here's the short version. Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy brings games four to six, with a new lawyer in the lead and Phoenix back for the last two (Very Positive, 89% of 3,304). Ace Attorney Investigations Collection hands the lead to Edgeworth and moves most of the work from the courtroom to the crime scene (Overwhelmingly Positive, 96% of 3,463). Neither had codes this morning: the Key4Games accounts cost €12.27 and €13.00 with GOCDKEYS15 (€13.08 and €13.84 with fees).
That leaves the one we'd pick if you've already played Phoenix's cases. The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles goes back in time: Ryunosuke Naruhodo, an ancestor of Phoenix, defends clients in Meiji-era Japan and then in Victorian London, working alongside a great detective called Herlock Sholmes, who solves every case brilliantly and wrongly until you set him straight. It collects the two games, Adventures and Resolve, that series creator Shu Takumi directed. Very Positive, 93% of 5,130.
Gamivo has the European eShop code for €9.00 with coupon GCDKGamivo (€10.31 with fees). According to our price history the code sold for €28.99 at launch (no fees). The Key4Games account is €6.86 with GOCDKEYS15 (€7.42 with fees). These are the five cheapest offers this morning if you want to buy The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles key:
And this is what customers of those stores say on Trustpilot:
- Cdkeys Com — 4.8 / 5 over 224,000+ reviews.
- YUPLAY — 4.8 / 5 over 2,000+ reviews.
- Kinguin — 4.6 / 5 over 120,000+ reviews.
- HRKGame — 4.2 / 5 over 29,000+ reviews.
- Difmark — 4.1 / 5 over 14,000+ reviews.
Japanese mysteries away from the courtroom
Shu Takumi also made Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, and plenty of fans think it's his best game. Sissel wakes up dead, with no memory, and has one night to find out who killed him. As a ghost he can jump into objects and move them, and whenever he finds a body he can go back four minutes before the death and try to change what happens. Overwhelmingly Positive, 97% of 6,526. On Switch it's only sold as an account today, €13.98 with GOCDKEYS15 (€14.86 with fees) at Key4Games. It's also in our visual novel guide.
Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club is a brand-new case written by Yoshio Sakamoto, who created the series in the late eighties. You're an assistant at the Utsugi Detective Agency investigating the murder of a student found with a paper bag over his head, a smiling face drawn on it, just like in an urban legend the local kids tell. It plays like the old text adventures: you pick talk, examine or think from a menu and piece together the story from what people tell you. Nintendo only released it on Switch, so there's no Steam score: the critics' average on OpenCritic is 76. Key4Games sells the account for €15.89 with GOCDKEYS15 (€16.86 with fees).
AI: The Somnium Files comes from Kotaro Uchikoshi, the writer behind Zero Escape. Detective Kaname Date chases a serial killer through Tokyo with an AI living in his artificial eye, and he can dive into witnesses' dreams for six minutes to pull out what they're hiding. The dreams are surreal puzzles, and the plot splits into several routes you need to finish to get the full picture. Very Positive, 91% of 8,920. The account costs €10.54 with GOCDKEYS15 (€11.27 with fees).
Detectives from other decades: Taisho-era Tokyo and post-war Los Angeles
L.A. Noire is the big Rockstar game of the list. Cole Phelps works his way up through the LAPD just after the Second World War, from traffic to homicide and vice, and every case ends in an interrogation where you have to read the suspect's face and decide whether they're lying. The Switch version includes the cases that were sold separately on other consoles. Very Positive, 86% of 31,268. Only accounts this morning, from €13.36 with GOCDKEYS15 (€14.22 with fees). If you'd rather own it as a code, set a price alert for L.A. Noire and we'll email you when one turns up at a good price.
RAIDOU Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army is an Atlus action RPG from the Devil Summoner series. Raidou Kuzunoha the 14th works at the Narumi Detective Agency in Tokyo in the twenties, during the Taisho era, taking cases that end up involving demons he summons and fights alongside. Very Positive, 93% of 1,064. It has two pages, and the gap is wide: on the Switch 2 version the account costs €18.78 with GOCDKEYS15 (€19.88 with fees), while the original Switch version is cheapest on cartridge, €29.20 (no fees) at Amazon DE.
Blacksad: Under the Skin is based on the Spanish comic by Juan Díaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido. John Blacksad, a black cat working as a private detective in fifties New York, investigates the death of a boxing club owner and his star fighter's disappearance, and the choices you make change the ending. Very Positive, 83% of 5,380. It's one of the four with a code: Instant Gaming sells a Global eShop code for €8.59 (no fees). As an account it's €2.88 with GOCDKEYS15 (€3.26 with fees), the cheapest game in this guide.
Sherlock Holmes The Awakened is Frogwares' remake of one of its own older games. A young Holmes and Watson go looking for a missing servant and end up following a cult that seems to come straight out of Lovecraft. You gather clues and connect them in Holmes's mind palace until a conclusion holds up. Very Positive, 81% of 2,645. Accounts start at €13.94 with GOCDKEYS15 (€14.82 with fees).
Disco Elysium and Pentiment: role-playing games where you solve a murder
In Disco Elysium: The Final Cut you wake up in a hostel with a hangover and no memory, and soon learn you're the police detective sent to investigate a man hanged from a tree in the backyard. There's no combat: everything is decided through conversations and dice rolls, and your own skills talk to you and argue with each other. The Final Cut adds full voice acting. Very Positive, 93% of 118,894. It's also the best deal on the list today: the Key4Games account costs €7.22 with GOCDKEYS15 (€7.80 with fees), while accounts for this game have usually sold for around €24.99 (historical median, no fees).
Obsidian's Pentiment is set in sixteenth-century Bavaria. Andreas Maler, an artist working at the abbey of Kiersau, has a few days to accuse someone of murdering a nobleman, and the game never tells you whether you got the right person. It looks like an illuminated manuscript come to life. Overwhelmingly Positive, 95% of 9,319. Accounts from €9.03 with GOCDKEYS15 (€9.69 with fees).
For younger players: Detective Pikachu and a duck with a magnifying glass
Detective Pikachu Returns continues the 3DS game. Tim and his talking Pikachu solve cases in Ryme City, a place where people and Pokémon live together, and the investigations are short and gentle, aimed squarely at younger players. Critics were lukewarm: 66 on Metacritic. It's also the only game here with an official price on the eShop: €47.05 (no fees) at Nintendo UK. Instant Gaming's European code costs €46.59 (no fees), so there's barely any discount on codes today. The Key4Games account is €13.00 with GOCDKEYS15 (€13.84 with fees).
Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping is the second case for Eugene McQuacklin, a duck with a weakness for bread, this time at a camping site where everyone swears they've seen a ghost. You collect clues and fill in the gaps in a written account of what happened, and the whole thing takes an afternoon. Overwhelmingly Positive, 97% of 2,602. The account costs €5.05 with GOCDKEYS15 (€5.53 with fees).
All fifteen at a glance, and where we'd start
| Game | What it is | Score | Cheapest account, with fees | Cheapest eShop code, with fees |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy | The first three trials games | Steam: Overwhelmingly Positive, 98% (35,903) | € (with coupon GOCDKEYS15) | € (with coupon GCDK13) |
| Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy | Games four to six | Steam: Very Positive, 89% (3,304) | € (with coupon GOCDKEYS15) | None in stock |
| The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles | Meiji Japan and Victorian London | Steam: Very Positive, 93% (5,130) | € (with coupon GOCDKEYS15) | € (with coupon GCDKGamivo) |
| Ace Attorney Investigations Collection | Edgeworth at the crime scene | Steam: Overwhelmingly Positive, 96% (3,463) | € (with coupon GOCDKEYS15) | None in stock |
| Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective | A ghost solving his own murder | Steam: Overwhelmingly Positive, 97% (6,526) | € (with coupon GOCDKEYS15) | None in stock |
| Emio – The Smiling Man | Famicom Detective Club | OpenCritic: 76 | € (with coupon GOCDKEYS15) | None in stock |
| AI: The Somnium Files | Dreams and a serial killer | Steam: Very Positive, 91% (8,920) | € (with coupon GOCDKEYS15) | None in stock |
| L.A. Noire | Post-war LAPD | Steam: Very Positive, 86% (31,268) | € (with coupon GOCDKEYS15) | None in stock |
| RAIDOU Remastered (Switch 2) | Demons in Taisho-era Tokyo | Steam: Very Positive, 93% (1,064) | € (with coupon GOCDKEYS15) | None in stock |
| Blacksad: Under the Skin | Noir from a comic book | Steam: Very Positive, 83% (5,380) | € (with coupon GOCDKEYS15) | Global: € |
| Sherlock Holmes The Awakened | Young Holmes against a cult | Steam: Very Positive, 81% (2,645) | € (with coupon GOCDKEYS15) | None in stock |
| Disco Elysium: The Final Cut | Role-playing murder case | Steam: Very Positive, 93% (118,894) | € (with coupon GOCDKEYS15) | None in stock |
| Pentiment | Murder at a Bavarian abbey | Steam: Overwhelmingly Positive, 95% (9,319) | € (with coupon GOCDKEYS15) | None in stock |
| Detective Pikachu Returns | Pokémon cases for kids | Metacritic: 66 | € (with coupon GOCDKEYS15) | € |
| Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping | A short, funny case | Steam: Overwhelmingly Positive, 97% (2,602) | € (with coupon GOCDKEYS15) | None in stock |
If you've never played anything like this, the Phoenix Wright trilogy is the place to start, and it's one of the few you can own as a code (€10.88 with fees). Ghost Trick is the one we'd play next. For something completely different, Disco Elysium has rarely been this cheap as an account (€7.80 with fees). With kids, Duck Detective is short and funny enough to play together in one evening. And if you play on other consoles too, we've done the same exercise for detective games on Xbox.
Prices checked on the morning of 18 October.
Buying guides and price comparisons written alongside live prices from the stores verified by GOCDKEYS.