6-/10. Compared to earlier Chilla's Art games, Missing Children is more of a traditional adventure game with multiple locations, a proper inventory, and an option to save the game. It also has a slightly more relaxed atmosphere, while still keeping that trademark creepy style and horror themes. These design decisions definitely make for an interesting change of pace from the more straightforward, linear experiences in Stigmatized Property or Inunaki Tunnel.

The game's strongest point is its atmosphere. A mix of slow-paced exploration, dark, dirty environments, subtle soundtrack, and unsettling sound design, complete with traces of an off-beat sense of humour adds up to a genuinely creepy adventure. On top of that, the mystery plot is simple but effective, and handles the heavy, serious themes rather well (unlike Okaeri).

Unfortunately, the quality of the game's design mostly doesn't live up to its atmosphere. Some of the key items are small and extremely hard to find in the dark environments (even despite the bright item markers), paths in most locations can be really confusing, and the puzzles are limited to fetch quest that involve a lot of backtracking.

Another element that doesn't really work is the inclusion of supernatural themes that don't actually add up to much, but distract from the real-life themes of the game.

Ultimately Missing Children, while deeply flawed and not that good as a proper, fully developed adventure game, still provides an interesting atmospheric horror experience.

(played on Steam)