Accidental Aesop: Over both games, one can easily read the message of "Leave dealing with murderers to the police." Both Azusa and Yoko figure out the identities of the culprits. And both of them, instead of going to the authorities, decided to confront the killers head on, which resulted in their deaths.
Prior to the Switch remake, the Super Famicom remake of the second game was much more well known than the original Disk System version, due to being the only game in the series that received a fan translation at the time. The displacement also extends to the Virtual Console re-releases, where the Super Famicom remake's Wii Virtual Console re-release predated the re-release of the original version by more than a year and a halfnote April 30, 2008 vs. December 22, 2009, respectively, while only the Super Famicom version received a Wii U Virtual Console re-release.
The Portopia Serial Murder Case, which was a strong influence for these games, is well-known in Japan as being the Trope Maker for the entire adventure game and Visual Novel genres. The title is near-unknown in Western circles however, due to the differing evolution of the genre in those territories.
Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game: A noticeable example with a series of visual novels. Critics and players alike claim that the stories in these games are well-written and enjoyable, actually playing the games in the decades following their release leave a lot to be desired. Especially as the 2021 remakes didn't update the gameplay to match advancements made in the genre over the decades, meaning many can find themselves getting lost easily due to the game not hinting or telling the player where to go and what to do.
I Knew It!: A few fans accurately deduced the reason why the remakes were suddenly delayed to 2021 after not having a solid release date for months in 2020: they were being localized for Western release.
Unintentional Period Piece: If the name of the games didn't tip you off, the stories are a clear sign that these games were a product of late-80s Japan. Ashtrays are everywhere, for instance, and to a modern viewer the lack of cellphones noticeably impacts the way events play out. In The Missing Heir it's even a plot point that almost all of the victims were smokers, or at least did smoke at one point. More generally, The Missing Heir in particular is heavily affected by the culture of pre-crash Japan with its heavy emphasis on the massive family-owned Ayashiro company; in Real Life a company like that probably would have changed drastically when the crash hit just a few years later, if it remained in business at all.
