Game was played using the bigbanana23 english patch: https://github.com/bigbanana23/london-seirei-tanteidan
Visuals
London Spirit Detectives background design and sprite work gives it a lot of charm and serves to draw the player into the world and endear them to the colorful cast of characters. Fun, lively animation cycles further solidify the game as one of my favorite jrpg worlds to "inhabit". Special battle animations for boss encounters and various attack types for the party members keeps combat feeling fresh and fun. The japanese take on british culture feels consistent with later games like Professor Layton, which makes them feel of a piece.
Gameplay
While the visual variety serves to keep the experience fresh, there is a level of specificity to the scenario flags that can create frustrations when playing without a guide. The size of the world and the occasional pixel hunt affect the pace and tarnish the experience somewhat.
The turn-based combat, while lively and deceptively deep, is also not without its share of frustrations. Esoteric and confusing move descriptions and lack of tile and area of effect visualizations hampers the player's ability to plan too many moves ahead. The difficulty curve in the late-game could especially come as a surprise for those who have not taken the time to grind adequately or constantly take advantage of every opportunity to source better gear and items.
Those problems aside, the combat pace isn't overly slow, as is the case with many rpgs of the time, and as such, grinding doesn't feel like as much of a chore.
Characters level with experience gained from battling, but the player does not assign skill points. Rather, characters learn new abilities and power up older abilities automatically when levelling. This takes away some player agency, but also levels out the experience for players of different stripes.
Story
The episodic structure of the game helps with pacing and straddles the line between procedural and serial storytelling in a satisfying way. However, some inconsistencies with the game's position on the supernatural lead to some confusing cases and dialogue. There are 11 writers credited on this game, which could have contributed to some of the inconsistencies and uneven writing style/quality.
The game is full of colorful and fun characters (Mate, my beloved), whether it be the main party members or one-off NPCs that are present for one episode. There are many memorable cases to solve as the boy detective and his friends. It is a charming and funny adventure from beginning to end.
(But we're not going to talk about how terribly portrayed the chinese, french, and germans are in this game)
Audio
The music is incredible. There are many memorable and fun tracks to round out the experience whether you're fighting a few ruffians in a back alley, or you're shopping for new clothes and gear. London Spirit Detectives always has an expressive and joyful track to accompany the action.
The audio effects, however, leave something to be desired. They feel ripped from public domain audio libraries of the time, but this is a minor problem and is quickly overshadowed by the quality of the soundtrack.
Playability
As mentioned previously, a few of the side cases require significant amounts of backtracking and pixel hunting, which hurts the overall experience somewhat. On the other hand, this backtracking eliminates some of the need for grinding levels. The episodic structure makes it easy to pick up and play for an hour or two at a time, while still allowing for longer play sessions.
This may be an issue with the English translation patch, but the German characters, when speaking in a phonetic version of a German accent, are largely unintelligible. This doesn't result in any serious gaps in knowledge, but is an annoyance nonetheless.
Otherwise, the game is very playable and paced well. London Spirit Detectives also surfaces a lot of information on stats and moves within the menus, which are easy to navigate, but some of the specific information you would want (comparing gear, AOE sizes for abilities, elemental strengths/weaknesses) isn't present.
Overall
Despite its flaws, London Spirit Detectives is an immensely charming and exciting experience. If you enjoy turn-based combat, and are easily endeared to cute ragamuffins in denim overalls, this game is for you! With moral quandaries about how an overreliance on machinery and automation can affect the soul of a people, it maintains relevance with many of the same points of social and technological friction today.