Recent reviews by Porridge

This game is adequate.

There is plenty that I like about this game, but much of the gameplay is constricting and sluggish.

To give an example, one of the scenes is on a beach, and you have the opportunity to search around for clues (at your own leisure, it seems). Although I was when I went to search the far corners of the map, I was verbally scolded and forced to return to the body. This to me seemed strange. In a detective game, there shouldn't NEED to be any restrictions on the order in which you find clues, but yet here is was being herded to the body as it seemed I was required to look at it before anything else.

There are plenty of things that I liked about this game. The art style is unique, the scenes are well detailed and gives verisimilitude (a wanky way of saying its believable/immersive). The mechanic of inspecting objects felt intuitive and entertaining. I really enjoy the "grey matter" mechanic that they have yet I'm left wishing that there was some sort of punishment for guessing wrong, especially when the amount of combinations is so small that you could comfortably try them all within a minute or two. It reduces the game to a trial and error, which takes away the best thing about detective games: feeling clever (and being rewarded for it).

The only reward that the game seems to give you for meticulously searching through the scenes (something that is always encouraged by detective games) is that you get a point score for "acting like Poirot". Once again, the gameplay is reduced to a score rather than a tangible impact on the story. In the first scene, I was even EXPLICITLY TOLD that I had found everything important, even when I hadn't finished looking at everything. This moment pretty well sums up the game: so much of the guess work is taken out that its closer to a walking simulator than a detective game. I'm sure that such a game could work, but they have emphasised all the wrong things.

NITPICK: I struggle to understand one scene where Poirot is travelling from his home to the station. There is no impact whatsoever during this transition scene, and they could have had a "fade to black" without effecting the game. Yet its clear that they spend a lot of time and effort into crafting these locations which could have been spent on other aspects of the game.

In summary, I think this game is entertaining, but not enough to hold my interest over other games in its genre. Hence, adequate.

It feels odd that my first review is a "not recommended", but this game had so much potential and i believe my expectations got the better of me.

I should preface by saying that I dont hate the game at all, but god it felt like it was testing me at some points.

I'm going to start with the biggest issue i had with this game right off the bat. The characters, namely the protagonist. I actually took a liking to Rufus at the beginning of the story, they had given him some poor, yet relatable qualities like being messy and carless, yet ambitious. That ended very quickly. It didnt take long for me to realise how utterly infuriating his whole charater was, in fact i didnt even leave the house before realising.
But not only is he completely irredeemable, he continues to have everything go right for him in a way that feels almost like some sort of fever dream. Everyone in the town dislikes him, if not hates him, and yet they just let it slide. I understand the angle that they were going for was a loveable prankster who dreams of a better life, but it really just comes across as an entitled deadbeat who has no empathy for anyone around him and is only interested in his own wellbeing. Maybe a bit harsh, but i was happy to let that slide for a while. besides, the best part of an story driven game is the growth of the characters in better or stronger people. NOPE. Rufus remains insufferable through many great potential points of growth, in fact he almost seems to acknowledge that he should have developed from some situations but then just brushes it off with some flatline quip. But enough about Rufus, i think i've painted a vivid picture of him. The rest of the cast in this game are actually pretty good, I enjoyed the fact that most people felt the same about Rufus as i did and they did feel reasonably immersive for the world that they lived in. It was a pity that most of them were only there for Rufus to pester occasionally with his rudeness.

Now, appart from the above mentioned, i really liked the world design and the voice acting, but it was not enough to make me stay for long. The puzzles and the minigames always felt extremely convoluted and i spent most of my time walking back and fourth trying everything on everything just to look up on a walkthrough that there was 6 more steps that wasn't even really necessary.

This review quickly turned into a rant, but it pains me to see such a great game be ruined by the simple pitfalls.



TL;DR

The protagonist will probably make you want to jump off a cliff. but if not, you might enjoy this game

Amazing...