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Detective Grimoire: A Charming Mystery Game

 Reviews, Video games  2 Responses »  Tagged with: , ,
Aug 212014
 

Two days ago, I checked the recent Playfire Rewards (a program offered in connection with Green Man Gaming) and saw the name “Detective Grimoire.” I like detective games, so I looked it up and found out that Detective Grimoire, by SFB Games, was a new addition to Steam. It didn’t have any reviews at the time, but it had already been out for iOS and Android for a while. (And it’s the sequel to a smaller flash game, but you don’t need knowledge of that to play this one.)

I looked up some reviews of those versions, and one compared it to “a late-game case from an Ace Attorney game.” Well, if your game can be compared to one of my favorite series, that’s enough to get me interested! As soon as I finished my work for the day, I bought Detective Grimoire.

Detective Grimoire finds a strange house

Grimoire may be the Only Sane Man

The first three words that come to mind when I try to figure out how to describe Detective Grimoire are:

  1. Charming
  2. Adorable
  3. Funny

Its charm and adorableness go hand in hand. The graphics and presentation are pleasant, the soundtrack is haunting and very reminiscent of Danny Elfman’s music, and while I didn’t find the characters as compelling as those in an Ace Attorney game, none of them were bland. The excellent voice acting helps.

Of all the characters, Detective Grimoire himself stands out. He provides a lot of the humor, especially as he tries to understand why anyone would visit a tourist attraction in the middle of a swamp. You see, he’s a homicide detective called to investigate a murder at Boggy’s Bog. The top suspect? Boggy, the mythical creature said to live in the swamp, who hasn’t been seen in 60 years.

Gameplay involves straightforward point-and-click mechanics. You’ll spend much of the time searching for evidence and questioning the bizarre group of witnesses, with an interface quite similar to that of the Ace Attorney games. As you talk to people, you’ll want to pay attention to clues, which will be added to your case file, and decide which facts are suspicious and which aren’t.

Which details in Detective Grimoire are important to the case?

In addition to the topics you can ask about, as well as presenting clues and profiles, each character also has a secret or “challenge” you can question them about, once you pick up enough information.

At other times, you’ll be asked to choose options to fill in the blank mad-libs style, and create a coherent statement of logic–or an incoherent one for giggles. If you make the wrong choices, our poor detective will spout nonsense and then admit what he said made no sense.

Grimoire guesses the swamp is haunted

A few moments reference SFB’s “Haunt the House: Terrortown

Some conversations allow you to choose from dialogue options. This only occurred a handful of times, which is a pity. One of the moments that really defined the game’s tone for me was when a character asked if Grimoire was his first name or his last name. When I read the options, I laughed out loud. (For the record, I said it’s his 23rd name, but the one he likes best.)

These conversations are the primary way the story is told. The murder mystery itself is fairly straightforward, but the plot surrounding it has some twists and turns. It also includes a sequel hook, and SFB has another Detective Grimoire game planned.

A few minor puzzles stand in your way, though none are as tough as those in the Professor Layton series… no matter what Grimoire thinks!

Detective Grimoire gives a shout-out to the Professor Layton series

Detective Grimoire is an easy game, and it’s also quite short. Steam says I completed it in 2 hours, although I think it might have taken a little longer than that. While it’s a great experience while you’re playing it, it doesn’t last long.

The only other negative is a design flaw–it allowed me to get all the way to the end without picking up an important piece of evidence, but continues on as though I had that piece of evidence and even referenced it. I didn’t realize it until I returned to the game after the ending to try for 100% completion and realized I was missing something I had plot-wise just a few minutes ago.

Bottom line: if you’re looking for a couple hours worth of charming entertainment, look up Detective Grimoire. I hope the sequel expands the gameplay and story into a longer, more challenging experience.

Buy Detective Grimoire from Steam

Dual Destinies Blew Me Away: My (spoiler-free) Thoughts on the new Ace Attorney Game

 Reviews, Video games  1 Response »  Tagged with: , , ,
Nov 242013
 

Ace Attorney is one of my favorite video game series in the world. When I first heard about it, I thought it sounded dull–why in the world would I want to play a game about a lawyer? Then I gave the first game a try and immediately fell in love.

It wasn’t boring…or very realistic. It tossed me into a world filled with wacky characters, spirit mediums, and trials in which the defense attorney and prosecutor slam their desks and shout, “Objection!” at one another as they try to prove their case, although the trial is always biased in the prosecution’s favor. (“Innocent until proven guilty”? In the world of Ace Attorney, it’s closer to “Guilty unless the defense attorney can shoot down all of the prosecution’s arguments and probably prove who the real killer is, as long as it can be accomplished within 3 trials, because after 3 trials the defense loses.”)

The first game puts you in the shoes of rookie lawyer Phoenix Wright and takes you through the twists and turns of his cases.

The series is very heavy on reading, so keep that in mind. It is very story-driven and has many visual novel elements. Gameplay centers around investigating crime scenes (in a style similar to point-and-click games), questioning people to gather information, and finding contradictions in testimonies and theories. In fact, the unofficial fan musical project explains courtroom gameplay quite well in “The Objection Song.” (Note, the song spoils parts of first game’s first case.) It is a very funny series that nevertheless has its share of dark moments and tragedy.

At the time that I’m writing this, the Ace Attorney games available are:

and the main topic of my post today:

Though this newest Ace Attorney game is a download-only title on the Nintendo e-shop, I consider it to be one of the best. (Update: it is now available to download on iTunes, as well.) Phoenix Wright and Apollo Justice both return with their gameplay elements from previous games (Phoenix’s ability to break Psyche-Locks and Apollo’s ability to Perceive lies), along with Athena Cykes, who introduces a new gameplay element called the Mood Matrix. The Mood Matrix is a program that tracks a person’s emotions, so you can look for contradictions between what the person says and what emotions they feel. Oh, and the new prosecutor is a convict who uses psychological manipulation and sics a hawk on people in the courtroom.

Now, if you’ve never played an Ace Attorney game before, there’s a good chance that most of what I said in that last paragraph sounds silly, crazy, or nonsensical. If you’re a fan of the series, it might still sound that way, but at the same time, it all makes perfect sense.

Because I love Dual Destinies so much, let me get the few things I object to out of the way first. It was much easier than previous entries in the series. While in a way, this is a good thing (sometimes the old games could leave you desperately tapping everything on the screen in the hopes that you’d find something), it went a little too far. It was a little too easy, and the investigation sections lost some of the freedom they used to have and locked you onto the correct course. This was most apparent to me when I encountered a set of Psyche-Locks and could immediately unlock them all. In the past, I’d have had to leave the character and hunt around for more information and evidence first. My hope is that future games in the series will find a middle ground.

That’s it for the complaints. I pretty much loved everything else. There are more typos then usual, but not enough to disrupt the brilliant humor and top-notch story. By Case 3, I was enjoying the game quite a bit, and after that, the story really got interesting. The story and characters are really what pushed this game so close to the top for me. Each game has a great plot, but some stand out more than others. In fact, since the very first game, there’s been no question of who my favorite Ace Attorney character is, but Dual Destinies gave me a competitor.

It’s very hard to talk about the story without giving any spoilers. There are many excellent moments that will hit you hard and touch your heart. I could ramble for hours, but I would give everything away in the process. All I’ll say is that, as is typical for the series, there is darkness and tragedy and deep character moments amidst all the zany courtroom antics. In fact, there might be a little more darkness than usual–this is the first game in the series to receive an M-rating, either due to the fact that it now has 3D graphics, or because of a very specific scene that has a lot of blood and is very creepy. Nevertheless, at its core, Dual Destinies is about hope, trust, friendship, and the importance of the truth.

The music is as great as ever, with the return of a lot of old favorites as well as some new songs that are really catchy. (I even bought the soundtrack.)

Since this is the first game on the 3DS, it is also the first to receive downloadable content. I know some people get anxious at the very mention of DLC, but in this case, it’s worth it. It’s a full-length additional case with a wacky story and its own share of great moments and unexpected twists.

If you’ve finished the game already and want to chat about it with me, feel free, just be sure to mark your spoilers for the sake of others. If you’re an Ace Attorney fan who hasn’t gotten this game yet, it’s well worth your time!

And if you haven’t played a single Ace Attorney game before, what are you waiting for? The first game is waiting!

Buy Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies from the Nintendo eShop

Celebrating All Things Spooky: Scratches

 Celebrating All Things Spooky, Reviews, Video games  1 Response »  Tagged with:
Oct 222013
 

I just finished Scratches: The Director’s Cut, a point-and-click adventure game I’ve had my eye on for a while. I first discovered the game because of a Kickstarter I saw for a horror adventure game called Asylum. After I watched the videos and read about their ideas for the game, I was pretty interested. For one thing, the Kickstarter page described it as “a psychological horror adventure inspired by H. P. Lovecraft and set in a massive, decaying mental institute.” There are a lot of things in that description that caught my attention. “Psychological horror,” “mental institute”….okay, let’s be honest here. My interest skyrockets when I see the name “H. P. Lovecraft” associated with something. But another notable thing about the way the game was described was that the page made a point that it was “from the designer of Scratches.”

Scratches was the previous game designed by Agustín Cordes, so I checked it out and learned that it was another point-and-click horror adventure game inspired by Lovecraft. I marked it down as a game I wanted to try. I backed Asylum, one thing led to another, and I finally ended up with a copy of Scratches.

I started playing it on Sunday, October 13. That was nearly perfect timing–the story begins on Saturday, October 12. Better yet, the player character was a horror writer! I was tempted to try to play the game quickly enough that I would finish it on the same day the game ended, but as you can tell, I was busy with other things and couldn’t do that.

I wish I had a creepy old mansion to write in. Preferably one that isn't cursed, though.

I wish I had a creepy old mansion to write in.
Preferably one that isn’t cursed, though.

Anyway, in Scratches, you play as Michael Arthate, a horror writer who has moved to a Victorian mansion to relax and finish writing his next novel. However, instead of getting right to work on that novel, he does what anyone in his position would do–explore the mansion!

It turns out that the mansion holds many secrets. A murder… records of a strange, legendary tribe encountered in Africa… diary entries about boarding up a door to try to stop the whispers… all sorts of lovely things. So what do you do? You decide to solve the mystery, of course!

Since this is a point-and-click adventure, it is fairly slow-paced. You won’t be racing around or fighting anything. Instead, you’ll explore the house, gather items, and solve puzzles in your attempt to piece together the true story of what happened there. It can be frustrating at times. I needed to use a guide more often that I’d like to admit. Some of the puzzles are a bit obscure, and you may find yourself frustrated because you don’t know what to do next, but even if you need to use a guide, it is worth it.

The atmosphere goes from pleasant to creepy rather fast, aided by the music and the setting. The story is disturbing. And, despite being a game where nothing can chase you, there were a few scary moments that got my heart pounding. It is horror, and Lovecraft’s influence creeps through.

The Director’s Cut also comes with a short episode set after the main game called The Last Visit. It’s worth playing and has its share of creepy moments, although it also clears up a lot of the story ambiguity that Scratches will leave you with. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing is up to you.

And if you hear scratches in the night… well… dare you go into the basement?

Buy Scratches from Amazon

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