Scotland-based development studio Blazing Griffin is back again with a brand-new mystery that brings you more tales of detective Hercule Poirot. Hercule is making a comeback from the first title, Agatha Christie – Hercule Poirot: The First Cases, but this time, there is a whole new cast and a lot of new mysteries that need solving, and for the first time ever, you get to work with your sidekick from the books, Arthur Hastings.

Hercule Poirot has been given a simple task; to travel to London to help deliver a painting to an exhibition. The adventure begins on a cruise ship just before you arrive in London, and that is where the puzzle-solving begins. The prologue is a great entrance to the game that helps you learn the basics of being a great detective, with the first mystery to solve being a missing cigarette container. You’ll be rolling around and interrogating people on the ship who were around the current scene, before being guided through the case map, linking any evidence you have found in your travels, and once linked, it will paint the picture of who committed the crime.

It made me feel like I was in one of those movies with the wall and all the red string pining all the photos together. To help you along, you’ll be prompted if you are doing something wrong, and also tell you if you are getting closer to finding the perfect clue to close the case. Some items you pick up and need to find points of interest, like a knife might have some blood on it, or a bent end which you need to look closely at, but there can also be things that won’t necessarily be helpful, and some might even lead you astray.

The voice acting was absolutely superb in this title, with each character’s emotions being so prominent and not leaving you guessing what they are doing. You can hear when someone does not care or if they’re annoyed, which is great as you are trying to find clues, but reading someone’s body language or the tone of their voice will help. There is not too much more with the sound aspect you need to worry, about apart from listening closely to all the dialogue and making sure you remember everything said – it helps you down the track.

I loved how simple the controls were in this title. The prologue explains everything so you can make sure you are getting each clue and solving the mysteries. Finding clues and evidence is quite simple with the on-screen prompts to press “B” or “Y” to either inspect them or use them. You don’t need to run around and do too much movement-wise with Hercule, but like most games, you use the left analog stick to move the character, and “RB” and “LB” will pan the camera around, so you can see the rooms from another angle to get things like sinks or paintings because in order to proceed, you need to make sure you have all the correct relevant information, otherwise you won’t get far. With such a simple control scheme, it’s no wonder they were nice and responsive.

I was on a seesaw whilst playing this game with the graphics. There were times I absolutely loved it, and times I absolutely hated it. The developers went with a Sims-like design, but it looked worse with the character models, like, Hurcule had really short hair, but it looked like it was spray painted on his head.

In the prologue, you are standing on a ship with some nice moonlight, which should illuminate the water, but no, that was a black void, so I was a little disappointed by the lack of attention to detail.

The part I loved was when you were inside the cruise ship, or when you arrived in London with how beautiful all the lighting looked, and the environmental aspects seemed to get better and better with the detail in paintings and how rooms were set up with that London feel. The menu UI, where you play a game of dot-to-dot with the evidence, was absolutely stunning and worked really well for the game, but I’m really not a fan of the character models.

Their animations were lacking, such as when they were talking, their mouths were just moving up and down. They were not synced in the slightest, and during cutscenes, characters felt stiff, like something you would see from the old Thunderbirds puppets. Considering how emotional the voice acting was, this was a huge letdown.

If you think yourself a detective, or you enjoy puzzles that help to solve a bigger mystery, this game is absolutely perfect for you, but you’ll need to look past the less-than-desirable character animations. Otherwise, the beautiful voice acting lets you feel the character’s emotions, and having to be incredibly thorough in your investigations really helps to draw you in, making you feel like a true detective.

Written by: Hayden Nelson