A mystery detective game that takes place in the 60s. A legendary thief long thought to be dead has resurfaced and it is your job to solve this crime. Is it really him, is it a copy cat, its your job to find out. The remaster of The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief, an episodic point and click mystery adventure that first came out in 2013 has been rereleased. Developed by KING Arts Games and published by THQ Nordic, The Raven Remastered is out now for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, MacOS, Linux and Windows with owners of the original game recieving the game for free. So, is the remaster a good reason to try out this point and click game or is it just a way to get the game out on more system, let’s find out.
Set during 1964 in London, an ancient ruby is stolen from the British Museum and on the scene of crime, a Raven feather. The calling card of a master thief who was thought to have disappeared years ago. You play as a Swiss police constable Anton Jakob Zellner who loves reading detective novels but doesn’t have a lot of experience as an actual detective. Also on this this case is well-known detective Nicolas Legrand a non playable character who doesn’t think too much of our character. You get to experience this story from the perspective of multiple characters as you bumble your way to solve this mystery while going to various exotic and what some would consider to be cliched detective places.
The remaster has updated textures, lighting, animations and hair. It’s quite the boost in visual fidelity in terms of what the original offered. Not to mention, this game features the all three episodes so you don’t end on a cliffhanger unsure of what happens next. The various locations that you visit are really different and vivid which is fun to explore and visit. While the art style is a faux-realistic style mixed with a bit of a cartoon style of visuals, the difference in visuals from base and this isn’t as grand as you’d think but is enough to leave an impression and provide players with better visuals overall. The game does feature a few issues like screen tearing issues, issues with the save system where people have lost progress and people have reported weird freezing issues in cutscenes.
The story is quite good, especially if you’re a fan of Agatha Christie and Hercule Poirot and does have a satisfying resolution to the story. The core gameplay focuses on puzzle solving. If you’ve never played games by these devs before then you might have a bit of hard time in some puzzles but other than that the puzzles are challenging enough to keep you engaged but not easy enough that it’s a walk in the park. Speaking of walking, walking around as Zellner can get frustrating since he walks slowly because he’s overweight. The voice acting and dialogue is also good and feels authentic and does a good job of making people sound like they’re hiding something or being mysterious without outright making it obvious like in the case of LA Noire.
The Raven Remastered is a decent remaster of a game that had a good story and puzzles that were done well. The game does have a few issues which can hamper the overall experience but the devs seem to be releasing patches to fix these issues so I hope to see them fixed soon. If you’re looking for a slow-paced Agatha Christie style mystery then this game should be right up your alley.
