Loco Engine Review (Switch eShop)
It’s a story you’ve probably heard before: there’s a detective, a rich, old heiress with a revised will, and a group of people gathered all hoping to benefit from It. And then, as these stories often do, it ends in murder. On a train! But don’t be fooled by Agatha Christie’s rich isms: this work of whodunnitry is utterly unique while also celebrating its influences and may even be one of the best point-and-click games out there. Our great favourite.
In the amazing name Loco Dynamicsyou play as three separate characters – Arthur, an estate lawyer who loves paperwork; Herman Merman, a crime novelist turned detective; and Diana, a spy and bounty hunter working for the Internal Revenue Service, which we really hope isn’t true. These three are your guides as you try to piece together the mysterious and sudden murder of a wealthy matriarch on a train through a series of silly, absurd, interjecting item combinations. interspersed with plot twists, reveals, and humorous cutscenes.
In case you couldn’t tell, Loco Motive absolute knows where its inspiration lies: the contortions of Christie, the amusing non-seriousness of Monkey Island and others, and the astonishingly vivid art of Spooky tricks all of which is worn proudly on its sleeve. But instead of just haphazardly gluing these various elements together like… well, like the solution to an extremely abstract point-and-click puzzle, Loco Motive tries to create something completely all its own, positioning itself alongside all its predecessors without looking like some unqualified upstart.
Like Ghost Trick, the pixelated animations are truly astonishing with the amount of detail, fluidity and thought put into each image – each item combination has its own animation, for God’s sake – and the unique characteristics of each human item you meet and play with will be achieved with simple but skillfully applied movements. A bartender raises his eyebrows to show confidence in his skills; two twins are fighting passionately over a briefcase until it breaks; and did we mention the entire game is lip-synced? We’re not sure if we were watched Lip-syncing is applied to pixel-based gaming, and as far as Loco Motive goes, we couldn’t believe it could be done so well. It’s a shame that we can’t show the animations in these screenshots because they are truly something special to witness.
The article also has more than its own value. Taking cues from beloved Monkey Island dialogue is difficult, but Loco Motive manages to be funny without cringe, helpful without sounding condescending, and provide each character with a unique voice to makes the entire cast shine, even the extremely minor characters. After all, a murder mystery game like this depends on its colorful cast, and Loco Motive doesn’t disappoint in that regard, with some excellent voice acting provided by a host of actors. impressive, including the wonderful Samantha Béart (Karlach! From). Bald Gate 3!) as April, played by comedian Alasdair Beckett-King basically himself, and a striking drunken caricature of Orson Welles by veteran actor Jim Meskimen.
And, oh, the intelligence which this game has a lot of! Let’s be honest: point-and-click has been a bit of a given at this point, and it takes some real work to create something novel. Loco Motive achieves this by – sorry, minor spoilers – giving you three characters to play as, each with their own timeline, intersecting and swapping items in ways that it becomes clear later in the story. Right near the end, this swapping becomes a mechanic in its own right, and there’s a particularly fun moment when your inventory is confiscated and you have to settle for items you’ve nicked instead. . All very smart.
Of course, this is a point-and-click game, so there are bound to be some frustrations, and yes, some of the puzzle solutions seem arbitrary and/or confusing, even then. is the whole point of point-and-click games. Overall, the game’s signage is pretty good and the hint line does a lot of the heavy lifting there, but there are times when even the hint line doesn’t have any information for the exact situations that we are encountering. In the end, we relied on a guide provided by the developer but there are also guides on the internet that you can use. It’s up to you whether you think tutorials are part of the point-and-click fun or not.
Unfortunately, adding to that frustration are the bugs. In many ways, the game is as smooth as a well-oiled train track, but that only makes the bumps more apparent – such as when we got stuck because our save game was takes us back to the previous chapter with all the items in that chapter after it. We had to restart the entire game to fix that error. Are not interesting, although it does highlight the usefulness of the cutscenes and dialogue skipping features. There was another bug that caused our character to immediately leave the room we needed to go through, which hindered our progress for a long time because we thought it was part of the story. quiz. Are not! ‘It’s an error.
As it stands, Loco Motive is a truly astonishing and worthy member of the point-and-click murder mystery comedy genre that we cannot full Recommended until a few more patches come out. We didn’t really have many problems with the game itself – we loved the characters, loved the art, and even loved the puzzles when we banged our heads on them – but those flaws made us It takes hours of progress and it sucks having to do it. Apply the brakes just as you’re gaining momentum. Every time we had to restart the game, the studio’s logo – ROBUST GAMES – was like an ironic taunt. But since this is the developer’s debut game, and since the team has the support of indie giants Chucklefish, we have every confidence that there will be light at the end of this tunnel and that bugs will Crushed like a coin on the tracks in no time.
Conclusion
Loco Motive combines wit, charm, intelligence, and its own brand of pixel-perfect art to deliver a point-and-click murder mystery worthy of its predecessors. The state of the game at launch is a bit underwhelming due to the unqualified recommendation bug on Switch, but give it time and we think the game will get back on track.
