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sff: more Mystery Case Files
I think I've played through all of them now.
Note: this isn't going to be in order, as I played some of the later ones first, then went back.
- Ravenhearst Unlocked. This one follows immediately on the heels of Key to Ravenhearst. It starts out in the asylum, which made me laugh (now I've seen it from multiple angles!), and I was worried it would stay here, but you leave it pretty quickly. I do like the twin that gets locked into a supply room, if only for the amusement of that.
From there, it's back to Ravenhearst! Where Alister is conducting a ritual to raise the lost city from the bottom of the channel (oh dear). It unfortunately requires the sacrifice of a blood relative (oops, only one twin left now). But he manages it, and there's suddenly a town from the 1600s as a peninsula.
The town itself is fairly dull, but they made the design choice to remind everyone that there are all sorts of things that have landed in the Channel. Like mines and downed WWII planes and submarines and newfangled exploratory pods. I was both amused and wincing.
Story was all right, and the puzzles were good.
- The Black Veil. This one has some great design and weirdness going for it (including an abandoned carnival, aauuugh). But some of the plot is just... I don't know, it was a little bleh, even if I enjoyed it. It felt very derivative, and while there are others that are pretty much one-offs, it just felt a bit dreary.
- Revenant's Hunt. It's a bog-standard storyline, but the design is so so good that it eclipses its origins. It's an 80s teen horror flick in video game style, or at least one of those ones were the now-adult teens are telling the history of the Terrible Thing That Happened. It's absolutely great for the design alone. It is terrifying how well they nailed that Christopher Pike novel feel with all of the characters and back-story =D Like, even the damn fonts. MWAH. Hats off to the design team on this one.
- Rewind. SPEAKING OF THE DESIGN TEAM. EEEEEeeee! This one was SO GOOD with the design, it's a combination of the first three games with a splash of Madame Fate, and it is great (literally my only quibble is the stupid bit where you're approaching doors/corridors). It's set in a hotel that Victor (you know, Dalimar's Santa Claus), got stuck in some sort of time bubble, and it pulls characters from several of the earlier games. I spent most of it going, "that's from Prime Suspects!" and "that's from Ravenhearst!", or words to that effect. This one was great and good, and I will totally be playing it again.
- The Countess. I did enjoy this one, even if I'm not sure I have a lot to say; it's a classist Gothic Tale, full of evil and sturm and drang. The story is: the MCD's friend is renovating her family's mansion, which has been abandoned for ages, and she disappears along with all of the workers. Said workers are my one quibble: where are they? They get mentioned as being kidnapped, and then never get mentioned again.
- Moths to the Flame. Someone fucked up and claimed the Master Detective was a dude in this one, and I'm holding a grudge about it. That aside, this one was a history tour of earlier cases, with some cracking design work on Eipix's side. The Ravenhearst set pieces are insane and fucked up and perfect. I'm not sure what the actual point or plot was, but I enjoyed it for the designs, and the utter send-up of the Ravenhearst arc that parts of it were.
- Crossfade. I had actually started playing this last year, but I realized I didn't know enough about the trips down memory lane, so I stopped until I had the earlier games. (and for Broken Hour, I wish I'd remembered that and played it first before Crossfade). The conceit here is that the Banshee from The Harbinger has caused time to fracture and you have to fix it by going to the past and stopping the changes in history. Which would have been a lot more interesting and innovative if it hadn't felt like a re-tread of Rewind + Moths to the Flame :/
I did like seeing some of the earlier stuff, although I'm still angry over the game re-framing Rose's storyline to include the fact that she was in love with Charles Dalimar, and helped him get rid of Emma (in looking at the wiki, it's easier to frame that as they met earlier in life, hence the twins being Dalimars while she went on to marry whatsisface, but LATER in life, there's no way Rose could be in love with the man who kidnapped, imprisoned, tortured, and raped her. Gross. Flames on the side of my face.)
I was disappointed in the Black Veil section, as the original game had a ton of weird design that I would have enjoyed seeing incorporated, but they didn't bother, which made that a bit lackluster.
The Madame Fate/Fate's Carnival bit was utterly great, though, and makes up for most of the defects.
- The Harbinger. A replay, and it holds up, even if some of the accents are painful. But the morbid sensibility is here, and some of the design is absolutely disturbing and stunning.
- Broken Hour. I really wanted to like this one more than I did, but it's a bit convoluted, and they were trying for a sympathetic villain, and I was all out of fucks to give for the serial killer robot lady. Also, the implication that mechanical hearts remove souls is a bit offensive. Only the annoying nerdy guy survives.
That said, the history is yet another dude fucks a woman over and she kills him for it, so I enjoyed that aspect. But I want to know where her kids are, and if they survived.
- Fate's Carnival. Is fabulous. Pretty sure this one is in my top five list of MCF games, as I had a blast playing it, and the storyline is appropriately creepy and weird and just enough morbid humor to tickle my id. I think it might be the only time I didn't find Alister Dalimar tedious, too.
The design is brilliant, Elephant Games pulled out all of the stops on this one, and it shows. Creepy carnival, tons of call-backs to Madame Fate, leering scarecrows, people stuck in traps and/or dead. It was a visual feast full of great mini-games and, and, they do these video insert things which are so 1920s and perfect. Everything about this one was awesome, and I will be playing it again.
- Dire Grove, Sacred Grove. This one was bog-standard HOG, and dullllll. I was honestly surprised how long it took me to play, but I kept quitting out and doing other things because I just Did Not Care about the storyline, nor any of the people. It probably didn't help that the investigation style, where you collected things and then drew conclusions and then had to talk to people was annoying. (also, like, everyone is RIGHT THERE, but only one other person talks to you--sometimes, there should be fights happening due to the accusations! But no, nothing). I'm also sort of bored with druids? Or seen better? It probably doesn't help that I played Fate's Carnival beforehand and had very high expectations for the Elephant Games team.
Also, OMG am I tired of the Dalimars (even if their family tree is almost as complicated as the Summers' now). Tanatos is the only entertaining one aside from Charlotte.
- Shadow Lake. Much Like 13th Skull, this one is not only the photo-realistic thing at times, it also has live actors. Unlike 13th Skull, they're... decent. And also don't talk much, outside of Cassandra (who is played by Lea Thompson, and thus, actually knows how to act? And she's good?)
I did like this one, one I got past the opening scene with the very bad acting from the utterly pointless Ghost Hunter dude (Kelli was all right). I mean, I actually quit the game right after his opening assholishness, as I was just like "NOPE." I gave myself a week or so, and went back to it, managing to play all of the way through.
The storyline itself is tragic and dark, and has a great 90s ghost story/horror feel to it - or 50s/60s feel, at times. There are jump scares that felt very The Haunting but with more skeletons.
Dire Grove. Can't play, it's not compatible with any version of Windows after 7, and they don't tell you that.
And that's the lot.
Note: this isn't going to be in order, as I played some of the later ones first, then went back.
- Ravenhearst Unlocked. This one follows immediately on the heels of Key to Ravenhearst. It starts out in the asylum, which made me laugh (now I've seen it from multiple angles!), and I was worried it would stay here, but you leave it pretty quickly. I do like the twin that gets locked into a supply room, if only for the amusement of that.
From there, it's back to Ravenhearst! Where Alister is conducting a ritual to raise the lost city from the bottom of the channel (oh dear). It unfortunately requires the sacrifice of a blood relative (oops, only one twin left now). But he manages it, and there's suddenly a town from the 1600s as a peninsula.
The town itself is fairly dull, but they made the design choice to remind everyone that there are all sorts of things that have landed in the Channel. Like mines and downed WWII planes and submarines and newfangled exploratory pods. I was both amused and wincing.
Story was all right, and the puzzles were good.
- The Black Veil. This one has some great design and weirdness going for it (including an abandoned carnival, aauuugh). But some of the plot is just... I don't know, it was a little bleh, even if I enjoyed it. It felt very derivative, and while there are others that are pretty much one-offs, it just felt a bit dreary.
- Revenant's Hunt. It's a bog-standard storyline, but the design is so so good that it eclipses its origins. It's an 80s teen horror flick in video game style, or at least one of those ones were the now-adult teens are telling the history of the Terrible Thing That Happened. It's absolutely great for the design alone. It is terrifying how well they nailed that Christopher Pike novel feel with all of the characters and back-story =D Like, even the damn fonts. MWAH. Hats off to the design team on this one.
- Rewind. SPEAKING OF THE DESIGN TEAM. EEEEEeeee! This one was SO GOOD with the design, it's a combination of the first three games with a splash of Madame Fate, and it is great (literally my only quibble is the stupid bit where you're approaching doors/corridors). It's set in a hotel that Victor (you know, Dalimar's Santa Claus), got stuck in some sort of time bubble, and it pulls characters from several of the earlier games. I spent most of it going, "that's from Prime Suspects!" and "that's from Ravenhearst!", or words to that effect. This one was great and good, and I will totally be playing it again.
- The Countess. I did enjoy this one, even if I'm not sure I have a lot to say; it's a classist Gothic Tale, full of evil and sturm and drang. The story is: the MCD's friend is renovating her family's mansion, which has been abandoned for ages, and she disappears along with all of the workers. Said workers are my one quibble: where are they? They get mentioned as being kidnapped, and then never get mentioned again.
- Moths to the Flame. Someone fucked up and claimed the Master Detective was a dude in this one, and I'm holding a grudge about it. That aside, this one was a history tour of earlier cases, with some cracking design work on Eipix's side. The Ravenhearst set pieces are insane and fucked up and perfect. I'm not sure what the actual point or plot was, but I enjoyed it for the designs, and the utter send-up of the Ravenhearst arc that parts of it were.
- Crossfade. I had actually started playing this last year, but I realized I didn't know enough about the trips down memory lane, so I stopped until I had the earlier games. (and for Broken Hour, I wish I'd remembered that and played it first before Crossfade). The conceit here is that the Banshee from The Harbinger has caused time to fracture and you have to fix it by going to the past and stopping the changes in history. Which would have been a lot more interesting and innovative if it hadn't felt like a re-tread of Rewind + Moths to the Flame :/
I did like seeing some of the earlier stuff, although I'm still angry over the game re-framing Rose's storyline to include the fact that she was in love with Charles Dalimar, and helped him get rid of Emma (in looking at the wiki, it's easier to frame that as they met earlier in life, hence the twins being Dalimars while she went on to marry whatsisface, but LATER in life, there's no way Rose could be in love with the man who kidnapped, imprisoned, tortured, and raped her. Gross. Flames on the side of my face.)
I was disappointed in the Black Veil section, as the original game had a ton of weird design that I would have enjoyed seeing incorporated, but they didn't bother, which made that a bit lackluster.
The Madame Fate/Fate's Carnival bit was utterly great, though, and makes up for most of the defects.
- The Harbinger. A replay, and it holds up, even if some of the accents are painful. But the morbid sensibility is here, and some of the design is absolutely disturbing and stunning.
- Broken Hour. I really wanted to like this one more than I did, but it's a bit convoluted, and they were trying for a sympathetic villain, and I was all out of fucks to give for the serial killer robot lady. Also, the implication that mechanical hearts remove souls is a bit offensive. Only the annoying nerdy guy survives.
That said, the history is yet another dude fucks a woman over and she kills him for it, so I enjoyed that aspect. But I want to know where her kids are, and if they survived.
- Fate's Carnival. Is fabulous. Pretty sure this one is in my top five list of MCF games, as I had a blast playing it, and the storyline is appropriately creepy and weird and just enough morbid humor to tickle my id. I think it might be the only time I didn't find Alister Dalimar tedious, too.
The design is brilliant, Elephant Games pulled out all of the stops on this one, and it shows. Creepy carnival, tons of call-backs to Madame Fate, leering scarecrows, people stuck in traps and/or dead. It was a visual feast full of great mini-games and, and, they do these video insert things which are so 1920s and perfect. Everything about this one was awesome, and I will be playing it again.
- Dire Grove, Sacred Grove. This one was bog-standard HOG, and dullllll. I was honestly surprised how long it took me to play, but I kept quitting out and doing other things because I just Did Not Care about the storyline, nor any of the people. It probably didn't help that the investigation style, where you collected things and then drew conclusions and then had to talk to people was annoying. (also, like, everyone is RIGHT THERE, but only one other person talks to you--sometimes, there should be fights happening due to the accusations! But no, nothing). I'm also sort of bored with druids? Or seen better? It probably doesn't help that I played Fate's Carnival beforehand and had very high expectations for the Elephant Games team.
Also, OMG am I tired of the Dalimars (even if their family tree is almost as complicated as the Summers' now). Tanatos is the only entertaining one aside from Charlotte.
- Shadow Lake. Much Like 13th Skull, this one is not only the photo-realistic thing at times, it also has live actors. Unlike 13th Skull, they're... decent. And also don't talk much, outside of Cassandra (who is played by Lea Thompson, and thus, actually knows how to act? And she's good?)
I did like this one, one I got past the opening scene with the very bad acting from the utterly pointless Ghost Hunter dude (Kelli was all right). I mean, I actually quit the game right after his opening assholishness, as I was just like "NOPE." I gave myself a week or so, and went back to it, managing to play all of the way through.
The storyline itself is tragic and dark, and has a great 90s ghost story/horror feel to it - or 50s/60s feel, at times. There are jump scares that felt very The Haunting but with more skeletons.
Dire Grove. Can't play, it's not compatible with any version of Windows after 7, and they don't tell you that.
And that's the lot.