"Beware Benedict.. something lurks just beyond the veil of perception…"
The Last Case of Benedict Fox had been on my most wanted list ever since the first trailer was revealed. It showed a gorgeous Metroidvania draped in the aesthetic of the twisted and warped worlds dreamt up by H.P. Lovecraft. While not all of its parts work alongside your task to solve a series of murders, Benedict's last case is nonetheless a visually stunning adventure that can still feel a bit uneven in its execution.
Benedict Fox's detective skills are put to the test when he arrives at the home of his estranged father, a large mansion that has just as many mysteries as the thread count of its bed sheets. Upon his arrival, he finds his father murdered: the cause? Unknown. Shortly after, another body is found on the grounds, strung up and appropriately waiting for the mystery solver. While Benedict will receive help from numerous sources, one of them being Harry Houdini of all people, there is another who is alongside Benedict for the duration of this dark adventure, his own personal demon, the companion.
Grafted to Benedict since birth, this demonic companion is always present, conversing with Benedict over matters and protecting him like a brother. He shares in the mystery and grants Benedict supernatural powers while they explore Limbo, a realm that exists in the places in between, rich with the emotions and memories of the dead. It's infested with demons and members of the occult that all want a piece of Benedict and his demonic protector.
While the mansion serves as a way to get to know most of the cast, as well as tinker with your weapons and tools, Limbo is where you’ll spend the bulk of this adventure, solving puzzles and taking part in some surprisingly challenging combat, far more so than I had initially imagined. You’ll explore Limbo in your typical Metroidvania fashion, uncovering new paths as you outfit your kit with new tools, knowledge, and ability.
The length you'll spend with The Last Case of Benedict Fox will depend on a few settings and your overall skill. Right from the jump, you can set your combat and puzzle difficulty, should you simply want to focus on exploration and story. You can also make yourself mostly immortal, should combat put you six feet under a bit too often. Combat difficulty can make most enemies die with a single hit, although Benedict will still take the same degree of damage. Puzzle difficulty can result in either auto-completing a solution if you have all the viable knowledge or items, or can be completely left up to your own skill to solve. You can also determine how much information is displayed on the map, however, it will not indicate almost anything about the path you’ll need to take.
While I've seen other players have a detective board featured during the game's loading screen, it never once appeared for me. I tried swapping to all difficulties and settings and then loading the game, but it simply didn't appear. This board, from what I've seen, has Benedict making connections and preparing evidence to the mystery surrounding the house and the two bodies found within its walls and on its grounds. It's a shame this simply didn't work for me as it likely would have resulted in not getting as stuck as I was during a few of the game's moments. This was one of many issues I had from a technical level, but more on that later.
While I certainly had several moments where I was totally lost, it simply meant taking a look at my quest guide, ensuring that every nook and cranny of the map had been explored with the tools I had at my disposal. This also meant sometimes having to vigorously explore previous areas time and time again to ensure I didn't miss any items or an additional exit or room I missed on my first or second go-around. You will often backtrack throughout Limbo countless times making note of which locks are presently remaining on the various doors and what puzzles are currently keeping you at bay.
That said, I had two moments where I was completely lost, unsure of just exactly what the game wanted from me. During a quest to find a book, I had to explore two different areas. I checked both locations and eventually, the quest had changed to "Found the book" instead of the mission to “find” it. I was confused. I checked my inventory and I had no such book. I eventually found it lying on the ground in a room I had thought I had fully examined, partially hidden by an object in the foreground. While I can totally understand not wanting a map icon to just lead me to the book, I sort of wish one would have appeared after I had apparently been in the same room to trigger the quest update, especially as one of the game's many sidequests had an objective marker of its own that visibly showed me where I needed to go.
The second time I was lost was not understanding how a certain weapon upgrade would aid in removing an obstacle in my way. I could see the upgrade's description when visiting the weaponsmith but didn't know I had to change how I used that weapon in order to progress. I don't recall any sort of tutorial prompt or anything indicating this alternative way to use it. These two moments didn't invoke too much frustration since getting lost and overcoming it is part and parcel for the genre. I simply wish there was a bit more description in certain ways of how the game relays important information to the player. I don’t mean to imply any sort of additional hand-holding, but more in regards to the clarity of what you should be doing and how you should be going about it.
How and where you get stuck will vary depending on how thorough you are and your overall skill, especially with some of the game's puzzles. Some are fairly simple with using bits and pieces of information you've gathered, some have rotating components to figure out, to others that simply have you inputting a pattern, once you've secured a certain item anyway. Others require that you pay attention to how each piece works, breaking down how they function within the puzzle and then solving what it asks of you. I enjoyed most of these, but not all of them, such as the puzzles built around keys and cards. Neither of these granted me any sort of satisfaction when the solution finally clicked. Any puzzle where I was utilizing symbols and numbers was pretty well designed and offered me the most fun.
However, puzzles are only one avenue this game treads well into its nightmarish locales. Combat is a major focus here as Benedict has a series of grotesque creatures and occult members to put down, all in the confines of the warped and twisted Limbo. In the game's early hours, Benedict is a tad defenseless. As you vanquish enemies, you'll gain ink, but you’ll retrieve ink from that enemy the first time you kill them. If you die, you'll have a chance to retrieve that ink from where you fell. Should you die again, a nearby enemy will see a boost to their stats, making them a more formidable foe when you approach them again. To prevent the loss of your ink, you'll need to bank it at the nearest portal, which can also heal you and refill your consumables. Once you have enough ink, you can visit a tattooist who has found a spot in the mansion to set up, once you've saved her in the depths of Limbo, that is.
These tattoos give Benedict and his companion additional powers, from granting a protective barrier, to a demonic slam, to additional attacks that lay waste to your foe, tearing them apart. They certainly aid in making combat far more diverse and brutal. In addition to also being able to be used as an attack, the dive tattoo can also be used to break certain flooring to dig deeper into Limbo, giving Benedict another tool in his kit to aid in exploration.
As you progress throughout Limbo, you'll easily have enough ink in the late game to earn all of these tattoos with more than enough to spare. Should you want to fast travel with any accumulated ink, the game will prompt you to secure that ink first or you'll lose it, so in order to benefit from these ink abilities, ensure you secure any and all ink beforehand. While there are a decent amount of portals to do so, some are unfortunately spaced dramatically apart from others, with some entirely massive areas only having one or two at most.
Apart from the powers gained by the tattoos that fill out Benedict's forearms, you'll have a dagger and gun to use while in Limbo. Your reach isn't tremendous at the start, and your bullet capacity is limited as well, requiring you to perform a few melee strikes to refill your stock. These limitations lessen a bit once you start procuring upgrades from the weaponsmith. Each upgrade requires two things, a currency called Bits and Pieces, and an item you'll find in your travels. This allows each upgrade to be progression locked and available at specific points in the story. As you find these items and others, you'll earn those Bits and Pieces, making all these systems fall in line with each other. These items range from objects that have some sort of significance to the deceased, with bits of narrative attached to them as well.
As you collect those Bits and Pieces, you’ll also be able to use them to not just upgrade your kit, but purchase healing items, smoke bombs, and a few other items, each of them being able to be upgraded to make them work a bit harder for you, such as increasing the amount of heals you can carry at once and how effective they are. While you’ll earn it far later in the game, you’ll also gain a flashlight that allows you to navigate dark and tendril-filled hallways, using pockets of light to refill your flashlight. And, much like a few other items, you can upgrade it to keep you alive long enough to explore those dark passageways.
Additionally, Benedict can block or dash away from attacks as well as slide, making for a quick getaway. While the block itself functions, I had numerous moments when it simply would not work or the timing would feel like it varied from time to time. Throughout the entire game, I felt I could rely on it about 70% of the time. While not as often, the transitions that you make when moving from room to room would often see the enemies ambushing me before the view fully swapped to the next room. This is due to their AI automatically targeting you before you have the chance to fully enter the room. Again, this doesn't happen all the time, but there are a lot of transitions where enemies are super aggressive without being able to see them before they see you.
Benedict can also jump, and while the game details you'll have access to a double jump, and eventually a triple jump, it's a bit misleading in what that actually means. Benedict can perform a single jump on his own. The second and third jumps are grapples performed by the companion to parts of the environment. Not near anything? Then you cannot benefit from the grapple whatsoever. This grapple works fine but it's sometimes inconsistent if it pulls you up and over where you need to go, especially when you are in a hurry or being chased during a few sequences in the game. The grapple jump isn't technically bad, it's simply just fine at its best.
The Last Case of Benedict Fox's best and most immediately noticeable strength is in the game's visuals and design. Simply put; this game is gorgeous. Much in the same way as Ori and especially its follow-up in Will of the Wisps, that similar quality to its aesthetic and style simply excels here to create an incredibly striking game that is full of beauty, horror, and everything in between. While some character animations don't always impress, there is little here that doesn't absolutely shine. If I had to knock any aspect of the game's design it's that some foreground elements can block your view of the gameplay, but across the entire game, I found maybe a half dozen of serious offenders to this problem.
The voice acting and ambiance also do a lot to set the tone. From the haunted voice of the companion to hearing the very thickness of the air that fills Limbo, the sound design is certainly on point. Each of the cast has a decent chunk of dialogue for the adventure, all well performed, and causes the story to really benefit from a game that is entirely voiced. The relationship between Benedict and their companion reminded me a lot of that of Jackie Estacado and his own companion in the Darkness, albeit with a voice that I didn't find annoying.
Throughout my roughly 18-hour playthrough, I experienced several odd technical issues. From buttons not registering to the complete inability to move right, to the game locking up twice, I consistently found small little issues like that to crop up from time to time. My weirdest issue was being hit so hard I flew into the next room, behind a locked door, strangely working in my favor as I was then able to unlock it, bypassing what likely would have been a solid chunk of time. While a quick reload of the game always fixed these issues, it's another title in a growing list to have a lack of polish at launch, even if its offenses are incredibly minor.
The Last Case of Benedict Fox, unfortunately, failed to really hook me apart from its gorgeous visuals, clever puzzles, and use of its subject matter and tone. I think large portions of this game really shine and show the capability of its studio. While I walked away with a slight disappointment from my initial hype for the game, I still found myself eager to unravel its mystery. It doesn’t always hit the nail on the head, but it does sort of find its way in the end.
Developer - Plot Twist Games. Publisher - Rogue Games. Released - April 27th Available On - Xbox Series X/S, PC Rated - (T) Violence, Blood. Platform Reviewed - Xbox Series X. Review Access - A review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
Jeff is the original founder of Analog Stick Gaming. His favorite games include The Witcher III, the Mass Effect Trilogy, Hi-Fi Rush, Stellar Blade, Hellbade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and the Legend of Heroes series, especially Trails of Cold Steel III & IV.