We may know some of the greatest fictional mysteries like the back of our hand, but that still doesn’t stop them being engaging and fun.

But when a world famous detective and well-read character is thrust into a new mystery, things get even more intriguing. Such is the scenario we have with The London Case, the latest for Hercule Poirot and his trusty sidekick, Hastings.

In search of the Penitent Magdalene Painting, Poirot meets with Hastings on board a ship when one of its voyagers unexpectedly loses their cigarette case. Little do Poirot and Hastings know, this is the beginning of a long night and petty theft is just the beginning.

Playing a little like the Sherlock Holmes games, Poirot has his own mind map where he can observe crime scenes and sub-mysteries and solve them by piecing evidence together through links. This lets you combine strands of thoughts together to reach some form of conclusion.

And to do that Poirot will need to get acquainted with an ecletic cast of characters, all with very different backgrounds, from the bishop to the politician and the actress. He’ll chat to them about all manner of things, like their interests, their relationships and general movements.

The mystery itself goes from one extreme to the next, and eventually Poirot will find himself relying on Hastings, as they both work together to figure out their next steps, ruling out suspects, while building a case against others.

At first glance, you might mistake this for a Disco Elysium with you controlling Poirot from a top-down perspective, but it lacks choice and impact on decisions, there’s no sub-quests and you’ve a limited pool of areas to draw from. No, this is more of a point and click adventure game, but leaning ever so slightly more on the interactive side.

You will need to search scenes of investigation for clues, look for hidden areas of interest and occasionally use items together. Basically, if you played the previous Poirot game – The First Cases – you’ll have a pretty solid idea of what to expect.

And the general flow really does keep you glued to your gamepad, though, sadly, this game is pretty glitchy in a few respects. For one, you have to complete puzzles in a certain order, otherwise the game gets muddled and it can cause the investigative string to break, meaning a full chapter restart. This happened to me on a couple of occasions at various stages of the game.

Dialogue can also be far too easily skipped, so you miss valuable context and it’s really difficult to draw back up or really even know what you’re supposed to be doing. So you need to be extra careful.

There’s also a few puzzles that boil down to guess work and memory and if you weren’t paying attention for even a moment or there’s a gap in time of playing, you’re going to get caught out. There was even one that was written incorrectly so I had to work around it. And some of Poirot’s observations are also made up of random combinations, which you’re sometimes left a bit confused by.

Oh, and if you hate backtracking and seeing the same places again and again, this may not be for you.

But then on the other hand, it’s also really easy to float through the game, unlocking trophies and flying through chapters. And the story is interesting enough to hook you with each new chapter introducing a new character or scene. The backgrounds are always nicely detailed with lovely touches and effects, like pigeons pecking away at food on London streets and a chandelier glimmering brightly at a museum.

The dialogue is also the game’s strong suit, really bringing Poirot to life with deductions that ring true for his character and a cast of characters he can have some fun back and forth with. I also really loved the slow, burgeoning relationship between he and Hastings and the voice actor completely and utterly nails the role. Maybe he’s not David Suchet, but he works brilliantly for context of this game.

The London Cases does feel a bit basic at times, though, and a little one dimensional in its approach. Most scenes are very minute in size and detail, with very few interaction points, plus nothing is ever really hidden too far off the beaten path. It also gets a little tedious with some things not being interactive until you solve things in a certain way, even when you spot them a mile away.

Basically, it plays against gamer nature of going off the beaten track and going at your pace. You’re forced to play by the game’s rules at every stretch, most times to a fault, but it’s done in a way that means this is a mystery anyone could solve with a bit of time and patience, glitches and minor frustrations aside.

All that said, this was a fun mystery to solve and a good way to spend about 6 hours of my time in-between some of the beastly experiences that have been thrown at us lately. It’s by no means the best adventure game I’ve played, nor the worst, probably somewhere in the middle and that felt kind of perfect right about now.

Verdict

Agatha Christie – Hercule Poirot: The London Case is a fun detective mystery that’s well written and acted, particularly in the titular role. Unfortunately, some random bugs and glitches do creep in to affect the experience somewhat, you revisit the same locations time after time, and the gameplay flow does become a bit frustrating between ordering things a certain way and relying a little bit on random, dumb luck. A great time can be had throughout, however, and this is a good one to play in-between 2023’s beefier experiences. 

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Pros

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Agatha Christie – Hercule Poirot: The London Case is out tomorrow on PC, PS, Xbox and Switch

Code Kindly Provided by Microids for review purposes

Played on PS5