If Groundhog Day took on the form of a video game, it might very well be The Sexy Brutale. It’s a 3D puzzle and adventure title developed by Cavalier Game Studios and Tequila Works (Rime) focused on intrigue, murder and mystery with a huge emphasis placed on the manipulation of time.
Taking control of the ludicrously-named Lafcadio Boone, it's up to you to uncover the secrets of the titular casino-cum-mansion and its inhabitants, as you're forced to relive the same mysterious and murderous masked ball over and over again in order to save many a life.
While it might sound like a cross between Majora’s Mask and an episode of Agatha Christie's Poirot, the stylish setting and art direction along with colourful and varied cast of characters gives The Sexy Brutale a palpable sense of sophistication. The game's central mechanics revolve around spying through loop holes, moving from room to room investigating every nook and cranny (in a way that is somewhat of reminiscent of Luigi’s Mansion), hiding in closets and solving a series of intriguing murder mystery puzzles by continually winding back time in order to piece it all together.
The stealthier elements of The Sexy Brutale allow you to learn about individual narratives in the game and obtain clues, while the action and puzzling combined with this and the time mechanic ultimately reveal a grander story with plenty of twists and turns along the way.
Observation and a strong understanding of the time-sensitive patterns at each stage of the game are all beneficial to progression. If you don’t take the chance to absorb your surroundings and analyse the routines of the characters at certain hours of the day in the mansion, you’re going to find it hard to advance. The first murder you’re required to prevent occurs in the chapel. A shooting takes place and your job is to go back in time with the assistance of a broken pocket watch and prevent it from occurring. It's all gone a bit Bernard's Watch.
As the pocket watch is broken, days are restarted at 12pm and reset at 5pm – this leaves you with the time in between to find a solution (in the form of a puzzle) and save the day. Having witnessed the murder weapon in action at a certain hour of the day, you’ll find a blank cartridge on the floor of a particular room to load into the weapon on display in a sitting room on the other side of the mansion. As soon as you do this, the same scene plays out and no guests are hurt. What’s better is your pocket watch is then fixed enabling you to save your game at any clock – setting it as your starting point for each day. With the watch repaired, the full day is now also available.
The reasoning behind the murders and surprises linked to the casino are slowly revealed over time. This naturally makes you more and more invested in solving the puzzles. With every murder confined to a unique location in the mansion from the main casino floor to the theatre, the usual process is to examine the surrounding environment to work out how it can prevent certain situations from occurring (or in some cases better the potential outcome), observe the characters and then use the clock to time actions in with particular scenes that play out. Lafcadio Boone is not allowed to be in the same room as other characters, further encouraging a stealthier approach to the way you play.
As you progress and save more characters, the protagonist increases the power of his abilities – opening new doors (in both a literal and figurative sense) within the title. It all becomes very routine but there’s enough intrigue along the way to keep you motivated. Additionally, the game has a detailed pause menu to both assist you and highlight the inhabitants you’re required to save, your inventory – with items obviously able to prevent and activate sequences, and the map allowing you to note points of interest.
The visuals in The Sexy Brutale really do give the title a unique sense of identity. The diorama-like scenes highlight intricate details that perhaps other art styles would not have. Unfortunately, the Switch version isn’t sporting quite the same high-quality visual standards as rival platforms, but it at least manages to keep the fantastic charming character of the game intact. In handheld mode, the game performs well enough. About the only minor disruptions are linked to the load times. The overall performance though really isn’t that much of a problem due to the style of the game. Finally, the music and sound effects all add to the main themes – and definitely make you feel like you’re located in a fun but threatening world.
Conclusion
As short-lived as the story is, The Sexy Brutale is still a standout murder mystery title. The stimulating 3D puzzle and adventure elements makes it one of the best within its genre. The chosen theme and locale is also the exact type of setting you want for a title built on intrigue, murder and mystery. If you’re more of a shoot first, ask questions later sort of player, this might not be for you, but for the type of person who enjoys a slower-paced but equally as rewarding game experience, this is a murder mystery worth looking into.
Comments 37
Sounds interesting, that title though...
What??? Really? Multiple players (and reviews) have claimed that this game gets so much frame rate problems later in the game that it becomes unplayable. And NL says the game performs well?
@jariw maybe they've patched it since? it came out some time ago. would be nice to have clarification on this.
I was hoping it would score better.
I am curious...but the backlog beckons.
@jariw Well, Tequila Works was involved in this game's production, so I wouldn't be surprised if this game has some performance issues.
Only a seven? I really like the premise, but I guess this might be one of those where I wait for a sale. This has generally reviewed well on other platforms, though.
There are so many good games on the Switch right now that a 7/10 game is gonna have to be a lot cheaper than £18 to grab my attention. If heavily discounted, then possibly. But as it stands..? Nope, not right now.
Jim Sterling loves this game... whatever that information might be worth to you.
Not to sure on this one. Might get it in a sale sometime but otherwise am not too bothered. Plenty of other games right now and just got my hands on a SNES mini.
Argh! I want to play this game so bad but have heard such mixed things on the Switch port. I am going to give it a month or two to see if I can get lucky with a price drop and maybe a patch or two
Very interested in this but that price tag is too high for such a short lived experience. And those bad performance issues.. too much of a gamble.
Too many games releasing with game breaking issues these days on switch (looking at you 60 seconds!)
why would this game of all games have issues on the switch?
is the tegra really that bad? is there a way devs can upclock it and take more battery but smooth things out?
the switch 2 can't come soon enough. i really hope nvidia's T2 is a much stronger performer. i like the switch enough but if even these trivial games have issues then maybe N err'ed a bit on either battery size/speed of the chip or not going with another vendor. not sure other than apple there is a good 'portable chip maker'.
@SLIGEACH_EIRE It's a weird score, IMO. Obviously, the game is not for everyone, but if the style of gameplay intrigues you at all, I say go for it. For me, it's the most unique game I've played in years - I've never played anything like it.
However, I did get it as part of the humble monthly - so you can't really beat that price. I'd say it's a 9/10 for me. I don't really know what they could have done to improve this particular style of game, honestly. I would say for anyone remotely interested, pick up the game, even if it isn't on Switch.
@sword_9mm These smaller devs do not have the same budget, experience, or staffing to optimize like some of the larger studios. Especially when considering this game was not designed with the Switch in mind, but other platforms.
All software development is a constant tradeoff between performance & usability. You don't want to write code that is a nightmare to maintain, so you typically make some sacrifices. If you know your target platform can handle it, it's not an issue - but when moving to a much less powerful platform, you can run into optimization issues.
I'm just guessing here - I don't know anything about the inner-workings of the Sexy Brutale's engine - but it's safe to say the Switch can run far more demanding games much better, so there's got to be reasons other than the Switch's hardware for the performance. Though I will agree, an upgraded Switch will be awesome.
I saw Totalbiscuit's review of the Steam version of this game. It seems creative and like it had a lot of passion behind it. But it also seems like a game that would frustrate me to no end.
I can tell this game definitely isn't for me.
@SLIGEACH_EIRE personally I consider a game 7 and up, if I feel the genre will work for me.
If it weren’t for the art style and name I might be interested.
Got it on release. Great game but geez there were performance issues, put me off actually.
There has been an update but havent played since it installed. Been meaning to jump back in.
Wasn't nuts about the art style, but the game itself seems to have everything I like. By the end of the Switch's life, I doubt I'll ever be able to come up for air and clear out a lot of my backlog. There's just so many fun games to play...
It's an Unity game, that's why there are slow frame rate and slow loading problems. It will take them a couple of years to fix, or not at all.
@MeloMan Yeah for me that is the problem with indie games that are sort of iffy to me like this. It's like unless the gameplay and setting is very appealing to me, I simply have far too many amazing indie games that I still need to play to consider buying games that I might not like.
Just today one of my favorites mexican reviewers said this was one of the best games or the year for him.
Referring back to other comments, Nintendo would be mad to release a new Switch so soon while the current model is selling so well. And is less than a year old! What is more likely, I'd guess, is a mid-generation refresh with an upgraded dock that includes its own processing power. Better performance in docked mode, that kind of thing. When a Switch 2 comes out eventually, the one thing they really should fix is making the battery replaceable by the user. It's one of the things the Wii U actually got right!
@Nincompoop Yet Yooka-Laylee seems to run great on the hardware, because the devs actually took the time to make sure the game was optimized.
I really hate this "release it broken, patch it later" mentality that a lot of publishers seem to have. It really will hurt gaming in the long run.
@NicolausCamp That's the problem with Unity, it takes a long time to optimize just to get it performing well. With Unreal engine, all the games look great and run well easily.
One of my favorites on switch eshop so far.
Story is amazing and the game truly sucks you into its mystery. Frame rate issues are present but when a game is that good who cares?
Looks like a game I'd buy day one if it had a physical release.
I like mystery thriller games, and this one seems to have great writing and atmosphere.
@Nincompoop Agreed, but that really isn't a good excuse to release a shoddy port. That will just make the devs look bad in the eyes of consumers.
@MaaadMatt
no way. keep the dock/peripherals the same and bring out switch 2 with a new tegra and that's it. maybe update the screen to 1080 eventually.
there's no way i'd buy a switch where the portable version is something like the 3ds and the 'docked' version is the real deal. the reason the switch works is you get the same thing on both (just docked you get a res bump sometimes).
if you want a dock with a chip then i'd think N would be better served to jump back into a true home console and just dump some real power into it.
@sword_9mm My point is, we won't see a Switch 2 for at least three or four years, I expect. It's a hit - they won't want to make it obsolete while it is selling so well.* We might get the equivalent of a PS4 Pro or Xbox One X before that though - same software across all consoles, but some play games at higher resolution/frame rate than others. They'd achieve this quite simply - by making a new dock.
*Unless Nintendo plan on turning into Apple and constantly 'refresh' their hardware, making their consoles more like fashion accessories. They've already gone for the sealed-in battery option, which I think is a big mistake as far as console longevity is concerned. You won't be able to get a second-hand Switch that still works flawlessly in thirty years' time, unlike retro consoles from the 1980s. Which is a shame.
@MaaadMatt
i assumed the switch 2/3/4 would be in that phone/ms mold. I dunno if sony is going the 'PC' way or not but the pro is certainly in that as well.
so every 2 years (new chips permitting) an updated switch comes out BC with all old games. new games would work on the new switch as well as old (with downgrades as we're seeing now for console games porting down to the switch). MS has that same philosophy and the phone co's (ios/android) have been doing that for years.
keep the form factor and all peripherals the same and just change up the main unit. maybe at switch 3 the switch 1 goes out completely and 2 is the low dog model and so on and so forth.
it's coming. MS is definitely going that way with the Xbox and it really looks like Sony is as well (though we don't know if the ps5 will be like the XB1X or a completely new type gen with no compatibility backward) but i think Sony would be crazy to not go that direction too.
as long as everything just works and no need for a buncha new controllers, docks, etc. it could work. switch 2 299 with a tegra2. switch 3 2 years later with a tegra3 at 299; and on and on. they'll never be up to console specs being portable of course but i just don't see a downside to that model. the switch in 3-4 years will be nothing but pixel art indie games so i don't see how N doesn't do this.
well i do because N is nothing if not insular and run by terrible decision makers but there's nothing we can do about that.
@sword_9mm You could be right. It's hard to predict at the moment how things will turn out, so we'll just have to wait and see. I am glad that Nintendo have bounced back after the commercial disappointment of the Wii U, though. (I actually think the concept of the Wii U is a good one, just flawed in its execution.)
@MaaadMatt
yeah, it's a brave new world for console only folks that's for sure. Us PC guys have been doing this forever so we'll see how the console folks take it up.
xb1x doesn't seem to be flying off the shelves and neither is the ps4pro so this type of thing may NOT work for the casual 'madden/call of duty' type gamer.
Despite the bugs and slowness issues, I found the story to be so compelling that it sits as a 9/10 for me.
Really, really impressed with the experience
Downloaded this as it looked like the kind of game I’d be into, but but the game was too broken still for it to work. I got way too frustrated. People online must be very forgiving because I found the whole thing unplayable.
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