A classic whodunit, The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief is a crime-solving adventure game previously released on PC and PS3 and has now re-released as The Raven Remastered for current gen systems. Interview the witnesses and solve the puzzles! It has great graphics and a really good story, but is that enough? Constable Anton Jakob Zellner from Switzerland is on the case. It seems that the Raven, a master thief, has either survived being shot by Inspector Nicolas Legrand, or there is a copycat. The case needs to be solved, and this could be your big shot to become an inspector.
It is London 1964, and it seems the Raven is back. He robs a museum to take a precious ruby, and from there the hunt begins. Constable Zellner is assigned to a train to keep a watchful eye, and not long after, the “Raven” strikes, and you must help Inspector Legrand and Constable Robert Oliver catch the criminal. The difference in the old Raven and the new one is the willingness to harm. The old Raven made sure no one was hurt during his heists. Is this a new style for the original, or has someone else taken on the mantle of the Raven?
The basics of this game are simple but effective when they work. The primary objectives are to move the constable around and explore different areas to find clues, talk to different people, and interact with objects. I found the controls to be inaccurate and slow to respond. The controls consist of using the left joystick to move and the A and B buttons to interact, the Y button brings up your inventory, and the minus button pulls up the journal that the constable uses. It is handy if you get stuck and provides a lot of useful information if you cannot figure out what to do or where to go next. Your character also must be in the perfect spot sometimes to interact with things. I believe that instead of having to move the character to the perfect area, it should be mouse-like where you can move your character with the left joystick and then use the right one to point and interact. The only way the right stick is used is if there is more than one interaction nearby. You can then use it to switch between them.
This game has great graphics, mainly with the character models. They are very lifelike with the way they move and talk. The downfall for the graphics is that the game suffers from frame rate issues. During actual gameplay, the game suffers dropped frames from time to time. During cutscenes, the game almost stops completely. The game does look good on the small screen of the Switch, even in 720p. The other graphical features are also done well. The environments look real and do set the mood for the locations.
The music fits the game well, and the game also has great voice acting. The score sounds like a professional orchestra and is not repetitive. The voices fit the characters and the time period very well too. It does feel like the King Art team put a lot of effort into the music and voice acting. The other main issue for this game, other than the controls and the frame rate issues, is that you will unfortunately spend a severely long amount of time in a black loading screen with a clock in the corner. Normally, I would not complain about this, but the very fact that you can be in a small area with very little to interact with and then encounter a long loading screen when you go to another area that is just as small as the previous one is rather annoying.
Another issue is using items together. Sometimes you have to bring up an item in your inventory to use with another on the screen. This fails if you move your character or do not have the constable in the right spot to begin with. In the beginning of the game, it gives you a tutorial on this, but you are not required to move to complete it. This also could benefit from having mouse-type controls. The PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch versions of the game are considered the remastered versions. I could not find any information on what makes this remastered. The last issue I have found is that the game is extremely short. It took only 11 hours to finish.
Developer: King Art
Publisher: THQ Nordic
Platforms: Nintendo Switch (also PS4, Xbox One, PC, PS3)
Release Date: 23rd July 2013 (PC, original version), 14th January 2014 (PS3, original version), 13th March 2018 (PS4, Xbox One, remastered), 22nd January 2019 (Nintendo Switch, remastered)
