http://www.chicagonow.com/count-gregulas-crypt/2018/03/cousin-jessi-sleuths-it-out-with-the-classy-visual-novel-adventure-miss-fisher-and-deathly-maze/
Cousin Jessi sleuths it out with the classy visual novel adventure Miss Fisher and Deathly Maze
Miss Fisher is a classy lady who likes her adventure like she likes her men…hot and exciting! But what more can you expect from a sophisticated lady detective? Things don't always go her way though, and after he sister is murdered in a ritualistic killing, she must do everything she can to stop the insane killer Foyle who thinks he is a reincarnation of an ancient Egyptian god. Things get even more hairy when Miss Fisher finds out that she was really the intended target!
Tim Man Game's Miss Fisher and the Deathly Maze is a two episode noir style visual novel adventure game based off the popular book and TV series. You play as the fabulous 1920's detective Miss Phryne Fisher as well as her detective inspector friend..and possible lover…John Robinson. You will see several other familiar characters as well such as Miss Fisher's best friend and helper Dot and Mac the coroner. As Fisher is trying to find the evil and crazy murderer of her sister, she accidentally stumbles upon other murders (one per episode) that need solving. Whoops! In the first episode, Miss Fisher is enjoying a night of opera when she discovers that one of the main characters is dead on stage…literally. The second episode has her and Dot flying out to a whole different country in pursuit of Foyle, where she stumbles upon another murdered individual – and who is she to pass up a murder mystery?
As Miss Fisher, and sometimes other characters, you need to talk to witnesses, find clues, and make deductions. You do the latter by connecting together clues and witness statements to come up with new evidence and questions to ask suspects. This was the most challenging part of the game in my opinion because some deductions where pretty straight-forward where others caused you think pretty carefully and perhaps outside the box. Still, it was a nice little addition to the typical questioning and searching.
The first episode of Miss Fisher and the Deathly Maze is pretty straight forward. I felt that you didn't have much in the way of choices on how to pursuit the murderer and that you're dialogue choice didn't matter (especially since you can go back and make another choice most of the time.) In fact there were times in the game when certain locations where locked to limit where you could go.
However in the second episode, I felt that you had many more choices in dialogue and even a couple different options for how to go about the day. The choices do not, however, affect the outcome of the overall story (there is only one ending after all) but instead give you different prospectives on characters and of course score you some cool achievements. For example, there is a part in the episode when you can choose if you how you wanted to investigate and you can only pick one choice. Neither choice is wrong, but depending on what you picked, you learned something new about a certain character. There was also a scene in the game where you could potentially go on a date with three different people. Again, it doesn't matter to the overall story who you pick, but it lets you get to know a certain person better. I thought the choices in the second episode were better because it gave the game a small replay value and gave you more freedom. If the first episode had this option too it was not as obvious because I didn't feel like I had any freedom in choices at all.
However, as I mentioned, the options only affected small things about the game and in no way makes Miss Fisher and the Deathly Maze a open ended adventure game like the Telltale games. I liked that it had choices yet still one ending, this way you could be a bit risky with your choices and not have to worry about getting a "bad ending" or something like that. Sometimes it's fun to just see how a character would react without worry about messing up the flow of the game.
As you are looking around areas for clues, you will also come across several clothing items that belong to Miss Fisher and for some crazy reason are strewn all over the town. Finding all the pieces to the costumes lets you change into them during the game. The second episode even took it one step farther and what clothing set you were wearing actually changed how you investigated in some scenes. For instance if you wore a more stealthy outfit then you would take a more sneaky approach then you would if you wore something more flashy. Either way, it's fun to switch up outfits and find the missing pieces of the collection. There are also a couple hidden item mini games thrown in to help you find the rest of the outfit pieces!
So in the end, I had a lot of fun playing Miss Fisher and the Deathly Maze. I loved the characters and how they all had their own personalities – Dot shocked by everything, John trying to be stern and tough, Phryne not caring what people thought. I also like the easiness of the game overall. There were really only a couple spots I found tricky, especially the deduction parts, but overall the game was very straightforward and fun to follow. I would have liked the first episode to be more open ended like the second one was but they were both still very enjoyable. I also loved finding the clothing items! I give it 4 1/2 outta 5 Ankhs!
Miss Fisher and the Deathly Maze. is out now on PC and available through Steam for only $7.99. I had never seen the show nor read the books but now I feel like I want to check them out so I may just do that! Stay classy people!
-- Sent from my Linux system.
