Games worth discovering

Lovecraft plus Metroidvania should be a killer combo, but this game has some big problems

7K View2023-04-30

The Last Case of Benedict Fox

10.0

ActionAdventure

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PLAY IT OR SKIP IT?

Skip it unless you’re a superfan of anything inspired by H.P. Lovecraft or you’re dying for a Metroidvania. The Last Case of Benedict Fox follows a demon-possessed detective who has the ability to jump into the memories of the dead. Using these powers, he’s attempting to find out the dark truth behind what happened to his father, a man heavily involved in occult rituals. It’s a great setup, but the experience is quickly dragged down by clunky controls and frustrating level design.

TIME PLAYED

I’ve made it six hours into The Last Case of Benedict Fox on PC. I’ve explored a huge portion of the first two major areas, defeated two bosses, and made a fair bit of progress in upgrading Fox’s tools and abilities. A full playthrough is said to take between twelve and twenty-five hours, so there’s still plenty to go, but I can’t see myself finishing this one unless it gets some big fixes.

WHAT’S AWESOME

• Lovecraft vibes. If you love cosmic horror and unfathomably evil tentacle creatures, The Last Case of Benedict Fox has got you covered. The game uses the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft as a base to present some twisted locales to explore and freaky enemies occupying them.

• Detective work. In addition to being a tale of cosmic horror, The Last Case of Benedict Fox is also a mystery story. The game’s loading screen takes the form of a makeshift evidence board that grew as I progressed through the game, showcasing each new clue and Fox’s fumbling attempts to connect them. The game’s puzzles also often required plenty of actual brainpower and even (shudder) math. I was definitely pulled in by these elements, and even if the rest of the game turned me off, I’d love to see how the mystery ends.

WHAT SUCKS

• Combat. The protagonists of many Metroidvania games are fierce warriors or hardened bounty hunters, but Benedict Fox is, well, just a detective. His demonic ally gives him some additional powers, he’s not a fighter at all and it shows. Melee combat is clunky, and Fox’s blocking and dodging abilities never felt responsive enough to be useful. Fighting regular enemies was annoying but the couple boss encounters I struggled through were downright painful.

• Platforming. If combat is the biggest weakness of The Last Case of Benedict Fox, the other pillars of Metroidvanias—platforming and exploration—aren’t much better. Fox’s jump and eventual double-jump are floaty, and the distance they’ll cover is hard to judge. The game rarely requires extremely precise platforming, but the few times it does, I found myself very annoyed.

• Bad signposting. When I play a Metroidvania game, I’m always expecting to hit points where I’m a little lost and need to do some exploring to figure out where to go next. With The Last Case of Benedict Fox, however, I found myself running into confusing walls early and often, and the proper path forward was often some tiny, easy-to-miss door or passageway. From a quick glance at the game’s Steam forums, it seems I’m not alone; tons of players have posted asking for help figuring out what to do next, and many of them are asking about completely different sections of the game, not just the same one or two poorly thought out sections. In fact, it was after getting stuck on where to go for the third or fourth time that I quit playing to write this!

💬 Are you planning to take on The Last Case of Benedict Fox, or is this one mystery that’s going to stay unsolved? Let me know what you’re thinking in the comments!