Noir Syndrome Review (PC)

Noir Syndrome is an extremely retro-themed procedurally generated murder mystery game that attempts to convey a highly stylized film noir atmosphere by the most minimalistic and rudimentary means.

Its visuals are on the level of Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, which is to say the first one in the long-standing series, or barely even that, and its sole author made no attempt to sneak modern mechanics into the gameplay, aside from a couple of persistent roguelike elements and variation.

The game challenges you to solve a mystery scenario, with a different murdered every time, by visiting a series of key locations and collecting clues that will gradually allow you to pinpoint a culprit, and then move in order to arrest your suspect.

The clues are gathered in your notebook, along with the identities of the people you interrogate, and cross-referencing the two lists is the key to unraveling the mystery.

Each case has a limited number of days in which to be solved, and each area visited will decrease the counter, adding a sense of urgency to the gameplay and making every decision count.

In addition to this, you also have to pay attention to your hunger meter, as each action takes a certain amount of food to complete, and you have to be careful to visit an appropriate merchant and eat a sandwich or some caviar from time to time.

During your forays scavenging for clues, you will also stumble upon money, lockpicks and various merchants, and you will also be able to gamble and even steal money from the mob.

Combat is generally avoided, but you can also make use of a gun when the situation calls for it – or not – and be careful when other characters draw on you, as a single bullet is lethal.

A particularly nice touch is the fact that the game offers its content in a sort of open-world fashion, where you are free to pursuit any interest you might have, from fighting the police to fighting the mob, becoming a bounty hunter, or just going around the city doing miscellaneous stuff, with the only caveat of not solving the case and getting a lower score.

As you play and explore, you will also acquire costume pieces, which (in sufficiently large quantities) will enable you to change the appearance of the protagonist, from the standard-issue brown detective clothes and hat to more outlandish costumes.

In addition to this, the game also provides you with handy statistics regarding your performance and the information regarding a wide array of topics will persist from game to game.

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Noir Syndrome also has some optional challenges that you can tackle, unrelated to the main goal of solving the murder case, that are generated each game and provide you with a permanent bonus for all subsequent playthroughs, once completed.

The gist of the game is moving your iconic trenchcoat-wearing detective from screen to screen, collecting the randomly placed clues, hoping to find the suspect in time, balancing gathering evidence with meeting enough people to put together the suspect list.

The loose open-world aspect can lead to either the police or the gangsters gunning for you depending on your actions, and you will have to also balance random exploration in search of money and lockpicks in order to be able to complete your main mission.

The game is overall very narrow in scope and way too short for you to truly explore all the locations on the city map, and messing around instead of doing your job rarely ends up being even remotely rewarding.

The procedurally generated aspect is not all that great, because there is little room for variance from playthrough to playthrough, as you will still end up doing pretty much the same thing over and over, checking names off a list until you narrow down the appropriate culprit, similar to how Cluedo functions.

Eventually, the game gets at a point where subsequent playthroughs become monotonous and a bit dull, because there are only so many switches to flip in order to imbue the experience with variety.

There are three difficulty levels that you can explore, along with Dinner Party mode, that consists of a variant of the normal game on steroids, where you have much less time to figure out whether or not the butler did it.

The Good

The Bad

Conclusion