Murdered: Soul Suspect Review (Xbox One)

good
key review info
  • Game: Murdered: Soul Suspect
  • Platform: Xbox One
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Murdered: Soul Suspect review on Xbox One

True detective games, not those where you go around while pointing and clicking at things, are few and far between in the industry nowadays, with the most recent example being L.A. Noire from Rockstar Games and Team Bondi.

Now, Airtight Games and Square Enix want to take things further with their latest project, Murdered: Soul Suspect, which delivers a detective story with a twist, as you have to solve your own murder as a ghost.

Besides the outlandish premise, Murdered promises some great detective work using the hero's real-life abilities combined with the new supernatural ones that allow him to possess living people, talk to fellow ghosts, and manifest various pieces of evidence.

Does Murdered: Soul Suspect manage to deliver a great experience or should we leave the mystery unsolved? Let's find out.

Story

Murdered: Soul Suspect kicks off with a pretty intense montage of the life of protagonist Ronan O'Connor, a former convict turned police detective who's gone through a huge amount of tough moments, culminating with the loss of his wife, Julia.

The actual action kicks off with yet another loss for Ronan, that of his life, as he's thrown out the window by the Bell Killer, a serial murderer that's been causing havoc in the town of Salem, Massachusetts, a location with an already violent history.

After experiencing a brief bit of walking towards the light, you get to talk to Julia and she explains, rather simply, that you have to stay as a ghost on earth until you solve your unfinished business, i.e. your murder.

What follows is a pretty decent story that manages to keep players sufficiently interested in finding the Bell Killer and continuing to explore the plot. Unfortunately, some of the characters aren't that well developed, including Ronan, who has a rich history but behaves in a bland way.

The road to the conclusion is filled with twists and turns and the result is reasonably satisfying, although quite a few of the side cases are certainly more interesting.

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Play as Ronan O'Connor ...
... a once happy man

Gameplay

Murdered: Soul Suspect isn't your regular third-person action adventure, as Ronan can't shoot a gun, drive around, or interact with most of the human characters he meets in the story.

Thanks to more exposition from a sufficiently creepy little girl, Ronan manages to understand the basic life of a ghost in Salem. You can wander around the town but you can't enjoy walking through buildings, as most of them have been consecrated to keep evil spirits out. If you manage to find an open door or window, however, you can go in and start to shift through walls.

You can possess other people, but most of the times you're only able to hear a glimpse of their thoughts. Only in very specific cases can you see through their eyes to spot clues or influence their actions depending on your goals.

You can have conversations with the surprisingly large number of ghosts that are still stuck in Salem and you can even help some of them uncover their unresolved business and help them ascend to Murdered's versions of paradise.

In terms of the actual detective gameplay, it more or less behaves like a regular point and click adventure. You have a small area of investigation and a prompt shows you the number of clues in that zone. You must slowly walk around and inspect all the possible clues and end the investigation whenever you feel you can answer the main question, like what was the killer doing there.

You can also pick up on the events that happened in that zone and emit a theory on why the people behaved in that way. Some of these challenges require a bit of logical thinking but others are painfully obvious, especially since the game actually shows the person in a suggestive freeze frame.

Finding and interacting with clues can be quite frustrating from time to time, as some objects only display the interact prompt in certain positions and camera angles, so you'll more often than not have to walk around an object before getting the necessary prompt.

In the conclusion of an investigation is where Murdered: Soul Suspect also stumbles, as there's no penalty for failure. You're presented with a main question and you need to select between one and three clues that answer it. Choosing incorrectly sends you back and asks you to select again, leading to a game of trial and error.

Once you finish an investigation you can influence the behavior of a certain person, most often a cop, and there is a sense of progression, albeit dampened by the trial and error sequence and sometimes the painfully obvious or confusing questions asked by the game.

The secondary cases are interesting in terms of story but also a bit confusing and prone to trial and error when it comes to investigating them. Also, some vital clues may also glitch out, meaning they won't appear in the game's world.

Exploration is relatively straightforward but, in order to steer the player through the small town of Salem, the developer chose to bring other ghostly objects that prevent him from going down certain alleys or paths, which feels a bit cheap.

One major aspect of Murdered: Soul Suspect is that the ghost world is inhabited not just by souls with unfinished business, but also terrifying demons that feed on the regular souls and are almost invincible. In order to take them down, Ronan must sneak behind them and engage in a small quick-time event in order to defeat them. If he's caught, he can teleport through ghostly remains and hide in them until the demon goes to look for him somewhere else.

These moments are pretty intense but are used a bit too often towards the end of the game, cheapening the impact of the story due to the constant cat and mouse game between Ronan and the demons.

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Explore Salem ...
... and solve investigations

Visuals and Sound

Murdered: Soul Suspect is a pretty good-looking game on the Xbox One, managing to deliver an intriguing view of the ghost realm as well as a colorful yet spooky version of Salem. The cut scenes are good, although some of the character models aren't that high-quality. A few slowdowns in terms of framerate were also spotted when starting investigations.

The soundtrack is also good, but not out of this world. It mostly revolves around traditional thriller and detective movie orchestral scores. The voice acting is decent enough, but no performance stands out all that much.

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Talk with allies ...
... but look out for monsters

The Good

  • Interesting town of Salem
  • Good mystery around the Bell Killer
  • Colorful yet spooky design

The Bad

  • Gameplay becomes repetitive
  • Lots of trial and error
  • Too simple or too confusing objectives
  • Ronan is a bland character in the game

Conclusion

Murdered: Soul Suspect could have been a really fun detective experience, but it's actually an average point and click mystery game with higher production values. The possession mechanic is underutilized, while the game uses the demons to create a fake sense of difficulty towards the end. The story is good, but the road towards its conclusion is filled with problems.
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story 8
gameplay 6
concept 7
graphics 8
audio 7
multiplayer 0
final rating 7
Editor's review
good