Game played on: PlayStation 4
Also available on: Xbox One, PC
I'm a fan of point-and-click adventure games. I have been ever since I was a child. I may know little to nothing about the exploits of famous fictional character Hercule Poirot, nor do I have any knowledge on author Agatha Christie, but I was aware of what to expect with this kind of game given my history of the genre.
I have played all of Telltale's Sam & Max games, several of Her Interactive's Nancy Drew games, and the beginning section of Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments. Modern point-and-click adventure games have similar feeling gameplay mechanics while all being their own beast, and for some reason, lately a lot of them are based on famous book detectives.
So how does Poirot stack up against Drew and Holmes? I do think this is the best way to analysis this game, as I'm positive the latter are the very reason The ABC Murders was adapted in this fashion in the first place.
I do have to say, the developers really are aware of what worked for those kind of games, but also tried to do their own thing with it. On occasion all this really means is combining two older mechanics together to breathe new life into both of them, and when done right there is nothing wrong with this.
Poirot, like any point-and-click protagonist, has to collect items and clues that the player finds around the levels. Just like Holmes and Drew's games, he also has to talk with the suspects and interpret what he learned from them. After gaining several clues, Poirot will use this "little grey cells" to come to some kind of conclusion.
You can't fail these, as per usual with modern point-and-clicks.
However, modern point-and-clicks also have a bit more variation. When Nancy Drew asks a question, she is allowed to ask almost all of the given possible choices, but certain ones will end the conversation or erase other options. Nancy doesn't learn anything she can write down in these cases, but the possible thing to learn can help the player come to the conclusion early.
This game borrows more from the Sherlock games. Poirot has the ability to glance at almost everyone he is going to talk to, and it ends up letting him know how they must be feeling or their basic personality. He can do the same for scenery as well.
The problem is that for Sherlock, this mechanic is very important as Sherlock can find a small bit of information that turns out to not be so trivial after all. For Poirot, nothing really comes of it other than the basic guesses. The few times it's slightly more important, you are forced to do it before you talk. I do like the mechanic, but after a while, I realized it was always the same no matter the circumstance. What became frustrating was that often the cursor did not help you figure out what you were supposed to look at. The controller vibrates to let you know you're getting closer, and you zoom in as well, but many times I would get these prompts but could not find the exact spot, and after I did, I would swear I already looked in said location. This happened enough that I do think it's a calibration problem with the game, and that's unfortunate.
The game is graphically beautiful. This is a Unity built game, and I'm glad it is, because Unity has been so badly used for years that any beautiful Unity game restores my faith in the system. The caveat here is that the graphic ends up becoming the best thing in the game, although bare in mind this does not mean the game is bad, it only means that graphics end up outshining virtually everything else the game has to offer.
The characterization is on-point, and the voice acting is fine, but you will hear the same voice way too many times for different characters.
There's also a massive glitch that will only effect completionists. Should you try and do every observation, but miss one or two, you will have to start the game over again from the beginning to get them. If you use the same save file, the game can no longer remember any observation you do. Even if you do every single one in one go, if it's on an old save file, it will not count. This goes for Steam achievements, PlayStation trophies, Xbox Achievements, and the in-game achievement system as well. It's a major gripe, but of course, only if you are the kind of person who tries for every trophy/achievement. Which would count myself, and yes, I did face this glitch.
Speaking of, there is a lack of chapter select. Some point-and-click games have them, and some do not. This is the kind of game that needed them, but didn't get them. The entirety of this game feels paced out like a Telltale game, where it's one game but you can divide it into sections. With Telltale, you can pick whichever episode you want to play (as long as they have all been released by that point), but not here. With the Nancy Drew games, they are short and self-contained enough that the need for a chapter select is moot, so it can get away with not having them. This game cannot, it is just long enough that the chapter select is needed for multiple playthroughs, and unlike Telltale or Sherlock games, there are no major choices that alter the game, so being forced to play the game from beginning to end every time seems odd.
Like any adaptation, this game did spark my interest in finally reading the original Hercule Poirot stories. Despite my complaints about this game, I found elements I'm sure I would like, and I am positive a lot of the charm comes from a development team that cherishes these books.
I am positive this game is planned to be the first of other Agatha Christie/Hercule Poirot game adaptations. If I am right, I hope the developers see the potential that they offered, but also play a lot more of the Nancy Drew, Sherlock Holmes, and even Telltale games, so they can get a firmer grip on what works in this genre and what doesn't.
This was a first attempt, and while enjoyable, it felt like it. I'm sure future installments will be great, but this was throughly average.
5/10