QCF: The Raven - Legacy of a Master Thief

f anyone has noticed over the last few years, it seems as if adventure games are coming back in a big way. With the success of companies like Telltale Games and Double Fine leading a rebirth of the point and click genre, many other games will undoubtedly try to capitalize. So my initial response to seeing The Raven - Legacy of a Master Thief was one of disinterest and disappointment. After playing through all three chapters of this title, I can say that there is disappointment still lingering however not in the way that I would have imagined.

Personally I have played a number of adventure games lately, as was discussed on our most recent episode of Press Pause Radio and I am beginning to see what I think makes an adventure game worthwhile. To me, the story makes the experience; even if sometimes the mechanics are not polished. I can normally forgive some clipping objects or less than ideal controls if I begin to become involved in the character's story and the relationships that go along with the narrative. However with The Raven, I could immediately tell that the gameplay was going to become an issue throughout the playthrough. It is apparent that the title began on PC, due to the fact that attempting to select contextual objects in the environment was always a struggle. The main character, Constable Anton Jakob Zellner of the Swiss police would stumble and stare at the ceiling as I fought to move the analog stick towards the direction of anything worth looking at.

It was frustrating to the point where I did not want to continue playing. I would reason with myself, saying that maybe it would be more enjoyable on keyboard and mouse. However as the story began to unfold, I started to see that this game could be worthwhile as a mystery was coming to light and an unlikely hero was found.

Constable Zellner is charged with protecting the valuable Eye of the Sphinx as it is being transported to a museum in Cairo. The eye was part of a set, however days earlier the other jewel was stolen by someone claiming to be the legendary Raven. The Raven was believed to have been shot and killed years previous by Inspector Legrand, but now after recent events everyone believes the master thief has come back from the dead. Everyone except Zellner, who is trying to convince Legrand that perhaps a new Raven has emerged and is attempting to pull everyone back into the chase. It was so enjoyable seeing the unlikely Zellner piecing together clues and attempting to thwart the potential theft of the second Eye of the Sphinx. New characters introduced brought a new suspect to the mystery, each backstory like a clue to solve. Reading through the Constable's notebook throughout the first chapter brought more background to each relationship. Combining objects to create makeshift tools was difficult at times and led to me scratching my head a few times. Perhaps I am not as good at adventure games as I originally was led to believe.

Besides the controls, which are frustrating most of the time the other main setback to this game is very noticeable. It just looks terrible, like a value bin Playstation 2 game. I hate to make this a deciding point in the review but it's just too noticeable to overlook. The "cutscenes" are something I would normally see for a class project on computer animation or on a late night commercial for game design schools. I will give the developer credit, as I am sure that their budget was no where near what we would expect a game to have nowadays but I just wish the visual experience could come even remotely close to the narrative that it attempts to act out. The budget also seems to be slim for voice acting, as most of the characters are monotone and unconvincing throughout their performances. Zellner I could almost get used to, but there were times where I would have opted to mute the screen and just read the subtitles. It was hard to play through because of these reasons, it just seemed like I may have been spoiled by the budget of other recent adventure games and the higher quality of audio design and gameplay. 

Out of the three chapters, the first is undoubtedly the longest. I originally did not know there were three chapters due to the length of the first; I believed that was the entire game. I won't go into much detail on the other chapters, due to the fact that it may spoil some of the mystery involved in the playthrough. The game attempts to construct different experiences through the second and third chapters, as the story goes from the Swiss mountains to the Mediterranean Sea and Cairo. Each completed chapter will bring rewards in the form of artwork and soundtrack selections from the game. Perhaps not the greatest incentive to play through however for trophy and achievement hunters it may be something to look forward to. I honestly just wanted to see the mystery unfold and attempt to be a detective like the main character in the books that Zellner loves so much. It all plays out in a grand fashion, like a murder mystery where no one is what they seem to be. I now wonder why the new wave of adventure games are not embracing this traditional mentality of storytelling and gameplay. It would be great if a company like Telltale could take this type of game on with the polish they are known for in titles like The Wolf Among Us and The Walking Dead. 

Overall I was forced to quote the old expression "Don't judge a book by it's cover" and really think back to how hard I initially was on the game at first glance. The story was enjoyable and it's twists and turns were hard to predict. I believe that this title is an outstanding adventure game, and is deserving to be played by adventure game fans. However it is not a good video game, the production value is poor and the gameplay fights the player more than it has any reason to. It is ultimately up to the player to know if the experience is worth the frustration. For me, I can come away from it glad that I played it, although it is clear that an older generation of adventure games and games of this style will be overshadowed and possibly forgotten. The Raven shows what adventure games have been for years, unfortunately it also shows that change is needed in order to progress that genre.