The Darkside Detective Review | See you on the other side



darkside detective screenshot

Despite having fallen into disuse by the larger software houses, point and click adventures games continue to live on thanks to the efforts of independent developers through their own original works.

Works like the Darkside Detective.

Aesthetics

darkside detective train

What's wrong? It's just the 3am train...

The pixel art graphics used in the game are slightly minimal, with little detail for the characters, similar to other contemporary works created by other independent developers.

It's not bad to look at, there are also nice scenes during the supernatural encounters, but the lack of a strong style doesn't make it shine as it could.

The animations are rarely used, so much so especially when you transition from one area to another, the characters do not move, they are immediately placed in prefixed positions. The few animations present are used mostly for the secondary characters, just to give a minimum of vitality to the various scenes, so as not to make them seem completely static.

There is no trace of a dubbing or sound to simulate speech, all dialogue texts are read silently.

The soundtrack is cute, slow and calm, perfect for this type of video game, and the sounds are calibrated so as not to disturb everything.

In short, apart from a very respectable sound component, you won't admire the best views that pixel art graphics can give.

Game Mechanics

darkside detective minigame

Several mini-games will be played during the adventure

Darkside Detective is an old-school point and click adventure: find objects, solve puzzles and talk to people.

The game saves automatically, with the option to manually save at any time.

The difficulty of the game is ok, well balanced between continuation and stops for the puzzles, except for one part where I had to pixel-hunt for a not very emphasized object, ending up spending more time than necessary.

One thing I liked was the fact that the game removes an object when it has been used, unless it can be used in another puzzle of course.

I like it because often the solution for a puzzle is not always very clear and therefore I start using all the objects in the inventory with everything I can, taking as much time as many things I have in the inventory.

Eliminating the superfluous items, the game minimizes the possible combinations and the adventure continues faster, reducing boredom and frustration.

There are also several simple mini-games, short and having sense in context, that break up the experience from time to time.

By completing all available episodes, I finished the game in 6 hours.

Narrative

darkside detective screenshot

What if you're wrong?

Strange things happen in the city of Twin Lakes, seemingly inexplicable events and numerous sightings of indescribable creatures. To handle this, the police headquarters decided to open a division dedicated to the occult, assigning detective Francis McQueen and his colleague, Inspector Patrick Dooley. They will have to investigate a series of 6 cases (plus 3 optional), apparently disconnected, but in reality each revealing an extra piece of the puzzle, until they discover what is really going on.

The tone adopted is for the most part humorous, with some hints of detective thriller scattered here and there, but both of them marry well and I did not find them contradictory.

As already mentioned, in addition to the 6 main cases, there are 3 extra cases, each having its own mini-story limited to the single episode. They have the same quality as the base episodes, so if you've enjoyed the main cases, they're easily recommendable.

The relationship between the two protagonists is satisfying, they are the typical police couple, where McQueen is the mind and Dooley is the arm, both of them get funny lines, revealing part of their personality, with nods to their personal interests and basically who they are.

The secondary characters do not receive much characterization, probably due to the episodic structure of the game, but the developers have nevertheless committed themselves to at least give some lines that remain impressed. 

Despite dealing with different supernatural entities, an explanation is never given to the whole or a possible theory on their existence based on myths and legends, the supernatural exists, the protagonists have to deal with it and that's it.

I think if there had been some lines to explain it all it would have been more interesting, but given the humorous nature I understand why they didn't want to work too hard on this.

In conclusion, intriguing story, funny scenes and characters, but not the most refined world building.

Recommendation:

The Darkside Detective is a pleasant point and click adventure that is going to give you condensed hours of fun without any useless filler.
 
Available on Steam and Gog.

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