We gamers have been blessed over the last 30-odd years to have such a great selection of games from the Metroidvania genre, a selection that continues to grow stronger day by day. With the likes of Metroid Prime, Castlevania SOTN, Hollow Knight, Shadow Complex and more, we are truly spoilt for choice. And it has become a go-to genre for inspiring indie developers looking to step up their game and prove their worth. But make no mistake, the Metroidvania genre is a tough nut to crack and can be easily mucked up with a few simple errors.
So, where does the subject of today’s review land on the scale? Read on and find out what makes The Last Case of Benedict Fox shine brightly, and what makes it lose its footing in the endless abyss.
What is The Last Case of Benedict Fox?
The Last Case of Benedict Fox is a strange tale of endless horrors, mysterious other worlds, murder, conspiracy, and riddles … lots of riddles! Players take on the role of famed paranormal investigator Benedict Fox, as he solved a rather nasty case of murder-suicide, which is rather personal to him. Discovering the fate of his father and stepmother, Benedict decides to use his gift of the dark arts, and the aid of his shadowy companion to enter the Limbo of decaying memories, where he hopes to find answers on what happened to his father and stepmother, but also to unravel a greater mystery at hand.
Benedict sets up his base of operations at his old home, where his father and stepmother’s bodies were discovered, and with the help of fellow paranormal adventurers, he will reveal the heart of the mystery but also ward off the shadowy organisation he works for, looking for his blood. The Last Case of Benedict Fox is a mix of cosmic horror, a deep and complex mystery that unravels through many, many threads, and a story of personal loss, grief and overcoming the darkest of times.
A story of the heartless and heartfelt
The Last Case of Benedict Fox has a great setup, and a whole heap of cosmic, Lovecraftian horror and mystery to entice any fan of the dark arts, or simply loves a good Agatha Christie novel. The game wastes no time getting to the punch, and from there, unravels a slow-burning tale that keeps adding more fascinating twists and turns with each passing hour. Benedict and the cast of weird, and wonderful fellows all add something to the world or plot, whether it’s the darkly charming tattoo artist who infuses cosmic ink into Benedict’s arms to grant his new powers. His friendly everyday shopkeeper friend offers advice and neat gear for when Benedict ventures to limbo. Or the gruff and rough weaponsmith who wants to be left alone and has no dealing with the organisation. But still helps Benedict nonetheless.
There are neat little drippings that keep you guessing, with lots of documents to read up upon, visions of fragmented memories that paint a grim picture of Benedict’s father and stepmother, along with all the window dressing in Limbo, which put together, reveals a grand story arch filled with depression, break hearts and endless misery. It’s very heavy stuff, but all so beautifully Lovecraftian, and yet feeling quite like its own thing.
I will say that the biggest issue with the plot, and the game, in general, is the lack of focus, and the senselessness of where the story is going at times.
The mystery is indeed very fragmented, and you have to piece it together, which is a great concept for a game like this and has worked before with something like Hollow Knight. But a game like Hollow Knight, always made it clear which events should come first, and make them feel significant upon discovery. The Last Case of Benedict Fox has some good story beats and events, but all feel quite random, and disjointed, until the very end. And while it’s a cool end of the mystery, I feel it would have been much more enjoyable, if certain events were structured, and thus fleshed out.
As everything is fragmented so heavily, the freedom to discover most key points of the mystery in any order results in what feels like the developers/writers having to really water down some of the biggest plot points, and even break them up further to avoid confusion. But instead, there is just the same amount of confusion and at times nothing feels substantial until maybe the end or not even at all. The mystery in general is good, but not great, as it should have had more structure, and focus in my opinion. Some people will enjoy this more than others, and I give credit that it’s a bold move to give so much freedom to discover any of the threads of the mystery at any time. But there needs to be more structure, as information and the emotional impact of a major discovery can be lost or feel diluted.
In any case (ha, mystery pun) Benedict Fox is a likeable chap who wants nothing more than to solve the unnerving riddle of his parent’s demise. The mystery around their death is intriguing and the many layers you’ll be peeling back will certainly keep you invested until the bitter end. And while a lot of the important stuff can feel out of place, watered down or totally relevant for the most part, the end comes together in a neat fashion.
A Darkly Twisted Metroidvania for the ages … for good and bad
Most of Benedict’s time will be spent in the lands underneath the known world, otherwise known as Limbo, a completely twisted, labyrinth of nightmares, broken memories, and all manner of horrors. At the top of the map, is the very real world, and the family home of Benedict Fox, which has all manner of secrets, interesting characters, and dynamic events which gives Benedict not only a base of operation but also a literal hub for the mystery, which expands the more you discover in Limbo. It’s a sweet setup, as players will go back and forth for upgrading their gear, and more importantly, open new areas of the mansion when they find key items or complete an event in Limbo.
The comparison of both places is like chalk and cheese, as Limbo is massive and very complex. But the mansion is a small fraction compared to Limbo and I have to say that was disappointing to realise the small scale of the home. It gets to a point when you stop unlocking new areas in the mansion for quite a while, and you keep wondering about Limbo for what few like an age.
Limbo’s design as a map is “interesting” as it’s a behemoth of a maze, with so many twists, unwinding corridors, massive chambers that interlock with one another and plenty of loops which sometimes feel useful, and others, a little redundant. Most Metroidvania games will break up their maps into distinct sections, making navigation flow better and allowing artists to make the world feels diverse.
The Last Case of Benedict Fox does something different, where there are distinct areas, but everything flows together seamlessly. It’s fascinating, making Limbo feels quite endless and more natural in a weird sense, as appose to having segregated hubs. There are some cool biomes, weirdly surreal hubs and other horrific memory fragments integrated into Limbo, that add an immense amount of character and charm.
While the visual presentation and aesthetics really do hit the cosmic horror mark, I did find that layout to be somewhat problematic to the pacing and a little long-winded overall. There are a good few combats arena, small maze-like areas and dynamic events, and plenty of secrets to discover. But there are also plenty of dead ends, empty areas, looping level design which really doesn’t add much to the strategy or exploration and above all, secrets feel for the most part a little shallow. There are a ton of items to find, which add some lore and context. Many of the items are cool finds and lovingly rendered with neat backstories. But having so many of them felt unnecessary and confusing when trying to find actual key items. Plus, they’re usually in the open, and properly concealed secrets are few and far between.
Something like Shadow Complex or Hollow Knight would make exploration, and secret hunting so much find with character progression or by leaving you to your devices and just wonder. There are blockades, and hidden rooms in Limbo, but not enough for the size of the world. Most of the time backtracking, wondering, and looking for key items can feel immensely tedious and due to the clunky navigation, Janky controls of Benedict and a lack of interesting factors towards hiding secrets makes a good chunk of exploration feel humdrum. There is also a total lack of bosses, which is a crime against the Metroidvania genre as a game designer. (From the first boss, I didn’t get to the next one until after 4 hours!).
It is cool to discover a new area in Limbo, see the design, and find some cool tat, but once you have ventured through an area once or twice, it doesn’t implore you to come back or keep you intrigued. Again, Hollow Knight had many layers backtracking always revealed something new, and each discovery whether small or big felt important. Like finding the Colosseum of the Lost by discovering a crack in a city’s outer wall or fighting the Dung defender randomly in the sewers. It’s all very cool, and The Last Case of Benedict Fox’s Limbo needed more interesting secrets, a tighter design at times, and more bosses.
Fighting all manner of horrors from the dark
But what will Benedict be doing in Limbo other than exploring and admiring all the beautifully horrifying views? Gameplay-wise, The Last Case of Benedict Fox mixes up the Metroidvania elements with brutal combat, puzzle solving and investigation. Leading to a great mix of gameplay elements and features in concept, and while some ideas are neatly executed, there are a few things which hold back Benedict’s grand adventure.
Limbo is riddled with riddles, locked doors and plenty of combination locks and dials that you’ll need to put on your thinking cap quite a bit throughout the game. There are plenty of problems to solve and lateral elements to engage with, requiring an immense amount of guesswork and figuring out at times. For a chunk of the problems, you’ll have to use a nifty codex device and a book filled with inscriptions, and glyphs to figure out some of the more complicated riddles. Whether it be figuring out a sequence of letters or deciphering a collection of symbols into a numerical code, or even using a set of keys to solving a mathematical problem, there are some cool ideas here for the lateral side of gameplay.
While many instances early on can be quite infuriating, the sense of reward for completing them is immense. But I think the worse moments were linked to a changing logic to one series of puzzles throughout the campaign (although much of the logic I did figure out with some ease), or the moments which give you nothing to work with at all. Some puzzles require key items and it’s never clear what they are in some instances. The fore mentioned series of puzzles I spoke of did make it clear that certain parameters had to be met, by upgrading my Codex device to include more symbols. But others were just utterly blank with information and there could’ve been 100 solutions to just one riddle.
I enjoy a problem as a keen problem solver, but good puzzles usually set out rules clearly or provide hints/guidance on what is needed to complete them. I do understand that some recent Resident Evil games have been dumbed down, but there are some great puzzles in that series, which have a simple setup, but do take brain power to complete. The Last Case of Benedict Fox does implement some great ideas for puzzles but often makes them convoluted, or too vague to enjoyably solve.
But the massive part of the problem for most puzzles is down to the UI, which can be awful at times, with blurry textures and oversaturated lighting. Yes, The Last Case of Benedict Fox has that problem seen in many Unity games where the lighting can be massively problematic towards viewing even simple text. In a game where you must keep looking at a book to read and compare symbols, then turn symbols on a small codex device, and mix in potential 100 solutions to the problem, you get a massive headache. The UI is bad at times, and this is not only for the puzzles but the world in general. More on that later.
Aside from puzzles, Benedict can discover key items and items of lore, he’ll gain experience which can be used to purchase upgrades for his weapons and gear. Defeating enemies will grant Benedict “Ink” which he can use to acquire powerful spells and attacks, for combat and exploration. Benedict will rely mainly on his trusty dagger, a pistol which fires shots generated by attacking enemies, and use his dark companion to unleash devastating blows and slashes, much like Jackie does in The Darkness games.
It’s all fine, and I like the idea of the tattoo art being a dynamic part of character progression. But there is a notable lack of interesting gear, as you’re limited to a smoke grenade, health flask and a small stone tablet which is not explained very well what it does. And yeah, this brings me to another main issue, and that was the lack of clarity with much of the game world and the items in it. There is a ton of items to find, with many of them being window dressing and a lack of clarity on why they’re here in the first place. Key items can also be confusing on what needs to be done with most of the time, with an investigation mechanic being vastly underutilised (basically it’s a zoom feature to reveal small details on a couple of key items). But the biggest problem lies with the list of main objectives which pops up and the lack of focus on a singular path, or even focusing on a main objective overall.
Again … Hollow Knight made it clear what you had to do but still had plenty of mystery. You played through until you got to the city, and then it was revealed you had to find and destroy three guardians to open a massive egg in the centre of the map. There are still plenty of unknowns, but you know what you’re doing.
In the Last case of Benedict Fox I had no idea what the main objective for a good chunk of the game was, as the list of main objectives was like 8 things, and they all seemed very unimportant overall.
This lack of direction I could forgive if the combat and controls were better. The Janky controls and flawed combat really does make exploration, backtracking or just looking around for key items a chore at times. The enemy designs can be cool, and the few bosses are grand indeed. But fighting feels so humdrum, with the same basic attacks never evolving much, and so tedious due to again the UI. The view when fighting enemies can be blocked by foreground objects which is annoying, and reading enemy windups can be confusing, as the same enemy can do the same windup for multiple attacks, meaning you don’t know whether to block, jump or simply move away. Some enemies have insanely quick cool-downs and will batter you repeatedly before you get up, and the lack of gear for defence makes it worse.
There are some good arenas, and I feel The Last Case of Benedict Fox should have focused on more compelling one-to-one fights or implemented a system where you learn more about your enemies or must deal with more ghostly threats. Instead of a group of overly powerful enemies, where the arenas are blocked by foreground decor and quickly cool down means you’ll keep getting knocked down until your small health bar is depleted.
I did enjoy the few bosses in the game, as they were epic and required more thought, reflexes and cunning to overcome, and things like the pistol and shadowy arm to grab enemies (when it connected) were good additions. But the clunky controls, and unbalanced aspects to most enemies really do hinder the experience. I won’t even go into too much detail about a chase sequence mid-game, which almost drove me mad, as the controls made it infuriating to complete.
Lastly, there’s a Souls-Borne mechanic where you can drop your ink supply when defeated, and you must get it back before an enemy absorbs it and becomes stronger. And this is done “because Souls-Borne is popular” and feels pointless, and as ink is tied to tattoos and some of these are massively important to progressing through certain areas, losing ink can hold back things … especially if the ink pickup glitches out and can’t be recovered …. Which happened to me … and also a save file glitch which could be linked to this ink incident, meant I had to replay around 90 minutes again and be somewhat lost again.
Overall?I was genuinely excited about The Last Case of Benedict Fox, and while it did indeed disappoint and feel flawed in many areas, I still had plenty of fun with it. The setting, story, and sense of mystery, while a little messy was still great fun to pick apart and put together. The world is vast, beautiful and disturbing, making it wholly engaging from start to finish, but lacked a healthy number of compelling secrets and could be too long-winded in the overall design. The combat and controls really hindered the sense of discovery, backtracking and engagement with the world and enemies, but the few combat encounters and bosses which worked did work well.
I feel there was a great amount of potential missed here, or just some much-needed refinements, as the lacking polish of controls and combat really does add up. But the sense of eerie wonder, dark arts and compelling story beats did hook me in and admired the best parts of the world, enjoy its puzzles for the most part and find some fun in collecting the useless tat.
I hope the developers do come back with another game soon and refine their experience to make a stronger, more polished experience with deeper gameplay mechanics, as they clearly have the talent, but might just need to spend more time on testing and tweaking their adventures.
++ Visually striking, thematically cool and dripping with Lovecraftian ooze.
+ Interesting mystery that keeps you invested.
+ Some cool puzzle and exploration elements at times
-- Lack of focus and the aimless main objective
- Easy to get lost in the overly complex world
- UI issues interfere with combat and deduction
An Xbox Series X/S review code of The Last Case of Benedict Fox was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
