Agatha Christie - Death on the Nile by developer Microids and publisher Microids Studio Lyon—Nintendo Switch review written by Richard with a copy provided by the publisher.
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
Well folks, are you up for a
classic adventure with a bit of a modern twist? A murder mystery both famous
and foul? Then look no further than to Agatha Christie – Death on the Nile! A
sort of remastering of the classic tale.
Death on the Nile is a bit of an
interesting title to talk about nowadays, because those who will be playing
this game have either read or seen one of the media adaptations, like the 2022
movie, or they know nothing about it whatsoever. The original book released I
believe in the late 1930’s, so the source material has been around for a while.
I’ve also read the book, although that was twenty years ago so my memory is a
bit spotty. What I’m getting at here is that if you are familiar with the
works, don’t expect a solution that is too surprising, although there are some
modernized twists thrown in.
For those unfamiliar with the
works, Death on the Nile stars the famous detective Hercule Poirot, who during
a cruise along the Nile river is involved in a terrible crime, and must
endeavor to find a solution. As for the modern twist, a private detective
named Jane Royce is trying to track down a killer, and perhaps more. As you
progress through the game you will be visiting and revisiting a few locales as
you proceed through the investigation, most of which is set in Egypt. There
will be puzzles to solve, witnesses to question, and even some collectibles to
find.
Death on the Nile is mostly a
puzzle solving detective story. Usually you will be investigating a crime
scene, putting together clues and linking them together, recreating crime
events, or solving puzzles. I must confess I was a huge fan of the old-school
detective games back in the day, and Death on the Nile is quite similar in
intent. There have been a few…minigames and additions that are available now
that we run on systems that can handle more than point and click, which I found
rather detracted from the experience. Since we have the option for 3D gameplay,
gone is the old way of point and click, and instead you must wander around and
personally find people and points of interest to talk to or investigate.
During your investigation you
will discover clues and record them to your “mind map”, where you can draw
connections, start mini-puzzles to solve answerable questions, or to recreate
events to get a better handle on the case. If you’re looking for your next
goal, there are also little bubbles here that you can reveal if you don’t have
them revealed by default. This will give you an idea of what to investigate or
who to talk to.
During your investigation you
will come across the occasional fancifully locked luggage, requiring you to
solve puzzles and locks so convoluted that they would only appear in detective
based games. Well, that’s what you should be here for at least. There will also
be confronting witnesses on testimonies that do not match with events, and you
need to present discovered evidence to prove your point. Other times you will
be drawing logical conclusions between different clues in your “mind map”.
Stumped on a puzzle or need a
little break from mystery solving? Well then, you can search for the
collectibles in the area: Golden Moustaches and Golden Records, which will
unlock museum entries. Alternatively, there is a character profile page that
populates with primary and secondary characters. While secondary characters
have all their information filled in, it’s up to you to fill in the primary
character information. Don’t worry if you can’t, it is optional, but I found it
a fun little distraction while playing through the game.
In terms of puzzle difficulty
and reasonable solutions, I’m glad to say that the only real rough go I had was
during the epilogue with some of the new content, where the game requires some
connections that I didn’t make because I thought they were either too obvious
or redundant. On the plus side, if you do need help there are hints available,
or completely solving some parts if you’re extra stuck, so you don’t need to go
looking up a guide every three minutes if you’re struggling a little.
The graphics in this new Agatha
Christie title are decent enough but not exactly high quality. Honestly, if
it’s what improves performance I don’t mind at all though. There were a few
hiccups in that regard here and there. I believe it was a late game chapter
where I crashed four or five times, and there were some moments where there
were some very noticeable load times either while talking to someone or while
entering a room, but overall the experience was fairly smooth. Camera angles
and interacting with points of interest can get a little annoying however, as
the camera will zoom in and out depending on where you are and what you’re
looking at. It can be difficult to target the right point of interest some
times. The soundtrack on the other hand is pretty solid, having some 70s disco
jams, jazz, and a number of other cool beats. Interspersed are the soundtrack
from the Poirot show remixed to a modern take. It was a really nice mix of
tunes.
Honestly, delivering a final
verdict on Death on the Nile is a little difficult because your enjoyment is
going to be skewed around how you feel about the original work. I can
definitely see some people getting upset over “altering” the original work to add
in Jane and her overarching plotline, but I felt it added a nice touch of fresh
novelty to a title that has been rereleased numerous times. On the other hand,
those who have never experienced the original work will probably get great
enjoyment out of the twists and turns they probably will not see coming. While
I did really enjoy most of the game, some of the Jane segments where you need
to follow someone I found to be rather annoying. Using her as an excuse for
lockpicking was an interesting choice I felt added some colour to her chapters
though.
Overall, I believe that this
version of Agatha Christie – Death on the Nile is a great rendition of the
classic tale. The puzzles and characters are interesting, the solutions are
reasonable and don’t appear from unknown knowledge you haven’t found, and even
the optional collectibles and character profiles give a nice change of pace. The Switch version does have the light performance issue here and there, but with frequent autosaving it isn't too big an issue. While your enjoyment may sway heavily depending on knowledge of the original
work, I believe that this game installment does the great detective justice.
Score: 8 / 10
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