The Raven Remastered – Raving mad Ravens

The Raven Remastered is a remaster of The Raven – Legacy of a Master Thief. A game I have never played, meaning that this article will not reference that title at all, and will be a stand-alone review. The Raven Remastered is a point & click adventure game that takes heavy inspirations from the detective stories by Agatha Christie. If you ever read anything by her, or watched any movies based on her works, you will come to recognize plenty of stuff. However, this is of no problem, and actually enhances the superb atmosphere. I was ready to rate this game a five out of five in entertainment value, despite a few issues, but then the ending comes along…

The Raven is back
You play as constable Anton Jakob Zellner from Switzerland, and you have been assigned to assist the famous inspector Nicolas Legrand, even if he doesn’t exactly want your help. The plan is to lure out the infamous thief: The Raven. A few days before he stole one of the exquisite and very valuable Sphinx diamond eyes from the British museum, and knowing the thief’s memo, it is assumed he will come for the second eye as well. The method of capturing the thief is to lure him into a freight car guarded by two officers, with Legrand being one of them. Seeing as the train will be in motion, the burglar will have no way to go, even if he manages to make an escape. A simple plan. However, it comes with additional particularities. Legrand’s fame comes from capturing and killing The Raven years ago – so, who is this thief? Is the Raven back from the dead somehow, or is it some kind of copycat? A mystery for Zellner to uncover.

The setup is simple, but oh so intriguing. If you make an effort to talk to all the different characters, and read the diary, and newspaper articles to get caught up in the plot. It’s surprisingly well-written, with a top-notch atmosphere of a 1960s detective crime thriller. It’s also thankfully free from all modern sensibilities when it comes to the script. This makes the story have a timeless feel, with the setting coming off as very authentic. Constable Zellner that you play as is a superb character. His pleasant nature, and inquisitive mind plays into the detective work perfectly. I would even go so far to say that all characters are great. None of them feels out of place to drag down the immersion, and most of them, even if it doesn’t seem so from the beginning, carry around secrets for you to discover. Not necessarily secrets that play into the case, just additional depth that add to the believability of the character and a curiosity into their lives. There is also a fantastic subplot involving inspector Legrand, and how the fame of capturing the Raven affected him.

Trouble in paradise
The first issues come from that the game switches protagonist half-way through. At first, I really disliked this change, as I wanted to finish it with the awesome constable Zellner, and I didn’t like the new character that much. Another problem was at this point the game restarts, forcing you to experience the whole story again, but this time from a different perspective. However, my feelings of dissatisfaction eventually subsided. Getting to see the story from another point of view turned out to be interesting, and added a lot to the overall narration – from the characters to the main plot. Before I talk about the next issue, I want to give a spoiler warning. I will not talk about the ending directly, but what I do say might affect it. Be warned. Skip to the next segment if you don’t want to get spoiled.

What disappointed me deeply, and ruined The Raven Remastered in retrospect, was the so-called twist that came in the final two minutes of the story. It comes randomly out of left-field, and I assume this twist exists only so the devs/publisher can say they have one. Or they didn’t have an ending in place, or just ran out of money, and took the easy way out. Regardless of the reason, the twist does not work. It creates multiple narrative headaches, that I don’t see any way around to make logical sense. One example is that at one point you interrogate your partner in crime in total privacy. Now, that scene makes sense when you don’t know about the twist, but when you do, the questioning does not add up at all. Why in the hell would you do that, when you already are in cohorts with him? Nobody is watching, and nobody is listening, so why keep up the charade? The content of the story changes completely, making the whole experience feel fake, almost as bad as “It was just a dream”. I was ready to give it the highest rating possible, since I enjoyed it so much, but after this plot-oriented betrayal, I can’t. It’s that bad.

Pointing & clicking
Being a point & click adventure game, the gameplay will not be at the forefront. However, it has one difference that works very well to its favor, considering it’s a thing I complain about often. The Raven Remastered has a typical highlight key to show places of interest. What makes this title stand-out, and makes the gameplay a little more involved than the usual point & click adventure. It is that the game punishes you for highlighting in the form of points. Now, if you don’t care about scoring, which I don’t in most genres, this will not matter to you. Yet, in this genre it works well, and it made me want to finish it with the highest score possible. Having to refrain from highlighting points of interest works wonders. Especially so in a detective game, as in it truly brings out your inner focus to find all kinds of clues. I love this addition, and while it was a classic staple of games in the past, it has been phased out for the most part. I’m glad it made a return here. It’s also a question about ego. Spend twenty minutes looking for clues, or waste a hundred points for a quick resolution? I will go for twenty minutes every time, thanks to my large point & click ego.

Beyond this, it’s fairly standard business. It’s not too hard, and it does not have many obscure puzzles that will leave you scratching your head for days. The pacing is good, and the controls together with the atmosphere creates a very cozy adventure feeling. It’s a perfect game for a cold autumn evening, despite my main problem with it in the spoiler section. When it comes to gameplay, inventory, combining and clicking, it’s all swell. I must add. The game will not rely on you making the connection to finally get the suspect. It will ask you who it is at one point, but it does not affect much beyond testing if you figured it out. It’s not that kind of detective game, so a warning, if you were expecting that.

Train of coziness
When it comes to the visuals, The Raven Remastered looks absolutely splendid. It has a slight cartoonish look, but instead of taking away from the experience, it adds to the charm. The environments and faces still lean towards the realistic, but with a dreamy quality to it. It works well, and what is also outstanding, is the voice acting for all the characters involved. The stand-out being Zellner himself. He makes a great little constable from Switzerland, reminded me in part of Poirot. The music is also good, and most pieces work for the different backdrops, but at times, the tunes seem to play at random, and they will also repeat a lot. Nothing that drags the game down, though. I should also mention that on the visual front, it comes with a few visual oddities and glitches, like having a random floating item here and there. Again, not something that ruins the overall feel of the pleasant graphics, but it is noticeable.

Conclusion
It saddens me to say this, but The Raven Remastered would have gotten top marks from me, if it wasn’t for the ending and the issue I talk about in the spoiler section. There is a chance it won’t bother you. To me, however, it ruined everything that came before. It was extremely close to adventure gaming greatness, then to face-plant in the most brutal way possible just at the goal line. It has been a long time since I watched anything like this before. Usually, these problems come from the world of movies, as every film nowadays tries to have some kind of twist, regardless of what the outcome for the story will be. It’s a cheap trope, and I hope to God that one day writers will just leave this way of ending a tale behind. For most writers, it’s just too hard to make it work, in a narratively satisfactory way. Oh well, unto the next time!

Thanks for reading.

/Thomas