The Last Case of Benedict Fox Review

I am a big fan of Lovecraft and metroidvania games, so upon seeing the trailer for The Last Case of Benedict Fox, I had high hopes that the title could be a great combination of the two. 

As soon as you start, the game asks you to set the difficulty level between playing on the default setting or customising where the challenge lies; if you do change any of the settings: it won’t impact the achievements you can unlock in-game. If you select the option to customise, you get to choose the style of combat you prefer between: 

• Relaxing — the enemies that you encounter will die from a single hit, unless they have plot armour and are integral to the story, they will still hit you doing the regular amount of damage.

• Default — enemies will deal the same amount of damage and have their regular amount of health.

• Challenging — All the enemies you encounter hit harder and will take more hits to defeat. 

The Last Case also lets you select the things that you can view on your map to make it easier or harder to get around. I opted for the I hate feeling lost option as it allows you to see detailed markers on the map, and the spot you are currently located is marked as well, not having any idea where I’m currently located, does not sound fun to me! There are even options to select the difficulty of the puzzles that you will encounter; if you hate puzzles, you can set it so that they automatically solve if all the requirements are met. Or, if you are a big fan, you can solve them on your own with no hints. Fortunately, these settings can be changed at any point in the game, so you don’t have to worry too much about what you have selected, you can start the game and see how it feels for you first. 

The year is 1925, and you are playing as Benedict Fox, a self-proclaimed detective. You are thrown into a rooftop chase sequence that acts as a tutorial to teach you how to use your knife and gun, parry, jump, and double jump. After this sequence, you will lose the ability to use the double jump, but fortunately, it will be for a short period of time. After you are off the rooftops, you head over to your father’s place. It seems like Benedict and his father did not have a close relationship because he doesn’t seem to know much about him at all. When you enter the mansion, you can walk around to explore the rooms, coming across puzzles that you will need to solve to get access to drawers and unlock doors in your way. There are a lot of period set pieces, like an old radio where you have to turn the knobs to get a clear signal, a gramophone with records by the band who shares a name with the game developers — Plot Twist — and an ornate baby carriage. When Benedict heads down to the cellar, he sees a trail of blood leading into a dark tunnel. There we are introduced to  Benedict’s “Companion”, the demon who always accompanies him and in true Lovecraft fashion has tentacles. You also come across your father — or rather his corpse. The dark force talks to you saying that he can help you retrieve your father’s memories. Shadows burst out of the corpse and pull you into “Limbo.”

Limbo is the huge world that you will explore that is full of puzzles, collectable items from your father’s memories, and various creepy enemies that try to destroy you. As you progress, you will also have access to the Limbo world of your father’s new wife. Benedict can teleport between the mansion and this dark world by using the various portal points that you will discover. This also allows you to fast travel between locations, and makes it easy to visit your father’s old friend — Harry — who you can buy items from to help you on your journey. The first thing he will give you is the Amplificator; this device lets you access your Companion’s Abilities — like double-jump which is beneficial for exploring Limbo. As you explore the various areas, they will be displayed on your map, with markers showing locked doors, and Anchors — spots where you can teleport. I would have liked to be able to set my own markers to denote where specific doors and puzzles were located, so when I was trying to find that spot again I wouldn’t have to visit every single area on the map. If you find it difficult to solve a puzzle, you can let the game auto-solve it for you. Though I never found this to be very effective, as every time that I tried, the game said that I didn’t have the items required to solve it. So I was constantly trying to get to areas that had not been explored yet, searching for these mystery items that I needed. Also, having the game tell me what was required to open that door or lock would be great so I would know to not waste my time trying to get back to the location until I found that one specific item.

For the controls, I know a lot of players were frustrated that there is no option to remap them, and they found the double jump to be clunky and unresponsive at times; I experienced a bit of lag, but I was lucky and I didn’t have too much trouble with the jumping, it was more annoying that in certain areas the game does not let you perform a double jump. As you progress and rescue a character lost in Limbo, you will have the option to get tattoos from her that will give your “Companion” new abilities to use like a dive attack or a second tentacle. This will let you access new areas you weren’t able to get to before and retrieve more memories that give you a glimpse of moments in your dad’s life. Most of these scenes seem to be showing times when he was fighting with his wife. After viewing all these memories, I don’t feel like I know a whole lot more about him, or Benedict for that matter, having more backstory would be nice, like how he got his dark powers.

The visuals in The Last Case of Benedict Fox look really nice and have a hand-painted look to them at times. I especially enjoyed the scenes where you would see more of the strange and dark elements that feel like they are from a Lovecraft novel. The music you hear from the radio and record player was primarily 20th century jazz, which fits well with the time period that the game is set in. The soundtrack that plays while you explore the Limbo worlds was alright, not super memorable but not irritating at the same time. 

The Last Case of Benedict Fox is definitely an interesting game that is a fun mix of a lot of things I like, but overall it felt very meh. Having to constantly backtrack hoping that I found that one item that would help me figure out how to solve a puzzle to unlock a door was frustrating. I also had a game-breaking bug where I was entering the wife’s Limbo world and slid into a purple piranha plant enemy and got trapped with no way to get out; I had to force quit the game, fortunately, I had saved right before this had happened. So, just in case, save your game frequently! This is hidden in the settings menu on the map screen if you’re wondering. If you aren’t a fan of puzzles, this may not be a title for you. Even if you try to use the auto-solve feature, you are going to have to search the map for all the items you need to solve the puzzle.