Crime Secrets: Crimson Lily Review

Hidden object video games from Artifex Mundi have slowed down of late, and we gained’t deny that we miss them. There’s one thing within the assembly of pulpy storylines, easy-as-pie graphic adventuring and hidden object scenes that places us comfortable. Who knew that we may very well be given a psychological therapeutic massage by messy rooms and a buying record?

Artifex Mundi are inclined to have a lot of ongoing sequence at any time. You may think about them stroking their chin, wanting on the many storylines that they’ve, questioning the place to put their newest. Crime Secrets and techniques: Crimson Lily appears at first prefer it would possibly buck that development: there’s not been one other sport with the Crime Secrets and techniques prefix. However this has the identical protagonist and mechanics because the 9 Clues storyline. Deal with it as a rebrand. 

We gained’t lie, we have been a bit upset to seek out out it was one other 9 Clues sport. We’ve had comparatively few Artifex Mundi hidden object video games in 2022, and 9 Clues has been three of them. For the sake of selection, it might have been good to go elsewhere. And, if we’re being sincere – the 9 Clues sequence has, thus far, been a bland previous affair, with investigation mechanics that veer in the direction of duff. 9 Clues would possibly faux that you simply get to be a criminal offense scene investigator, however they make us really feel like we’re as intelligent as a bottle of luminol. 

Properly, the excellent news is that the CSI stuff has been given a slight glow-up. The unhealthy information is that Crime Secrets and techniques: Crimson Lily is as painfully generic as what got here earlier than. 

In Crime Secrets and techniques: Crimson Lily, you play a non-public investigator getting a spot of R&R at a winter retreat. But when Artifex Mundi have taught us something, it’s that anybody who’s off-duty can anticipate to be shortly caught up in all kinds of shenanigans. So, you’re pootling alongside on a rustic highway within the snow, when a police automobile hurtles previous. However there’s a mysterious determine within the highway sporting snow goggles, and each you and the police automobile swerve to park in a close-by ditch. We are able to reveal that, if the police automobile had run over the spooky dude, this may have been a a lot shorter sport. 

Because the unnamed personal investigator, you comply with the footprints of the policeman and the thriller man, solely to seek out that the poor policeman has been encased in ice. Your suspect both has some magical ice superpowers, or carries a weapon that may kill with a single icy contact. The homicide scene is within the grounds of a mansion which – slightly inexplicably – has its personal police station, journalist’s workplace and others, making it a form of campus. Logic isn’t Crime Secrets and techniques: Crimson Lily sturdy level. 

There are many suspicious professionals within the mansion, both fainting or twirling their moustaches, and it’s fairly clear that you simply’ve wandered right into a B-rate Agatha Christie novel. You could discover the killer, all of the whereas understanding that one of many 4 individuals you’ve met goes to be the individual behind the masks. However the personal investigator trusts all of them fully, placing herself in conditions the place she may very well be captured or killed with utter ease, and so she does (get captured, that’s). You’ll spot the killer effectively earlier than she does, and also you would possibly take into account a profession as a non-public investigator consequently. 

It makes for a reasonably painful story expertise. A homicide thriller is just enjoyable if the thriller is considerably troublesome to resolve, and should you respect the skills of the Miss Marple or Poirot fixing it. Crime Secrets and techniques: Crimson Lily additionally manages to confuse and convolute a reasonably easy plot. There’s extra backhistory and double-crossing than is required, and the plot began to sound like noise in our ears. 

Fortunately, the puzzling involves Crime Secrets and techniques: Crimson Lily’s rescue. It’s all exceptionally simple, even in hidden object phrases, and the achievements have been sandpapered all the way down to such a level that one can find it very onerous to not end with 1000G. However there’s a clean circulation by way of everything of the sport, from the hidden object scenes that are extra sparse and straightforward to learn than in different titles, and graphic journey stuff that not often offers you quite a lot of rooms to play in. Crime Secrets and techniques: Crimson Lily likes to empty your stock periodically so that you don’t get too confused. It’s probably the most simplified and fundamental of all hidden object video games, and that doesn’t must be a foul factor. 

However the crime-scene investigation continues to be there, hanging over from 9 Clues. It begins in the identical approach: you enter a room that’s clearly been the scene of a nefarious occasion. Your first job is to spotlight the entire proof of a scuffle. Even with out the assistance that the sport offers you, this may be mind-numbingly simple: you’re clicking on overturned chairs, torn curtains, spilled recordsdata and anything that appears messy. However Crime Secrets and techniques: Crimson Lily involves your help, like a sidekick arriving after a struggle has occurred, hinting the place every ingredient is. It’s all slightly snore-inducing. 

What occurs subsequent has been improved, and it will get a thumbs up from over right here. The sequence of proof is introduced in a row, and it’s all the way down to you to place them in chronological order. Within the different 9 Clues video games, this may have been benign and repeated, as a result of each bit of proof has the identical ribbon-like background, and also you simply needed to line up the identical sample of ribbons. I’ve watched sufficient Cracker to know that crime-solving isn’t about tying up ribbons. In Crime Secrets and techniques: Crimson Lily there are nonetheless ribbons, however the sample of the ribbons modifications with every scene, so that you’re not counting on piecing collectively the identical jigsaw puzzle each time, which is sweet.

All the pieces else matches the hidden object components, with one exception. There’s no necromancer kidnapping a damsel to finish a sacred ritual. Not less than Crime Secrets and techniques: Crimson Lily ignores that one surprisingly frequent trope from different hidden object video games. However the identical minigames flip up that you simply’ve performed umpteen occasions earlier than, from the puzzles which can be a bundle of knots that must be untied, to the map of nodes, the place it’s important to join each node with out re-crossing a path as soon as. It’s like an Artifex Mundi Biggest Hits playlist. 

Having performed just about each hidden object sport, we’ve constructed up an imagined league desk of them. In that regard, Crime Secrets and techniques: Crimson Lily can be mid-table, sometimes threatening to drop right into a relegation battle. Whereas Crime Secrets and techniques: Crimson Lily will get factors for its absence of sticking factors, and its willpower to enhance the deduction sequences, it retains lacking out due to its creaky storytelling and pervasive blandness that felt like we have been being force-fed dry toast. 

If Crime Secrets and techniques: Crimson Lily is the beginning of a brand new Artifex Mundi franchise, we’d like to stay a tentative hand up and ask that we really feel extra like a detective subsequent time. 

You should buy Crime Secrets and techniques: Crimson Lily from the Xbox Retailer