The Sexy Brutale

Fun little puzzly adventure game with a unique premise, and a GORGEOUS presentation. Holy crap does this game look and sound good, a true delight to the senses. But its far from perfect. The controls are problematic: mouse and keyboard controls are awkward, so I recommend a controller. They have this pre-baked turning animation, but the game seems confused about just exactly when to trigger it, creating awkward situations where you're trying to quickly get through a room but your guy is pinwheeling in circles. Also, the game has real issues figuring out whether you want to open a door or not; 99% of the time you have to mash the button in front of a door before it realizes you want to go through. Also, word of warning: when advancing text boxes, make sure all your presses are quick and concise, I missed a few text boxes in critical parts of the game because of a bouncy input response. The puzzles are decent, but lighter than I really would have liked, but the process of tailing the victims and perps to find exactly where to throw the wrench in the murder plans is fun, if a little on the simple side. The story is pretty strong except for right at the end, where it just turns into a clunky (and a little contrived) exposition dump, in contrast to the rest of the game where story nuggets are handed out much more gracefully and with subtlety. All in all, everyone should try this lovely little game.

I bought it because I like original settings and mechanics and this game sure provides that. However, as someone who also likes to peacefully roam across the isle of The Witness and solve tons of logical puzzles at my own pace, I didn't get much pleasure out of this game. What you basically do is run trough a mansion and watch what the NPCs are doing. After 5 or so minutes everything starts from the beginning. Your task is figuring out a plan to prevent a murder the next time the clock starts. So, unlike regular adventure games, you can't really try out stuff, because after five minutes, you lose your entire progress anyway or because you have to wait several minutes until a NPC does a specific action. Even though you can't really lose this game, there is just too much time pressure. The fact that sometimes only one or two (rather illogical) actions suffice to reach the goal helps, but ... the lack of content should normally not be an upside of a game. Also, the story and style is a little too weird for my taste. On the one hand you have silly jokes and child-like proportions and character animations, but on the other hand life crises, murder and suicides.

A truly amazing game. Do not be fooled into thinking this game will only be novel for a few minutes; it will subvert your expectations from beginning to end. I can go on and on about the graphical style, about the music, but the gameplay itself is just extremely solid. It is amazing how interconnected everything is! The world is huge and characters have their own intricate schedules that interact with each other and the environment in novel ways. A lot of reviewers are saying the game is "Clue" meets something-other, but the only way it's like "Clue" is that people are being murdered in a mansion. A more apt comparison I have heard of is not even to a game, but to the short story, "The Masque of the Red Death". Most of the characters go about their business blissfully unaware of their impending doom, as the music within the ostentatious mansion builds to an ominous crescendo. The game is dark, witty, and funny as hell. Even the murderous staff have some of the best lines, to be discovered by spying on them in an unguarded moment. The Sexy Brutale reminds me most of Playstation 2-era Castlevania games, where players can rightly sense that a secret passage could hold the answers to mysteries with profound implications on the story. Flaws are few. There are the occasional pauses when entering new rooms and the protagonist's weird glitch when he randomly can't seem to get in front of and open a door--also rare. A cataloging system for playing card collectibles feels like an overlooked necessity. Other than those, it's just too bad that there isn't more of the game to play once you're done. The length is very satisfying, though, and there are many little secrets to discover (and at least one big secret). This game is worth every penny. Buy it now! Don't wait!

This is a game that is a ton of fun to play and experience, from the visuals to the music, it all hits the right notes. Simple enough to pick up and put down when you have time to play, but always interesting enough to keep you thinking about it. I wish it had been longer, but it told it's story, and didn't try to overstay its welcome. I'm now on the hunt for where I can get the soundtrack CD..