Emerald City Confidential™ Reviews

I want this type of title from Wadjet again

[h1]Sights & Sounds[/h1] [h3]A bumpy brick road[/h3] [list] [*] While I wouldn't condemn the artwork as merely bad, I do find it a little dull. With the noir motif, you typically expect everything to dark and dingy, but the entire game takes place at night and within mostly dimly-lit environments. I'm all for moodiness in my mystery games, but the visuals began to look a bit stale by the time the credits rolled [*] There were also some weird inconsistencies with perspective and character design that kind of bothered me. Environments feature both head-on and isometric perspectives, but the characters are always flat to your view, giving the impression of characters leaning forward in some scenes [*] Additionally, I almost get the feeling that multiple artists created the character designs. Some human characters feature heads proportional to their body, while the protagonist, Petra, has a head as wide as her shoulders. I understand wanting to better convey certain characters' feelings visually, but it just makes her look like she's suffering from macrocephaly [*] I don't know much about art, but I understand concepts like 3-point perspective and how it's used. That said, the Emerald Palace on the map screen is so severely out of line with the rest of the city that it looks like it looks really awkward. I know the intent was to make it look huge and imposing, but it mostly looks like it's about to fall backwards [*] Character animations are woefully clunky. I've seen smoother slide transitions [*] I don't want to be unilaterally negative, so I'd like to at least compliment the creativity of the environments. Re-envisioning Oz as a seedy, conspiracy-filled city does result in some really imaginative and unique locations [*] Voice acting is also unfortunately uneven both in terms of talent production quality. Petra was competently voiced even if her microphone sounded muffled, while the Scarecrow sounded like the mad scientist from that Bugs Bunny cartoon with the big red monster but came through clearly. It almost sounds like two different sets of mics were used. Audio balancing is also poor at a few points, making it hard to hear what characters are saying [*] The soundtrack is decent, mostly sounding mysterious while still appropriate for the fantasy setting. The main/title theme is a bit different, but I still liked its Batman cartoon vibes [/list] [h1]Story & Vibes[/h1] [h3]Three cheers for world-building[/h3] [list] [*] All things considered, this is one of the most interesting takes on the world of Oz that I've encountered. Unlike the fanciful, sunny allegory criticizing the gold standard that we're all familiar with, [i]Emerald City Confidential[/i] instead takes place in a crime-ridden postwar version of the titular metropolis and its surrounding lands [*] You take the reigns behind Petra, a green-clothed gumshoe in the midst of figuring out what nefarious business the formerly cowardly lion (now a corrupt, high-powered lawyer) is up to. Shortly after that tutorial portion, Petra winds up back at her office only to be disturbed by a knock at the door [*] A woman is looking for her fiance, a man named Anzel, who appears to have gotten himself wrapped up in some dangerous business. He was supposed to be back in town by now, but he hasn't turned up anywhere. As you start pulling at threads to figure out his fate, you wind up unraveling a much greater conspiracy that reaches the very heights of Emerald City society [*] It turns out Anzel has found himself in possession of a very dangerous magical artifact that Oz's former adversary in the pre-game war very much wants. Your goal is to track him down, secure the artifact, and skirt the proper authorities while doing so [*] All the while, Petra is working on a mystery of her own. During the war, her little brother went missing, seemingly dropping entirely out of existence. There's no official records of him and no one seems to have ever met him. She knows she's not crazy, so why is the entire city attempting to gaslight her? [*] The narrative winds up taking you to several imaginative locations throughout Oz where you'll meet both original characters as well as ones you'll remember from the Oz books (The Cowardly Lion, Tin Man, Scarecrow, Dorothy, Toto, etc.). No flying monkeys though, which is a shame [*] All told, the game features some pretty impressive world-building. It's true that some characters and locations are borrowed from the books they're based on, but Wadjet Eye managed to put an interesting and unique spin on them [*] The games noir-y vibes often feel desperate and hopeless, but Dave Gilbert always makes sure that there's a little corny humor here and there to lighten the mood and inject a little personality [/list] [h1]Playability & Replayability[/h1] [h3]Thank you, but I already know[/h3] [list] [*] [i]Emerald City Confidential[/i] is a point-and-click adventure game. Have you played one before? If not, that's a little surprising, but this may be a good place to start, because I've never felt more infantilized by tutorialization. If so, the first hour of the game holding your hand will likely annoy you [*] Once you get past it, it's fairly smooth sailing, but the game still spends too much effort in attempting to hammer very basic mechanics into your memory [*] Not much else to say, really. It's a very basic PnC fare with absolutely no bells or whistles. There's not even item combination within your inventory [*] I earned all the in-game achievements (though note that there aren't any platform achievements to pop) and found the experience fairly mediocre, so I don't think I'll be replaying. I'm also fairly ambivalent about Oz and its lore [/list] [h1]Overall Impressions & Performance[/h1] [h3]Emerald City Retrospective[/h3] [list] [*] After making my way through the [i]Blackwell[/i] series, I was really interested in going through all the Wadjet Eye games in roughly chronological order. Having now finished the game, I think I would have been content to let the first two [i]Blackwell[/i] games serve as my introduction to their early works [*] It bears some of the same blemishes that their other pre-2010 games feature (particularly the muffled audio), but [i]Emerald City Confidential[/i] lacks the accompanying attractive pixel art and additional mechanics seen in those titles [*] Although I really like the world that Dave Gilbert and team were able to adapt and flesh out here, the audiovisual shortcomings and heavy-handed tutorialization ultimately left me with a negative impression of the experience [*] As I normally add in PnC reviews, the Steam Deck's trackpads work very well. Steam hasn't yet assigned a Steam Deck compatibility rating to the game's page, but it performed well on the platform [/list] [h1]Final Verdict[/h1] [b]4.0[/b]/10. If you've never played a point-and-click and want to learn the ropes or are otherwise interested in the central idea of "Oz noir", this might be worth a look. Otherwise, if you're a genre veteran, I'm afraid [i]Emerald City Confidential[/i] won't do much to interest or excite beyond the world-building