“The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief” features detailed graphics and beautiful aesthetics, a great mysterious story premise and intuitive logic based puzzle solving. Recommended!
Screen Captures are from Steam gameplay. “The Raven – Legacy of a Master Thief” is under the copyright of KING ART/Nordic Games. All Rights Reserved.
VIDEO GAME TITLE: The Raven – Legacy of a Master Thief for the PC
TYPE OF GAME: Adventure Game
PLATFORM: Various Digital Distribution for PC, Mac, Linux, PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade
PLATFORM GAME REVIEWED: STEAM PC GAME
DEVELOPER: KING ART
PUBLISHER: Nordic Games
RELEASE DATE: July 23
Set across 1960’s Europe, The Raven combines the thrill of the chase ‘whodunit’ with the risk and reward of a heist story where players get to experience both sides of the story as the investigator and the thief. Paying tribute to Agatha Christie’s crime stories and gangster movies from the 60s and 70s, The Raven is set to be a thrilling episodic journey.
From simple, Swiss police man to an, albeit unofficial, detective in training sleuthing with the best. King Art Games comes back with another point and click adventure game with the main character stuck in the middle of a mystery involving the notorious Raven. “The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief” challenges the player to question suspects, combine items to get past obstacles, and explore various areas and environments to find evidence and clues to unveil who is behind these thefts and dangerous occurrences.
King Art is a German game developer with hits such as “The Book of Unwritten Talesâ€, a fantasy point and click adventure game, and popular browser games such as “MyFreePark” and “MyFreeZoo.” They currently have a turn-based strategy game dubbed “Battle Worlds: Kronos” in alpha, which was a favorite among Kick starters as it received more than full funding. King Art Games cover programming and concepts across multiple platforms such as PC, Mac, Xbox 360 and PS3.
In ‘The Raven’ you control Constable Anton Jakob Zellner, a Swiss police officer who aspires to be as the detectives he reads about in the mystery novels he reads in his spare time. Constable Zellner finds his opportunity when he is assigned to police a train transporting goods expected to be hit next by the alleged successor of the Raven supervised by the man who was honored as the man who killed the original Raven. From then on, Constable Zellner works to prove his moxie to the highly respected detective and see this case to the end all placed in the world of the 60’s.
Most of the game revolves around talking to each character to garner enough evidence or clues to complete a part of the main case or an aside such as a missing purse. The other half is searching the environment you are on to find tool, items, or physical evidence to continue in each case such as finding a key. Each character has various dialogue options, majority of which concern evidence with the case, while the other concerns background on each character and interesting points concerning the personality of each character. When combining or using items usually the answer is logical enough for you to figure it out fairly quickly, as long as you find all that you can in each environment you should have the keys to each obstacle you face.
The game uses standard point and click interactions such as: click to interact, click on item then click on another item to combine if valid and dialogue choices. The game also has a mini game here and there such as picking a lock with wire. The mini games feel as if they interrupt the flow of the game, but if you enjoy a break from the usual sleuthing it could be just your ticket.
The game also includes a hint and highlight system which you can activate using adventure points. Adventure points are gained through completing phases of the case and spent on highlights or hints. This is greatly helpful if you cannot put your finger on the one thing in the room that you  missed. Adventure points also determine how well you did at the end of the chapter as it would be a clear indication on how much help you needed via the system.
A notebook is self-maintained as you go along, containing finer points of each character and other details that can be reviewed to help you to piece together parts of the case. This also has objectives written out to give you direction should you need it.
Music is well orchestrated and melds with the environment well, wherever you go and under which ever circumstance. For example, when you are in the care free environment of the train, the music matches with light, whimsical music to match the environment.
Cinematic scenes take you from one environment to the other after pivotal moments in the story happen, or to portray a scene of all the characters in a cinematic light.
As far as bugs go, I only ran into one occasion where I could not see Constable Zellner until I interacted with another object across the room. Though there may have been more bugs I did not notice, King Art Games seem to be diligent on bug fixing as the first patch was sent out not even a week after release.
‘The Raven’ uses standard control of a point and click adventure game, with no need to interact with your keyboard.
Which is better, keyboard or controller pad?
As a point and click adventure game it’s much better to stick to keyboard and mouse.
Overall graphics are significantly above the bar of the usual adventure games. The various characters’ faces are well defined, while facial expressions are at times hit or miss, but usually on point. At times there is clipping or awkward occurrences with some of the characters’ faces, but usually isn’t a large enough issue to groan about. Aside from that, the voice work is superb with each of the characters’ personalities exemplified through their voice work with accents matching each character’s origin. Each environment is beautifully crafted with scenery such as the passing of mountain sides or crashing waves, and even small details in rooms are included such as a pen or askew book.
Audio is clear cut, no clear discrepancies or audio bugs.Â
Overall, I don’t feel there is a whole lot of replay value. Most of what you are going to get out of the game is story based, and once you’ve played it once there is not much of an itch to play again.
All together, episode one of “The Raven” make a great starting point to the rest of the game. The overall quality of the game cannot be stated plainly as only one of three are currently released, but with great looking graphics, a blooming story and the mystery still left unsolved it has great promise. Though I do not blame you if you decide to hold onto your money until the last installment is released late September allowing for the final word to be said on the game as a whole.
“The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief” features detailed graphics and beautiful aesthetics, a great mysterious story premise and intuitive logic based puzzle solving. Recommended!
PROS:
+ Detailed environment, characters, and individual rooms.
+ Logic-based puzzle solving
+ Compelling story-line.
+ Hint system for those who are stuck using earned in-game points.
CONS:
– Graphical clipping with facial features
– Voices at times not matching facial movement.
