HomeReviewsDemetrios – The BIG Cynical Adventure Review

Demetrios – The BIG Cynical Adventure Review

-

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: point and click games are experiencing a real resurgence at the moment. There’s nothing quite like a chilled out gaming session which tasks your brain more than your reflexes. Having recently gotten hands on with Broken Age, Inner World and many Artifex Mundi releases, I’ve seen it all in this genre. Well, I thought I had done until Demetrios – The BIG Cynical Adventure arrived on the Xbox One.

Developed by Cowcat Games (a one man army), Demetrios – The BIG Cynical Adventure aims to draw on inspirations from the classics of the genre like Broken Sword, with a hint of Phoenix Wright and Gabriel Knight. But can it hold its own in a market of games with arguably greater budgets and generally bigger teams at their disposal?

I think so, just about, but only because Demetrios doesn’t take itself too seriously.

The adventure follows a slob of a bloke, Bjorn Thonen, who runs an antique shop in France and gets himself into a spot of bother after acquiring a statue. Something about it is highly sought after, to the point where an intruder whacks him over the head and commits an act of theft. Bjorn, alongside any poor soul who’ll listen to his tale of woe – mainly his neighbour Sandra – must figure out who did it and why the item in question is so important.

The story plays out over six chapters, with the tale unfolding at a steady pace as you piece things together and move on to new places for clues about the motive of the attacker. The amount of scenes you’ll visit is pretty decent too, with a funfair, a creepy graveyard and an underground bar in the desert just a few of the places featured. Most of the key moments are visualised in a comic book style and the bits in between are done through text boxes. It’s all quite silly though as Bjorn is no Sherlock Holmes and the local coppers seem as much use as a chocolate fireguard. Rather than excellent deduction skills, it’s general buffoonery which leads to advancements in uncovering the mystery.

The bare bones of the concept is straight laced, with criminals and a protagonist who wants justice, but it’s the fleshing out of it that makes Demetrious silly, humorous and mildly offensive. Bjorn is an idiot and very unlikeable so it works when he’s made to look stupid or gets himself into dangerous situations. There are actually ‘game over’ moments to add to the enjoyment of Bjorn in peril; for example he can get arrested for peeing in a plant pot at the police station, or can electrocute himself to death for sticking his fingers in a plug socket. It only resets you to the point before the action, which is a good call as it’d be annoying otherwise.

As expected in this genre, most of the progression comes from finding items to aid in completing the objective at hand, occasionally seeing you merge these items together. The majority of the solutions are logical and once you realise what’s needed, it’s just a matter of finding it or bargaining for it with the likes of a belligerent child. There are a lot of useless interactions dotted around the areas, but with Bjorn describing what things are in his own unique way, it makes each one worthwhile. You’ll find that he has a few funny digs at next gen gaming and micro-transactions, as well as taking the opportunity to really show off his idiocy when describing everyday items.

In any point and click game, it can get tough at times and Demetrios legislates for that with lots of cookies to eat. Now, before you get carried away, these aren’t real cookies, just ones that Bjorn can eat to initiate different stages of a three tier solution system. The first one eaten will offer a generalised hint at what to do for the current objective, the second goes into more detail, and the third cookie basically serves up the solution on a silver platter. You’ll have to find them first though.

Cookies can be stockpiled for use at any time, and whilst I appreciate the hint system, searching for them is infuriating. They are placed in really obscure places, in almost every area visited, with you left scouring each place for three dark brown spots. Finding them is more luck than anything, which leads to a large chunk of time being spent doing so. I get that they need to be difficult to acquire, but the frustration often turns the air blue… it makes me swear, a lot.

Whilst scouring areas for useful items throughout the journey is enjoyable to a certain extent, it’s the mini-games which hope to play a vital part in preventing monotony from creeping in. Sadly, they are a bit hit and miss, with the action orientated ones being too simplistic in mechanics and lacking in polish – there’s no point firing a fart gun at animals if the hit detection is off. Luckily the puzzling mini-games are far better, incorporating memory challenges and algebraic formulae. These parts ensure the final stages are fun and exciting – even more so when combined with the narrative developments.

Visually, the handcrafted scenes are designed pretty well and to a decent standard, without ever wowing. Each environment suits the setting it is supposed to be, ranging from the deserts of Nogo to the filthy living quarters of Bjorn. The sound department is a different matter altogether though, with most of the soundtrack being very annoying. One track in particular almost drove me to doing a Van Gogh – that’s cutting an ear off, not creating a masterpiece, just to be clear. There are no voiceovers, which is fine, but the included sound effects are pretty poor to confound more misery on the overall sound. Needless to say I tend to keep the volume down for the sake of my own sanity.

In terms of technical issues, I found a bug or two that lead me to having to reload the game, the most annoying of which was being unable to locate any vomit to use as glue, simply because it didn’t appear in the place it should do. Sometimes the objective wouldn’t display properly either, but these problems were more of a temporary annoyance than anything else and it mostly worked well.

Overall, I think Demetrios – The BIG Cynical Adventure stands out from the crowd for its crudeness and toilet humour, but mainly the fact that it’s just a big silly adventure not to be taken too seriously. The story itself is alright and the puzzling mini-games are great, whereas the action ones are just too simple for my liking. I appreciate the idea of the cookie system; however the hiding of said cookies is a bit ridiculous, to the point where finding them probably took the play time up from six hours to eight. Whilst the sounds are terrible, the visuals are decent enough to be kind on the eyes without being anywhere near the greatest within its genre.

You’ll get a big point and click adventure for your money, but just be prepared for a slow burner with a fair few annoyances.

James Birks
James Birks
Been gaming casually since the SNES as a youngster but found my true passion for games on the Playstation 1 (the forbidden word ooo). My addiction grew to its pinnacle with the purchase of an Xbox 360 & Xbox Live Service. A recovering GS hunter that will still play literally any game.
0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Follow Us On Socials

24,000FansLike
1,671FollowersFollow
4,922FollowersFollow
6,560SubscribersSubscribe

Our current writing team

2798 POSTS23 COMMENTS
1506 POSTS2 COMMENTS
1262 POSTS18 COMMENTS
995 POSTS46 COMMENTS
856 POSTS0 COMMENTS
389 POSTS2 COMMENTS
116 POSTS0 COMMENTS
81 POSTS0 COMMENTS
78 POSTS4 COMMENTS
24 POSTS0 COMMENTS
12 POSTS10 COMMENTS
8 POSTS0 COMMENTS

Join the chat

You might also likeRELATED
Recommended to you

0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x