Mystery Detective 2 (Nintendo DS) Review

The Beeworks-developed Mystery Detective stands out from the crowd thanks to its dark, Nightmare Before Christmas-style visual theme and its array of quirky characters that bring a wealth of humour to the adventure. There is a pleasing mix of 2D and simplistic 3D throughout and moody visuals that give the game a great sense of atmosphere. Going hand-in-hand with the graphical approach is the soundtrack, which brings back all the tracks from the first game and mixes in several new ones that are both mystifying and strangely upbeat, depending on the particular scenario. The game flits about from dark themes to light-hearted quirkiness quite regularly and it is definitely pleasing that the accompanying music is suitably fitting.

The basis of the gameplay revolves guiding Mackenzie, and her tiny mushroom pet ‘Funghi’, around numerous locations touching things, with the adventure being fully stylus-driven (although traditional d-pad input is an option for those that really feel like taking a step backwards) and the interface extremely simple to navigate. So straight away you can simply dive right in without any hassle at all, making the game accessible to everyone. Unlike many PC point-and-click games, the second Mystery Detective focuses more on speaking to the various characters found in each chapter, collecting clues and unravelling the mystery at hand, as opposed to gaining about a hundred different items and having to go through every permutation of item-joined-with-item and then said-item-used-with-pieces-of-scenery-or-people.

This leads to the game being more user-friendly throughout, rather than being a very random experience like the first game. There has definitely been more logic applied to the puzzles this time round and you can always get useful pieces of guidance and information from certain characters during a case, if you do get stuck. However, sadly the annoyance of not being able to progress until one particular item has been touched or a small, sometimes meaningless conversation thread has been followed still remains. Luckily this issue does not crop up on a regular basis or else the whole game would be ruined, and instead only occurs on the same frequency as some of the best PC adventure games -- in other words, infrequently.

Additionally, this Mystery Detective sequel triumphs over its predecessor in the expansion of the world in general, with Mackenzie able to now traverse to extra locations such as a haunted mansion, local forest and even a scenario that takes places solely on a train. And whilst this does bring in a welcome dose of variety, thankfully, though, not all locations are available in each and every case or else it would lead to potential aimless trekking around all over the place, which would drag down the enjoyment factor considerably. Therefore, to prevent this from happening, only a select few places can be visited in most cases. Basically, the majority of the issues people had with the first adventure have practically all been rectified this time round, making it an essential purchase for those who even remotely enjoyed the first game.

Thankfully, as well, Mystery Detective's successor is significantly longer than the first game and definitely gives more value for money. It probably weighs in at around the 10-15 hour mark when completing all five main cases and then working your way through the various extra fun little cases that are on offer and aiming to collect everything possible to unlock the game 100%. As for the actual difficulty of the game, it is certainly more in-depth than the first game, and is far more logical in the way puzzles are solved. Therefore, veteran adventure gamers may find this easier than MD, but the challenge is still reassuringly high.