Arthur & Susan: Almost Detectives review

Colourful cartoon mystery looks great but doesn’t quite measure up in most other relevant ways

I think it's safe to say that most adventure game fans share an affinity for a good mystery. Games that encourage detective work and sleuthing always have a tempting allure to me, and I hoped that Arthur & Susan: Almost Detectives would provide just such a well-written, juicy mystery. Unfortunately, while the debut point-and-click adventure from Spanish developer Apexchimps is a colourful and cheerfully cartoony detective story, it sadly fails to deliver in most other respects.

In the game’s first scene, we meet Susan as she finishes a script for a movie named “Shaman Detective,” although her daily hustle is running a comic book store called Wonder Susan. To celebrate being done, she takes a trip to the park with her dog Rufus, where she bumps into her old friend Arthur. Arthur is apparently taking a gap year (from what is unclear), and fills his days hanging around in the park solving crossword puzzles. When they return to her store together, they discover a family heirloom of Susan’s has been stolen from its display case. Though the police quickly arrive on the scene, the officer has no time to investigate such a trivial crime, so Susan and Arthur must take it upon themselves to solve it.

The game is split into three parts, each consisting of a new case the titular protagonists need to crack when the police refuse to do so, all while Susan pursues her dream of getting her movie script produced. The cases involve finding the stolen talisman, investigating threats, extortion, and a missing persons case. Why the police are so unwilling to aid with these serious crimes is beyond me, but I guess there wouldn’t be a need for the “almost detectives” if the police actually did their job.

Arthur and Susan visit numerous locations in their hometown on their quest for truth and justice, be it a colourful Mexican restaurant, a seedy bar or a Martian movie set. Traveling between different areas is done with the map’s fast-travel function, while within a scene you click the yellow directional arrows at the bottom of the screen to move between rooms and places in that location.

If all you have to play with is a broken mouse where only the left button works, do not fret, as that’s all you need to click on anything interactive. Gameplay consists mostly of dialogue, as the “almost detectives” need to interrogate suspects and talk to people in order to discover the truth. You can pick which of the two protagonists you want to speak by choosing their respective lines from a list of dialogue options. These are distinguished by different font types and colours, which carry over to the subtitles used instead of voice acting in general. All the other characters have different fonts and colours too, but some of the fonts are not very readable, and the text is typed out directly across the scene, making it even more difficult to read when the print is overly decorative. In one instance, I had so many dialogue options to choose from that I couldn’t see them all, including the one that allowed me to exit the conversation.

There are around 30 distinct characters in the game that Susan and Arthur need to question, but although a few of them are fun and interesting, most of the time they are pretty flat and underdeveloped. Not only that, but many of them are based on tired, stereotypical tropes, such as the creepy stalker with a restraining order, the computer nerd who only stays inside her apartment, and the no-good punks who hang out in the park (one of them is even wearing a leather jacket). I did enjoy a couple of the characters, though, especially Rufus the dog and the pirate bartender with a talking parrot.

Susan is by far the most intuitive of the pair, better able to read the room and more sensitive to people’s personalities, while Arthur is more blunt and direct. Although you can choose which one of them speaks for the most part, the dialogue option you choose doesn’t have any impact on what happens or on the story. This is one of my pet peeves; when you are given a false impression of having multiple choices that don't actually matter at all.

There is also an inventory where you can look at or combine items, and the game uses an unusual technique if you want to put any of those items to use. On the inventory screen there is a puzzle square, and if you pull an item over to it, it is used automatically in the current location, instead of specifying one item to be used on a specific person or thing. Although certainly a novel mechanic, it isn’t very challenging, and other than a number of long fetch quests, it serves as the only real “puzzle” mechanic in the game.

Arthur & Susan: Almost Detectives

Genre:	Comedy, Mystery
Presentation:	2D or 2.5D
Theme:	Crime solving, Team-up
Perspective:	Third-Person
Graphic Style:	Stylized
Gameplay:	Investigative, Puzzle
Control:	Point-and-click
Game Length:	Short (1-5 hours)
Difficulty:	Low

The only actual challenge in Arthur & Susan is to know what to do in certain situations, but if you find yourself stuck, there is a hotspot indicator to help you find any items you might have missed. One thing that’s a bit tricky is that there is no indication that you have collected all the clues and evidence you need in order to go to the police. You just have to try your luck; either keep on looking, or present your theory to the rather useless police sergeant Johnson, who will do anything to avoid any actual work. If you’re still missing something, or give him the wrong information, he will let you know about it, prompting you to search more or try again.

Presented in a fun, colourful hand-drawn art style that is reminiscent of Cartoon Network shows like Johnny Bravo and Dexter’s Laboratory, the graphics are probably where the game shines the brightest. The characters are playfully designed, but there are no real animations; whenever anyone talks or “moves”, they just clip from one position to another, without any motion whatsoever. You don’t guide Arthur or Susan around either, they are just part of a static scene, making the game feel even more flat and lifeless.

While the visuals are charming to look at, the sound design and music leave much to be desired. First of all, there is no voice acting, which in itself isn’t a problem, but instead of voices there is this incredibly annoying fast-paced beeping sound, that goes lower or higher in pitch depending on who is speaking. Thankfully you can turn this effect off in the settings by turning off “Voice,” but then you have to listen to the music instead, and to be honest, I don’t know which is worse.

The soundtrack is generic and cheap, derived from a source that supplies free electronically generated music. Compounding matters is how the score is sometimes used to emphasise a point. In one scene, Susan explains to Arthur the sentimental value the stolen medallion has for her, and as you click through the lines, the music goes from the typical piece playing in the background to a sadder melody for a couple of lines, and then quickly goes back to the first tune. If you read pretty quickly, the alternate music will only play for a couple of seconds, not even long enough to make much of a significant impression. Many of the scenes have different tracks, but none of them are of noteworthy quality.

Arthur & Susan: Almost Detectives boasts of having “an estimated 1000 jokes and puns sprinkled throughout your adventure,” and whether that’s true or not, I think the developers should have prioritised the good old principle of quality over quantity. Some of the jokes are okay, but I don’t remember actually laughing out loud even once, and when you’re constantly bombarded with half-assed jokes in almost every sentence, it just becomes tedious and annoying. I actually expected to hear a rimshot after several jokes. At one point I started to worry that the problem was me and not the game, so I asked my partner to play it for a little while, but he thought it was even worse than I did.

The clumsy writing might in part be because the game was originally written in the developer’s native Spanish. Maybe some of the humour and jokes were just difficult to translate, but the localisation has problems of its own, as several times when someone was talking about a female, they referred to them as “he” or “him.” In general the writing just seems uninspired. The story is very much all over the place and often difficult to follow as well. The ending was perhaps the only part that was actually funny, with an intriguing reveal I wasn’t expecting, but maybe after about five hours I was just relieved that the game was finally finished.

Final Verdict

I really hate to criticise games, as I know how much work and passion goes into making one, but the more I played Arthur & Susan, the more I just wanted it to be over. It’s a beautiful-looking cartoon adventure, but even that illusion is quickly dispelled by how static it all is. And everything, from the annoying music, to the bad jokes, to the uninspired story and gameplay, resulted in a less-than-enjoyable game experience. Just as the protagonists consider themselves almost detectives, I can only describe this game as almost – but not quite – worth playing.

Aurora played Arthur & Susan: Almost Detectives on PC using a review code provided by the game's publisher.