It's a story you've probably heard before: there's a detective, a rich, old heiress with a changed will, and a gang of people all hoping to benefit from her. And then, as these stories usually do, it ends in murder. On the train! But don't be fooled by the plethora of Agatha Christie-isms: this piece of whodunnitry is completely unique, even as it pays homage to its influences, and might even be one of our favorite modern diversions.
In the incredibly well-titled Loco Motive, you play as three separate characters – Arthur, a paperwork-loving real estate lawyer; Herman Merman, author of crime novels turned detective; and Diana, a spy and bounty hunter who works for the IRS, which we really hope isn't the real thing. These three are your guides as you try to piece together the mysterious and sudden murder of a rich matriarch on a train through a series of silly, absurd combinations of objects, interspersed with plot twists, revelations and comedic scenes.
If you don't already know, Loco Motive absolutely he knows where his inspiration lies: the twist of Christie, the wonderful frivolity of Monkey Island and others. and Ghost Trick's stunningly lifelike art are all proudly worn on the sleeve. But instead of just haphazardly gluing these disparate elements together as… well, a highly abstract point-and-click puzzle solution, Loco Motive manages to create something entirely its own, standing alongside all of its forebears without seeming like some unqualified upstart.
Much like Ghost Trick, the pixel animations are truly stunning with the amount of detail, fluidity and thought put into each one – each individual item combination has its own animation, for goodness sake – and the distinct characteristics of each. the person you meet and play as achieved through simple but cleverly applied movements. The bartender wags an eyebrow to show confidence in his skills; two bickering twins dynamically fight over a briefcase until it breaks; and did we mention the entire game is lip synced? We're not sure if we ever are saw lip sync applied to a pixel-based game, and until Loco Motive, we didn't believe it could be done so well. It's a real shame that we can't show the animations in these screenshots, because they are truly something special to witness.
The writing also more than holds its own. Monkey Island's beloved dialogue is daunting to follow, but Loco Motive manages to be witty without being creepy, helpful without being patronizing, and provides a unique voice for each character to make the entire cast shine, even the extremely minor ones. A murder mystery game like this relies on its colorful cast, and Loco Motive doesn't disappoint in that regard, with excellent voice acting provided by an impressive array of actors, including the gorgeous Samantha Béart (Karlach! of Baldur's Gate 3!) as April, comedian Alasdair Beckett-King as basically himself, and veteran actor Jim Meskimen's striking caricature of a drunken Orson Welles.
And, oh, brainstorming which this game has in spades! Let's be realistic: so far, “point and click” has been a little playful and it takes a lot of work to bake it into something new. Loco Motive achieves this – minor spoilers, sorry – by giving you three playable characters, each with their own timeline, who intersect and change items in ways that only become clear later in the story. Towards the end, this swap becomes a mechanic in itself, and there's a particularly cool moment where your supplies are confiscated and you have to make do with the items you've stolen instead. It's all very clever.
Of course, it's a point-and-click game, so there are bound to be some frustrations, and yes, some puzzle solutions feel arbitrary and/or obtuse, even if that's kind of the whole point of point-and-click. For the most part, the cues in the game are pretty good, and the hint line has a lot to do with it, but there were times when even the hint line didn't have anything for the situations we were in. We ended up relying on the guide provided by the developers, but there are guides online that you can use as well. It's up to you whether you consider the instructions an integral part of the point-and-click loading pleasure.
Adding to that frustration are mistakes, unfortunately. In many ways, this game is as smooth as a greased railroad track, but that only makes the bumps more obvious – like when we got stuck because a save game took us back to the previous chapter with all the items from the chapter after that. We had to restart the whole game to fix it, which it was not fun, although he noted the usefulness of the scene skipping and dialogue features. There was another bug that made our character immediately leave the room we were supposed to go through, which slowed our progress for a long time, because we thought it was part of the puzzle. Not! That was a mistake.
So as it stands, Loco Motive is a truly amazing and worthy member of the mystery-murder mystery genre that we just can't completely I recommend it until a few more patches come out. We really don't have many issues with the game itself – we loved the characters, we loved the art, and we even loved the puzzles as we bumped our heads against them – but those bugs cost us hours of progress, and it sucks to have to hit the brakes just when you're gaining momentum. Every time we had to restart the game, the studio logo – ROBUST GAMES – seemed like an ironic taunt. But given that this is the development's debut game, and given that the team is backed by indie titan Chucklefish, we're fully confident that there's light at the end of this tunnel, and that those bugs will be crushed like a coin on a railroad track in no time.
Conclusion
Loco Motive combines wit, charm, cleverness and its own brand of pixel art perfection to deliver a murder mystery worthy of its predecessors. The game's launch state is a little too bug-damaged for an unqualified recommendation on Switch, but give it time and we think it'll get back on track.
