The Last Case of Benedict Fox Review
2.5D Metroidvanias are hardly thin on the ground, but The Last Case of Benedict Fox has a striking sense of style and some truly stimulating puzzle solving to help it stand out from the side-scrolling platforming pack. Unfortunately it doesn’t quite have all the fundamentals covered, with sluggish controls that weigh heavily on combat and platforming, and a lack of story objective signposting that makes navigating its expanding rabbit warren of wonders far more mystifying than it should be. As a result, it’s a disappointingly uneven adventure that’s just as likely to engage as it is to enrage, and there were lengthy stretches in its back half where Benedict’s last case started to feel worryingly like a lost cause.
The case in question revolves around the recent death of Benedict’s father – so recent, in fact, that his fresh corpse is still warming the basement floor of the Fox family manor at the outset of the story. Since dusting for fingerprints and gathering witness testimonies wouldn’t make for the most compelling of platforming adventures, Benedict is partnered with a demonic companion – not unlike Mike Patton’s shotgun-riding presence in The Darkness – that can whisk him in and out of ‘limbo’. This is a representation of his father’s memories and inner demons, manifested into a physical realm to be scoured for clues that explain the senior Fox’s demise. The various different regions of this Lovecraftian realm parallel the different rooms of the family house, only the opulence of the real-world setting has been twisted and torn into wonderfully gnarly, nightmarish interpretations that reflect the inner torment the father felt during his final hours, and they’re genuinely captivating to behold.
Certainly one of
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