We have been immersed in an intense and endless debate about graphic adventures for decades. Since that golden age of the genre in the early 90s,
users became very demanding with the genre and were very unfair with many high quality titles that were coming to the market, although they made less noise than the big productions; In fact, every time you saw a title that stood out within the genre, you could see many people talking about the “resurgence” of the graphic adventures,
when the reality is that they have never left our side. Broken Sword or Syberia are great names of the genre that are still valid; they are doing remasters of great works like Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango, Monkey Island or Full Throttle; that,
This latest example from Telltale Games is an example of the fact that, apart from the traditional adventures, the new productions of the genre have evolved and adapted to the times in different ways, but almost always struggling to offer an original touch
and novel to be attractive to the general public. Such is the case of The Sexy Brutale, an adventure that manages to tell a great story in an original and fun way, which forces the user to be always proactive and to think about the best way to solve their puzzles in a constant time trial.
The mansion of eternity in a day
If the graphic adventures have historically stood out, it has been to offer deep and intricate stories. Especially at the beginning of the genre, in a time when only RPGs and graphic adventures struggled to offer intricate and profound stories thanks to the narrative tools available to them, different from those of other more basic genres. In that aspect,
The Sexy Brutale has the complication of leaving in an era in which the narrative in video games has prospered greatly and even the platform games can offer deep stories that serve as a storyline to encourage the player to move forward in the adventure.
But even in this era, The Sexy Brutale gets something unusual: surprise through its history. The Marquis has organized a great party in his mansion,
which has its own casino and its own theater. However, the Marquis has disappeared and nobody seems to know where he has gotten. Each guest reacts in one way and, while some try to find the missing host, others continue to enjoy the attractions of the casino.
However, whether they choose to be active or if they show more passive, all the characters begin to die one by one, until no one is alive when they arrive at 12 o’clock at night and that fateful Saturday comes to an end.
The objective of the player will be to incarnate Lafcadio Boone, a priest who, like the other characters, was invited that day to the great party of the mansion. A mysterious girl gives him a mystic clock that allows him to go back in time and restart the day from 12 noon.
The goal of Lafcadio will be to save each and every one of the guests of that day from death, while solving the deepest mysteries hidden inside the mansion … It is fair to admit that it is not a particularly innovative story either ,
but it is so well stitched and presents so many surprises (especially in its final revelations) that it leaves a great taste in the mouth of the user. The excellent fusion of intrigue, suspense, mysteries and occultism make The Sexy Brutale one of the freshest titles in the genre,
A different game system
The Sexy Brutale allows us to have direct control over Boone and to go around the rooms of the mansion at our leisure … or not, because there are a series of requirements to do so. For example, there will be stays that we can not access at first, while we can never be in a room where there are other characters (either guests or staff members).
This will force us to learn their routines and know the hours at which we can or can not access each zone. The time will pass very fast and the
12 hours are just a few minutes of real time, so we will have to act quickly and rewind the time as many times as necessary until we have clear the routines of the victims to save and discover how to do it.
Boone will start with very few skills: go back in time and look through the lock of the doors to spy on what is happening in the surrounding rooms.
This action will be fundamental to control movements, learn routines, discover passwords and secrets, and so on. But after saving each of the guests, they will acquire their masks and with them special abilities:
superoído, open locks, special songs and others that we will not reveal so as not to gut some surprises of the game. In addition, there will be
secret collectibles scattered throughout the mansion, such as the 52 poker cards and the 9 invitations received by the characters to go to the place (very complex to find).
The puzzles are not particularly complex, but getting to know how they work out will take time. Many times they will be as easy as taking the right moments to steal a key and close a specific door, but you must find that key and find out which door closes
and at what time it is advisable to do so. Approximately, the game lasts about 7-8 hours, although this figure can vary significantly depending
on what the user is late in guessing the resolution of the puzzles or if you choose to get the hidden collectibles or not.
