The Last Case of John Morley was not what was expected for several reasons. Sending out interest for reviews, it’s inevitable that I’ll forget what a game is (unless it’s GTA VI) until I install it. Sometimes this is the best approach for a review, as you go in with a clean slate, but this relatively uninformed approach for Indigo Studios’ title was a positive one, as the experience was surprisingly pleasant.
Firstly, it wasn’t a retro pixel shooter I had imagined it to be. Instead, it was a first-person detective tale with a pretty engaging narrative – one of the highlights – and it progressed at a reasonable pace, too. Secondly, this isn’t a Lovecraftian story at all. The intro, which sees you as the titular John Morley, has you running through a Blair Witch-like forest with something… someone… chasing you through it.
With its limited visibility and eerie sounds, followed by an early jump scare, I believed that The Last Case of John Morley would be a horror title, perhaps with some combat, though, putting aside a couple more jump scares, this is a psychological affair and not a cosmic horror like Call of Cthulhu, though a little like Dagon in presentation. And, though I say it’s a detective tale, that’s more to do with your profession rather than deducing clues, as it’s very much like a walking simulator. More on that in a second.
After the initial introduction, you wake in a hospital bed having sustained an injury. You’re a down-on-his-luck P.I. in the early 1940s, who, upon returning to society, finds that his assistant has left, unpaid for the last three months, and is moving on with their life. Fortunately, a lady – as in a woman of wealth – enters your office and hires you to track down the person who murdered her daughter. Twenty years ago.
Returning to the lady’s manor, abandoned for the past two decades following the murder, you hunt for clues as to what happened all those years ago. A path is pre-determined throughout The Last Case of John Morley, where objects will block your path, or notes left out will state your objective. At any point, you can jump into the clues and characters encountered via a menu, though it’s not needed. This is very much on rails, and aside from missing a prompt to enter a previously locked door, I didn’t have any challenges with it.
Instead, I was pretty much captivated by the story. For me, the visuals were decent – notably the lighting, and though comparable to a walking simulator, I wasn’t remotely bored as I tend to be with the genre. There are no red herrings or bloat in terms of the items around, so no mucking about with a beautifully rendered object to spin on its axis for the adrenaline rush. Notes add to the story, and they’re concise, too. Again, this was the investment, as the puzzle aspect was pretty easy.
There are multiple doors locked with combination locks, but notes scattered around will list them. The reason I didn’t see much use in the clues menu was that there weren’t any links to items I’d found with the combinations, so took a photo of the screen with my phone and reviewed those when required. As mentioned, I thought this could be a Lovecraft-influenced game with a teeny bit of combat, though that doesn’t apply here as you’re essentially here for the narrative weave.
Although The Last Case of John Morley is quite predictable and has a somewhat abrupt ending, I found myself very engaged with the whole ambience. Aside from the intro, there are three main areas to discover, such as an asylum, and having recently visited one of them, it was fun to experience the archaic practices and witness how disturbing and volatile mental health can be.
I can’t explicitly say this is a walking simulator, as this will put many off. Likewise, besides discovering clues and door combinations, there’s no real detective aspect to it, but I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed recreating scenes of a crime where characters are presented in a ghostly green light mid-pose. It was effective and added to the overall atmosphere of the game, though a few technical flaws were obvious, such as lip syncs of characters like Lady Margaret, coincidentally with a very young voice for her age, or the fact that John Morley is a vampire, as he has no reflection.
Regardless, I really enjoyed The Last Case of John Morley. With its predictable yet intriguing story, eerie presentation, and decent pacing, it was worth getting out of the hospital bed for.
