The Mermaid Mask Review: Detective Work At Its Finest | The Gamerheads Podcast

Platform reviewed: Nintendo Switch 2

Also on: PC (Steam), Xbox Series X/S, Playstation 5

Price: $19.99

I love a good murder mystery. I love smart, creative detectives. Sherlock Holmes. Hercule Poirot. Benoit Blanc. Columbo. Add Detective Grimoire and Sally Spears to that list. The Mermaid Mask captures everything I love about the smart, funny, and creative storytelling found in the mysteries starring those iconic detectives. Add amazing art, stellar music, and innovative puzzles, and you have all the makings of a masterpiece.

The game opens with Grimoire and Sally arriving in the abandoned fishing town of Silkworm-on-Sea. They have been asked to investigate the murder of Captain Magnus Mortuga, the captain of the Mortuga Submarine. The mystery: He was murdered inside a locked room, and a cauldron once thought impossible to open has somehow been unlocked. His body lies in front of it with an apparent cut to his throat.

What I love about The Mermaid Mask is that there isn't much more setup than that. I didn't play the previous entries in the series, and while those games may provide more insight into who Grimoire is, I never felt lost while playing this one.

I also love that the game doesn't overtly hold my hand. It's a point-and-click adventure, so it encourages me to click on everything (and Grimoire and Sally have something to say about just about everything), but I never felt railroaded into doing certain things. There were moments where I needed to find an object or talk to someone about an object before I could access a specific room in the submarine. Even then, Grimoire would ask, "Should we investigate this now?" and I got to decide whether I want to track down that clue or continue following my current line of detective work.

There are a ton of suspects in the game, and each one feels distinctive. Every character has a unique history with Mortuga. I loved learning about each character, asking them questions about clues and other suspects, and building my case while piecing together the bigger picture of what was going on.

There were plenty of times when I found a new clue and immediately thought, "I need to talk to certain people about this." In some ways, it makes the game feel like a Metroidvania. But again, I never felt like I had to do things in a certain order. I could tackle the case in whatever way made the most sense to me.

The writing and voice acting are some of the best I've experienced in a game. The relationship between Grimoire and Sally is endearing. Grimoire is a bit eccentric and witty, while Sally has a dry sense of humor and a more straightforward approach to things. Their exchanges had me laughing out loud. For example, when they meet Dirk Dansom, a meathead actor, Sally says, "Aww, can I keep him?" Grimoire responds, "You'll forget to feed him," to which she flatly replies, "Yeah, you're right." I found myself clicking on every object in each room just to hear what they had to say about it, and I was never disappointed.

The puzzles are creative and are some of my favorites in any game. None of them were overly difficult, and even the ones where I needed a few hints were handled well. Clicking the "Solve" button doesn't give away the answer. Instead, Grimoire and Sally drop subtle hints about how to approach the puzzle.

But the real fun comes from figuring them out on my own and feeling like I truly am the world's greatest detective. Ok, I'm not really that smart, but the game makes me feel that way. My favorite puzzle had me placing glass beads over pictures, distorting the images until they formed the picture I needed to solve the puzzle.

The deduction feature is pretty interesting, too. Here, I’m creating a sentence by filling in the blanks with people or objects and then rotating through a bunch of different verbs to piece together what I think happened. Because of this setup, I still feel like I’m figuring out what happened on my own, but the game helps me along by providing some of the sentence structure.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about the music. This is some of the best I’ve heard in a game. The soundtrack is performed by the Budapest Art Orchestra and the Budapest Art Choir. Some of the songs are haunting, giving off this enchanted underwater vibe, while others are full of whimsy and add to the charm of the scene that is unfolding.

I did have the game crash on me once. Thank goodness for autosaves, though, because I didn’t lose any progress. I also noticed that the audio levels for some characters were a bit louder than others. Neither of these issues ruined my experience, though.

Final Grade: A

The Mermaid Mask is a fantastic point-and-click whodunit adventure. I love that the game doesn’t overtly hold my hand, allowing me to work through the case on my own, yet it’s so well designed that it still points me in the right direction. The art and music are so well done, and the voice acting is top-notch. It also features some of the best writing and humor I’ve experienced in a game. If you’re a fan of quirky murder mysteries like Knives Out, you need to check out The Mermaid Mask.

Review code provided by Panic Department.