The Trappings

My third outing into a Wadjet Eye Games production has come to a close and I’m here to tell you exactly why you should not invest your capital earnings in Emerald City Confidential.

Whoops, I let the proverbial cat out of the metaphorical drowning sack a bit early there but so be it. If you don’t have the mental wherewithal to read an entire review then you’ve got your answer: No. And I didn’t even have to ascribe an arbitrary quantity out of ten to it either.

It's an absolutely beautiful game... When it's not moving.

Emerald City Confidential is an adventure game set in the world of Oz featuring characters and locations from the films and books, though not based on any of the events from previous works. The overall style is cartoonish film noir. Our avatar throughout the game is a Miss Petra something, detective and ex-army officer, hired to find a missing person. Just like in previous Wadjet Eye Games games the written dialogue is lovely and the voice acting is superb. It’s also worth noting that the length of the game is considerably longer than any of the individual Blackwell games and The Shivah. In terms of value for money (if you judge such by playing time) you get a fair amount for your deniro.

So far I haven’t actually said anything bad about the game. Emerald City Confidential is not without considerable points of merit. The script, sound and scenery sustained my interest throughout. Pressed to talk about something that is genuinely terrible about the game I would have to pull up the character animations. Characters move around the world with an odd sliding effect that is very distracting. In addition, the animations themselves always look like they are lacking frames – characters move with a jerky spasm or not at all. These same criticisms can actually be levelled at The Blackwell Trilogy and The Shivah but the difference here is that the static artwork in Emerald City Confidential is sublimely drawn. What this effectively means is that you have really beautiful scenery punctuated with characters whose movements prevent them from fitting in to such a lush environment. The dissonance between the quality of artistry and the animation every time Petra is asked to move across the screen causes a subtle break in the suspension of disbelief and leaves the whole package feeling a little cheaper because of it.

The story really starts to plummet in the final third of the game.

In hindsight it seems a little harsh to lay so much on a single feature of the game but it’s jarring throughout the entire experience and worth mentioning for that fact alone. Further criticisms can be levelled as the game progresses in to the final third of its story. The narrative begins to make large leaps between events and it almost feels like either production time began to run out or the plot’s writer became weary of the setting and wanted to finish up quickly. The ending in particular, despite being protracted, feels abrupt. There is no real reward for the player’s completion of the game; no cutscene or musical finale. In The Shivah and the Blackwell games this didn’t matter because the plot was worth seeing through to the end but here the story feels a little flat, so completing the game is not it’s own reward.

In the spirit of objectivity, I’m going to offer a scenario in which I think I would have really taken pleasure in this game. In this scenario I am fifteen years older than I am now. I have a child who is about ten, let’s call it Lemon because it’s gender neutral and in this fantasy scenario I’ve somehow switched career path from web programmer to stay-at-home hippy father. I get a sudden urge to introduce Lemon to adventure games. Firing up Emerald City Confidential I tell the child to watch out for the buttons (the game’s collectible items) and to follow along with the story while we try and work out how to solve the puzzles. The crappy animation doesn’t bother the naive tastes of a ten year old and I can get along with the game because I know that I’m essentially providing a gateway drug that should socially cripple the runt for the rest of its natural life. A win-win situation in my book.

All in all I can’t recommend Emerald City Confidential. It ticks most of the boxes of a quality adventure but just doesn’t make all of the elements gel enough to warrant a purchase. Those pennies can be better spent on previous Wadjet Eye Games games or, failing that, a pre-order for Machinarium.