THE SEXY BRUTALE
Bringing sexy back. Then bringing it back again. And again…
The conceit of this stealthy puzzler is easy to fall for. It’s a jazzed-up slice of opulence, all turned-up collars on extravagant dinner suits and frilled masquerade masks hiding the faces of wellto-dos. We play Lafcadio Boone who, while attending an evening of entertainment at the titular mansion, snuffs it. Rather than depart this mortal coil entirely, however, ol’ Laffy is caught up in a seemingly endless time loop. Handily, this gives him the chance to save the lives of the other guests invited to the ball… The twist? While you can wander around solving inventory puzzles and the like, you’re unable to enter any room which is occupied by another character, be they friend or foe. Do so, and their creepy masks will hover towards you, heralding a failstate and a kickback to the start of the day. Part murder mystery, part doll’s house, and smothered in a sleek burlesque presentation, The Sexy Brutale is too unique to not want to love. Unfortunately, however, it suffers from serious problems that will dim your affections.
The most egregious of these is the central mechanic of rewinding time. The game is divided up into sections, each one dominated by a particular character who you must find and save before time runs out. You have to find them and observe them through keyholes, or listen to them through walls, in order to ascertain how they will die, and find clues that’ll help you save them. An early example sees you tinker with a rifle hanging on a wall in order to prevent an actual, life-ending bullet firing out of the nasty end later on.
ATTACK THE CLOCK
Here’s the rub. Each time you begin a new area, or find a new person to save, there’s a time period during which you have no idea where to go or what to do. Anything you do stumble upon is due to luck or trialand-error. This might not be so tut-worthy if the puzzles ended up being doozies. In fact, they are usually obscure enough, thanks to the bizarre setting and unmoving isometric camera angle, for you to often accidentally solve them before you’ve had a chance to even ruminate on what the answer to the riddle might be.
Gathering up all the scattered information surrounding the story and characters might lure you onwards, if the mansion weren’t such a fudgy place to move through. Your character’s running speed is slow, very slow, presumably to ramp up tension as the clock ticks down. But this dissuades exploration. I don’t want to go down a corridor I don’t have to; if there isn’t anything at the end (and this happens a lot) then I’ll have to trudge back, wasting a chunk of this day and forcing myself to start over again.
Smooth jazz and bopping saxophone ditties delight, sure, and the art style is one to coo at. But no mask – no matter how flamboyant – can fully hide The Sexy Brutale’s faults.
VERDICT
“ASCERTAIN HOW PEOPLE WILL DIE, AND FIND CLUES TO HELP YOU SAVE THEM.”
It seems to have all the right ingredients on the outside looking in. That’s before you start trying to unravel its awkward puzzles via its tedious time mechanics. Matt Gilman