Have you ever wondered what would happen if Sherlock Holmes was trapped in a Groundhog Day scenario? If so, then The Sexy Brutale may be the game for you. With time-bending puzzles and a delightfully dreadful tone this game has you prevent murders by travelling back in time a sleuthing around. The question is, how many times can you do the same thing before getting bored?

    The Sexy Brutale stars Lafcadio Boone, a preacher who wakes up during the yearly party, called The Sexy Brutale, that Lucas Bondes hosts in his casino mansion. A mysterious woman appears and tells Boone she has given him a mask that has ripped him out of an ongoing time loop that the rest of the other party members are stuck in over a 12 hour period, reliving their deaths at the hands of the staff over and over again. She has also given Boone a watch, that restarts the day upon completing a 12 hour cycle. 

Boone's task is to save the other party goers from their gruesome deaths before they happen. However, being broken out of the time loop makes Boone a menace to the entities manipulating the guests through their masks. If they catch Boone affecting the events taking place they’ll give chase, meaning Boone cannot directly interfere with the murders and must instead manipulate the circumstances in favor of the victim.

The idea of going back in time to prevent tragedy isn’t a new one. It’s been popularized by games such as Majora’s Mask and Prince of Persia. However, the inability to directly interfere with the past makes The Sexy Brutale stand out as one of the most clever settings for a puzzle game in recent memory.

In the game, you must first watch from the shadows and see how the events took place that led to the deadly outcome. After figuring out how and when the murder occurred, it’s time to restart the day and see how the environment can be manipulated to alter the events of the past into a different outcome. The simplest example is in the tutorial, in which you must replace the bullets of a gun with blanks, giving the victim time to defend himself.

Most of the game’s cases are devilishly clever, offering a surprising amount of depth between the characters’ interactions, the dominoes in place leading to someone’s death, and the need to avoid being caught in the act. Figuring everything out is great and when the scenario really clicks and you understand exactly what happened and how to prevent it, the game is at its best.

Not only are the individual cases great, but the story tying everything together and figuring out the reason behind all of the death and destruction. And while the mystery itself is wrapped up in a satisfying and original way, the tone of it is another story.

See, the entire game up until the finale is bouncy, bubbly fun. It’s funny, charming, and surprisingly joyous in its portrayal and reaction to character death. In the final act, the game has a jarring tone shift and while the explanation for the game’s premise is satisfying and makes sense, suddenly having the game ask you to feel sad about someone’s death feels more like a misguided attempt to manipulate the player’s emotions into feeling sad for an emotionally impactful conclusion rather than a natural progression of the plot, which makes for a small blemish on an otherwise fun story.

However, at the heart of every tale are the characters and in this regard The Sexy Brutale is a mixed bag. In terms of character development, there isn’t much. You might get a snippet here and there, but the characters themselves clearly aren’t the focus here. Though as bland as the characters are, the dialogue is really well written. Sure, some of it is kind of blatant to give Boone clues to solve the case, but oftentimes just hearing what these characters mutter to themselves when they’re alone makes for a great laugh. So while they may not be fully flashed out, the characters do make for a fun cast.

A big reason for this is, yet again, the tone of the game. Over the course of one case, you’ll see the characters involved die over and over again. And once you save them, they thank you, take off their mask, and go about the rest of their day… until you turn back the clock and they’re doomed to die all over again. It’s kind of hard to care about these characters when restarting the clock means all of the effort put into saving them was ultimately just to gain the power from their mask.

On the other hand, the visuals are fantastic. The character designs are great and the big headed quirky looks of each character grants a lot of style. Even more impressive is the mansion itself. Clearly inspired by Clue with the big mansion and murders taking place, the gorgeous environment makes this place stand out from all the other mansions in gaming with design alone. Not to mention the graphics are well rendered and a delight to the eyes.

Animations are snappy and poppy and the designs are cute and funny leading to an entertaining juxtaposition between the gory deaths and the cheery style, only adding to the comedic tone the game sets out to achieve. The only visual downside is the slight delay when changing rooms, which isn’t too bad, but is noticeable enough to mention.

This tone is only improved by the wonderful music. It’s stylish, smooth, and knows exactly what tune to play to set the mood just right. Something about a swing tune being played over all the death and chaos just enhances the mood. Plus, the more lyrical songs in the game are a nice treat. And while the game doesn’t have much in the way of voice acting, it’s not really necessary to the experience so it’s not a big deal. 

The cherry on top would be the fact that over the course of the day, you can hear certain triggers caused by characters’ deaths piquing curiosity at the beginning of the game and making you say, “Well, I guess so and so is dead.” at the end of the game when you know what causes those sounds.

The game itself is really fun, with each new case offering a unique way to solve it and a new kind of murder taking place. Sometimes you’ll need to save two people at once, or have one person save another. After each case, you’ll gain a new power to make traversing the mansion and finding hidden collectables easier. Around the map, there are 52 playing cards to find if you feel so inclined, but they’re mostly for completionists and just there for replayability.

The downside to the new powers is that they make the game more linear. The cases must be solved in order and one case rarely affects or interacts with another. Each mystery is usually contained to its own portion of the mansion, making it feel like a bunch of levels strung together in a hub world instead of a cohesive world. Gameplay-wise this isn’t overtly a negative, but it does contrast the idea of everything happening in one day as a coordinated effort.

Boone has a few abilities himself. He can run around, read notes, examine objects, and look through keyholes to see and hear activities in another room. Everything he witnesses a character do is recorded on the game map, allowing him to see where a person will be at any given time so long as he’s seen them there before. And while useful, this ability is limited, making me wish that tracking a certain character for maybe around 80% of the day would result in revealing their full location, if just to avoid the little blinks on the map from when the character was temporarily out of sight.

The hiding mechanic is brilliant. Needing to remain unseen makes the process of preventing each murder really feel sneaky and sly. When a guest is finally saved, you get a huge feeling of accomplishment, but also feel smooth and cool for pulling it off in the way intended. If caught, you still have a bit of time to leave the room before being chased, making dying a rare inconvenience rather than a frustrating result of a mistake.

Although I do wish there was more than one way to save everyone since each puzzle only has one specific solution despite there being many other possibilities present. Still, putting all of the pieces together and figuring out how to protect a victim is addicting and entertaining throughout the entire 5 to 6 hour run time.

The biggest issues the game has have to do with padding. Sometimes doors are locked for no reason other than to make the path around them take more time. Other times, you’ll need to listen to a pointless conversation immediately after restarting the day in order to get to a room on the other side. The worst offender however, is the time travel. 

As a mechanic, it’s great and it’s used very cleverly to the puzzles’ benefit., but in execution, it’s pretty sloppy. The only way to go back in time is to restart the entire day from the beginning. Meaning that if you want to see only two or three events in the day, you have to sit through everything all over again instead of just going back to the moment you’re interested in. You can go forward to 4 or 8 pm, but there’s not much point in it because it’s hard to be sure you can make it to your desired location in time. I would have preferred a method like Braid in which going back in time reverses your character as well or at least the ability to speed up time while in hiding, just to ease the boredom of waiting.

I love the concept of The Sexy Brutale. It takes a classic story trope and gameplay mechanic and expands it in unique ways. But its shortcomings keep the game from ever really standing out. I do hope for another adventure in this style that improves on the issues present and expands on the ideas even further, but until then The Sexy Brutale gets a 7.5 out of 10. It’s a good game, but with a bit more design polish it could have been great. I hope you enjoyed this review. If you did, be sure to like and subscribe to see more mighty reviews, dissections, and other gaming content. And as always, have a mighty nifty day today!