This Is The Zodiac Speaking
OpenCritic Rating
Top Critic Average
Critics Recommend
Critic Reviews for This Is The Zodiac Speaking
This is the Zodiac Speaking has interesting ideas, but is ultimately a dull slog through a poorly-told story.
A mediocre, meandering mystery game hiding under the mask of something greater. While it has a competent story to tell, it lacks the means to tell it in an engaging manner.
If you absolutely have to pick up this game, do yourself a favor and play Detective mode. You’ll get through it three times as fast and can move onto something worth your time
Ultimately the game feels like the first draft of a really great idea. Add some polish, and we’d love to see what it could become.
We commend the approach taken with this game. It’s a thoughtful take on a real-life murder mystery, and although the stealth sections felt a bit unnecessary, the experience as a whole at least felt relatively authentic. Ultimately, though, the gameplay and visuals just aren’t up to scratch at all, and there are far better examples of the genre on Switch that you’d be much better off playing.
Taking inspiration from the infamous Zodiac Killer, you too can feel the fear of hunting the hunter, or are you in fact also his prey?
This is the Zodiac Speaking sets itself up as a moody and mature take on a series of still unsolved murders, but the game in practice lacks a considerable amount of finesse. Beyond running poorly on the Nintendo Switch - to the point where anyone who exclusively plays undocked should avoid a purchase outright - the script is as overindulgent as it is clunky and what few attempts there are at building tension are downright comical. This is the Zodiac Speaking might have been worth suffering through the flaws if the game had tighter controls and ran better, but the Switch release simply isn't worth the money.
This Is The Zodiac Speaking salvages a faulty setup by offering a secondary story mode that is much more enjoyable to play than its main draw.