Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders Reviews
Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders is a gentle game, constantly giving players information via observation, conversation or reasoning, without ever pressuring them to solve the puzzles and to move forward with the story.
My time with Hercule Poirot and his pal Hastings was memorable.
Agatha Christie - The ABC Murders is a satisfying point-and-click whodunit adventure with plenty of puzzles.
Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders is a solid start to what will hopefully be a new franchise. It reminds me quite a bit of Frogwares Sherlock Holmes series, which took a few games to find its stride. The games focus on building up the character of Poirot and focusing on telling the story from his perspective pays off, in part due to Poirot being the most interesting character in the game.
Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders is a very enjoyable point and click adventure game featuring a varied gameplay experience, a good plot, charming characters and great atmosphere. The game's short length and low challenge level, however, prevent it from being anywhere near a masterpiece. Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders is not a game that will blow your mind, but if you're looking to spend a few hours with an enjoyable adventure title then it's definitely the game for you.
Agatha Christie – The ABC Murders will likely please fans of the prolific author's work with its accessibility and faithfulness to its source material. Just don't expect too much of a challenge in the gameplay department.
I enjoyed myself, though. The ABC Murders makes for lighthearted detective fare, clean and colorful like a Saturday morning cartoon. And make no mistake—when I say it cribs from Frogware's Sherlock Holmes games, I don't say it with any malice. I'd love to see more classic mysteries turned into adventure games, and Frogware just happens to be the current studio to beat.
A wonderful, but short, plot that will have you believing you own real life detective skills.
A different kind of point-and-click adventure, Agatha Christie – The ABC Murders has both highs and lows on the Nintendo Switch. But it's the quantity and quality of speech that pushes it over the edge for me, despite the inexplicable lack of handheld play.
Despite [its] flaws, Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders still provides a great and thoroughly engrossing crime story
Ultimately, Agatha Christie's The ABC Murders is a perfectly competent point-and-click detective game, competently ported to Nintendo Switch. It's more difficult to deliver a "great detective" story in a way that feels appropriate to the character and the players than most people would think, but the developers have done an admirable job here overall. Just do yourself a favour and resist looking up a guide. Not all the puzzles are perfectly executed, but for this game to have the right impact on you, you really do want to be solving each puzzle without assistance, even if that does mean that you feel like your Poirot's IQ has dropped a couple hundred points.
If you’re a fan of Agatha Christie, murder mysteries, point and clicks, or puzzle games and want a fun little gem that will provide a day’s worth of amusement without trespassing into darker territory, then Agatha Christie – The ABC Murders will definitely delight you.
If you want a narrative-driven experience, and you already devoured the Telltale Games catalogue, you should try this new alternative. Once you get past its obvious and annoying design flaws, you’ll find yourself facing a diamond in the rough, something truly entertaining.
While Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders has the right idea in terms of how to best present a murder mystery in video game form, it unfortunately misses the mark. Having to exit the game and come back after completing a few tasks really kills the immersion and flow. I also think not making use of the Switch’s touchscreen was a huge missed opportunity.
If you're like this writer and enjoy even a decent police procedural game – especially in a medium where they're dishearteningly absent – Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders is a deserving title in your mystery fiction library. The video game adaptation may lack presentation value, but a strong plot, fun deductions, and a rewarding conclusion make up for it in the end.
That's just one of the many things that make The ABC Murders feel unpolished and a bit rough around the edges.
At just 6-7 hours for a single playthrough and with little replayability outside of the achievements, I'm not entirely sure that it does justify that high a price, especially when there are other similar titles that offer more for a lower price point.
Playing as Hercule Poirot is a mostly entertaining romp through 1930s London, minus a few hitches along the way.
While there are more complex and intriguing crime games out there and it isn't the longest game, The ABC Murders still offers good entertainment for the interested and serves as a decent port into the murder mystery puzzle genre. Some core mechanics need fine tuning, but the balance between the different game elements is generally good. The interrogation scenes as well as the deduction phases could be a bit more elaborate and slightly longer (because they are - hands down - the best bits of the game) but the overall flow of the game is pleasant.
Chris Capel tries to get his little grey cells to work