The Raven - new game by King Art (guys behind Book of Unwritten Tales)

[Nope]

I only played the first part, but that was the one everyone apparently enjoyed so...

I thought the writing was dull, the characters uninteresting, and the puzzles extremely simplistic (I wouldn't even call them puzzles really). It also had a fair number of bugs and the general clunkiness characteristic of shovelware adventure games. I've honestly no clue why it received such positive reviews. Maybe I just didn't "get" it.

In retrospect my enjoyment was probably primarily from the Agatha Christie novel-like atmosphere and finding the main character charming since I can barely recall the puzzles of the first one.
Just finished Episode 3 after 90 minutes of playing and it was more or less like two without the charming main character. Ending was okay and they did manage to explain some things from the earlier episodes though. (baroness, raven's death)

 

[Bubbles]

Verily, 'tis horseshit. And the ending wasn't "okay", it was complete nonsense designed to get the biggest shock of out the audience without making any fucking sense whatsoever.

Spoiler

you can't just copy the Murder of Roger Ackroyd twist into a video game where you directly control the protagonist. I'd be amenable if there were some sort of framing narrative (as in, Zellner tells his story, lets us play as him, and talks to us from time to time to remind us of this) or if the dude were clinically psychotic or something, but no. Even if the game had just started with "let me tell you a story" it would have been a lot more palatable.

The fact that the devs didn't even make that minor adjustment suggests to me that they didn't have the slightest clue who the Raven was going to be until they started work on the final episode. Just look at how the villain of part 2 received zero foreshadowing in part 1, then suddenly became an obviously evil asshole through a single short piece of dialogue at the beginning of part 2.
And don't get me started on the way that all the side storylines are either wrapped up one after the other within three lines of dialogue or completely forgotten about, to the point where poeple you were supposed to become invested in during ep 1 and 2 don't even get a single line in the entire episode despite showing up in screens.

Or how about that revolutionary "optional puzzles for hardcore gamers to unlock additional intel and extra points" concept that extended to two puzzles at the very beginning of the first episode and then never appeared again? All that "designed as a complete game, just needs funding to finish the final assets" stuff was bullshit, pure bullshit.

One of the worst adventure games of the year, and probably THE worst in terms of budget and storytelling potential vs. execution.

 

[jfrisby]

The ending shocked people? I thought it made sense, for the silly Agatha Christie setting, and was pretty heavily telegraphed back to the first episode.

The puzzles / story get pretty drawn out in parts 2 & 3, with lots of annoying easy event triggering 'puzzle' click/fetch crap, glitchy traversal, and lots of weird mistakes at the end of episodes (like no credit music or sudden cutscene endings). Better than Cognition.

 

[Bubbles]

and was pretty heavily telegraphed back to the first episode.

When and how?

 

[Kaldurenik]

Short version: Dont buy its crap and broken.

 

[Name]

The Raven is breaking the fourth wall all the time by tricking us players. It's unacceptable bad writing.
The old Constable character is a charming protagonist though, wish we could play as him for the whole game. King's Art always have to pair their unique player character (like the gnome from the Book of Unwritten Tale) with a boring hot and smart girl and a boring hot and smart guy. At least there is no annoying critter.
And why did the their technology regressed so much? Scene transition is always buggy, sometimes characters disappear after loading, once or twice a object is displaced so you have to click another place for it.
This is decline.

 

[HoboForEternity]

i just started playing it. bought it ultra cheap some moons ago, and thought, why not eh? lesse what we got here. i love BoTUT games, so why not?

 

[HoboForEternity]

first impression isn't that bad. decent VO, good, charming visuals and art style, music is pleasing to the ears.

 

[HoboForEternity]

finished the train chapter. so far it isnt as bad as people here say/ puzzles are a bit uncreative and easier on the side, but i enjoy the story and characters so far. what true is the clunk/buggyness. nothing that would make me stop playing

 

[HoboForEternity]

finished it. some parts were enjoyable, some parts were meh.

story is good, zellner is a very likeable protagonist, even adil and the girl, who i don't like at first became likeable. most characters are well developed, and in contrary to bubbles, most things are subtly foreshadowed, altho some parts are just weird. (like when zellner threw his heart pills) and i think zellner as the raven can be really foreshadowed where he insist this current raven isn't the raven. (like those trope someone with secret indentity usually defend their persona when someone talk bad about them). Zellner also mentioned a daugther earlier, kinda foreshadowing the ending (alas, breaking the 4th wall too)

some things that should be developed more:

1. the real raven and his previous exploit
2. Dr. Gerbhart and baroness. some extra dialogue would be nice when examining the photos/talking to zellner.

anyway mechanics wise, epsidoe 1 has some really decent puzzling, and some optional extras. that's good. shame they really never appear in ch.2/3 (except the last animal code when opening the secret compartment)

the puzzles are a bit too easy, but actual adventure games with puzzles are so rare nowadays, i still consider them fun. i hate the "dark" parts though. it's pure pixel hunt-y and really never liked that.

also yeah, the game is ultra buggy. i had a moment where a character just stuck and start rotating in place. i had to restart the game.

The game is the definition of "missed potential". had they polished it more, and explore the story/characters deeper it will be really good.

 

[Ringhausen]

This game was pretty shitty but the graphics, music and mood was lovely at times.

 

[Barbarian]

My impression exactly. Nice production values and somewhat enjoyable in the first chapters, but then it went downhill. Plot was very stupid.

 

[Boleskine]

http://www.pcgamer.com/the-raven-remastered-release-date-set-for-march/

The Raven Remastered release date set for March
By Joe Donnelly 3 days ago

Less than five years since its first release.

King Art Games' The Raven—Legacy of a Master Thief is an episodic point-and-click adventure game that first graced our screens in July, 2013. Now, publisher THQ Nordic has revealed the whodunit detective 'em up is in-line for a 2018 reimagining. Named The Raven Remastered, it's due in a couple of months' time.

With that, expect fully-remastered animations, lighting and hair effects—"in full HD resolution"—and subtitles in French, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, German, Russian, Polish and Italian. As before, The Raven's crime story is portrayed through the eyes of multiple characters and visits everywhere from the Swiss Alps to the Museum of Cairo.

Here's the remaster's announcement trailer:



And here's a brief synopsis as per THQ Nordic:

London, 1964. An ancient ruby is stolen from the British Museum. At the crime scene: a raven feather. Is somebody trying to follow in the footsteps of The Raven, the legendary master thief who disappeared years before?

Constable Anton Jakob Zellner finds himself in the middle of the kind of murder mystery he so far only knew from reading his favourite crime novels. Nothing is what it seems. Everyone has something to hide. And the Raven is always one step ahead...

The Raven Remastered is due March 13, 2018.

 

[Boleskine]

The remastered version is out now.

 

[Rahdulan]

Props for giving the Remastered version to owners of the original for free.

 

[Tom Selleck]

I forgot I had this, never played it, now I will give this Remastered a shot

 

[Barbarian]

I remember it started off pretty well but then it become totally retarded. The ending has got to be the most stupid and mindless in the history of aping Agatha Christie.

 

[toucanplay]

I remember it started off pretty well but then it become totally retarded. The ending has got to be the most stupid and mindless in the history of aping Agatha Christie.

Guess you haven't seen some of the adaptations in the later Poirot and new Marple series then. Some of those completely ruin the original stories for me.

I liked the game well enough: it's a mediocre adventure, but I enjoy anything Agatha Christie-related that does a decent job and I enjoyed the references (as heavy-handed as they got sometimes). If anyone reading this wants a slightly better adventure game, the PC version of The ABC Murders does a good job of making you feel like a detective with how it handles its puzzles.

 

[Alienman]

Just recently finished the remaster version. Absolutely loved it, but then came the ending.

Wtf was that? It ruined the whole game, and it made no sense at all. One example is when you interrogate the stowaway as Zellnar. Why did you do that if you take the ending into consideration? What the hell happened here. Did they run out of time?