Metropolis: Lux Obscura

Reviewed by Kieran

Developer: Sometimes You
Publisher: Sometimes You
Category: Puzzle, Other
Release Date: 04.04.2018

On a cool spring evening, in a dimly lit forest, a light flickered in a dank cabin. As the flames of the fire petered out of existence, a telephone rang

Hello?.. a voice nervously answered.

Am I speaking to the developer of Metropolis: Lux Obscura? A stern voice asked.

Ye….yes… the voice meekly uttered.

Very Good. This is the legal representation of Frank Miller; you are being sued for blatant plagiarism.

Phone line cuts.

Review begins.

Hate the sin, love the sinner

Metropolis: Lux Obscura in no way tries to hide or shy away from its source material and inspiration. At the same time it doesn’t try to do anything different what so ever. For this simple reason the game feels incredibly shallow and lacking identity. Every little detail and character feels like it has been ripped straight from the pages of Sin City. Even the main character is an exact clone of Marv.

There is no hand holding, no real opening cinematic of note. You are placed on a darkened map screen and the area you need to head to is somewhat illuminated. Simply click on the glowing icon to proceed. The story will take you from one fight to another. Which is all well and good, just a little basic.

Battle System

What better way to settle a quarrel than in that most ancient and noble of manners. A duel at dawn I hear you say, fisty cuffs perhaps, perchance even a good old fashioned game of Russian roulette? Wrong, wrong and wrong again. Obviously, you’ll be solving your issues with a match 3 puzzle.

The main issue with this is that it really is completely random and all depends on what drops in your 1^st grid. Very early on I got completely stuck in a battle, seemingly doomed to die over and over again. Eventually, fate smiled a toothy grin and handed out a decent set of abilities and I was able to proceed. In comparison, I passed the final boss of the game without having to do anything. From the very start of the battle I had items match up and they continued to chain until my foe was vanquished.

If it wasn’t for the overwhelming frustration of how random the battle system is, it would be the standout feature. And I think that says everything you need to know about Metropolis: Lux Obscura. There are enough different types of tiles to offer a good variety of attacks and you can unlock more during the course of the game. You also heal by lining up first aid kits in the traditional match 3 way and there are also police badges that have a negative effect. If you line up 3 of these, then you will actually inflict damage on yourself.

Controls

The developer has gone to good efforts to offer touch controls, at least, which are responsive and precise. I personally found that I preferred playing in handheld mode during my time with the game. Docked mode was perfectly acceptable, simply hold down R and move the left joy stick to essentially drag tiles, as if using touch controls.

Obviously, this title supports use of all Switch controllers, including the Pro controller. However I do fell the need to comment on the fact that if you want to start the game in handheld mode, you must take the Joy Cons off of the Switch before starting the game. Please do not ask me the why or what for of this as I simply do not have the answers. However, this isn’t the first game from this developer where I have had this issue.

Story

The story should be self explanatory if you have ever watched Sin City. A down on his luck, slightly rough around the edges ex con has a soft spot for a beautiful women and will protect her at all costs. At the same time Gangsters are doing gang related activities in the city.

Metropolis lux obscura offers a reasonable amount of content. There are 4 different ending to unlock and the somewhat likeable character of Jon Lockhart has quite the repertoire of issues. Discovering all of his mental disorder and habits is this games form of collectables. Which is something different at least.

This game is very glaringly aimed at adult players which is made apparent not only by the sheer amount of swearing from the get go, but also by its dark tone. From violent encounters to drug use and prostitution, this title tackles it all with as much decorum as is to be expected from a game that treats plagiarism so nonchalantly. There is also an obscene amount of sexual content on display throughout, and if cartoon boobs are your thing, you’re going to have a blast with this title. Lets just not talk about the strangely animated sex scene. The less said about this, the better.

Presentation

Metropolis: Lux Obscura has a fairly decent soundtrack. The music has a steady tempo, nicely paced and all of the voice acting is peerfectley acceptable, managing to be rough enough for the tone of the game whilst simultaneously maintaining enough clarity to understand the dialogue. I did find that the music during the match 3 puzzlers did start to become slightly repetitive although in game it was varied and atmospheric.

The artistic style is completely fine, despite being about taken directly from a pre mentioned franchise. While I understand the appeal of feeding off of an admired piece of work, I do feel as though you should always try to add something to it or put your own spin on it and absolutely nail it.

TL:DR

A shallow experience that quite openly steals all of its source material. Game play will offer a few hours of entertainment at best before growing stale. Strong adult tone which would be fine were it not for THAT scene