Anton Jacob Zellner is a Swiss constable who has seen much in his days. He’s over the hump, has heart problems that could lead to an early death, and is hardly what you immediately expect from a game’s main character. That said, his smooth voice, playful banter, and what I can only describe as a zest for life make him immediately likeable.
You’ll be very happy then to join him as he finds himself intertwined with the investigation of the stolen Eyes of the Sphinx. The game starts with a cutscene offering up all the information you need to begin feeling intrigued; a mysterious thief called The Raven, dressed to match, pulling off a heist that ends in a big bang.
Who is The Raven? Judging only by recent events, he is a murderer who blows up entire treasure rooms to get what he wants, leaving behind his signature raven feather. But as you quickly learn, explosions and body counts are not The Raven’s typical MO. Back in the day he would operate smoothly, quietly, and harmlessly. Has The Raven changed? Is this even the work of The Raven? Who is The goddamned Raven?
Indeed, this adventure game keeps you on your feet while you investigate, and without spoiling the story, you’re constantly kept wondering just what’s going on and who is behind it all. Every time you think you know everything, you soon learn that you know very little.
From a technical standpoint, The Raven operates like most point and click adventure games. You must mouse over and click characters and hotspots to interact with them, you move by clicking, and have access to an inventory. Puzzles almost always make logical sense, so you won’t find yourself sticking a rubber chicken on a pulley, and you can even examine most things numerous times to squeeze deeper and deeper observations out of them. Characters are chock full of things to say and you’ll want to hear most of it, as it’s either interesting or useful.
Well just look at the guy. Of course he does.
Although the game itself and the plot are interesting, believable, and at times utterly engrossing, there are some bugs that will stand in your way. For one, hotspots aren’t always precisely where they should be, and often the items are so dark or blended with the background that they’re literally impossible to find without doing the ol’ “meticulously slow mouse scan” maneuver. These are few and far between, and to be fair you can spend Adventure Points to highlight all hotspots on the screen, but this will detract from your final score at the end of each Episode and thus deprive you of getting all the achievements.
There was even an issue with a hotspot being out of reach in Episode 3 until I switched to a widescreen resolution, though this is partially my fault for still not having the money to upgrade my CRT monitor.
Perhaps the bigger and more prominent issue is the player pathing. You turn slowly and walk fairly inaccurately. Sometimes (especially in Episode 3, I found) I would try to interact with something and find myself walking in place forever, with no way to access the menu to shut the game down or restart a save. When this occurred, Ctrl+Alt+Del was my best friend, as was manually saving often before these things occurred.
Mystery of Anton’s heart problems: Solved.
The Raven gets a graphical and auditory thumbs up. Environments are smooth and pleasant, and characters are very distinguished with a hint of caricature. The voice acting is almost always great, with the poorer performances usually given by inconsequential characters who don’t persist long. Anton in particular just has a good presence to his voice, and he could lull you to sleep (uh, in a good way) or cheer you up even on your darkest of days. He’s zesty.
Perhaps the only thing not so endearing about the graphics are the facial animations, in which (up close) everyone’s face flops around like a Jim Henson puppet. Luckily most conversations aren’t close to the camera.
Episode 1 was definitely the longest episode, clocking in at about 7 hours for me, but subsequent episodes were shorter. In total, I completed the game in 15 hours, so it’s a fairly good length for the price. If you can forgive the technical issues, you’ll find a great mystery in The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief. The ending is satisfying and will give you something to think about, that’s for sure. It doesn’t beat my favorite classics like Grim Fandango or Monkey Island, but I can easily say it’s one of the better adventure games I’ve played that won’t soon be forgotten… I might even go back for seconds.
