The Raven Remastered review for Switch, PS4, Xbox One, PC

I don?t remember it now, but apparently the first time I played The Raven, back in the PS360 days, I was highly impressed by its production values. Coming off playing a series of low-budget adventure games, I guess I was easily dazzled by The Raven?s relatively high-quality graphics, voice acting, and music.

I wouldn?t describe myself as quite so awed by the production values game?s remastered release, but that?s only because I?ve played many more adventure games in the ensuing years, and I?ve got a better sense of what the genre has to offer. I know now that The Raven doesn?t quite stand head and shoulders above its contemporaries.

That said, I?d still say that the game has got better production values than most. The voice acting is still very good, as are the music and the visuals. Even more importantly, the script is excellent, with a mystery that keeps you guessing right up until the very end.

For me, this last part is key to what makes The Raven such a great game. It?s clearly meant as an homage to Agatha Christie, in everything from the hero (a Poirot-ish Swiss constable named Zellner), to the settings (a train, in a nod to Murder on the Orient Express, and a cruise ship, in a nod to Death on the Nile, both play major roles in the story), all the way down to the fact there?s a character named Lady Westmacott, which was Christie?s pseudonym.

Moreover, a lot of the criticisms I leveled against the game back when it was originally released no longer seem like such a big deal. Manoeuvring Zellner around is occasionally annoying, particularly when you need him to be standing in one specific spot, but I wouldn?t say that it?s enough to drag down my enjoyment of the game as a whole. Likewise, even if the scoring system seems like an odd thing to include in a game like this, I wouldn?t say that its presence really impacts anything else here one way or another.

Perhaps the biggest compliment I could pay to The Raven Remastered is this: in 2016, we had an actual Agatha Christie game, The ABC Murders. The Raven feels more Christie-like than that game does, even without anything officially from the Christie canon. This is a solid adventure game with a fun mystery at its core, and it?s well worth playing now that it?s been re-released.

THQ Nordic provided us with a Raven Remastered Switch code for review purposes.