The Mermaid Mask was provided by SFB Games for review. Thank you!
The Mermaid Mask accomplished something I did not know was possible: this made me enjoy detective games again. Developed by SFB Games, the brilliant minds behind Crow Country and Detective Grimoire, Mermaid Mask had already built up some hype ahead of its release, and it really pays off.
I’m not particularly good at detective puzzle games, nor am I that experienced with them. I enjoyed The Drifter last year; however, at the time, I found it the new standard all point-and-click puzzle games should be held up against. After playing The Mermaid Mask, we might just have a new yardstick!
With three highly successful projects already under their belt, The Mermaid Mask had many people curious to see if SFB Games could do it again. I wasn’t aware of this until later, but Mask is the third in the series after Detective Grimoire and Tangle Tower. I haven't played the previous two games, so it may feel strange to dive into this third iteration. Don’t worry, though, as this is mostly standalone. The Mermaid Mask is not only an excellent game in its own right, but it might be a sleeper Game of the Year.
Players take on the role of Grimoire, a supernatural detective who, alongside his partner Sally, is called to a derelict island to deal with a puzzling murder. The victim is found dead within a locked room, and this is just the tip of the iceberg for the duo. The Mermaid Mask makes an awesome first impression with some great visuals, voice acting, and characters. Right off the bat, the game just oozes charm, and I love how our detective team works together. Sally is brilliant yet a little scatterbrained, and Grimoire’s sense of humor blends beautifully.
Each room in this submarine feels unique. It might be the weirdest submarine I have ever seen, but it is a great example of worldbuilding in The Mermaid Mask. It’s a tiny slice of a much larger world, but it made me want to see more of it. There’s even interactivity in the ‘Clues’ section, where every clue has full 3D modeling and can be viewed from any angle.
I also must commend the writing. The characters are well written and likable, with great voice acting and dialogue. Everyone involved has done an amazing job bringing each persona to life. It’s been a while since I've laughed so much with a video game, rather than laughing at something stupid the game did.
Moving on to the gameplay, I was pleasantly surprised by how solid it was. I’ve found many point-and-click games struggle to deliver interesting gameplay, usually relying on weak puzzle design to survive. Fortunately, the Mermaid Mask does a great job overall. Naturally, puzzles are the meat and potatoes of this genre, and they are deliciously creative. They are also very difficult on occasion, and remember how bad I am at puzzles? Fortunately, there are optional hints. Finding the culprit involves real detective work: interviewing suspects, cross-examinations, and interviews. It is all compelling stuff, and honestly, more detective games should do this.
I love how The Mermaid Mask leaves things to the player, as too many of these point-and-click games hold the player’s hand to the point of wiping their arse. However, I’ll admit I spent many parts of the game stumped on how to proceed. I ended up flailing around every location like a gibbon throwing poo around. I don’t find this a fault with the game itself, but more on my lack of intelligence with puzzle games!
Overall, The Mermaid Mask is excellent, with only a couple of minor issues, which were the performance issues. The fully animated detective interviews and the clues menu can get pretty intensive and greatly ramp up power usage even on more powerful systems.
The Mermaid Mask is Verified on the Steam Deck, with ProtonDB providing a Platinum rating. While the Steam Deck verification process is still a weird duck, they got it right this time. The Mermaid Mask is a lovely experience on the Deck, despite no settings to tinker with.
The game has full controller support, with the mouse being controlled by the left joystick to access everything on the screen. There’s no way to remap controls, but I was able to access everything I needed.
Performance is solid overall, but The Mermaid Mask is surprisingly intensive in places. Most of the gameplay runs at a full 90FPS without many hiccups, but a few scenes hit both the framerate and battery hard. Some conversations with the suspects, the animated cutscenes during ‘The Night of the Murder’, and inspecting the clues, for example, all saw some big frame drops, and the power draw really ramps up. Therefore, it is hard to work out an average power draw.
I found a 50FPS/50hz framerate/refresh rate lock, native resolution, and native TDP to be the best sweet spot for the smoothest experience. During standard gameplay, I found the power draw around 8 watts, but the heavier scenes ramped up the voltage. In the worst-case scenario, I saw it spike to over 16 watts! These sequences don’t last for long, but it is something worth mentioning. Average battery life is difficult to estimate with this much variance, but I would expect around 4 hours on the Steam Deck OLED as a rough ballpark.
The Mermaid Mask is available in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish - Spain, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish - Latin America, and Traditional Chinese. Only English has full audio, however.
The accessibility features in the game are somewhat lacking. You can change the screen resolution, volume, toggle subtitles, and limit the framerate in the main options. There are a couple of nice gameplay tweaks, such as highlighting interactable areas and turning on HD font, but otherwise there isn’t much else. There is currently no way to change keybindings or controller buttons.
The Mermaid Mask is that wonderful blend of mechanics, setting, and storytelling that all just works, to quote a certain Bethesda bloke. While it is ‘just a point-and-click puzzle game’, it is much greater than the sum of its parts, and I loved almost everything about it.
The performance can suffer a little bit during the heavier scenes, especially on the Steam Deck, but apart from that, I struggled to think of any downsides for The Mermaid Mask. The puzzles are pretty challenging, but even if you are terrible at them like I am, the great writing and intriguing characters are more than enough to make up for it. I won’t be surprised if the game is in my Top 10 games come December!
このレビューはPC版に基づいています。
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The Mermaid Mask is that wonderful blend of mechanics, setting, and storytelling that all just works. It also runs well on the Steam Deck, despite some unusual power spikes.
