The Last Case of Benedict Fox: Definitive Edition Review

Rarely do we play games on “Day One” in their most optimal state.

Often when I review games in their pre-launch state, a degree of lenience must be applied. It’s not uncommon for a patch that resolves known bugs or cleans up visuals to be applied the day before a game goes live for the rest of the world. Personally, I find it hard to judge a mildly messy review experience harshly knowing that those gripes will be swept away before anyone else plays the game.

Older folks like myself may lament the days when a game couldn’t be patched and merely had to be released in its best form possible. Yet I’m sure plenty of us wish horrid or broken NES or PS2 games could have gotten another pass after being purchased.

The Last Case of Benedict Fox was a game I wanted to play the second I saw its reveal trailer. A moody, Lovecraftian Metroidvania? Sold. But as a primarily PlayStation 5 player, I had to sit it out. However, my eye was still on The Last Case of Benedict Fox as its release came out and I couldn’t help but feel bad the game was received with middling reviews at best. Was it really not very good?

The Last Case of Benedict Fox: Definitive Edition, provides me the opportunity to play a game I was looking forward to with an alleged year’s worth of improvements and fixes to potentially iron out the gripes others had with it during the original launch. That being said, is the Definitive Edition the most optimal version of The Last Case of Benedict Fox? If so, what does that actually amount to?

Throughout my experience with The Last Case of Benedict Fox, I was constantly engaged with the universe developer Plot Twist had crafted. Set in 1925, the game follows Benedict returning to his father’s home in Boston on the hunt for completing a mysterious ritual. In this version of history, humans have discovered methods to interact with forces beyond normal comprehension. At some point in his life, Benedict became grafted to a tentacled being that resides somewhere in the ether, a realm that isn’t quite Hell but isn’t the afterlife.

Benedict’s demonic companion is capable of transporting the two to Limbo, a representation of the thoughts, dreams, and nightmares of the dead. In this particular case, it’s Benedict’s father who is found dead in the basement of the family home. Benedict and his otherworldly attachment dive into memories of the Elder Fox’s residual presence, represented by a churning, fleshy hellscape.

Most of The Last Case of Benedict Fox takes place in Limbo. The sprawling maps of erratic platforms and locked pathways are cobbled together with fragments of the Fox manor, manifestations of personalities, and the twisted machinations of “the other side” that remains a constant curiosity. It is a visually striking expression that has a number of inspired screens, showing that Plot Twist has an adept art department with an impressive direction.

What makes The Last Case of Benedict Fox more attractive to me is its nebulous narrative that follows a number of strange beats. The game establishes early on that two secretive organizations are at play: one attempting to suppress and control the mystical and magical and one embracing it. For several hours, the narrative poses a number of open-ended questions that the player may not be able to easily make heads or tails of. Clues, hints, and morsels of lore are dropped at a regular pace through varying collectibles or “memories” that reveal more about the world, its past, and the key things applying to Benedict’s story.

Rarely, if ever, did I pick up a Siamese Twin heart, or an obsidian dagger, or baby rattle and not read the text attached to the item. Doing so occasionally provided context clues to the story and where it might go, especially those detailing Benedict’s family and its attachment to the two shadowy groups. The game is sparse on actual cutscenes, often explaining finer points through the conversations between Benedict and his growling companion or other figures that appear in the home.

Surprisingly, most things in The Last Case of Benedict Fox have an in-world explanation to them. As out of place and wacky as everything may appear, there is context to it. It may be easy to ignore the backgrounds of Limbo as players fight and platform but a keen eye will notice that massive stained glass images or gargantuan statues are referencing places at the Fox home or moments reenacted in the whispers of the dead’s memories. While the game reserves a number of visually striking moments for action setpieces, I think it’s most beautiful when taking a beat to stylistically express its clash between the human world and Limbo. The Last Case of Benedict Fox isn’t striking in the same way as Hollow Knight but has enough touches that its 2.5D world can get by with a lack of visual polish.

For a story linked to the Metroidvania trappings, it’s told quite well here, at least for players wishing to embrace a bit of initial obtuseness. Where the extraneous lore is primarily attached to secrets and out-of-the-way objects, it’s difficult to miss when the game signposts opportunities to ask another character for more information. Strangely, I can barely remember the game having music outside a few subtle jazzy pieces that play on radios. Instead, the player’s ears are filled with the various squelchings of the world and the whooshing of Benedict’s constant jumping and attacking. Voice acting is serviceable. With a very small cast, most don’t stand out for being particularly good. In fact, a few seem detached or forget they were supposed to pull off an accent. Benedict’s voice actor wasn’t bad but really needed a few variations on his screams of pain. The best was actually the voice of the companion, whose gravely growls had enough threatening restraint to feel omnipotently menacing.

As the number of games in this genre grows, The Last Case of Benedict Fox desperately wants to make a name for itself. But there are many mechanical shortcomings that hinder it from becoming a standard-bearer classic.

During my time with The Last Case of Benedict Fox I thought back to playing Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. Ubisoft managed to capture the essence of a Metroidvania in terms of a rich, expansive map with a number of invigorating powers that evolved exploration. Something about Benedict’s journey failed to reach the pinnacle set by prior games.

For context, I decided to look at criticisms for the game upon its original release, attempting to get enough information as to not distill my own opinion of the game. What seemed to be universal about the game were issues with platforming and combat. Others split hairs over the density and challenge of puzzles or moving throughout the map.

In the Definitive Edition, issues with platforming seem to be almost rectified. If my impressions are correct, when Benedict earned the ability to double jump in the original version, it required players to latch on to anchor points on platforms. It seems that it was relatively easy to miss jumps because of the imprecise nature of jumping. The Definitive Edition seems to have fixed this and now Benedict merely hops up in place as if he is literally double- or triple-jumping (when that is acquired). The remnants of the old method seem to exist as the tendrils of the companion reach out for any surface when initiating a double jump.

Honestly, I understand why Plot Twist would try and incorporate this element into their movement mechanics as it makes sense in the world for the companion to literally pull Benedict towards a platform. But realistically, I can’t imagine it felt that great and sometimes, sacrifices need to be made to ensure a core mechanic is actually fun. And while that makes navigation more seamless, The Last Case of Benedict Fox is not as fluid as I wish it had been.

A good Metroidvania map knows when to block off sections of the game for later, when new abilities have been acquired. Conversely, earlier sections should be breezier with the new movement abilities. A lot of platforming in the game is broken up by snaking stairs and levels that don’t allow players to easily rush through them. Often, players need to run across a flat surface, drop down on to another one, move in an opposite direction, drop down, rinse and repeat–or do the opposite but jump instead of drop.

Eventually, I realized that I was frequently and almost constantly checking the map in The Last Case of Benedict Fox. Not only because the map revealed new pieces of an area rather than individual rooms but because I was so frequently trying to quickly move from one objective to another. I think this boils down to the map being bigger than necessary. There are a lot of unnecessary hallways that string together interesting rooms or tucked away corners. A few sections I began to memorize but quickly realized that I didn’t hate but didn’t prefer quick swapping from map to gameplay.

I’m not sure how tolerant I would have been of The Last Case of Benedict Fox had the platforming not been smoothed out. If navigating a Metroidvania’s map is a pain, it severely cripples enjoyment. I will note that whether it was my constant swapping or just the game itself but a few times the framerate plummeted for a beat or two as the game attempted to catch up. Only once did it lead to a freeze that crashed the game. It never seemed to happen during combat.

Combat in The Last Case of Benedict Fox is perhaps my biggest issue with the experience. While I’m not sure the ways in which the Definitive Edition sped combat up or made it more responsive, it still felt relatively slow–which makes me wonder how slow it actually was in the first place. Strangely, Benedict has an extremely limited toolset for combat in the game. He uses a blade to swipe at enemies, a flare gun to deal massive ranged damage, a shield that blocks attacks, and a few companion powers that implement the tentacles.

Slashing with the melee weapon is extremely basic and meant to do damage up close. About a third through the game, weapon upgrades are unlocked that somewhat help but are extremely costly to upgrade and require finding specific items. Players can also crouch and hold down the attack button to do a heavy strike. The heavy attack has a long wind up and doesn’t seem to be a sufficient replacement for a handful of quick strikes. While players can time the block at the moment an enemy strikes for a parry attack, enemy attacks either have a long wind-up time or are hard to telegraph. The flare gun at base level has one shot but charges up with melee strikes.

Rarely did I use the companion’s attacks. The initial grapple that players acquire is mainly used to clumsily toss smaller enemies around–hopefully into a death trap. The other powers were rewarded too deep into the game that I already had a rhythm going with quick melee attacks and multiple flare shots. In fact, I would use Benedict’s slam attack to trip up enemies, stunning them long enough to lock them into my combo.

Maybe it is strange to say but I would have avoided combat almost entirely in The Last Case of Benedict Fox. The game has a meager number of bosses and a handful of enemy types that aren’t visually striking. Conceptually, enemies initially contain “ink” which infuses them with power, making them give and take more damage. Some of these enemies can take a shocking amount of punishment. But once defeated, Benedict takes their ink and cashes it in at waypoints–dying or teleporting before depositing drops the ink and players have to go back to the spot where it was dropped or it goes back into enemies–making those enemies weaker in subsequent journeys. Often it was hard for me to tell what enemies were deprived of ink and I wished there was an icon above the ones who still had it.

The ink economy in the game creates a weird system where players are no longer incentivized to engage in combat when getting ink from enemies. But ink is also required to gain new companion powers, especially a few that open up exploration. I’m not sure why the decision was made to have ink be a finite resource that can actually hinder progressions. Nor am I sure why enemies even stick around. There truly is no reason to engage with them and I can’t imagine players not jumping over foes after a point.

Progression is an interesting factor in The Last Case of Benedict Fox. And multiple times I found myself wondering which route I was supposed to take. Keep in mind, the game has a number of difficulty settings where navigation, puzzles, and combat can all be circumnavigated but I chose the default settings. An extremely generous fast travel system that allows players to go to any point at any moment is great. But players must be comfortable with some extremely complex and moderately engaging puzzles.

Complicated puzzles can be a detriment in many games where action is a focus. Yet I found that The Last Case of Benedict Fox would have been best had it possessed a handful of combat encounters at most and relied on puzzles primarily. Plot Twist incorporated an intelligent amount of puzzles in the game, not just in what abilities unlock doors but in the thinking required to piece together various clues. While an option exists to auto-complete puzzles–and make the player immortal–doing so would almost render the game pointless.

There is a joy in being able to see literal writing on a wall or read through pages of a journal and have the lightbulb in your head click on. There are a few obtuse quandaries in The Last Case of Benedict Fox but most of them are fairly logical if the player has the patience and drive to solve them. It may be a point of frustration that progressing is reliant on being able to understand a few key puzzles but considering I’m the type to try and get everything, I didn’t mind.

The Last Case of Benedict Fox: Definitive Edition ultimately improves the game for the better, I imagine. Because I never interacted with the game prior to this experience, I can only sympathize with the frustrations other players went through and wonder if the updates will entice them to return. While key improvements seem to have been introduced to make core features better, fundamental quirks exist that detract from making it a top-tier Metroidvania. Snappier or not, combat is still quite slow and forgettable, leaving the puzzles and the universe the most appealing aspects of an otherwise intriguing game.