Review | Classified Stories: The Tome of Myrkah

LifeisXbox’s Classified Stories: The Tome of Myrkah review | Classified Stories: The Tome of Myrkah is a micro-adventure and the first title in a series of first-person puzzle and adventure video games that follow the adventures of Jim Morrison, a private investigator living in Boston, Massachusetts. This short game, developed and published by RVL Games, is a stand-alone game but future games in the Classified Stories franchise will take place in the same universe.

We played Classified Stories: The Tome of Myrkah for two hours on PC. This game is only available on Steam.

What we liked!

• Story | The game starts in the office of private investigator Jim Morrison. A curious letter from an old friend finds his way to Jim, asking for his help. The writing betrays a sense of urgency, as many of the sentences are scribbled through bulbous stains of ink. Be it due to your inner sense of duty, or old-time camaraderie, you decide to meet your friend at his farm, someplace far away from the busy streets of Boston. What do you not know, though, is that this singular decision will forever blur the line between what you once considered real and what you simply disregarded as fiction. After traveling to the farm, the story continues to unfold both before your very own eyes and through notes scattered around the old, and seemingly abandoned, farm. Throughout the whole game, I found myself very invested in the story and what would happen next.
• Graphics and sound | These two basic elements of gameplay were covered pretty well. The graphics looked very neat, and the developers paid attention to detail. You never get to see your main character, Jim, since you play through his eyes, unfortunately. I did notice that, when walking past a mirror, I did not see a reflection, so not all details were taken into account. But honestly, that’s fine because the entire game looked very good as is. I also loved the few cut scenes that looked like they came right out of comic books! The sound effects are in place as well. You hear your footsteps on the wooden floor as you’re walking through the farm, when something opens, you hear a cracking sound, and so on. There is no soundtrack, and I didn’t miss one either. However, you could put on some music every now and then by activating a record player. What a nice touch!
• Puzzles | In order to open doors, activate certain things, and so on, you’ll have to solve some puzzles along the way. Some will definitely be easier than others, but the puzzles used in Classified Stories: The Tome of Myrkah are never nerve-wrecking in any way. I enjoyed looking around the farm, trying to find the next piece of the puzzle and searching for the solutions. I did feel like the ending could’ve used a bit more spice, and thus a more difficult puzzle to solve, but it’s not like I was bothered by it, and I still loved every part of the beginning, the middle, and the end!
• Jump scares | You pick up a flashlight and gun quite early on in the game. And once you are in need of a gun, you know b*tches are going to be up your ass. Even though the enemies that you encounter are limited, they can cause a few jump scares. This, mostly, because you are so focused on solving puzzles, that you kind of lose sight of the possibility of monsters wandering around. It’s because there are few enemies, that you tend to lose track of them, and I honestly liked this. I can definitely see others wanting more opponents, but the amount was a big plus, in my opinion!

Somewhere between

• Flashlight | As I mentioned before, you’ll be picking up a flashlight early on in the game. I’m a big fan of flashlights in games, because I love peeking around in the dark and taking out my little ball of light. It creates some extra mystery and keeps you on your toes even more than when you’re wandering around in the light. However, I felt like the flashlight wasn’t performing that well throughout the entire game. When you get too close to something, the light beam will be so small that it’s basically useless. On top of that, my flashlight stopped working at some point. I don’t know what happened but I was in the dark and my trusty companion was not providing any guidance. After a few seconds, boom, the light was back.

What we disliked

• Nothing | Besides the glitching flashlight, I did not encounter any bugs or anything else I disliked!

CONCLUSION

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