Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

The opening promise is easy to understand: you are not just looking for clues around a crime scene, but crossing into a deceased person’s memories to find what ordinary detective work cannot. Benedict Fox’s demon companion and the shifting space between present and past give the exploration a more personal, unsettling angle than the average locked-door Metroidvania.

The structure asks you to roam, uncover secrets, solve puzzle elements, and gradually expand Benedict’s options through an evolving skill tree. That can be satisfying when a new ability turns a previously unreachable thread into a fresh lead. The game is at its strongest when you feel like you are piecing together a case rather than simply sweeping the map for the next passage.

Combat is the bigger sticking point. The original release expects you to use demon-enhanced attacks in tactical combinations, and that added thoughtfulness is a good fit for its occult detective tone. Still, anyone hoping for breezy exploration may find the fighting interrupts the investigation more often than it enriches it. Give it time if the concept has grabbed you, but do not expect the action to be the reason you stay.

Graphics

The original game pairs gothic spaces with 1920s art deco touches, using rich mauves and deep grays instead of the usual all-black haunted-house palette. That color choice gives the side-view environments a bruised, dreamlike look that suits a world caught between reality and memory.

The occult imagery has a clear purpose here: Benedict’s work takes him through a limbo connected to death, emotion, and trauma, so the dark decorative style feels tied to the mystery rather than pasted on for atmosphere alone.

Story

Benedict Fox is a detective, but the case is inseparable from the demon he lives with. His ability to enter the memories of the deceased gives the story a compelling excuse to treat a detective investigation as something stranger and more intimate than a search for physical evidence.

The mystery reaches into secret societies, rituals, and crime, with the past constantly pressing against the present. That is fertile material for a supernatural noir, especially because memories are framed as places shaped by emotional damage rather than clean records of what happened.

Its greatest narrative strength is the premise itself. You are chasing answers through the remains of other people’s lives, and the game’s focus on trauma gives the detective setup more weight than a simple occult whodunit. If that blend of mystery and psychological horror sounds like your kind of thing, it carries the experience through its rougher stretches.

Overall Experience

The Last Case of Benedict Fox is more memorable for its ideas than for its smoothness. Its mix of detective fiction, demon-powered exploration, and memory-diving is specific enough to stand apart in a crowded genre, and its puzzles and secrets give you good reason to linger when the case starts clicking together.

At the same time, the original game’s tactical combat emphasis can test your patience. This is not a recommendation for someone who wants a clean, fast-moving action platformer. It is for the gamer willing to wrestle with some friction in return for an unusual mystery and a richly macabre place to investigate.

For a closer look at the original release and its launch features, see the original game publisher details. Benedict Fox does not fully live up to every part of its excellent premise, but that premise remains strong enough to make the journey worthwhile for the right audience.

Retro Replay Score

6.8/10