I'm on a bit of an FMV kick at the moment, so I thought I'd dive straight into this. A prequel to The Shapeshifting Detective (which I reviewed here), Dark Nights with Poe & Munro is an episodic FMV point-and-click game starring the titular radio DJs/investigators/illicit lovers. Seriously though, I don't think I've ever seen a less believable couple in media - Ellis Munro must have some low standards.
Poe & Munro takes a wildly different turn from The Shapeshifting Detective - while the latter was a mostly grounded affair, the former instead decides to embrace the gleeful insanity of most other FMV titles. The results aren't so much as varying, but absolutely all over the place. The six-episode "series" features the two investigating a kidnapping, hosting a fundraiser in bed (which I think was just an excuse to get actress Leah Cunard into some nightwear), and dealing with the ghost of an evil little girl, among other hijinks. It's like someone tried to make a British X Files but took a bunch of acid while writing it.
Seriously, the pacing is all over the place - scenes and episodes either drag on for way too long or just end abruptly. The narratives are incredibly silly - Poe straight up murders a guy and buries his body in the garden in the first episode and it's never brought up again. On the other hand, there's an episode which is not only a neat callback to The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker (Da'vekki Studios' first game), but that also gives some very interesting insight into Munro's backstory. There's enough tonal whiplash to make your head spin, and it's really down to you whether you're the sort of person who will embrace the camp or reject it completely. Me? I dug it, for the most part.
The acting is pretty par for the course for an FMV game. Poe and Munro's "50s transatlantic schtick" annoyed me in The Shapeshifting Detective, but it seems that they've both toned it down a little here, and Leah Cunard carries the two of them performance-wise. Lara Lemon puts in a fun, if short, performance as a totally legitimate hypnotist. Aislinn De'ath steals the show in her brief return as The Shapeshifting Detective's Violet, having by far the best scene in the entire game. In fact, it's pretty amazing just how much more chemistry De'ath and Leah Cunard have in just one scene than Cunard and Klemens Koehring (Poe) have in the entire game.
As far as gameplay goes, this is about as simple as point-and-click gets. Icons will pop up when it's time to make a choice, and you simply choose and let it play out. It's slightly annoying that with some of the choices, it's not exactly clear what it is you're choosing - you'll have to click either Poe's face or Munro's face and just see what happens. It would have been nice to have even a little bit of inclination as to what would happen when I clicked each option. On a technical level this suffers most of the same problems as The Shapeshifting Detective did - namely, poor lighting and some camera focus issues. Some of the audio was pretty badly recorded too - I know, it's the annoying film student in me coming out again.
Overall, I didn't like this quite as much as The Shapeshifting Detective, but I still had a pretty good time. It's short, it's silly, it's even a little sexy in places. If you're willing to embrace the campy fun you'll get a lot out of this!
Now, time to start writing my pitch for The Violet & Munro Adventures... I mean, just look at them. Adorable, right!?
Poe & Munro takes a wildly different turn from The Shapeshifting Detective - while the latter was a mostly grounded affair, the former instead decides to embrace the gleeful insanity of most other FMV titles. The results aren't so much as varying, but absolutely all over the place. The six-episode "series" features the two investigating a kidnapping, hosting a fundraiser in bed (which I think was just an excuse to get actress Leah Cunard into some nightwear), and dealing with the ghost of an evil little girl, among other hijinks. It's like someone tried to make a British X Files but took a bunch of acid while writing it.
Seriously, the pacing is all over the place - scenes and episodes either drag on for way too long or just end abruptly. The narratives are incredibly silly - Poe straight up murders a guy and buries his body in the garden in the first episode and it's never brought up again. On the other hand, there's an episode which is not only a neat callback to The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker (Da'vekki Studios' first game), but that also gives some very interesting insight into Munro's backstory. There's enough tonal whiplash to make your head spin, and it's really down to you whether you're the sort of person who will embrace the camp or reject it completely. Me? I dug it, for the most part.
The acting is pretty par for the course for an FMV game. Poe and Munro's "50s transatlantic schtick" annoyed me in The Shapeshifting Detective, but it seems that they've both toned it down a little here, and Leah Cunard carries the two of them performance-wise. Lara Lemon puts in a fun, if short, performance as a totally legitimate hypnotist. Aislinn De'ath steals the show in her brief return as The Shapeshifting Detective's Violet, having by far the best scene in the entire game. In fact, it's pretty amazing just how much more chemistry De'ath and Leah Cunard have in just one scene than Cunard and Klemens Koehring (Poe) have in the entire game.
As far as gameplay goes, this is about as simple as point-and-click gets. Icons will pop up when it's time to make a choice, and you simply choose and let it play out. It's slightly annoying that with some of the choices, it's not exactly clear what it is you're choosing - you'll have to click either Poe's face or Munro's face and just see what happens. It would have been nice to have even a little bit of inclination as to what would happen when I clicked each option. On a technical level this suffers most of the same problems as The Shapeshifting Detective did - namely, poor lighting and some camera focus issues. Some of the audio was pretty badly recorded too - I know, it's the annoying film student in me coming out again.
Overall, I didn't like this quite as much as The Shapeshifting Detective, but I still had a pretty good time. It's short, it's silly, it's even a little sexy in places. If you're willing to embrace the campy fun you'll get a lot out of this!
Now, time to start writing my pitch for The Violet & Munro Adventures... I mean, just look at them. Adorable, right!?
3 Comments
SO valid hehehe me too
dyl
1 month ago