Murdered: Soul Suspect (2014) [Steam]

Ghosts are all around us. Look for them, and you will find them.
-Ruskin Bond

Ah, how I love the brisk autumn: the sounds of trees creaking and cracking, the sweet smells of harvest, and the majestic night sky dimly lit by bonfires; these all make a great recipe for telling ghost stories. And why not? I think we all have a desire in some respect to be fantasized about the paranormal (something we still can’t quantify or calculate even in today’s technology-centered society). From Shakespeare’s Hamlet introducing the Danish King’s phantom and its’ ominous portent of doom to Washington Irving’s Sleepy Hollow about a Headless Hessian in hot pursuit of Ichabod Crane, there’s always an enchanting quality to listening to the mutterings of the macabre.

Even local folklore integrates a few ghost stories into the fold; my hometown had one such story about a witch who was struck by lightning and is believed to be haunting the mountainside in which she was killed. Yet I wonder, have ghost stories transcended into the digital world? In a sense, they have; as video games have become increasingly part of the modern mythology, they’ve absorbed various aspects of our stories, both written and orally. To my mind, ghost stories are no exception towards video game cultural diffusion.

Within the last two decades, video games have utilized ghost stories as a frame of narrative in several games: Ghosthunter, F.E.A.R., and Nintendo’s iconic Luigi’s Mansion being just a few examples. However, all the aforementioned games share one limitation: the games explore haunted locales and resident poltergeists from an outside perspective, yet you rarely get to play as the ghosts themselves. All that changed the day I saw a demo of Square Enix’s Murdered: Soul Suspect on display at Pax-East. What I saw was the player in the role of a ghost, more specifically the ghost of a murdered policeman from Salem (one of the most haunted locales in the U.S. for its tragic history of witch trials).

The detective, Ronan O’Conner, must traverse the physical and spectral world in order to discover clues as to his murderer’s identity as well as the string of recent killings occurring in the town. This concept alone held my interest, and I do love a good detective story, especially one that dovetails into the supernatural. Developed by Airtight Games (now defunct) in 2014, M:SS garnered lukewarm reviews by the gaming public at the time of release. Now, almost six years later, is it still worth playing? Let this single-player séance begin!

Visuals: 8/10

Going off the graphics alone, M:SS is a beautifully rendered game. The visual distinction between the living residents of Salem and the ghosts haunting it are really eye-popping. I love the hues of light blue, green and brown which permeate the poltergeist pixels. The level design is also gorgeously rendered; both the physical and spectral worlds intertwine with pale, ghostly objects from time’s past (old timey boats, cottages, and tools), manifesting themselves in tandem with the world of the living with a splash of pale color palettes. All of the locales have their own unique look to them, ranging from a pristine police station and history museum to a dilapidated mental hospital and decrepit witch trial house, you’ll feel the spooky atmosphere seen in this game.

Of course the most impressive image in this game is the main character himself, Det. Ronan O’Conner. The phantom protagonist is gorgeously rendered in a pale blue hue with his dark suit vest and fedora in tow, the perfect blending of Humphrey Bogart and Casper the Friendly Ghost. But what is the most impressive about Ronan’s character design is that his “exit wounds” are shown to the player as bright neon orange bullet holes grouped down his chest and back. I don’t know if it was intentional or not, but the bullet holes reminded me a lot of Keneshiro from the Fist of the North Star Shonen series (Ken would normally say his catchphrase “You’re already dead!”, but he’d be a little too literal in Ronan’s case). Det. O’Conner definitely looks like a cool character, maybe not as cool as Bigby Wolf from The Wolf Among Us, but is still an interesting character to play as.

Audio: 6/10

Music is strangely absent in a lot of places in this game which leaves me a little disheartened. Good visuals aren’t the only necessity for creating a scary atmosphere, the other part you need is good music, or at the very least, spooky sounds. I mean, I’m walking around a lot of literal haunts, but it’s always quiet; true, games like Silent Hill and Resident Evil were without music in certain areas, but you still had sound effects like footsteps, wind, and ambient noises helping to evoke an accurate depiction of your surroundings, M:SS lacks much of that in the game which baffles me. The only sounds you hear is when the demon wraiths shriek, alerting you when they are near.

Voice acting, by contrast, is superb in this game. I enjoyed the snappy dialogue between Ronan and his psychic partner Joy, as well as the spooky ghost stories which are narrated to the player when you’ve collected all the scattered clues hidden around Salem. For instance, there’s one story about a derailed train which later manifests as an obstacle within one of the final stages (and you know how I feel about Ghost Trains). Ronan himself introduces all the stages with a hard-boiled monologue as he crosses the threshold, a great extension of the detective sub-genre.

Gameplay: 6/10

I would say the mechanics in this Square Enix’s ghost detective entry is polarizing to say the least. Let’s start with the good: the ghost powers and various side-quests are extremely satisfying. As a spectral inspector, you can possess the living to read their thoughts, influence their actions, and even play as feline familiars to discover new clues. In this regard, the game introduces some interesting new mechanics not found in many other games, now if only they’d have more content to utilize these powers effectively, M:SS might’ve had a better reception from gamers.

The sense of exploration is also well done, if a bit too short; Salem is a fun place to explore as a hub area that connects all the other levels which you can revisit after completing. You can find many fellow ghosts all across the landscape, some that require your help by solving the mysteries behind their deaths in order for them to pass on; this offers the player opportunities to utilize their investigative skills outside the main game. Other items of interest around town include memoirs, historical plaques, and strange chalk drawing which help to flesh out the local lore. The side-quests were by far my favorite part of the game as I relished the idea of helping lost souls finally rest after I’ve helped them along the way; I just wished there was more of that.

On the negative side, this game has quite a few flaws. For one thing, there is no map to any of the areas of the game, only a reticle arrow pointing in the direction of your next destination, this same arrow keeps shifting depending on your location. I can’t tell you how much time I wasted just running around town trying to find a certain spot, as the areas just “loop around”.

Combat fluctuates between non-existent, to fumbling short-cut stealth; Ronan has to sneak around demon wraiths in several areas to prevent the netherworld malefactors from sucking the ectoplasm out of him. These instances are neither innovative nor interesting as you simply hide in “spirit holes” until they leave. You can however stealth kill the demons by creeping behind them and doing a simple QTE to obliterate the sentries. While it’s true that games like Silent Hill: Shattered Memories replaced traditional combat with chase sequences and Metal Gear Solid: Phantom Pain offered more combat to stealth options, M:SS opted for a bizarre mish-mash of the two with watered-down QTE stealth that feels ultimately unsatisfying.

Accessibility: 8/10

As there is little complex puzzle solving and even less combat in this game, there really is no accompanying learning curve or guides needed for this game to be completed; anyone can pick up and play a 6-10 hour playthrough of M:SS without having any issues. In addition with the game being in the Square Enix library, it is quite easy to find.

Challenge: 4/10

With the removal of most of the combat and an overly simplified stealth system, I’m afraid there is precious little challenge to be had in this game. I suppose if you wanted to obtain all the side quests, historical plaques and misc. trophies, there is more to gleam. I myself gained all the achievements in the game with very little payoff. Worse yet, there doesn’t seem to be any varying difficulty settings. Even the stealth segments feel like a cheat since you can hide away from the demons in a “musical chairs”-like mechanic within the spirit holes.

Themes: 8/10

Gameplay mechanics and pacing aside, M:SS has an interesting premise and story behind it; this particular aspect drew me towards playing it. With the basis of gamers playing as a ghost, the concept of the afterlife is a recurring theme in the game. Spirits of the dead permeate the sleepy town of Salem, all of them with unfinished business to complete before they can pass on. To my chagrin, there doesn’t seem to be a karmic view of “good and evil” ghosts found in the game; indeed, you encounter both victims and killers without much distinguishing features in their purgatorial predicaments. Ronan himself is well written as a cop with a criminal past, justifying his afterlife situation; the detective needs to help others in order to truly help himself. Ronan’s salvation lies with him reuniting with his late wife who seemingly has moved on into heaven, although this isn’t made explicitly clear in the game.

Persecution and Torture are also omnipresent in the game, specifically, the types relative to the Salem Witch Trials. This would explain the developers using Salem as the setting with the serial killer slaying his victims via hanging, stake burning, drowning, and even stone piling; all of these were utilized in Salem’s dark past.

One last theme I’d like to talk about is the hard-boiled detective moments of the game. Ronan always monologues about his complex life story as a reflective allegory of Salem itself. One can look at it philosophically as people and places having immoral or even downright malicious origins, yet they can still be inevitably redeemed and/or evolved into something better. Ronan’s chain-smoking, fedora-wearing attire also lays on the noir aspect pretty thick, which I love, not since Yu Yu Hakusho have we seen a fully realized ghost detective.

Replayability: 2/10

M:SS is a short game, and although it has an interesting story and well-written characters, I feel there is little point in doing a second playthrough. That is, unless you want to show it off to friends or do a Halloween marathon, otherwise players will feel satisfied with a single campaign and leave it at that.

My Personal Grade: 7/10

I feel that Square Enix’s ghost detective story had a lot of untapped potential hidden within its deeply flawed structure, and that the game itself is well worth playing just to experience a good ol’ spooky ghost story. Sure, there was very little in gameplay other than simply exploring and discovering clues, but is that any different from most point and click adventures? Done correctly, the developers could’ve expanded M:SS into a full-on franchise focusing on different locales and ghost detectives in each title (imagine this same type of game set in Hollywood, New Orleans, or Chicago). Considering the popularity of Infamous and Life is Strange, it’s not hard to imagine a sequel being made if Airtight were still active and there was enough vested interest from the gaming community to warrant it.

Given enough time and effort, there could’ve been more depth to the ghostly side-quests and thematic flow of the game; had a “morality” system been adapted, there would’ve been more innovation (think EA’s Dante’s Inferno) where players can either save or condemn the souls of the dead in order to gain more experience towards enhancing ghost abilities or added dialogue options, that could’ve worked for M:SS. This, in turn, would yield multiple endings for Ronan himself, where he either enters Heaven, Hell, or continued Purgatory depending on how many souls O’Conner either helps or hinders.

Of course, making the game a far larger sandbox game would facilitate the need for more side quests (which would be the real meat of the game). Compared to other detective games like Deadly Premonition and L.A. Noire, you should logically have longer investigations requiring higher critical thinking rather than “find this clue, and make a framed story about it”. Another key aspect in need of renovating would be the dialogue options, which have no weight or substance as far as plot effect unlike the aforementioned games. This game needs more “Noir” style as well as the “Ghost” in order to full like a truly well balanced and enjoyable game. Sadly, it seems all we can do is mourn for the game that we had, and the one that could’ve been…

Aggregated Score: 6.1

The Teal Time Mage lives at a fixed point in time that is set between 1991 and 1997. Outside of his time vortex of nostalgia, he writes horror short stories, cosplays, and coordinates for various charity groups. Find him on Twitter @ArosElric, on Facebook @ArosElricCosplay, and on Final Fantasy XIV’s Cactuar Server under the name “Aros Erlic”.

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