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Poor reviews, but is it any good?


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I've had my eye on this one for a while because of it's interesting concept; but I always thought it could easily be one of those games that fails to live up to its potential.

 

Looking at the reviews (http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/murdered-soul-suspect/critic-reviews) - note that I didn't just look at the scores, I also read them! - it appears that it's not that great of a game; with multiple frustrations being commonly cited by the different reviewers. On the other hand, the story is commonly highlighted as an interesting idea and concept.

 

So, I was wondering, what are the thoughts of any early-adopters who've actually played the game? Worth a play or not really?

Edited by FluffyAssassin64
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I decided after watching some previews that the game looked boring, and that I'd give it a miss. Watch the Escapist's video previews on YouTube for example; Andrea Rene does her best, but even the developer she is chatting to sounds bored as hell whilst he is trying to demo the game. 

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This is what PowerPyx (the famous collectible guide maker) said about the game, http://www.playstationtrophies.org/forum/murdered-soul-suspect/236296-seems-like-isnt-good.html

 

But yes, the game is horrible. This and Aliens: Colonial Marines are the worst games I remember playing.
Allow me to put my findings together (this is based on the PS4 version and I am currently at 81% trophies, have beaten the story twice and watched all cutscenes):

Regarding Bugs and Technical Problems:
 

  • There are tons of game breaking bugs. For example: Sometimes my character is stuck and I simply cannot move anymore (has happened twice in like 6 hours of playtime). One cutscene was also not triggered when it was supposed to and I had to pull a backup save from my USB stick to get this fixed. Stuff like this may not happen. Then there are also problems with side quest characters disappearing from the game. One second they are there, I walk around a bit and when I come back they are gone from the game. How to hell does this get through the QA (Quality Assurance) department at Square Enix?
  • Sometimes Collectibles keep glowing after picking them up. I think the way it's supposed to work is that they stop glowing, thus indicating you've picked them up (which works like 75% of the time, but some of them seem glitched or whatever).
  • There is audio missing from half the dialogues in the game (or the audio mix is seriously messed up, I dunno... but I just cannot hear half the characters talking at all). Absolutely ridiculous. Even subtitles disappear sometimes.
  • The graphics look like PlayStation 2 and the frame rate is unbearable which makes the game seem very laggy. At what frame rate does this run? 10fps?? Lots of screen tearing too, yay! Not to mention that the areas are super small. Given how ugly it looks and how small the areas are, the PS4 should have no trouble getting a flawless framerate. There are also texture pop-ins which makes it even worse (only happens shortly after leaving the loading screen, but still annoying). No clue what the developers did there.
  • Navigating through the world is very hard. Even though this is an "open world" game (not really, but it's advertised as such) there is no freaking map. It makes finding collectibles really confusing. The most ludicrous part about this, is that the Limited Edition comes with a digital collectible map that you can view in your web browser. And yet the game itself doesn't have a map? Come on, who to hell thought of this... seriously.
  • Regarding Gameplay:
    • It's very boring. The game basically throws all clues at you and there is no form of investigating to it. A 5-year old could beat the game in an afternoon without having to use any common sense at all.
    • The enemies (demons) are the most boring and least intelligent enemies ever created for a game of this generation. They fly around on predetermined paths, you can run up to them and press R2 for a kill. Where's the challenge in that? They could just as well have left them out.
    • Being a Ghost feels rather pointless if half the walls in the game are blocked by some weird spirit magic. Of course they have to make barriers so you don't fall off the map, but there is a lot of crap blocking your way which takes away the fun of having ghost powers.
    • And I'm not sure in which time this is supposed to play (I think present day), but the town looks like it had just been bombed. There are broken walls everywhere and it looks like after a world war 2 bombing.
    • The side quests (there are 4 of them) take one minute each, making them pretty irrelevant.
    • Beating the story takes 4-5 hours. Here in Germany games are expensive, I paid €60 for this ($81 USD). Doesn't seem fair for 4 hours of playtime. There is nothing else to do after beating the game. Not even free roam.
    • Time for platinum is approximately 8 hours if you use a collectible guide.
    • There are 242 Collectibles in the game, all sitting right next to each other. They are divided into 17 (!) sets of collectibles, each one giving you one trophy.
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I stumbled across this thread by accident,and i just had to make an account when i saw them criticism.

 

i got the game for like 24$,with thief,banner saga and sum other game(AMD Promo,i have it on steam)

dunno if the game is butchered on consoles,but it looks really good. nowhere near PS2 lol. deadly premontion is a prime example of PS2 graphics,and this is like... a lot better

But judging games on graphics is being a puss. 

anyhow gameplay wise,not much to say. some people could indeed find it boring,but i don't mind it. being a fan of games such as to the moon,and at the end dear esther,MSS is great.

Story is awesome,it's also fascinating how characters are portrated. 

 

Basically. if you enjoy games for the story,MSS is a good pick. it has me more hooked than wolfenstein new order,which i was playing. (just for comparision sake )

also had 0 issues on my PC. ps4 version can be bugged as hell for what i know,but i just wanted to give me mind onto the topic.

 

 

edit: oh ozone, you just copied some ass guys "review",that was silly from him 

 

edit 2: and Joy is freaking cute. It's a goty just based on that

Edited by CRO_3v1lcl0n3
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  • 1 month later...

The game is not horrible.  It is a murder mystery; if you don't like mysteries you probably will think it is boring.  Graphically the PS3 version looks like what I would expect a PS3 game to look like; it is not PS2 level graphics.  I only had the game lock up on me once which was when it was loading a new area; otherwise no game breaking bugs.

 

The impassable walls are to create world boundaries obviously and create hiding spots for collectibles. 

The bombed appearance is created by having a ghost Salem witch era in modern time.

The demons could have been better if they had better AI or been more puzzle like in figuring out how to get past them.

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This is what PowerPyx (the famous collectible guide maker) said about the game, http://www.playstationtrophies.org/forum/murdered-soul-suspect/236296-seems-like-isnt-good.html

 

But yes, the game is horrible. This and Aliens: Colonial Marines are the worst games I remember playing.

Allow me to put my findings together (this is based on the PS4 version and I am currently at 81% trophies, have beaten the story twice and watched all cutscenes):

Regarding Bugs and Technical Problems:

 

  • There are tons of game breaking bugs. For example: Sometimes my character is stuck and I simply cannot move anymore (has happened twice in like 6 hours of playtime). One cutscene was also not triggered when it was supposed to and I had to pull a backup save from my USB stick to get this fixed. Stuff like this may not happen. Then there are also problems with side quest characters disappearing from the game. One second they are there, I walk around a bit and when I come back they are gone from the game. How to hell does this get through the QA (Quality Assurance) department at Square Enix?
  • Sometimes Collectibles keep glowing after picking them up. I think the way it's supposed to work is that they stop glowing, thus indicating you've picked them up (which works like 75% of the time, but some of them seem glitched or whatever).
  • There is audio missing from half the dialogues in the game (or the audio mix is seriously messed up, I dunno... but I just cannot hear half the characters talking at all). Absolutely ridiculous. Even subtitles disappear sometimes.
  • The graphics look like PlayStation 2 and the frame rate is unbearable which makes the game seem very laggy. At what frame rate does this run? 10fps?? Lots of screen tearing too, yay! Not to mention that the areas are super small. Given how ugly it looks and how small the areas are, the PS4 should have no trouble getting a flawless framerate. There are also texture pop-ins which makes it even worse (only happens shortly after leaving the loading screen, but still annoying). No clue what the developers did there.
  • Navigating through the world is very hard. Even though this is an "open world" game (not really, but it's advertised as such) there is no freaking map. It makes finding collectibles really confusing. The most ludicrous part about this, is that the Limited Edition comes with a digital collectible map that you can view in your web browser. And yet the game itself doesn't have a map? Come on, who to hell thought of this... seriously.
  • Regarding Gameplay:
    • It's very boring. The game basically throws all clues at you and there is no form of investigating to it. A 5-year old could beat the game in an afternoon without having to use any common sense at all.
    • The enemies (demons) are the most boring and least intelligent enemies ever created for a game of this generation. They fly around on predetermined paths, you can run up to them and press R2 for a kill. Where's the challenge in that? They could just as well have left them out.
    • Being a Ghost feels rather pointless if half the walls in the game are blocked by some weird spirit magic. Of course they have to make barriers so you don't fall off the map, but there is a lot of crap blocking your way which takes away the fun of having ghost powers.
    • And I'm not sure in which time this is supposed to play (I think present day), but the town looks like it had just been bombed. There are broken walls everywhere and it looks like after a world war 2 bombing.
    • The side quests (there are 4 of them) take one minute each, making them pretty irrelevant.
    • Beating the story takes 4-5 hours. Here in Germany games are expensive, I paid €60 for this ($81 USD). Doesn't seem fair for 4 hours of playtime. There is nothing else to do after beating the game. Not even free roam.
    • Time for platinum is approximately 8 hours if you use a collectible guide.
    • There are 242 Collectibles in the game, all sitting right next to each other. They are divided into 17 (!) sets of collectibles, each one giving you one trophy.

 

 

 

This is not directed at you xZoneHunter, I'm just quoting you for ease of reference.

 

Hopefully nobody takes what Powerpyx says as gospel for several reasons. First, if I'm not mistaken, PowerPyx gets the games at least a couple weeks early, same as Maka, which is how he's able to do all those guides in the first place. So unless he's able to get the day 1 update, which seems to be a video game staple now, a couple weeks early too then I wouldn't exactly put too much stock in what he says about his experience with a game regarding bugs. It's never a good idea to trust what just one person says about a game in the first place either. Second, people like that who are trying to be famous by doing all those videos and making money off them always rush through games so they can pump out as many as they can. Then they usually turn around and complain about the length. I've seen this on console games and web based games and it's always funny since in most cases it's their own fault it's so short. It's like trying for a speedrun and then complaining that it was short. Finally, the majority of his complaints are pure opinion.

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I liked the premise of the game as they were talking about it and this game became a must buy for me. As I played the game when it was released, it actually was pretty good. I honestly did get tired as it involves a lot of repetitive stuff (also it was late night when I was playing :giggle:), but the story itself is honestly good for a game that was a new concept. Could have been better but all in all it was still enjoying to see the story unravel.

 

In the terms of glitches, I didn't encounter any besides maybe 1 thing, when your doing collectibles. The game gives you access to a map for collectibles, which is awesome! (but can honestly be done without, also not sure if it's only in new games or specific consoles) But when using the map I will say that it is accurate in locations but they seem to be missing a few of the collectibles and some have really bad placing and pictures but none the less you can at least tell your missing one from that certain area unless they just didn't place a marker for one. But the glitch for doing collectibles, for me anyways, was that they are supposed to have a sort of glimpse of light on them which lets you see them, but some are missing it and can honestly be missed but the map actually is useful as it will actually show the pic of where you can find it and at least see the item and the background of it, so you can track it. The map also lets you mark off the ones you found so it was pretty good to use. It is also a pretty quick platinum! (story is very short if that is all your focusing on, just saying)

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I stumbled across this thread by accident,and i just had to make an account when i saw them criticism.

 

i got the game for like 24$,with thief,banner saga and sum other game(AMD Promo,i have it on steam)

dunno if the game is butchered on consoles,but it looks really good. nowhere near PS2 lol. deadly premontion is a prime example of PS2 graphics,and this is like... a lot better

But judging games on graphics is being a puss. 

anyhow gameplay wise,not much to say. some people could indeed find it boring,but i don't mind it. being a fan of games such as to the moon,and at the end dear esther,MSS is great.

Story is awesome,it's also fascinating how characters are portrated. 

 

Basically. if you enjoy games for the story,MSS is a good pick. it has me more hooked than wolfenstein new order,which i was playing. (just for comparision sake )

also had 0 issues on my PC. ps4 version can be bugged as hell for what i know,but i just wanted to give me mind onto the topic.

 

 

edit: oh ozone, you just copied some ass guys "review",that was silly from him 

 

edit 2: and Joy is freaking cute. It's a goty just based on that

 

A very informative, intuitive, and completely helpful comment. Thank you PC master race.

 

I watched a friend play it last week and from what I watched, PowerPyx is spot on in the gameplay aspect. It's unfortunate because it has the set up to be a really interesting game with the specter world element. Everything just seems slapped together. Hopefully in the future if sequels are made they refine it and make a game worth buying on day one.

Edited by Zeusy
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  • 4 weeks later...

Played it on PS3 myself, recently finished the game, and I have to shake my head at the complaints linked to above.  I don't know if the PS4 version is buggier or what, but I didn't have any of those problems myself.  There was one annoying instance where a Demon glitched and could see me no matter what, through walls and in hiding places and whatever, but that was the only glitch I found.  No audio issues, no subtitle issues, no freezing issues.  I found more bugs in Watch_Dogs than in Soul Suspect.  

 

CRO_3v1lcl0n3 covered just about everything else I'd have to say, with one exception.  PowerPyx complains about how quick it is to find collectibles... with a guide that tells you where they are.  My solution?  Don't use a guide to find them!  Of course they'll be found quickly that way, but actually hunting for them is part of the fun, especially the ones that are properly hidden and not just laying on the ground as you walk by.

Edited by Xyex_
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I played this game on the PS4 myself, and in addition, got 100% on it. I didn't encounter any form of bugs itself through it all, be it story-wise or collecting the collectibles. I do think it's a very good game if you like stories, but if you're looking for something more fast-paced and action packed, this is definitely not the game for you. It has a very good concept, and is a little different from most murder mysteries. If you think you'll enjoy the story, definitely go for it!

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When I saw bkjohns's post that it was mystery, I immediately see Gamespot's review and the game looks kinda good. The game looks kinda like Contrast by moving the main character where he and Dawn are not seen by the characters and transporting to another characters seems to be nice. Thinking of buying this soon since I think the game already fixes some issues already. 

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  • 1 month later...

Platinum obtained for both ps4 and ps3 versions. Much better experience on the ps4. I enjoy this type of story driven game. Loads of collectibles also a plus for me. Duration is a downer. 5.5 hours to platinum on my second time through. Worth a playthrough if you can get it for $20 or cheaper.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I had a lot of fun with it, for about 2 days. Loved the idea of it - it was just such a short story with no replay value. I ended up replaying it to get a few collectibles I missed, but after I did that, I had the plat. I hope for another game like this from the devs, just with a longer story and possibly a hint of replay value. Maybe a haunting mode or something fun to do once you solve the mystery. 

 

 Side note----> It's been said already in the thread but I wanted to back it up: I experienced no bugs whatsoever in my time getting the plat on PS3. Those reviewers/youtubers/guide writers get early access to the games before patches so they can have material ready for launch day. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I didn't really encounter any bugs, I've found more bugs in Skyrim.  I think the game would have benefited from an ingame map, the web one you get from preordering is pretty horrible.  Generally speaking, I liked the game alot, but I feel that it was a little short and some plot arcs could have been explored more.  I have to admit, I was pretty sad when BoundSubmission told me that the dev closed down a month after this released.

 

Also, VERY easy platinum if you make sure you get the collectibles right, as in all the Museum ones and (I think) Apartment ones in one go, and get all the rest before Judgement House.

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From the reviews I've seen, it's not broken, it's just extremely easy, walking around, collecting stuff and the controls are pretty annoying and it's not as great as the thought of the concept. I'm not sure if I should get it if it has no challenge and isn't that fun in terms of gameplay.

 

Wow, using forums site has really changed the way I type stuff....

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Honestly, it wasn't too hard to play through the game, as the detective stuff is really easy to get through. The only issue is making sure to get all collectibles but that can be easily solved with a guide. If you're going to buy the game, make sure to get it for less than $10, any more just isn't really worth it as the game is short. 

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This game does not deserve the hate it gets. Sure it's not the best game ever but it's a very unique and different game that's a nice break from most games nowadays. It's short and very easy but it's definitely worth playing if you can pick it up for around £20 or less.

Edited by Langy900
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