The Last Case of John Morley Review (PC)

The Last Case of John Morley is one for the murder mystery fans out there; playing as the titular detective, we’re tasked with solving a 20 year old murder case by the well-off Lady Margaret Fordside. Her daughter, Elody, was brutally killed one night and the local police seem to have been less than competent in solving the case. So, learning of Morley’s recent run of successes in solving similar cases, she enlists him to have one last crack at finding her daughter’s killer. 

While Morely is renowned to be a clever, Sherlock Holmes-like detective, this transpires in gameplay as more of a narrative adventure than a true mystery. There are light puzzles to solve that involve aligning objects in the right order or pulling a succession of switches, but the bulk of the actual detective work is done by simply following the logical progression and green glowing points of interest. Morley will wax lyrical about whatever clue it is we’ve found, and we even get hologram-like appearances to help sell his vision of what happened. 

Despite the on-rails nature of the detective work, The Last Case of John Morley manages to keep us engaged throughout by virtue of just telling a good story. At roughly three hours long, the game manages to deliver all of its twists and turns without dragging anything out. As we uncover more clues both in the Fordside mansion and beyond, we find ourselves genuinely second guessing what we expected. 

This is all delivered with a wonderful 1940’s noir style, all smooth lounge jazz and fedoras. The vibe and atmosphere is really well done, and even as things get tenser later on we can’t help but feel the need to have a cigarillo and trench coat as we seek out those who have done wrong. 

Voice performances are a little less exciting. Morley is enjoyable enough, but Lady Fordside and the rest of the cast are a little too stilted and off-kilter to a distracting degree at times. It doesn’t ruin the overall game, but some moments – especially early on as the story is being set up – had me genuinely thinking it was AI at points, such was the odd cadence and delivery. Thankfully things seem to improve toward the end, and once the mystery is wrapped up I found myself having enjoyed it despite these issues.

Conclusion

As a short, narrative adventure, The Last Case of John Morley is enjoyable thanks to a great sense of atmosphere, good story and well paced reveals that keep us second guessing right until the very end.

This game was tested and reviewed on PC (via Steam). All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by the publisher.