Case 8: Relics of the Past
Ah, Ben Jordan Case 8. It has been a long time coming, but on August 8th 2012 it was finally released. In the meantime I managed to play through the game multiple times and form a good opinion on it and its place in the series. On my first playthrough I could already tell that I really liked the game and didn’t feel disappointed by the resolution, which can’t be taken for granted when you have been waiting so long for the conclusion of a beloved story. But as I had been hyped by the countdown to the eventual release of the long-awaited game, I decided to play through it a few more times with a more critical mind, to experience all the different endings and with the various commentaries activated. On these replays I caught details I had previously overlooked, learned to love the graphics and music even more and started to appreciate the whole game all the more. Put shortly, I love Ben Jordan’s final case. But let’s go into details.
Story/Characters
Storywise, Ben Jordan Case 8 had its work cut out for it, with lots of story threads that were left hanging in the previous games that needed to be resolved. And Grundislav did a commendable job with that, as I don’t see any glaring holes in the conclusion of the story. In fact several inconsistencies from previous games, like the non-supernatural nature of Case 5, were explicitly discussed and explained in-game, which was unexpected but welcome. The story itself picks up shortly after Case 7`s brutal cliffhanger and is quite dark throughout, no wonder considering the preceding events. That doesn’t mean there’s no humour to be found though, in fact several parts of the games were quite amusing, most of all the return of Miss Tilly Rosenquist and Otto Schneider, who have short but integral roles in this game. Naturally main villain Cardinal Genovese and his henchmen have an important role to play too. Genoveve’s henchmen, called the Enforcers, appear throughout the game to make Ben’s life harder, while the Cardinal’s presence hangs over the entire story although we only meet him in the flesh at the very end of the game. Interestingly enough, the whole story ends in a big anti-climax when the Cardinal’s ritual to harvest the relics’ combined power proofs futile. But it fits the story, in particular in regards to Ben’s final moral decision of how to deal with the Cardinal who is exposed as nothing but an angry old man after all.
As for other characters, Ben’s old friends Alice and Simon (even though he was killed in the previous game) make short appearances in BJ8 too. It was cool to meet Simon as a ghost, and par for the course too for a game about a paranormal investigator. Alice however I felt was a bit underused – in fact depending on your choices you can play through the game without meeting her even once. And while I recognize why this was needed for the sake of the game, Alice’s motivation to go into hiding was one of the few things in the game that felt a bit forced to me. Anyways, the unsung main character of this game must be Percy Quentin Jones who has a much larger role to play this time out, both in the present, where he supports Ben in his final quest, and in the past, where he accompanies Ben’s grandfather Arthur on his Romanian adventure. Now after finishing Case 7 I was quite sure that Percival was a good guy after all, but the big reveal that he’s a long dead friend of Ben’s grandfather and some kind of guardian angel to Ben was still unexpected and somehow both fitting and touching. The Percy and Arthur quest provides an interesting secondary story to the game and although it gets less room than Ben’s story and is merely connected to it via the presence of Percy, it is nice to get a glimpse into Arthur Jordan’s life, plus the story adds a paranormal investigation to the game and provides some much needed background regarding Zortherus and the Smailholm events from Case 3.
Gameplay/Puzzles
Gameplay is similar to the previous Ben Jordan games, with a few notable exceptions. For one thing, Ben is hunted by the Knights of St. Anthony for most of the game, so he has to deal with the various Enforces in somewhat more action-oriented puzzles than usual. This means that quick thinking and clever use of the environment are needed more than once in the game and being too slow in these puzzles usually leads to Ben’s death. The time limits are generous though, the danger is usually easy recongizable and the game even autosaves in critical situations, so there isn’t much to complain in this respect. On the contrary, the action puzzles add some needed urgency to the final game. I especially loved the car chase: that was beautiful way to integrate one into an adventure game. The second big change gameplaywise is the second playable character, Arthur Jones, who we get to play a couple of times during the game. The switches between Ben and Arthur and back happen automatically and both characters play and control in exactly the same way, so it’s not a huge change of pace. Finally, Grundislav brought back the multiple endings from Case 3. This time there are four different endings with different degrees of happiness, plus one secret joke ending that I won’t spoil here. The choice points for the regular endings are easy to recognize and all happen very late in the game, thus it’s easy to replay these sections and experience all of the endings. I reckon though that most players would get the best ending on their first play-though anyway.
Other than these changes, BJ8 plays like a typical Ben Jordan case, and although Ben’s story is more action-oriented this time, the Arthur story even adds the usual paranormal investigation, with lots of interviewing of people, learning of local legends and battling with supernatural foes. For the Ben story, Case 8 again uses map screens, this time even two of them, one for London and one for Paris. Regarding ths size, Ben Jordan 8 is probably the biggest game of the series with more than 30 charatcers to interact with and three different cities with more than 50 screens to explore.
Graphics/Music
Ben Jordan 8 has a distinctively different art style compared to all previous games of the series. The graphics were all hand-drawn on paper this time and then scanned into the computer for postprocessing. The result is a notably different and admittedly works better in some rooms than in others, but in general the game is just gorgeous and has much more detailed backgrounds than the other entries to the series. There are also lots of weather effects this time – London and Paris are plagued by endless rain and snow which only adds to the gloomy atmosphere of the game. BJ8 also uses another plugin for an atmospheric scene where Ben explores a dark underground labyrinth in the faint light of a torch. Fitting to the dark atmosphere of the game, the character portraits have all been reworked too. A lot of shading was added, and the portraits were generally done in a more realistic and life-like way. Of the recurring characters, this is most notable with Ben’s portrait, but every one of them underwent that procedure.
Now regarding the music, everyone knows that I love the soundtrack of the Ben Jordan games. Case 8 is no exception. There are lots of catchy tunes, some of them sad, some pleasant, some exciting. Highlights for me are the intro track – combined with the paintings that showed the story so far it was the perfect start to the game: that gave me some serious goosebumps! –, the new theme for Percy, the fiddle-based Romanian tracks, the reworked Cardinal’s theme for Simon’s apparition and the big showdown… oh, there are simply too many to mention them all! It’s interesting in any case how well the soundtrack blends with the respective scenes. Several times I only started to really notice and love the music on my second playthrough. As the previous games, BJ8 is fully voiced and all of the voice actors do a great job. Grundislav’s take on the weird woman at the London Pub is hilarious! Unfortunately there are again some problems with recording quality in some cases. Also, Alice had to be recast which I immediately recognized, but the new actress does still a good job.
Final Verdict
So here we are. The Ben Jordan series is finally over. Luckily, the last case lives up to the series’ name, and then some. Replaying the game several times has only confirmed me in my opinion. Right now BJ8 is in my top-3 Ben Jordan games for sure. I can’t pinpoint an exact ranking yet and it might change anyway depending on my mood. I loved the lighter Ben Jordan games like Case 5 and 6 when the whole team of Ben, Alice and Simon was working together, Case 7 had some of that plus Percy and an awesome cliffhanger ending and Case 8, while suitably dark and depressing, is a great conclusion to the series with some real emotion behind it all. Argh, I can’t decide! Anyways, what I do know and love is that BJ8 has several goosebump-worthy moments of pure awesomeness. This starts with the surprise intro that is just perfect, and probably the best possible continuation after the equally perfect ending of Case 7. I love the combination of the stirring soundtrack and the hand drawn pictures showing various scenes from the previous cases. I also love what the game does with Percy, the return of Madame Tilly and Otto Schneider, how the whole story wraps ups and the secondary story with Arthur Jordan as well. So many things to love! On the downside, I wished Alice’s role was a bit bigger and the different endings seemed almost a bit too different. For example I found it a bit far-fetched that Alice would completely break up with Ben after he killed Cardinal Genovese, considering what Genovese did to their friend Simon and that Alice didn’t even witness how the finale exactly went down. I also found it a bit odd that all the enforcers were put out of commission besides Max who was allowed to walk away a free man, even after what he did to Simon – but then I guess it fits with the whole anti-climax theme. Anyways, the good in this game far outweighs any bad and I’m not embarrassed to admit that I felt quite emotional when the end credits rolled and the future fates of all the recurring characters were shown. With all that it’s not too surprising that I give this game, and the whole series, a well earned rating of 5/5. Thanks a ton Francisco Gonzalez, Peter Gresser, Andreas Slotte and who ever else helped with these games over the years. You did tremendous work that will be remembered for years to come!
Story/Characters
Storywise, Ben Jordan Case 8 had its work cut out for it, with lots of story threads that were left hanging in the previous games that needed to be resolved. And Grundislav did a commendable job with that, as I don’t see any glaring holes in the conclusion of the story. In fact several inconsistencies from previous games, like the non-supernatural nature of Case 5, were explicitly discussed and explained in-game, which was unexpected but welcome. The story itself picks up shortly after Case 7`s brutal cliffhanger and is quite dark throughout, no wonder considering the preceding events. That doesn’t mean there’s no humour to be found though, in fact several parts of the games were quite amusing, most of all the return of Miss Tilly Rosenquist and Otto Schneider, who have short but integral roles in this game. Naturally main villain Cardinal Genovese and his henchmen have an important role to play too. Genoveve’s henchmen, called the Enforcers, appear throughout the game to make Ben’s life harder, while the Cardinal’s presence hangs over the entire story although we only meet him in the flesh at the very end of the game. Interestingly enough, the whole story ends in a big anti-climax when the Cardinal’s ritual to harvest the relics’ combined power proofs futile. But it fits the story, in particular in regards to Ben’s final moral decision of how to deal with the Cardinal who is exposed as nothing but an angry old man after all.
As for other characters, Ben’s old friends Alice and Simon (even though he was killed in the previous game) make short appearances in BJ8 too. It was cool to meet Simon as a ghost, and par for the course too for a game about a paranormal investigator. Alice however I felt was a bit underused – in fact depending on your choices you can play through the game without meeting her even once. And while I recognize why this was needed for the sake of the game, Alice’s motivation to go into hiding was one of the few things in the game that felt a bit forced to me. Anyways, the unsung main character of this game must be Percy Quentin Jones who has a much larger role to play this time out, both in the present, where he supports Ben in his final quest, and in the past, where he accompanies Ben’s grandfather Arthur on his Romanian adventure. Now after finishing Case 7 I was quite sure that Percival was a good guy after all, but the big reveal that he’s a long dead friend of Ben’s grandfather and some kind of guardian angel to Ben was still unexpected and somehow both fitting and touching. The Percy and Arthur quest provides an interesting secondary story to the game and although it gets less room than Ben’s story and is merely connected to it via the presence of Percy, it is nice to get a glimpse into Arthur Jordan’s life, plus the story adds a paranormal investigation to the game and provides some much needed background regarding Zortherus and the Smailholm events from Case 3.
Gameplay/Puzzles
Gameplay is similar to the previous Ben Jordan games, with a few notable exceptions. For one thing, Ben is hunted by the Knights of St. Anthony for most of the game, so he has to deal with the various Enforces in somewhat more action-oriented puzzles than usual. This means that quick thinking and clever use of the environment are needed more than once in the game and being too slow in these puzzles usually leads to Ben’s death. The time limits are generous though, the danger is usually easy recongizable and the game even autosaves in critical situations, so there isn’t much to complain in this respect. On the contrary, the action puzzles add some needed urgency to the final game. I especially loved the car chase: that was beautiful way to integrate one into an adventure game. The second big change gameplaywise is the second playable character, Arthur Jones, who we get to play a couple of times during the game. The switches between Ben and Arthur and back happen automatically and both characters play and control in exactly the same way, so it’s not a huge change of pace. Finally, Grundislav brought back the multiple endings from Case 3. This time there are four different endings with different degrees of happiness, plus one secret joke ending that I won’t spoil here. The choice points for the regular endings are easy to recognize and all happen very late in the game, thus it’s easy to replay these sections and experience all of the endings. I reckon though that most players would get the best ending on their first play-though anyway.
Other than these changes, BJ8 plays like a typical Ben Jordan case, and although Ben’s story is more action-oriented this time, the Arthur story even adds the usual paranormal investigation, with lots of interviewing of people, learning of local legends and battling with supernatural foes. For the Ben story, Case 8 again uses map screens, this time even two of them, one for London and one for Paris. Regarding ths size, Ben Jordan 8 is probably the biggest game of the series with more than 30 charatcers to interact with and three different cities with more than 50 screens to explore.
Graphics/Music
Ben Jordan 8 has a distinctively different art style compared to all previous games of the series. The graphics were all hand-drawn on paper this time and then scanned into the computer for postprocessing. The result is a notably different and admittedly works better in some rooms than in others, but in general the game is just gorgeous and has much more detailed backgrounds than the other entries to the series. There are also lots of weather effects this time – London and Paris are plagued by endless rain and snow which only adds to the gloomy atmosphere of the game. BJ8 also uses another plugin for an atmospheric scene where Ben explores a dark underground labyrinth in the faint light of a torch. Fitting to the dark atmosphere of the game, the character portraits have all been reworked too. A lot of shading was added, and the portraits were generally done in a more realistic and life-like way. Of the recurring characters, this is most notable with Ben’s portrait, but every one of them underwent that procedure.
Now regarding the music, everyone knows that I love the soundtrack of the Ben Jordan games. Case 8 is no exception. There are lots of catchy tunes, some of them sad, some pleasant, some exciting. Highlights for me are the intro track – combined with the paintings that showed the story so far it was the perfect start to the game: that gave me some serious goosebumps! –, the new theme for Percy, the fiddle-based Romanian tracks, the reworked Cardinal’s theme for Simon’s apparition and the big showdown… oh, there are simply too many to mention them all! It’s interesting in any case how well the soundtrack blends with the respective scenes. Several times I only started to really notice and love the music on my second playthrough. As the previous games, BJ8 is fully voiced and all of the voice actors do a great job. Grundislav’s take on the weird woman at the London Pub is hilarious! Unfortunately there are again some problems with recording quality in some cases. Also, Alice had to be recast which I immediately recognized, but the new actress does still a good job.
Final Verdict
So here we are. The Ben Jordan series is finally over. Luckily, the last case lives up to the series’ name, and then some. Replaying the game several times has only confirmed me in my opinion. Right now BJ8 is in my top-3 Ben Jordan games for sure. I can’t pinpoint an exact ranking yet and it might change anyway depending on my mood. I loved the lighter Ben Jordan games like Case 5 and 6 when the whole team of Ben, Alice and Simon was working together, Case 7 had some of that plus Percy and an awesome cliffhanger ending and Case 8, while suitably dark and depressing, is a great conclusion to the series with some real emotion behind it all. Argh, I can’t decide! Anyways, what I do know and love is that BJ8 has several goosebump-worthy moments of pure awesomeness. This starts with the surprise intro that is just perfect, and probably the best possible continuation after the equally perfect ending of Case 7. I love the combination of the stirring soundtrack and the hand drawn pictures showing various scenes from the previous cases. I also love what the game does with Percy, the return of Madame Tilly and Otto Schneider, how the whole story wraps ups and the secondary story with Arthur Jordan as well. So many things to love! On the downside, I wished Alice’s role was a bit bigger and the different endings seemed almost a bit too different. For example I found it a bit far-fetched that Alice would completely break up with Ben after he killed Cardinal Genovese, considering what Genovese did to their friend Simon and that Alice didn’t even witness how the finale exactly went down. I also found it a bit odd that all the enforcers were put out of commission besides Max who was allowed to walk away a free man, even after what he did to Simon – but then I guess it fits with the whole anti-climax theme. Anyways, the good in this game far outweighs any bad and I’m not embarrassed to admit that I felt quite emotional when the end credits rolled and the future fates of all the recurring characters were shown. With all that it’s not too surprising that I give this game, and the whole series, a well earned rating of 5/5. Thanks a ton Francisco Gonzalez, Peter Gresser, Andreas Slotte and who ever else helped with these games over the years. You did tremendous work that will be remembered for years to come!