Detective Instinct is a retro throwback that celebrates menu-based sleuthing with a thrilling train conspiracy I can get on board with

Woken up in the middle of the night in your hotel room with police busting down your door is only how Detective Instinct: Farewell, My Beloved starts. On a study trip abroad to the fictional European country of Vendreka, the lead detective from the local force investigating the murder that happened the floor above you decides a fresh perspective from literature students – you and your friend Emma – might be a benefit. It's unorthodox, but, hey, that's gaming, and I can never turn down the chance for a bit of digital sleuthing.

But this is just the tutorial. Quickly transitioning to a sleeper train as you take a Eurostar-like journey from Vendreka to London, Emma meets a mysterious woman who then promptly seems to disappear. Enlisting you to help unravel the disappearance leads to unearthing a conspiracy – was she murdered, abducted, or something else? And what do the eclectic and larger-than-life personalities of the other staff and passengers know about it that they won't tell you?

Choo detective

This murder mystery is a great story to work through on its own merits, but what's particularly eye-catching about Detective Instinct is its sheer sense of style. Retro-styled, the menu-based command inputs directly harken back to a specific type of Japanese detective adventure game design from the '80s, the likes of Nintendo's Famicom Detective Club Series or The Hokkaido Serial Murder Case. Meanwhile, the mix of stylized and expressive sprite work with detailed backgrounds and compressed-for-effect full motion video cutscenes reminds me of early CD adventure games like Snatcher or Policenauts, creating a wonderful visual palette.

I love when retro-inspired games relish the opportunity to leverage lo-fi aesthetics as part of their artistic effect, rather than feeling like they look old school just for the sake of it. Developer Armonica seems devoted to capturing the essence of what it feels like to play those classics, and at points I feel like I've genuinely been transported back in time and am playing some kind of re-release despite this being brand new.

Of course, there are shades of other adventure games in the mix as well, such as Ace Attorney or Hotel Dusk. But Detective Instinct really commits to the command menu system for its interface. More than some kind of limitation, navigating these menus – be it to investigate specific areas or most often to bring up certain topics in conversation that you collect like key items – become a sort of social puzzle game.

You can brute force these encounters by constantly running down the list of options and, unlike its pricklier peers, Detective Instinct is very generous with hints if you need them. But, nothing feels better than skilfully guiding the flow of chat to uncover all you need without hitting roadblocks. Sometimes that means pressing the same topic multiple times when you get the sense a witness has more to say, or moving back to a previous topic once you feel like a thread of dialog means they'll now be willing to dive deeper.

Some may find this clunky, but there's always a logic to how conversation moves – which I think some people can miss because of the simplicity in how the menus are laid out. All of this on a design level holds true whether you're playing the Famicom Detective Club re-releases on Nintendo Switch or Detective Instinct, and in that sense Armonica have really nailed the vibe of this mechanic. It might seem old school on the surface, but there's an art to this style of play that feels like it hasn't aged a day.

Each character you meet has their own eccentricities, and getting a handle on how they tick is vital to learning how to better converse with them as you and Emma poke around. The train setting – a little like Murder on the Orient Express or other locomotion mystery classics – limits character interaction in a way that makes the adventure feel quite neat, and avoids feeling like you're fruitlessly combing back and forth between scenes making little progress.

Even so, at other times, you can feel a bit (ahem) railroaded into the path ahead without much choice in how you poke around. Still, it beats going around circles trying to figure out some flag you missed raising with a seemingly minor interaction. Detective Instinct is full steam ahead.

So far, so glowing, but my recommendation for sleuthing lovers does come with some caveats, and that unfortunately is the mystery itself. While I really like the story Detective Instinct ends up telling (and I'll definitely avoid spoiling it for you!), few of the mysteries themselves really end up landing. Often, Detective Instinct will reveal information so seemingly obvious I was genuinely unsure that the main characters didn't know it already. It's also an adventure that's over quite quickly once you chatter your way through each fairly sedate reveal.

Detective Instinct is worth sticking with. Its intrigue remains genuinely compelling even when the mysteries themselves falter, and in part the brevity that mostly comes from a lack of friction also means it's far from daunting to follow along until the credits. Once vital question has been answered by investigating Detective Instinct, however: developer Armonica have managed to assemble a really slick set of systems from their own beloved mystery game inspirations, and whatever they end up making after this is sure to be special.

Detective Instinct: Farewell, My Beloved is out now on PC and Nintendo Switch.

Looking for a train murder mystery with more Monkey Island flair? Then you need to check out the ever-joyous Locomotive! For more recommendations, head on over to our Indie Spotlight series. Or, check out our best game stories list for more!