This is an ongoing list where I attempt to do the following: Play, Complete, and Rank every video game in the known universe in order to finally answer the age old question "What is the greatest game of all time?" For previous entries find the links on the attached spreadsheet.

How did I do?

Another day and another mystery game reviewed for this series. After finishing up the latest Microids’ Agatha Christie game (that is only borrowing characters and not actually from a book that she had a say in), me and my wife needed another game that we could play together on those few nights where we want to solve mysteries ourselves outside of normal parental duties. Enter “Lord Winklebottom Investigates,” a recent switch purchase because it looked just weird enough to be interesting, but also if it turned out to be good would tickle our fancy of being a new mystery game that is more on puzzles then on action. Well we were in luck, because this game was more than just the weird I was promised while looking at the back of the box, and delivered a fairly competent game as well, so lets talk about a game no one has heard of until now.

Winklebottom, as we are going to call the game now, is pretty close to a point and click adventure game that has a lot of roots in Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie detective stories. You will pick up and carry around items to be either combined inside your inventory or used on later puzzles. In addition you will be questioning other characters and travelling through multiple screens, including an “island map,” in order to solve the mystery in front of you. When comparing it to adventure games, this has more in common with the adventure games of the 90s, then it does with the Agatha Christie games of today. You may be solving a murder mystery in both, but this is more of inventory puzzles and less conversation based solutions. The most notable thing about this game is that you play as the titular Lord Winklebottom, who is a Giraffe detective, and are accompanied by your Watson, which is a hippopotamus named Dr. Frumple. Yes, these are actual animals that you play as and not just character stand ins and they are fully voiced, so you don’t have to worry about parsing out the sounds of a Hippo. You will also come across all sorts of other animals (gecko, slug, pigeon, dogs, etc.) as there are no humans in this game… well kind of, there is a plot line that briefly discusses that humans used to exist in this world, but something happened that caused them to no longer exist. It isn’t really touched on further, but there is a story reason as to why you might be playing as animals.

Before we dive into the ins and outs of this game, I will say that this game is very much a comedy game. That might be apparent based on the name of the characters or even the fact that you are playing as animals during a murder mystery, but humor plays a big role in this game. I know comedy can be hard to pull off and it is very subjective to anyone who plays this game. I am no expert, but I would say this game has a very dry and subdued sense of humor as opposed to games that are a little more in your face. Winklebottom and Dr. Frumple are a good comedy duo that play off each other very well, and there were multiple times during the game where me or my wife had actual audible laughter from the game and not just a smirk or smile. I am not going to even pretend that everyone will find this game funny, it has more British sensibilities then Americanized ones, and only you know what you might find funny. However, the reason I want to get this part out in the beginning of the write-up is that if the comedy does not work for you, I don’t know if the game itself will either. It’s a perfectly competent and fine mystery, but I don’t think anyone would play through this entire game if they bounced hard off the humor. The charm is in the characters and the humor, even the timing of the jokes (I was letting dialogue play out, instead of putting through it, because comedy is about timing and you need to hear the timing for some of the bits for it to work), so if you want a murder mystery to be serious, or even somewhat grounded in reality.. then I suppose you can quickly move on from this recommendation.

On to the story, when we join our heroes they are invited to a friends house who has a big announcement to make. No one knows what the announcement will be, so Winklebottom and Dr. Frumple head out in a storm to get to the house of their friend. Only to quickly learn that he was found dead by the maid mere minutes before their arrival. Now due to the storm that is ravaging the island outside, it is up to Winklebottom and Dr. Frumple to investigate and solve the crime and ultimately who is responsible for the death of their friend. As you start to solve puzzles, interview potential suspects, you will of course learn that there are multiple people who all had a motive for the crime, and they almost always amount to: “thought their dark secret was going to be part of the announcement.” Overall I would say the plot is what you can expect from these types of games. The mystery is intriguing enough, and there doesn’t seem to be one character that ultimately stands out to be the villain that you can hone in on early on, so there were multiple occasions where after playing the game (for the night) me and my wife would discuss the case while brushing our teeth about where we think its going. I will offer a BUT here, because I felt like the back 3^rd of the game is incredibly rushed and felt like the developers either didn’t know how to end it, or simply they ran out of money. This is kickstarter game, and while I wasn’t aware of it ahead of time nor did I back it, the game is divided into chapters, but based purely on an hour count, chapter 1 and 2 are maybe 2-3 hours each, while chapter 3 and epilogue are a combined 1 hour. I won’t spoil the end of the game, but it feels like once you identify the culprit (who escapes), the tracking them down, dealing with them, and resolution of everything plays out almost completely absent of you in control. I understand that the game needs to wrap up, and they can’t have you go back to simply combing the whole island once you are searching for the killer, but I still felt there were scenes that could have used a puzzle, and instead just played out like a movie with you (the player) watching instead of actually playing. Outside of the rushed ending, I thought the story was certainly good enough to keep me invested and see what was going to happen. *Spoilers* One final note, is that it did the thing I hate in mysteries where there is no way to solve the real crime by piecing the clues together on your own. Since we are in spoiler territory here, me and my wife had picked out the chameleon as potentially being the guilty party, and we were half right, but there is no indication that the frog (the other guilty party) should even be considered because you don’t know his truth until you are told that he is lying about his name 20 minutes before the end. I know it can be hard to put everything out in the open and still cast doubt on everyone to make the reveal satisfying, but I would like to believe that if given all the clues and thoroughly exploring a location, reading all the notes, that you might be able to draw a conclusion that matches the detective, and not just be told here is the answer. *End Spoiler*

With any adventure game, we need to talk about the puzzles. I can give my usual spiel about how puzzles are going to vary person to person, but overall I feel Lord Winklebottom is a pretty light difficulty in terms of its puzzles. That is obviously not to say all of them are gimmies, and there were a few where you have to be willing to think outside the box, but I felt a lot of the items you get you can figure out just where to use them without having to “try everything on everything.” This is maybe my adventure game experience coming into play, but there were some instances where, before you can pick up the item you need to solve the puzzle, you first have to be “stumped” by the puzzle to “realize” you need an item. I understand from a character perspective, “Why would I carry around the hose all day,” but that perspective breaks when you are allowed to pick everything else up with no questions asked about it. This game is primarily inventory item puzzles, which can sometimes require you to need one item, that unlocks another item, that unlocks another, until you finally get to the item you need to give someone, and there is one puzzle later in the game that requires you to navigate through a forest maze by looking to see about any “disturbance” in the area to help determine which direction you need to go. There is an in-game help system, where you can ask Dr. Frumple what you should do next, but his clues are not gimmies, and it did not seem like if you click it more than once that he will eventually just give you the answer. There was one part where I was stuck as to what to do next, and the clue was simply “we should finish interviewing everyone,” and I had to go walk around until I found the single character that had a line of dialogue that I missed previously. Obviously I can only speak for myself, I was very rarely stumped on puzzles, never had to google an answer, and only relied on Dr. Frumple’s advice two or three times throughout the whole game. Do I think they are easy enough to have my kids solve them? Certainly not, but I don’t think this game has the abstract or random puzzles that were in the adventure games of yore.

Overall I enjoyed Winklebottom quite a bit and considering I bought it as a joke to show my wife, is a fairly good return. Where it ranks on your own personal list will probably depend largely on whether or not you enjoyed the sense of humor for the game, because the story and puzzles are not something on their own that I think this game does particularly better then other games of the genre. While I remember all the puzzles now, I don’t think they stay with me a month after beating the game, and the detective story is fun but also not as mysterious or intriguing to solve as some Sherlock games or even the ABC murders. But, with all that said, the humor can carry it above those things because it worked for me. I wasn’t rolling on the floor laughing everytime we played it, waking up kids in the neighborhood, but even real chuckles over small smirks is enough. I would be very curious about continuing the adventure of Lord Winklebottom as they solve more mysteries, should those games ever exist, and while that might not seem like much, since I have played bad Poirot games in the past and still purchased the follow up, I would love to see more.

Is this the greatest game of all time?: ummm... no

Where does it rank: Lord Winklebottom is a fairly fun albeit brief mystery game that I would gladly take it over all of the Agatha Christie games. Its humor goes a long way for me which helps it lift up a few notches. The ending feels rushed, the puzzles are a little on the easy side for my liking, and I would have loved another location or two in the game. I have it ranked as the 77th Greatest Game of All Time.

What's it Between: Lord Winklebottom Sits between: Elli (78th) and Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars (76th)

Anyone looking for it: here is the link to the list and more if you are interested in following along with me (this is not a self promotion).Here. I added links on the spreadsheet for quick navigation. Now if you missed a blog of a game you want to read about, you can get to it quickly, rather than having to scroll through my previous blogs wondering when it came up.

Thanks for listening

Finally a game better than Super Mario 3-D World + Bowser's Fury. It's good to see that masterpiece surpassed!

me and my wife needed another game that we could play together on those few nights where we want to solve mysteries ourselves outside of normal parental duties.

What mysteries are you solving within normal parental duties? Who stole the Fruit Roll-up from the counter? Who gave the dog a haircut? Who tracked in mud all over the kitchen floor? Limited pool of suspects!

It's always nice when a random purchase pans out as being better than it has any right to be. However that "you have to be stumped before you can pick something up" mechanic sounds like something I would personally hate. I really do not like games that just want to railroad you and I do not like games that limit interactions based on story reasons.

What I'm saying is that LORD WINKLEBOTTOM NEEDS TO ALLOW SEQUENCE BREAKING!

@bigsocrates: I have a feeling the mario 3d world is going to be a talking point for awhile.. I will say there are only 3 instances where you are limited from picking something up prior to needing it, and the traversal between rooms is relatively quick, but I get it. My mind knew what I would need that for earlier, and now I have to go be "stumped" before the character realizes they need it.

Knowing that I got it as a joke and it turned out to be good was just icing on the cake.

@imunbeatable80: I'm not going to lie. Probably. I personally don't really care what you rank things, that's your personal opinion, but I do find this one pretty funny. I never owned a Wii U but I followed some Wii U owners at the time and Super Mario 3D World was seen as the savior. Just this month I saw a Wii U retrospective where the guy said that when Super Mario 3D World hit all the Wii U owners instantly recognized that the Wii U had a killer app and a game of the year contender.

And you're like "Nope. Below average. Not just below average, but the Switch version that fixed some of the issues with the original AND added the critically beloved Bowser's Fury is STILL below average. And that's on a list that includes a lot of absolute garbage like The Mahjong Huntress and Adam's Venture: Origins. Still, BELOW AVERAGE." That's pretty funny!

And Lord Winklebottom seems like it's probably a fine game but by your own review it has a large number of flaws. Your review has huge 6.5/7 out of 10 energy. Maybe 7.5. It seems like it's a kind of amusing game with some neat adventure elements and some low key comedy, that also has some substantial flaws in terms of being very rigid in structure and having limited production values. That's fine, and I do get that you are a particular fan of this subgenre of mystery adventure, but it's funny to rate a game like that as significantly better than the Wii U's savior!

I'm not wrong!

@bigsocrates: I think my next post might be a list cleanup, but yeah.. I don't know what to say, this is a 7 or 7.5 game for sure, but it was a hell of a lot more fun then that mario game, and one I would much rather revisit in a year.

Maybe my gut opinion is wrong sometimes and I let the recency of the moment take hold (+ environment of playing, etc.) But Lord Winklebottom was a game me and my wife loved playing every few nights, talked about after we put it down, laughed at its jokes, and really put thought into who we believed the killer was.

Super mario 3d world was a game I was excited to start (when it came up on the roulette wheel it was easily the pick with no debate), but burned out by world 4 and had to force myself to play through the rest of it. Bowsers fury definitely suffered because I played it right after 3d world, and probably still had a bad taste in my mouth from the previous game. If I ranked them separate fury is probably higher than winklebottom, but 3d world dragged it down.

The wii-u crowd can love it as much as it wants, I won't take that away.. but in my opinion if that is your killer app, it's not hard for me to figure out why the console was a failure. BOOM.. I SAID IT

@imunbeatable80: It's your list and run it how you want, but you're at 189 now so why not wait until 200 or 250 for cleanup? Cleanup sounds like a round number thing.

But I also think the concept of "cleaning up" a list like this is inherently a bit flawed. It's just impossible to really consistently rate games you played years apart. You have to rely on flawed memories, and we are constantly changing in our tastes and preferences. I change from day to day whether I'm enjoying a game or not, let alone year to year. Plus now the games themselves are changing. Maybe All Walls Must Fall got patched and is now the best game ever made. Better replay the whole thing to be sure!

All that is to say that moving something around when you have a reason (like you go back to it with one of your kids and love it this time) but "cleaning up" the list is just substituting old memories for fresher ones.

I don't think your "gut" is wrong because it's your list. Everyone's list will be different. Your wife's list would be different from yours.

The Wii U defense force will come at you if they ever find this post! Be prepared. I don't know if it's the best game on the system when all is said and done, especially when you include Breath of the Wild, but some still hold it in high regard.

Here's a list where it's ranked 2 after BOTW.

In this list it sits at 13.

Personally I think it's hard to argue for anything other than Mario Kart 8 as the "killer app" for the system, though maybe not the best game. Of the Wii U games I've played (on Switch) that are not just ports from other systems (Arkham City is not really a Wii U game for me) I'd rank 3D World pretty high but not at the top. I don't think it's as good as Mario Kart 8 and I probably like Bayonetta 2 more, though I haven't finished that yet (currently playing through it.) I do think it's better than Hyrule Warriors and New Super Mario Bros. U (a game I feel about the same way you feel about 3D World).

But I respect your right to dislike the game and I think you should stick with your feelings. At least it makes the list more interesting.

I hope my threats to hit you with Dedede's hammer didn't keep you up at night.

@bigsocrates: I still haven't slept after the first threat.. and you bringing it up again, does not bode well for my health.

Good write up! Never heard of this and I love the art style. I always enjoy real animals dressed in people clothes.

I'm more on the side of keep your list as is. I recall when you ranked Fortnite, you had it pretty high on the list but started having second thoughts on it shortly after you stopped playing. I feel like the high you had while playing it was real and you ranked it based on what you felt was in your scientific heart at the time and bringing hindsight afterwards will just muddy up the science.

But as I've said before, you're the scientist and it's your list and I'll respect your decisions no matter.

By the way, since the subject on WiiU games came up I looked through the My Nintendo app to see which games I played on the WiiU the most and the top 5 are:

1. Breath of the Wild: 70+ hours

2. Tokyo Mirage Sessions: 60+ hours

3. Mario Kart 8: 40+ hours

4. Mario's Super Picross(Virtual Console): 40+ hours

5. Musou Orochi 2 Hyper: 30+ hours

Super Mario 3D World, despite loving it, is 8th, at 10+ hours. I didn't do a completionist run like I did on the Switch and stopped playing after defeating Bowser.

Maybe this is indicative of the strength of the WiiU's library or my taste in games but 4 out of the 10 most played games I played are Virtual Console games. Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest was my 10th most played game on my WiiU. Yikes.

@chamurai: How much Mystic Quest did you play and...why? Nostalgia?

Also are any of your top 10 games true Wii U exclusives (like Nintendoland or Star Fox Zero) at this point or are they all ports/VC and games that were ported elsewhere? I mean @imunbeatable80 is going to get a Wii U and start going through the exclusive library if he's going to find the best game (which is probably a Wii U or Virtual Boy exclusive) so he might as well start building his list of the best the system has to offer.

@bigsocrates:I played Mystic Quest for 10+ hours over 10 days and it was mostly nostalgia. Also, it was to prove to myself that the last boss did in fact have a weakness to healing spells and not some false memory from my youth. I have a soft spot for that game despite its lack of difficulty and the soundtrack is probably in my top 5 for the series.

The only true WiiU game in my top 10 was Super Mario Maker at #6 and, well, I can't really play that anymore. The rest of my top 10 looks like this:

6. Super Mario Maker: 30+ hours

7. Ocarina of Time (Virtual Console): 20+ hours

8. Super Mario 3D World: 10+ hours

9. Super Mario 64 (Virtual Console): 10+ hours

10. Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest (Virtual Console): 10+ hours

I did not own Star Fox Zero or Nintendoland. I did have Bayonetta 1 and 2 and Wind Waker HD but I did not play much of either of those games.

@chamurai: You could have just looked up that last boss thing. There are no more video game secrets left. But I hope you at least enjoyed yourself. Being simple isn't the worst thing a game can be. The worst thing a game can be is, of course, Super Mario 3D World. That's what @imunbeatable80 says, anyway.

I guess you got the Mario Maker bundle then? Or a non-Deluxe version? It's strange how Nintendo did not fully Wii Sports Nintendoland and include it with every system. Could Lord Winklebottom get to the bottom of the mystery of why?

I know I'm stumped!

That's an interesting list but it does not speak well for the console. I mean there are definitely some Wii U heavy hitters that aren't on there (like Donkey Kong Country, Splatoon and Smash Bros.) but when your top 10 list for a console includes a bunch of old games and a Musou port that's probably not a console that's going to make your top 5 game machines.

Also when your play time falls off to 10+ hours inside the top 10. I might actually have a similar list for PS3, since I played almost all multiplats on the 360 at the time and when I went back to catch up on PS3 exclusives I mostly did it on PS4 (even though I have owned a PS3 since 2010.)

But I can tell you why I barely played the PS3. It wasn't for lack of games, or even exclusive games. I hated the controller compared to the 360s.

@bigsocrates: Since you asked, actually, in Japan the WiiU's did not come bundled with any game and there was no way I was gonna pay 3,000~4,000 yen for Nintendoland. When I bought my WiiU, the black one, I bought Musou Orochi 2 for 2,000 yen(roughly $20 at the time) and I got New Super Mario Bros U for free from my job. I worked in cell phone sales and had apparently racked up enough employee points to buy it for free from the company's store. I had no idea this store or the points even existed until my manager told me my points were gonna expire.

I didn't own Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze although I hear it has the best music of 2014. I was really not into multiplayer games so Splatoon and Smash Bros were just not on my radar at all. That didn't leave me with much to play outside of Virtual Console games.

...I feel this is getting off topic and I should make a separate thread for this if this keeps going.

Sorry for hijacking your blogpost @imunbeatable80!

@chamurai:No need to make a new thread.. I'm on board for the hijack. I turn away from GB for the weekend and I come back and got like 10 notifications for people LOVING Lord Winklebottom.. At least that is what I take out of it.. I was thinking of stipulating some rules when I adjust the list (like no game can move more than 5 places).. There are just some games (probably <5) that are real sticking points when I am ranking games that are either too high or too low and throw off my scores. (is this game better then X.. No, but the game that is 2 places higher it is certainly better than... etc.)

@bigsocrates: I dunno, but seems like I read another vote that Super Mario 3d World isn't as great as you say it is. Now you seem suspicious.