Agatha Christie – Hercule Poirot: The First Cases

I'd give this game a 6/10.
The characters and settings are quite well done and the case is quite interesting and sufficiently convoluted to qualify as a Christie plot, however...
- The flow of the game is very linear and constrained
- Some of the dialogues are quite long-winded
- Some of the deductions don't seem entirely logical, more coincidental
- Connecting up the mind-maps can seem a bit arbitrary at times
- The mind-map mechanic can get in the way of the flow of the game

Decided to buy this game when it was on sale, best few bucks I spent.
It's engaging, has witty banter, relatively short game play and life lessons that everyone can learn from.
A ton of fun to play with someone sitting on the couch, helping you connect the dots and talking about the juicy drama.
Best play through would be to turn off hints, as they give away the answers too quickly in my opinion. You'll feel more like a detective if you have to use your brain a bit more.
Hope you enjoy like I did.
Thank you to the developers (:

A noticeable step up in quality from the previous instalment, although could have still done with more budget to polish off some of the rough edges. The story is excellent, full of twists and turns and most of the characters are interesting. There is a lot of dialogue which makes it drag a little, but overall it's an enjoyable crime caper. I'd have preferred to draw my own conclusions to the crimes rather than be lead to the real explanation through correct linking of facts into deductions but it's still a decent game.

I played this game first on Nintendo Switch,I loved it,so I got it here on Steam too.
First, since I am a huge fan of Agatha's Christie books,I simply love Poirot. In this game I can totally see a younger Poirot,it fits the description. Like in the London Case. Not like Murder on the Orient Express that destroys Poirot's image. It is simply horrible.
The first cases,this game,is really nice for me,has everything,theft,dispute,murder of course,and all in a beautiful and cool mansion,I recommend the game if you like detective stories,and if you are a fan of Poirot then it is perfect.
Btw,even the voice actor for Poirot is great. Lovely and fuuuun.

This game reminds of Disco Elysium. It has a similar atmosphere, music, narration, and gameplay. While playing the game, I felt like I was in Christie's book. It was a good 9 hr relaxing time. Will recommend.

---{ Gameplay }---
☑ My first point-and-click game since the 90's and I loved it. I'll definitely try another.
---{ ? / 10 }---
☑ 9, I don't know what is missing but I feel like there could've been something more.
---{ Story }---
☑ Lovely. I've seen movies based on Agatha Christie before so I knew I was getting a murder mystery but I've always wanted to be able to push the story along making my own conclusions and this game was everything I wanted. The story does a great job intentionally or unintentionally showing you class privilege and how poorly society treated House staff. You know there is going to be twists, because of course, but even when leads don't turn out they still layer the complexity of the plot. If I ever came across a used book version I'd buy it to see how it plays out differently.
---{ Difficulty }---
☑ Easy, get enough wrong guesses and the right conclusions become obvious. Sometimes I wasn't making what I that was pretty obvious conclusions but once you figure out what kind of conclusions need to be made there isn't much to the game in terms of difficulty. I think you can turn that feature off if you want to. Certain conversations throughout the story could go one way or the other depending on your approach but I can't guess at whether the story can or can't advance if you mess up those conversations. They kinda queue you up at what is the best approach for each important conversation. So you really have to derail the conversation on purpose.
---{ Graphics }---
☑ They aren't the point of the game. They could be better but didn't hurt the experience.
---{ Audio }---
☑ The music is good enough to keep an earphone in, and hearing the characters' tone helps infer what's going on. The voice actors sound like they care.
---{ Audience }---
☑ Adults, no sex, maybe some mention of alcohol, and then an obvious murder investigation.
---{ PC Requirements }---
☑ Potato
---{ Grind }---
☑ Nothing to grind
---{ Game Time }---
☑ Average, under 20 hours
---{ Price }---
☑ I got the game in a bundle, it was totally worth it. Let me know if you want to trade for one of the other entries.
---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of

This was an enjoyable, relaxing game with a linear story line and not difficult to play. It did contain a lot of dialogue between Poirot and the characters which did become tedious at times The mind maps where the clues, evidence and information gathered are combined was interesting and different to me although some of the connections made were too large a leap in logic for me while others so obvious that I overlooked them.