So, here´s the thing, I like monsters, I like puzzles but most of all, I love music. Wailing Heights is a game that combines all three, in this musical point-and-click adventure you get to visit a town full of hipster vampires, actual smart zombies, ghostly lawyers, and more.
The game centers around a musician called Finklestein or as their friend called them, "Bite Me" Finklestein, the manager of Britain´s greatest Band since the Beatles, The Deadbeats. It´s like if all the villains from scooby doo decided to make a band instead of running a scam.
It has been years since the rest of the band members have disbanded and "died" under mysterious circumstances.
One day our main hero receives an invitation for a gig of a lifetime and finds themselves in Wailing Heights... Only one problem, being alive (or human even ) is illegal there, so they end up seeing a jail cell with only a Scottish ghostly lawyer to help them bail them out.
But thanks to a friendly cellmate, Finklestein learns how to possess people, having to hop from monster to monster to free themselves.
And to top it all off, turns out The Deadbeats have turned in the same monsters they were performing as and are living (unliving) right here in Wailing Heights, and as the manager, Fink is expected to create a special reunion concert! A truly wacky adventure.
At first glance, you will notice that game plays a little differently than most typical puzzle adventure games. Instead of inventory puzzles and collecting items, you instead collect lyrics. Fitting, considering this is a musical-themed game.
Possession works like this, first, you get the name of the monster you wish to possess, something they like, and something they hate, which you can get by exploring and talking to NPCs.
Then you complete the phrase, and if you get it right you can now control said character and use their abilities.
Funny enough each character not only comes with a comic that tells their origin story but they even come with their own theme song! However, it can get tiresome at times, having to hear the same theme over and over whenever I have to switch characters... And yes I´ve found myself having to switch them a lot.
See certain locations require you to use different monsters, for example, werewolves don´t like ghosts so dialogue is impossible, and the coffee shop is for vampires only (until much later in the game that is). This can make backtracking a bit of a pain, and their walking pace is so slow.
Fortunately, you only have few locations to explore and can use the special abilities to walk faster. Some of the abilities you get include invisibility from Soulman the ghost, turning into a bat which lets you reach high places, turning into a wolf which allows you to smell and track certain items, and being a zombie allows you to understand other zombies.
But another drawback is that you can possess characters in close proximity while unpossessed ones stay in the last location where you left them, so better remember where they are since that is the only way to control again, kinda annoying if you ask me.
The puzzles also vary in difficulty, Act 1 was extremely easy and almost took no effort, but then Act 2 came around getting the band together, I was stuck running around having to switch characters back and forth multiple times trying to figure out a very hard puzzle. It turns out the other puzzle depends on you getting that first contract from Ada Z, so forget trying to solve each Deadbeat member's puzzle out of order, the whole thing feels kinda jumbled. And then Act 3 comes around but without backtracking, the only thing you gotta worry about is completing the song with the lyrics you already have. This stage requires you to have paid attention throughout the game.
That being said their I find their use of music interesting here, not only does it play an important part of the story, oftentimes music is the key to moving forward through lyrics and thinks like playing a certain song to create a certain reaction or trying to find limericks make for a fun game mechanic. I even like how the musical themes are tied to the storyline and a character's personality.
They are very catchy, with a mixture of soul, Irish folk, pop, indie rock, and... Scottish rap? So much so, I recommend also getting the soundtrack.
Humour is no slouch either, there´s a lot of monster pun-based humor for those of you that like that sort of thing. I mean vampires getting high on garlic powder instead of cocaine and it´s considered an illegal substance? That´s the kind of thing I imagine that would happen in a supernatural town. There is also a little bit of British-Irish humour complete with voice acting that does a good job in conveying the personality of its cast.
Last but not least I really liked the 2D hand-drawn animation style, the entire thing makes you feel like you´re playing through a comic book and all of the dialogue shows up in the form of speech bubbles. The artists behind this have a background in comic illustration so no surprise there.
Conclusion
So there you have. A fun musical adventure made by a small game studio. Its art, music, and themes make it an interesting 5 hours to play, despite all the backtracking.
My one complaint was that I wish you could just possess characters by clicking on them in the inventory instead of having to be physically near.
But the game is stable with few bugs and can be played both on console and pc.
And I may make one small suggestion, really save this game for Halloween if you live in a place that celebrates it. This is also a good game for players who like games with a scary theme but are too afraid to play an actual horror game.
