Unheard – Voices of Crime Edition (Nintendo Switch) – The test

There are more and more investigation games on Switch, some of which are truly original. If you like playing detective, you've come to the right place. But unlike other games of the genre, it is not observation that will be central but it will be your hearing that will be put to the test. However, a big downside should be noted from the start: the game is entirely in English. Which is a real shame because it can prevent many players from taking advantage of it. You need a good level of understanding in the language of Shakespeare to be able to advance in the game!

A game to listen to carefully

The beginning of the game puts us in the shoes of an acoustic detective, which gives the game its originality. A mysterious woman explains to us that she needs us to solve past criminal cases. It has technology allowing us to listen to all the protagonists in a case at any time. We will not reveal the number of cases to be solved to keep the surprise but just know that all the cases are past crimes except the last case which takes place in the present and which reveals who you are and what is happening with this mysterious woman.

Storytelling is really the key in this game and the excellent acting from all the protagonists really enhances these captivating stories. To help you, we recommend playing with headphones to really immerse yourself in the locations and situations. This will also allow you to hear the slightest clue left in the dialogues. The characters sometimes have an English or American accent, which can make it difficult to understand certain terms.

Concretely, for each case to be resolved, you are presented with a plan of the premises with the layout of the rooms. The map shows all the rooms in the building and you are represented by a character icon that you can direct anywhere in the building at any time. As you move, the audio recording of the case plays continuously.

You can pause, rewind and forward the recording whenever you want to hear certain passages or the entire recording again. In order to solve each case, you will often have to listen to certain moments again by moving around the different locations to be able to listen to all the characters.

Foolproof hearing

The way the game works is as follows: when you are in a given room, you will hear the people who are present in it. These people will sometimes move and you will have to follow them so as not to lose the rest of the dialogues. But where replaying is necessary is that while you are listening to some people, others are also talking in other rooms in the building. You will therefore have to move around the building and listen to the recording several times to get all the ins and outs of a case.

The first thing to do in a case is to identify all the protagonists. You must therefore be very attentive because sometimes names are only mentioned once during a dialogue. The second thing to do is to answer some questions about the case such as “Who stole this item?” or “Who is behind the crime?”. Once all questions are answered correctly, you can move on to the next case.

If you like the concept of Unheard – Voices of Crime Edition, the simplified gameplay and the fact of listening to an audio recording in English several times, you will really appreciate this original concept. However, if you don't like the initial idea, the game will seem very long. For our part, we fell into it and enjoyed solving all the cases.

Visually, even if the game is very simple, the design of the plans and the interface is very good and well done. At the end of a case, a short comic-style animated sequence summarizes the key elements and it works really well.

On the audio level, everything is excellent and given the style of play fortunately because otherwise it would have completely ruined the concept. The actors are really invested in their characters and it's a real pleasure to listen to them. We quickly get into the game of noting down every detail that seems important to us.

Unheard – Voices of Crime Edition is available at the price of ten euros on theeShop.