Detective Gallo (Nintendo Switch) Review

Despite Detective Gallo's opening clearly riffing on the noir genre, the quality of writing in the title's introduction is far stronger than anything else in the point-and-click proper. This is not to say that the script is poor, far from it actually, but the titular Gallo's opening monologue trumps every other piece of written dialogue in the script to the point where the story cannot help but feel disappointing when it inevitably fails to match its first impression in both tone and quality.

The writing itself in the main game is fine enough with supporting characters getting all the characterisation they need, but the dialogue immediately leaves much to be desired. Coupled with Gallo's repetitive - and grammatically poor, at times - internal monologue, the narrative simply is not as interesting in execution as it is in concept. The plot itself does have its share of plot twists, typical for the noir genre, so it is at least engaging on an intrigue level, but there is little to actually be said on the story's part.

Gallo himself comes off as a rather underdeveloped protagonist, as well. While he does grow over the course of his investigation, his arc's beats leave much to be desired and spurred less by the narrative challenge of who he is as a character and more by whatever is blatantly convenient for the plot at any given moment. As a result, Gallo's arc comes out rather undercooked, failing to meaningfully enhance the story.

With regards to pacing, even though Detective Gallo does fall on the shorter end of the genre, there is nonetheless a bit of backtracking at play. This does not harm the overall experience as much as it could, but given just how linear progression is otherwise, backtracking does end up damaging the natural flow of gameplay.

Gameplay is par for the course for the genre, mixing light exploration with puzzle solving. Gallo can use his inventory items to interact with the world at large, and examining his surroundings will net new items. The core gameplay loop and puzzles are not all that impressive, simply accounting to the bare minimum and moving on.

Where Detective Gallo shines is in its aesthetic. Fully hand-drawn, Gallo's investigation is visually brilliant. Character animations are smooth (save for mouth flaps), and the world's design has a great colour palette, which works to lend the point-and-click some needed atmosphere. Scored by a refreshingly jazzy soundtrack, the world of the game is strong. A clear visual identity has been crafted, and it genuinely is strong enough to warrant a playthrough. While the rest of the adventure may fall flat, Detective Gallo is at least aesthetically unique without its gameplay or plot ever dipping into outright bad levels of quality.