Detective Gallo Review

Anyone who has read my reviews will know that I have a soft spot for the Point & Click genre which Detective Gallo conveniently falls into. Usually the protagonist is human but in this case Gallo is a private detective who is a cockerel, for the language experts out there I’m sure you knew Gallo in Portuguese means rooster. Detective Gallo is promoted as a comic-noir so lets  see if it ticks all the boxes to become point & click classic.

You play Detective Gallo, a cockerel who is a tad on the grumpy side and a private investigator. The case in question is that rare exotic plants are being brutally murdered but no-one knows why and no-one knows how to stop it. Cue various bird related jokes such as suspecting ‘fowl play’. Unfortunately your first meeting with Detective Gallo is viewing him being ejected from a drinking establishment due to a lack of the green stuff. As Detective Gallo goes back to his quaint little office in the beautifully names Bloodletting Square you happen to come across a crying billionaire. Phil Cloro the blubbering bird tells you that his prizes plants have been slaughtered. After some deliberation with Gallo’s partner Thorn i.e. a cactus he keeps in his pocket, Gallo takes the case.

Detective Gallo’s plot takes you across several hand drawn scenes which are heavily detailed. Like a lot of point & click adventures, Detective Gallo requires a fair bit of backtracking between an emporium, your office, Phil Cloro’s mansion etc. Some situations take place in an unconscious mind which should warn you that Detective Gallo lends itself more the surreal side of things. The quirky humour between the different characters such as a criminal taxi driver and Detective Gallo is quite charming and rarely grates. It isn’t quite laugh a minute or particularly funny but Detective Gallo does a good job at keeping the humour not too wacky. There isn’t that many areas to cover so you better get used to traversing through the same environments. Out of all the venues you enter the Emporium is probably the one you go back to the most not because the story dictates it but more because if you’re not sure what to do its the place that seems to hold the objects you need or the Emporium owner who tells you what you need. The biggest gripe with slight lack in variety in scenes is the constant swapping between them, especially as some scenes you need to walk across to get to another, it’s just makes Detective Gallo a lot slower than it should be.

There are several puzzles to get past that range from simple to not so much challenging but what could be described as a little off the cuff. The most memorable ones include getting the Emporium owner drunk then entering his mind to gather some intel, whilst another one requires you to call an electric company to cut off your electric so you can gain access to your safe. There’s also an ‘informer’ you can call who gives you some clues on how to progress, it’s a mechanic that could have been utilised more as you only ever have one of two choices to call. Sometimes you will find yourself using every item in your inventory on the different characters when you get stuck, luckily there is a hint system that will help you on your way.

Detective Gallo will take you roughly a couple of hours to get through and is a fairly straightforward Platinum to achieve although the trophy that requires you to play the whole game without pausing/saving can be really annoying as Detective Gallo can get a bit buggy. For some reason there will be occasions where you go to move your pointer and you can’t select anything thus breaking the game, so I’d advise saving a fair bit (unless you’re going for the trophy mentioned earlier).

Detective Gallo is a fun point & click adventure if a little on the buggy side. It’s a fairly comical entry into the genre although the over reliance on going back and forth can be frustrating. If you like point & click adventures then you’ll surely want to give Detective Gallo, if you don’t then Detective Gallo may well be a little too surreal to change your mind.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Playstation 4 code was provided to Bonus Stage for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to press@4gn.co.uk.