Metropolis: Lux Obscura is basically what you’d get if Puzzle Quest started hanging out with Max Payne and Sin City and picking up some bad habits. Originally released in October of 2017 for the PC, this dark and atmospheric match-3 game is now headed to the Playstation 4/Vita, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, but I requested a Steam key since its page promises full controller support and that’d make it easier to get a feel for how well it works on all of the different platforms. Besides, violent games with oodles of nudity are best played on a computer monitor to better facilitate alt-tabbing in case someone walks in while your character is groping a half-naked stripper. It’s not easy to explain the context of stuff like that.

A graphic novel with matching

Right off the bat, you’ll notice that the art style is glorious. The look is very reminiscent of a graphic novel, and the way the main character’s narration fills in everyone’s back story as events unfold is similar to Max Payne’s approach despite the writing here being less poetic and introspective. You play as Jon Lockhart, known to most as simply “Lockhart,” a man who was recently released from jail after serving time for the death of his best friend. Did he actually kill him? What happened between the two isn’t obvious, but the way story shifts to Lockhart’s reunion with characters from his past suggests that the details ultimately don’t matter.

According to Steam, I’ve played for 79 minutes, and I managed to get one of the four endings in that time. Here’s what I’ve been able to work out thus far: there are a small handful of choices that determine which ending you end up receiving, and not all of them wrap up loose ends. Another thing that should be obvious is that a playthrough of Metropolis: Lux Obscura is quite short, though that’s addressed somewhat by the existence of multiple endings. Personally, I remember the hours upon hours of tedious match-3 busywork in Puzzle Quest that ultimately led me to hate it, so the fact that this game doesn’t waste your time is a giant plus in my book.

The gameplay is pretty simple, actually. You choose which location to visit (though you usually only have one or two choices), get a scene that fleshes out some of the characters and their motivations while including lots of great art, then get drawn into a conflict that’s resolved with match-3 gameplay. One of the differences between this and other match-3 games I’ve played is that you and your opponent don’t take turns whacking at each other, with you always getting two or three turns for each one they get. Even then, they’re not actually matching on the board, but attacking you directly, ensuring that anything you set up can’t be used against you. However, some encounters are against enemies with much more health than you, and you’ll occasionally be forced to take down two or three characters in a row.

There’s actually a surprising amount of strategy in fights because of this. Different attack types do different damage to different enemies, while there are “anger” tokens you can match to increase your damage multiplier. Then there are medpacks and police badges, which heal you and damage you when matched, respectively.

Next time I’ll try using a controller

This first playthrough I did was using a mouse. It’s definitely a natural way of dragging things around, but I’ll make sure to pepper in some attempts with a controller when I start trying to get the other three endings. There’s not much else I can say about Metropolis: Lux Obscura at the moment—the matching is relaxing, and contrasting that with crime, violence, and miscellaneous darkness while avoiding wasting my time with filler is certainly an endearing mix. It’ll be interesting to see how well things hold up over the course of multiple playthroughs.

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