Dimly lit, grime covered city streets. Torn posters of famous starlets strewn across the brick walls. A dirty smokestack emanating from the local bar’s chimney, where crooked cops laugh about their latest exploits. Welcome to Mouseburg.
You take the role of Jack Pepper (voiced by Troy Baker), a war veteran turned private-investigator. Hired for a missing persons case, you uncover a tangled web of corruption and crime that will take you across the entirety of the city while testing your wits throughout.
Developed by Fumi Games and published by PlaySide, I had the opportunity to preview Mouse P.I. for Hire last year at Summer Game Fest. After speaking with a few of the developers, I got a feel for the passion they had for the project. And does it ever show through in the final product, teleporting me back to an age where shooters were more simple, yet filled with charm, laughs, and creativity.
Looking Extra Sharp
Immediately noticeable is Mouse P.I. for Hire’s aesthetic. Inspired by classic, 1930s cartoons, every frame was hand-drawn in black-and-white, rubber hose style animation. Enemies and characters are on a 2d plane in a 3d world, but when viewing head-on they are fully animated. It’s a trick that I imagine took some time to get right and credit to the team at Fumi because it’s remarkable.
While screenshots demonstrate the style, they fail to portray its fluidity in motion. Mouse P.I. For Hire is an absolute delight to play, with silky-smooth movement and mechanics. While the shooting itself is simplistic and more akin to classic FPS-titles from the 90s or early 2000s, everything surrounding it is special in its own way.
Your weaponry is always moving, demonstrating the hand drawn frames in action at all times. Reload and power-up animations, like drinking coffee to empower you with “finger guns,” are even more amazing, and transport you instantly to era of cartoons that feels long lost. And of course, what you’ll be doing most, dispatching enemies in unique ways, is a delight. Everything from exploding them to ash, melting them to puddles, freezing and shattering them, or simply popping their heads is on the table, and emphasized by the wild weaponry you’ll unlock along the way. Discovering new weapons is a joy so I won’t spoil the sense of discovery for you.
If there’s a small drawback, it’s that enemy variety could be improved. You’ll be fighting similar enemies throughout, though, I don’t consider it a major shortcoming.
As expected, Troy Baker does a remarkable job voicing Jack Pepper. Anyone who grew up watching old cartoons or classics like Dick Tracy will feel right at home with his gruff, to-the-point demeanor and rapid-fire quips. It fits the 1930s, noir-setting perfectly, while also acting as the ideal antagonist to the array of suspect, shady characters you encounter across Mouseburg.
However, neither Jack nor the game ever take themselves too seriously, with plenty of jokes aimed directly at Jack himself alongside culture references from nearly everything you can imagine. From classic cartoons like Popeye, to other video games like DOOM, pop culture, music, and more, you’ll often find yourself smiling or even stopping and laughing when you get a reference a few moments after it’s occurred in the game.
Accompanying you throughout is an absolutely sublime soundtrack as well. Composed by Patryk Scelina, it’s rooted in big-band, swing-style jazz, and will have you bopping your head along with every step. It’s particularly adept at accentuating combat scenarios and will often having you bouncing in your seat as you’re mowing down all the rats standing in your way.
Gouda Vibes Only
Your office acts as your homebase with a few friends and familiar faces just next door. Between missions you’ll pin clues to your clue board, visit Tammy, the local tinkerer to upgrade weapons, or swing by John’s bar to chat up other notable NPCs. As you would expect you can also spend some cheddar on ammo or collectibles or play a round of card-based baseball, a mini-game where you can earn coins to unlock a special weapon.
The mini-game is simple yet fun and finding hidden baseball cards in the levels gives you more options for your deck. However, having to earn 20 coins to unlock the final, special weapon is a bit of a chore. Especially, as of this writing, there is no way to continue in the world after you beat the game. Your only option is to either load a save prior to the “point of no return mission” which the game doesn’t warn you of in advance. This is an aspect I hope to see remedied post-release as I’d like to be able to revisit levels to finish gathering collectibles, finding secrets, and generally just goofing around.
As you set off across Mouseburg, you’ll visit a diverse array of locations as you search for clues and begin to put the puzzle pieces together behind the kidnapping. Level design and diversity is where Fumi Games begins to truly flex their talents as it’s easily one of the best aspects of the game. From film studios, to an opera house, a creepy mansion, a showboat, a world’s fair, and a lot more, there are references to the 1930s and golden era of Hollywood every step of the way.
More importantly, they are far more fun to traverse and explore than a traditional corridor-shooter. In addition to the wild weaponry you unlock, you also gain abilities from double jumping to grappling, swinging, and wall-running. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t Titanfall. However, there’s a level of exploration, expansiveness, and verticality to the levels that was a delightful surprise. Add in a wealth of secret rooms and paths to discover, and it makes the moment to moment action feel far more varied.
Just Brie Yourself
As with the rest of Mouse P.I. For Hire, the story emulates noir-classics, with unexpected villains and twists-and-turns, all culminating with an epic showdown. Along the way you have the ability to choose the order in which you explore Mouseburg while accumulating a few additional tasks for your friends and various NPCs.
Framing Jack as a war hero turned P.I. plays right into the theme and for those who grew up in a certain era, movies like Who Framed Roger Rabbit will continue to echo throughout. Accompanying Jack are his old war buddies who play their own role in the story, the friendly reporter running stories of Mouseburg’s seedy underbelly, the local barkeep who grew up on the streets, and naturally, a mysterious dame who appears in your office one day. I found myself strangely fond of the characters by the end. While they won’t have the emotional pull of something more serious or cinematic, Fumi Games did an excellent job building a surrounding cast. And hey, at one point you get to punch an “anti-shrew agitator” which put a big smile on my face.
Similar to the vastness of the levels themselves, I didn’t expect Mouse P.I. For Hire to as broad of an experience as it is. Throughout all the ups and downs and plot twists, it’s a far more grand journey than the initial impression it gives off, and one I enjoyed thoroughly. Just when you think you’re at the end of a string or have solved a key element in the case, another appears and sends you on another excursion. When all was said and done my in-game playtime showed just under 14 hours. While that’s with me completing the majority of side content and exploring to a great extent, it’s a gouda time no matter what.
Anything But Cheesy
Fumi Games’ first major title is a resounding success. Mouse P.I. For Hire is charming, funny, fluid, and kept me smiling throughout. It demonstrates the power of passion in game development, and as someone who had been watching this one closely for the past few years, I’m thrilled with how it turned out. Fumi hints at potential future content and I certainly hope that it isn’t merely Swiss cheese.
For now, don’t be a wise guy. Cough up the cheddar and head to Mouseburg.
Thank you to PlaySide and our PR partners for providing review access to Mouse P.I. For Hire. You can find Seasoned Gaming’s review policy here.