Mermaid Mask Review: Funniest Underwater Murder Mystery 2026

The Mermaid Mask review highlights the funniest underwater murder mystery you can play. Detective Grimoire and his sidekick Sally return in this locked-room puzzle adventure set aboard a submarine.

Overview of The Mermaid Mask

In a boom time for mystery games, the Detective Grimoire series stands out for its style and sense of humour. The Mermaid Mask continues to build upon the formula laid down in Secret of the Swamp and polished in Tangle Tower. While there is still room for further improvements, this sequel is worth the seven years’ wait.

Gameplay Mechanics

You click around the cluttered rooms of the submarine to hear the detectives' comedic commentary and look for clues. Closer up, you click and drag to move objects around for further examination or to solve a puzzle. For those playing on Nintendo Switch 2, the mouse controls are actually useful here, though not comfortable in the long run.

Puzzles are never so taxing as to disrupt the flow: variations on “arrange these objects to satisfy some more-or-less apparent rules of logic” with stylistic wrapping. Your reward is generally an opened door and a new object to examine, which you can then present to the various suspects.

Characters and Voice Acting

The chewy centre of these games is the fully voice-acted conversations with a cast of colourful characters. I immediately lowered the volume of the music (which sadly doesn’t compare to Tangle Tower’s characterful soundtrack) to better hear the well-performed dialogue. Some of the suspects are more memorable than others, but the somewhat supernatural backdrop allows for archetypes not found elsewhere.

• Madam Tadpole is buff, green-skinned, and appears to have gills.
• Mariana Moon is an older woman with an unnaturally keen sense of smell whose voice acting is cleverly muffled when she’s chewing on her pipe.
• Godric Gripp is a compass repairman with an anthropomorphised stick called Cornelius Cane, whose introduction involves an unavoidable shopfront interface.

Comparison with Previous Games

Key Takeaways

• The Mermaid Mask delivers hilarious dialogue and a unique underwater setting.
• Puzzles are intuitive and never break the flow of the story.
• Voice acting brings the quirky suspects to life.
• Music is a step down from Tangle Tower, but the rest compensates.
• Worth the wait for fans of the series and new players alike.

FAQ