Nintendo Life has reviewed The Mermaid's Mask, a new detective adventure from SFB Games for Switch 2, the latest instalment in their Detective Grimoire series. Detectives Sally and Grimoire travel to a small seaside town to investigate the apparent murder of Captain Mortuga aboard his submarine, surrounded by an eccentric cast of suspects including a psychic, a bodybuilder and a famous author. Rather than a traditional point-and-click narrative, the game is built around examining fixed scenes, gathering facts and piecing together witness testimonies, drawing comparisons to games such as Case of the Golden Idol, Lost in Play and Monkey Island.

The review praises the core deduction gameplay as tightly focused and well supported by its single-screen dioramas and character interviews, though it notes that smaller supplementary puzzles, such as unlocking a phone or arranging bottle caps, feel less coherent with the game's atmosphere. Players can control the pointer-based interface via control stick, Joy-Con motion, touchscreen or Switch 2's new mouse mode, with the reviewer finding touch and mouse controls the most natural, particularly in handheld play. The game's comic-book-style visuals are described as vibrant and well animated, with functional backgrounds that support the investigative gameplay.