This is one of the best over a long drought of lackluster games. Unfortunately it has a bug. If you reach the tower top with the golden gear and an unrepaired LUCY doll, the elevator is disabled and you're stuck. No recourse but to restart the game from scratch. I've enjoyed the game so much it's not that big of a deal. If not for this bug, I would have given it 5 stars hands down.
I enjoyed playing this game very much. The visual and particularly the sound quality are excellent with the small exception of Uncle Fen who sounds about as Chinese as Captain Kangaroo. Puzzles are a nice range of fairly easy to moderately difficult. The HOPs are unique and added a definite plus to the overall gameplay. Storyline is good. Finally a male detective.
Excellent graphics and sound. Another in the long list of recent cutesy games for kids. Hey you too can talk to the animals. I'm not sure what happened at BF, but the trend seems to be all whimsy fairy tale games for children. If I were 12 I would recommend this game.
Graphics and sound were good but that was about it. Lackluster storyline and waaay too many puzzles. I've been playing some of the older HO's and WOW! what happened. They actually had an interesting plot. For some of us fishies, one good plot is worth more than 1000 day glow trolls, dragons, cutesy pets, etc..
I don't recommend this game.
+12points
17of22voted this as helpful.
Dark Parables: Requiem for the Forgotten Shadow Collector's Edition
A dark illness has befallen the townspeople of Anaben!
For me a good game must incorporate a story line that is somewhat believable and draws the player in. Without this the game is just a collection of HOPs and mini games. This one manages to throw the believability factor out the window in the first 5 minutes of gameplay. To start the player is riding atop a horse along a rocky mountain road (sorry Joe) at breakneck speed while reading a book in one hand and listening to a cassette player with the other. I've heard of good horsemanship but that's ridiculous. Then you arrive in some medieval town with a castle to be greeted by a character with a horse drawn coach, all right out of the 18th century. At this point my intrigue meter went to 0.
Definitely not the best in the series. Disappointed in the blatant differences between the demo and full version. For example, the HOPs don't repeat in the demo but lo and behold they do in the full (same scene, different list). The demo should be a fair representation of the entire game not a come on to entice a fishie to buy.
Well done. The puzzles and hops have that little bit of originality that makes all the difference between an interesting game and a boring one. One of the better games to come out for a while. Definite buy.
Game looked really interesting at first glance, so I burned a couple of credits on it. After playing past the demo part it quickly got boring. Storyline was disjointed. I must have had to use herbicide a dozen times. SE sure, CE maybe not.