frequentfrog's Profile
Stat Summary
- Average Rating:3.7
- Helpful Votes:64
- Reviews Submitted:23
- First Review:October 29, 2012
- Most Recent Review:October 8, 2021
- Featured reviews0
Find and collect adorable cats as you visit incredible places all over the world!
Overall rating
2
/
5
1 of 2 found this review helpful
Based on demo, too many errors
PostedOctober 8, 2021
frequentfrog
fromEurope
Skill Level:Intermediate
Favorite Genre(s):Adventure, Hidden Object, Mahjong, Puzzle, Time Management
Fun Factor
4
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
3
/
5
Level of Challenge
4
/
5
Tried this one on a windows 7 and a Windows 10 and on both computer the game was jumbled, words not fitting in buttons, or across several buttons, ect...
Which was a shame, because the premise looked fun and the HOG switched with puzzles was fairly entertaining even if I never could find out what any button said in the menu.
The adventure continues as the Fearless General Flavius with his detachment begin a perilous journey to end the Filth once and for all!
Overall rating
5
/
5
1 of 1 found this review helpful
Almost as good as Season One
PostedOctober 8, 2021
frequentfrog
fromEurope
Skill Level:Intermediate
Favorite Genre(s):Adventure, Hidden Object, Mahjong, Puzzle, Time Management
Fun Factor
5
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
5
/
5
Level of Challenge
5
/
5
Storyline
4
/
5
I prefer Season One to this one. Maybe because this game completely takes places in a fantasy world and it drags a little after a while. I didn't enjoy the many caves as much.
You need to dismiss your disbelief a little harder this time. There's an elf that is skewered by a giant stalagmite and he's still talking and happily hangs around until you finish half the level and get him a healing draught... That's a little over the top.
The level with the pillar of light and the attacking totems is ennerving! Challenging, certainly. Some levels can only be 'won' with less than a second to spare.
Otherwise, still very much an entertaining game and totally worth it to find out how the game ends.
I recommend this game!
Help the Romans and the Britons defeat the Filth in this exciting strategy adventure!
Overall rating
5
/
5
Massive World!
PostedOctober 8, 2021
frequentfrog
fromEurope
Skill Level:Intermediate
Favorite Genre(s):Adventure, Hidden Object, Mahjong, Puzzle, Time Management
Fun Factor
5
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
5
/
5
Level of Challenge
5
/
5
Storyline
4
/
5
The giant worlds in the levels was something I hadn't come across yet. I loved it!
I spent 15 min to 30 min on a level, so this game kept me entertained for hours on end. And of course I had to win all stars in every mode. It's challenging! But it can be done.
Storyline is the weakest of the lot. Some historical weirdness but otherwise highly entertaining.
I recommend this game!
Board the shuttle and embark on a space exploration adventure like no other in an exciting new time management game!
Overall rating
5
/
5
4 of 4 found this review helpful
Best time management game I played in a while
PostedOctober 8, 2021
frequentfrog
fromEurope
Skill Level:Intermediate
Favorite Genre(s):Adventure, Hidden Object, Mahjong, Puzzle, Time Management
Fun Factor
5
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
5
/
5
Level of Challenge
5
/
5
Storyline
5
/
5
I really liked this one. The premise is a little cookie cutter, but as soon as the missions start, the game becomes its own and I was hooked.
I thought the missions were diverse enough, it didn't feel like always doing the same thing as in so many other time management games: get food, get building material, build houses, collect rent.
Here, I had the idea that all missions were unique. It kept me busy for hours.
Plusses:
- loved the way the little robots moved!
- I also liked the look of the main menu, where you have the planet you're playing on in the middle so you know immediately where you are in the game.
- I also liked that the crew was almost never in the same place twice and that the make-up of the crew changed with the chapter where some crew members were elsewhere. I liked that attention to detail.
- Every planet was so nicely different.
- loved the way the little robots moved!
- I also liked the look of the main menu, where you have the planet you're playing on in the middle so you know immediately where you are in the game.
- I also liked that the crew was almost never in the same place twice and that the make-up of the crew changed with the chapter where some crew members were elsewhere. I liked that attention to detail.
- Every planet was so nicely different.
Minus:
- Only niggle is that I couldn't make out whether the Collector's Edition added anything worthwhile, (more wallpapers? but nothing else?) so I stuck to the Standard Edition and that was sufficient for me.
- Only niggle is that I couldn't make out whether the Collector's Edition added anything worthwhile, (more wallpapers? but nothing else?) so I stuck to the Standard Edition and that was sufficient for me.
I recommend this game!
Can you stop a dangerous curse from destroying the realm?
Overall rating
3
/
5
None of these characters' behaviour makes sense
PostedOctober 8, 2021
frequentfrog
fromEurope
Skill Level:Intermediate
Favorite Genre(s):Adventure, Hidden Object, Mahjong, Time Management
Fun Factor
3
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
4
/
5
Level of Challenge
4
/
5
Storyline
2
/
5
I was hoping this was a return to form for Blue Tea but... it falls short.
Storyline starts intriguing enough: Art students break into an ancient castle, a painting of a princess suddenly comes alive and only one student makes it out.
And for the first part there is some tension, with someone walking around the same rooms as you and leaving paintings or smeared paint behind your back. It hit all the right creepiness-buttons for me.
But right around where the demo stops, the game shifts gear and loses all tension.
The art is good (would have been better if the Princess' face didn't changes as much from her in the painting, to when she talks or when she appears in a video. I'm not used to this sort of sloppiness from Blue Tea.
Music is good. Puzzles are divers enough (played in relaxed) and the gameplay fairly fluent. Would have liked for some pieces to turn up in more logical places, but that's a complaint for the vast majority of point-and-click-adventures.
But the storyline just lets it down hard. None of these characters's behaviour made sense to me! Never could eternal darkness have been so easily prevented if people just talked to one another! And they have -all- these great opportunities they instantly waste, it is really rather maddening. At one point your character is TOSSED OFF A BRIDGE rather than someone saying 'please don't do that.' And that's in the demo.
It doesn't make ANY character particularly likeable.
There are also quite a few holes in the storyline for which you never get a satisfying answer. The tiny bonus chapter doesn't help, in fact, it just confused me more. (Where did that black swan come from all of a sudden?)
It's also a shame they not once make use of the vast Dark Parable history from previous games. That used to be a highlight in a game for me.
There are better Dark Parable games out there.
Can you save your hometown from the Headless Horseman?
Overall rating
3
/
5
4 of 5 found this review helpful
I Expected More
PostedMay 11, 2021
frequentfrog
fromEurope
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Adventure, Hidden Object, Mahjong, Puzzle, Time Management
Fun Factor
3
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
4
/
5
Level of Challenge
4
/
5
Storyline
3
/
5
I have not tried a Dark Romance game before, so I have no idea if this is a good representative. I liked the idea of switching between the two main characters.
But given the good name of the Dark Romance series, I was rather expecting more.
Graphics and puzzles are fairly standard. I did enjoy playing this game but it certainly didn't stand out among the masses of other very similar games.
Evil people are evil, good people are good. No shades of grey in this game. You can sort of tell who's who based on their graphics.
There is fairly little suspence, despite the subject matter, which is where my main disappointment lies. I expected the game to be more thrilling.
In one scene a side character saves the main character at a huge personal risk, with an angry mob literally beating at the door!- and the main character moves leasurely around the house happily muttering about helping out with the fixing of furniture!
And it is not the only odd scene.
There is another moment where one main character saves the other from public execution (at least the characters are saving one another more or less equally) and the other just smiles condescendingly and walks away without a word. Romance, it aint. Baffling, absolutely. Equaly baffling that the mob surrounding the execution just does nothing.
And the most damning, I think, is the one key scene where two characters are fighting but they make the same attack/defense move over and over again, while the remaining main character moves all around them, solving different puzzles and collects several items while the Bad Guy looks on, doesn't do anything to stop you and then acts surprised when you use the weapon you have been contructing under their nose.
tl;dr: It's a decent game, just not that exciting.
An organ grinder seeks revenge, marking his victims with cards. Can you stop him before he destroys the entire city?
Overall rating
3
/
5
More issues with storyline than gameplay
PostedMay 11, 2021
frequentfrog
fromEurope
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Adventure, Hidden Object, Mahjong, Puzzle, Time Management
Fun Factor
4
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
5
/
5
Level of Challenge
4
/
5
Storyline
2
/
5
The game is fairly standard, with an equal mix of minigames and HOGS. Some minigames require multiple non-idential parts that you can fit in before you have collected everything. I liked this, this made my inventory more manageable.
+ Graphics are nice, voice work is decent but not breathtaking.
+ You get a cute animal sidekick that doesn't talk and is actually useful. Although it disappears without warning just before the end of the bonus chapter and I felt that was unnecessary.
+Worth the CE, I think. There are pets to collect. Intricate puzzles. And the bonus chapter picks up right after the main story. Those baby griffins, mind, with their strange, rigid grins and stares, look possitively stoned.
-There IS a lot of back-and-forth. It's a good thing you have a map that allows you to jump from scene to scene. Otherwise this game would have been a slow slog.
-Most of my beef is with the storyline. If that could have received more attention, this game would have been so much better. For instance there is a puzzle that already tells his tragic story right before you get to speak to the Organ Grinder and hear it from him! This absolutely robs the Organ Grinder's monologue of any poinancy it otherwise might have had.
-The story also seems to run in two speeds. The normal game is one thing, but if you look at your notebook where you collect all the cursed cards, your own notes seem to have missed much of what characters were telling you. You'd think a detective would be able to put two and two together in their own notes, but no, apparently not. This is jarring.
-I also struggled with finding the Organ Grinder sympathetic, which the game REALLY wants you to, considering the nature of the bonus game.
IMO it fails. It is hard to have sympathy for somebody who horribly murders people for 'crimes' like removing a tragic tale from the town's chronicle AFTER being repeatedly threathened and coersed in doing so.
- You arrive too late to prevent the murder most of the time. And, boy is there a significant body count in this game! Which is, on hindsight, a little frustrating. Only mitigated by the knowledge that some of the victims were murderers in their own right.
- And the times that you DO arrive on time, the victims (and murderous creatures) helpfully wait around while you move through the room, solving puzzles, pick up items to use in other scenes first! (At one point you leave a guy fighting off a murderous book to go and find a knife so you can open a package without tearing the paper! Priorties, much?) These victims all survive, naturally, but it sure killed all the suspence!
-I was also troubled by the fact that the Organ Grinder, who is supposedly someone we should sympathise with, endangers an innocent child, does nothing to help her and then mocks you while you do. It does not help matters that it turns out [SPOILER!!!] the girl is his own daughter!
Which brings me to another niggle about the storyline. The Organ Grinders knows very well what other people did after his own death but he fails to notice something obvious like that [SPOILERS!] he has a daughter running around! Who was also taken in by one of people whom he now tries to murder. You'd think that taking care of an orphan after he couldn't save her father from an angry mob (how many people actually can save people from angry mobs without danger to themselves? ) would have bought the friend some mercy, but no. Yeah, nice guy, this Organ Grinder...
So I kind of felt conflicted spending the entire bonus chapter trying to save him from the consequences of his own actions. I am not sure she is all that better of with him.
Beyond the sky lies a thrilling adventure... and a deadly threat!
Overall rating
5
/
5
A real treat!
PostedMay 11, 2021
frequentfrog
fromEurope
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Adventure, Hidden Object, Mahjong, Puzzle, Time Management
Fun Factor
5
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
5
/
5
Level of Challenge
5
/
5
Storyline
5
/
5
It is nice after so many HOP adventure games( that after a while all feel rather similar) to find something like Light Advent that really is a different experience!
There is SO MUCH to love about this game and only a few niggles keep it from being utterly glorious.
+Particularly liked the minigames where you have to shove things aside to get to something at the bottom. Sure beats endless variations of HOGS as some other games do.
+Zoom areas where minigames or object-collection is done disappear, which is such a relief and doesn't force you to meander though the different settings over and over again while looking for something to do, unlike some other games.
+ The side-characters are a hoot. Believable, diverse, not all heroes. (Could have done with more women, mind you. Apart from the main character, there are only two and neither have speaking parts.) Carl's -ah- transformation later in the game doesn't quite work for me, but before that he has all the best lines.
+ I quite liked Nix's design and voice work, if they went for charming, well, they nailed it. But I would have loved more information about how Diana only remembers him as an imaginary friend. Diana doesn't question it, but I certainly have questions.
It is also slightly disappointing that apart from being the instignator for the whole adventure, he doesn't actually do all that much...
It is also slightly disappointing that apart from being the instignator for the whole adventure, he doesn't actually do all that much...
+ Loved the side-quests where you can relive the memories of certain people from Iridessa but again I would have liked more information why these people go through so much trouble to save Earth at seemingly the expense of their own world. Not that I mind Earth getting saved! But nobody seems to have a care for Iridessa's fatal-looking fate. Why not? So I felt I was missing important bits of information.
+ It's one of the few games IMO that manage to project a sense of danger and urgency throughout the game. It sags a little at the end, but not too much. Considering I may have snarled at family that tried to interrupt me at that stage, I can definitely say this game is very immersive!
- Not all the puzzles are immediately staightforward. I had to click the question mark more than once to find out what I was supposed to do. Good thing it was there or this could have been a frustrating experience at times.
-If I ever find out that most of my niggles and questions from the SE would have been answered in the CE, I will be so cross with myself for not looking for a CE first after having played the SE demo!
I recommend this game!
A sizzling take on the classic tale of greed, yearning, and redemption.
Overall rating
3
/
5
1 of 1 found this review helpful
One of the weaker Dark Parable Games but still Fun
PostedMay 1, 2021
frequentfrog
fromEurope
Skill Level:Intermediate
Favorite Genre(s):Adventure, Hidden Object, Mahjong, Puzzle, Time Management
Fun Factor
4
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
5
/
5
Level of Challenge
4
/
5
Storyline
3
/
5
Dark Parables is usually a must-buy for me but I have to say I am not a fan of the Eipix run. Their stories are IMO far more predictable, trope-laden and shorter. I like Eipix games well enough, but the Blue Tea Dark Parable series used to be more original (and longer) in their fairytale adaptations and that suited me better.
This game's plot is sadly more Eipix than Blue Tea in feeling, which is a shame because the previous game felt more like a return to form.
That said Match Girl is NOT a bad game, much of the things that have made this series great are present, just not to the degree I would like.
It certainly feels shorter than other games, possibly because the game world feels a lot more limited, there are no surprises about the places one ends up. The chapters are shorter and fewer.
It was the first time I bought a collector's edition of a Dark Parable game but I don't really feel the bonus material was really worth it. May go back to standard editions again.
One note which is highly personal, but which was a big let down for me: all other Dark Parables have (as far as I know) managed to keep the gender of the Detective ambiguous. I liked that a lot. It's more immersive. But Match Girl dispels that clever trick by refering to the Detective as 'him' in a note. And that could have been so easily avoided and was totally unnecessary.
I recommend this game!
A young woman joins the Order of monster hunters and discovers its dark secrets.
Overall rating
3
/
5
6 of 6 found this review helpful
Perhaps the weakest of the series
PostedApril 5, 2019
frequentfrog
fromEurope
Skill Level:Intermediate
Favorite Genre(s):Adventure, Hidden Object, Time Management
Fun Factor
3
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
5
/
5
Level of Challenge
3
/
5
Storyline
3
/
5
I enjoyed previous games in the Grim Legends series but storywise I think the latest game is definitely the weakest. I managed to guess several 'relevations' well ahead of the game, which takes away some of the enjoyment. I like a game that puts me on the wrong foot. This game only managed to trick me once. So perhaps the storyline was a little more generic and predictable than its predecessors.
The antagonist is called a Koshmaar. It had me in giggles each time it's mentioned. Others who know French may find it similarly amusing.
Game is a decent lenght, I played two to three hours.
Puzzles are perhaps a little on the easy side in casual mode. I only had to use the hint-button twice in the game.
Not a bad game, but considering the fun I had with Grim Legends 1 and 2, I don't see myself replaying this game as quickly.
I recommend this game!