This week’s release of a hidden object adventure for the iPad comes from G5 Entertainment with Alchemy Mysteries: Prague Legends, a game that’s exactly how I like it: spooky and good looking. But let’s see if there’s a bit more meat on the bone!
You play as a beautiful girl (all girls must be beautiful in hidden object adventures, of course!) who was raised in an orphanage but just received word that she has an inheritance pending from somewhere in Prague. Turns out it’s not the daily e-mail scam you get in your inbox, so she heads to Prague, hoping to find out more about this mystery person that left her some goodies and, more important, to find out more about herself.
The story is pretty standard for a hidden object game and it features its little share of cheesy-ness: as soon as our main character arrives to the house, the lady waiting for her has to leave, letting her with many questions unanswered. I am living in Eastern Europe and I know that’s not how we do things here! Second, and most baffling for me is the fact that as soon as ghosts start appearing in the room, our main character has no heart-stopping moments as I did and carries on with exploration as if nothing unusual happened.
Which gets us to a new thing, despite the spooky part which is present and manages to give you the chills, without having real scare, jump-in-your-face moments: the exploration itself. Your adventure will take you through the huge house in Prague (and a few other locations), and there’s a pretty nice approach to it: you can rotate 360 degrees to see the entire room. Good thing goes bad pretty soon though, because you will often find yourself stuck, not knowing where to look and what to do next. There is a hint button that you will probably use a lot more often than you’d like because otherwise, you will have a lot of clicking to do and it would all be extremely slow paced.
Along the way, you will have to collect your fair share of items an combine then to solve puzzles and keep the story going. What I really loved about Alchemy Mysteries: Prague Legends was that in many cases you found the item required to complete a puzzle in the same room, therefore reducing the confusion and wandering around not knowing what to do next. The puzzles themselves are your regular bunch for this type of game: switching, matching, pattern finding and so on. Hidden object scenes are also present in the game with more complicated items to find (usually you have to use one item from your inventory with each hidden object scene in order to solve it) and they all look pretty nice. And the casual mode there were just a few items to be found in each scene, so especially if you are an experienced player, make sure to go advanced!
Visually, the game looks pretty good and the spooky element make it even more enjoyable, without turning the game into a very scary experience, making Alchemy Mysteries: Prague Legends an option even for the faint of heart. There are many areas to explore in this huge house and even though some rooms look a lot like each other, you have enough diversity and visual quality to declare yourself pleased.
Alchemy Mysteries: Prague Legends does not stand out as an extremely spectacular or innovative hidden object game, but it manages to keep you hooked until the end and gives you a pretty story, even though pretty regular for the hidden object adventure genre. You won’t be blown away by it, but not bored to death or even a bit disappointed. A good game!
iTunes link: Alchemy Mysteries: Prague Legends HD
Final rating: 8
Published: Aug 5, 2013 06:52 am