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chuckroIn retrospect, I didn’t need to buy this bundle. It only had three new games. Ah well, two bucks.
Robin's Island Adventure - This is mostly variants on match-3 gameplay as Robin, shipwrecked on an island, travels around and repairs her boat. There are a few relatively easy hidden object puzzles, too, and some moderately racist caricatures of island natives. The thing is, this is the kind of match-3 game where they clearly didn’t care that much about the gameplay; and the levels can end up frustrating because of it—finishing a level should be simple, but because you need to get a specific set to a very tight corner, getting that last bit takes twice as long as the entire rest of the level. (Also, the music is annoyingly repetitive.)
Kingdom of Aurelia: Mystery of the Poisoned Dagger – This is clearly a sequel to Namariel Legends: Iron Lord, picking up sometime after the events of that game and re-using many of the art assets, but inexplicably changing all the names. (And the princess you played in that game spends this one in a coma.) The few hidden object puzzles use the mechanic where you combine items or use them to find others in the same puzzle, which I tend to appreciate. It’s not bad, but there’s nothing special about it and it feels even more like shovelware than most of these types of games.
Taken Souls: Blood Ritual Collector's Edition – Detective noir steampunk fantasy horror, which is an impressive mishmash. Gimmicks include a camera which you use to take pictures of oddities, a clue board to solve the mystery, a “portable lab” to analyze clues, a UV wand to find fingerprints and buy better equipment, and puzzles that are more time-consuming than actually challenging. It’s also oddly glitchy—sometimes giving incorrect error messages or showing items that should no longer be present; and multiple times crashing me out of the game entirely. Again, this feels like it was thrown together using an assortment of pre-existing assets and with little effort to make either the plot of the gameplay particularly consistent or compelling.
I also put a little time into Mirror Mysteries 2, which was technically part of Cryptic Bundle 5. It has somewhat better graphics, but relies on hidden object puzzles that are kind of painful (because you’re looking for random small pieces of objects, rather than actual objects) and seems likely to be another thrown-together sequel.
This bundle also included Sea Legends: Phantasmal Light Collector's Edition, Dreamscapes: The Sandman - Premium Edition, Namariel Legends: Iron Lord Premium Edition, Fall of the New Age Premium Edition, Witch's Pranks: Frog's Fortune Collector's Edition, Dreamscapes: Nightmare's Heir - Premium Edition, Apothecarium: The Renaissance of Evil - Premium Edition, and Sister’s Secrecy: Arcanum Bloodlines - Premium Edition. Phew!
Overall: Honestly, none of the three new games here were particularly great. I can pass on Steam keys for the games I already owned, though.
Robin's Island Adventure - This is mostly variants on match-3 gameplay as Robin, shipwrecked on an island, travels around and repairs her boat. There are a few relatively easy hidden object puzzles, too, and some moderately racist caricatures of island natives. The thing is, this is the kind of match-3 game where they clearly didn’t care that much about the gameplay; and the levels can end up frustrating because of it—finishing a level should be simple, but because you need to get a specific set to a very tight corner, getting that last bit takes twice as long as the entire rest of the level. (Also, the music is annoyingly repetitive.)
Kingdom of Aurelia: Mystery of the Poisoned Dagger – This is clearly a sequel to Namariel Legends: Iron Lord, picking up sometime after the events of that game and re-using many of the art assets, but inexplicably changing all the names. (And the princess you played in that game spends this one in a coma.) The few hidden object puzzles use the mechanic where you combine items or use them to find others in the same puzzle, which I tend to appreciate. It’s not bad, but there’s nothing special about it and it feels even more like shovelware than most of these types of games.
Taken Souls: Blood Ritual Collector's Edition – Detective noir steampunk fantasy horror, which is an impressive mishmash. Gimmicks include a camera which you use to take pictures of oddities, a clue board to solve the mystery, a “portable lab” to analyze clues, a UV wand to find fingerprints and buy better equipment, and puzzles that are more time-consuming than actually challenging. It’s also oddly glitchy—sometimes giving incorrect error messages or showing items that should no longer be present; and multiple times crashing me out of the game entirely. Again, this feels like it was thrown together using an assortment of pre-existing assets and with little effort to make either the plot of the gameplay particularly consistent or compelling.
I also put a little time into Mirror Mysteries 2, which was technically part of Cryptic Bundle 5. It has somewhat better graphics, but relies on hidden object puzzles that are kind of painful (because you’re looking for random small pieces of objects, rather than actual objects) and seems likely to be another thrown-together sequel.
This bundle also included Sea Legends: Phantasmal Light Collector's Edition, Dreamscapes: The Sandman - Premium Edition, Namariel Legends: Iron Lord Premium Edition, Fall of the New Age Premium Edition, Witch's Pranks: Frog's Fortune Collector's Edition, Dreamscapes: Nightmare's Heir - Premium Edition, Apothecarium: The Renaissance of Evil - Premium Edition, and Sister’s Secrecy: Arcanum Bloodlines - Premium Edition. Phew!
Overall: Honestly, none of the three new games here were particularly great. I can pass on Steam keys for the games I already owned, though.
