Overall 9 Graphics 5 Sound 6 Addictive 8 Story 10 Depth 5 Difficulty 4
9
Nancy Drew Message in a Haunted Mansion for PC classgame
Warning: there may be spoilers
I want to start by saying that this was actually the very first Nancy Drew game I ever played, back in the summer of 2003, but it was too difficult for me so I didn't finish it, until the following year when after playing a different Nancy Drew game and finishing that one, it gave me the confidence I needed to play the rest of them, and just as the Library was acquiring more titles. Wish they didn't stop at Blackmoor Manor though but I'll get to that when I get to that, same goes for the first Nancy Drew game I ever finished. Oh and I feel I should bring up that Nancy really is a magnet for the spooky and the scary games (with Shadow at Waters Edge IMHO being the scariest of them all, even though I haven't played it, but I don't ever have plans on doing that because just from watching gameplays of it, it seems to be that the puzzles are too difficult, with no skip function)
Gameplay and story: This game is based on the NDMS novel of the same name, and I noticed a pattern here, if Bess and George are in the book then technically they are phone-a-friend people, and since Hannah Gruen was in the book as well(but not for hints, but it's nice to hear her voice), she gets to be one too, shame that this is the only game she gets kind of featured in, I mean in other games she is heard in the answering machine, but other than that she doesn't get featured anywhere else. So Nancy is helping out a friend of Hannah's in San Fransisco, she and Abby have bought an old mansion and are fixing it up to convert it into a Bed and Breakfast, but there have been strange accidents going on. Abby thinks there are ghosts in the mansion even though she blames the resident handy-man, but Nancy is also there to investigate what's going on. There's also an antiques dealer involved (there was alot more to him in the book version though, I mean even though Nancy asks Hannah about whether Rose and Louis are romantically involved Hannah brushes it off).
Graphics: Kind of the same as STFD, everyone still looks animatronic but it seems that it gets fixed in the next game.
Sound: There are some times where I can hear traces of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata but that's probably just my brain playing tricks on me.
Addictive: Once I figured out the tricks from playing the game I had previously finished, I didn't want to stop playing this game, however I haven't played it in years.
Depth: Apparently you can finish this game within an hour depending on what you are doing in the game (alot less if you don't spend too much time on the phone).
Difficulty: Do you know what I hate more than anything in ANY adventure games? SLIDER PUZZLES! One time I played it, I messed it up so badly that I couldn't finish the game, which gave me the habit of having to save a game before a difficult puzzle. It's a shame that that puzzle didn't have a glitch like the door puzzle in Blackmoor manor though.
Overall: There's actually another character in the book that didn't make it into the game and there was also another character in the book that was demoted to Phone-a-friend, but she proves to be useful in this scenario.
I'm giving this a 9.
Graphics 5 Sound 6 Addictive 8 Story 10 Depth 5 Difficulty 4
Review Rating: 3/5
Submitted: 01-24-21
Review Replies: 0
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