Beyond the Invisible: Darkness Came

I love Hidden Object/point and click adventure games, but this was a a pretty bad one. The story starts off with a detective investigated a seemingly haunted town and then it turns into Warhammer Fantasy with High Elves (the leader of which looks like Evangeline Lily just a little too much) popping up let and right. The story was pablum, the puzzles were dull and the hidden object scenes were subpar compared to what else is out there. The achievements were broken for me, although the publisher did post they have been fixed and I feel like I wasted two and half hours slogging through this thing. The English translation has issues too with several noticeable issues ranging from incorrect grammar/syntax on down to hidden object items being given completely different names from what they are actually called (in American or Queen’s English). This is an easy pass.

This is very short mediocre game which I played on Casual setting. Took only 3 hrs. You are a detective called in to check out odd happenings in a small town. You find that black wraiths have terrorised the locals who are locked in their homes quivering with fear. You learn from a stranger that they are hunting a girl. The topic of the game was good as were the graphics. It was the gameplay that was frustrating....and in some cases very illogical. There are only 5 HO scenes which were all interactive and you had to come back to finish these off later. My beef is there is far too much backtracking. The map was useless as it didn't highlight active areas. You end up spamming the hint button because you don't know what to do next....or can't remember where a particular item is to be used. Voiceovers were ok, but the sound effects, especially the siren gave me a headache. Puzzles were easy. Apparently there were trophies to collect which I didn't know about. Tried to click on one and nothing happened. You often had to click items many times. Scrapes in as a pass because it had potential which was let down by bad game play. 5/10

I am a little hesitating with the negative here, but there’s no neutral and I can’t recommend this game. Most of all, it is frustrating and coarse, some of the objects have to be clicked right there in the single pixel, some of the items are not clickable, but after you do something else in other location they become clickable, have fun walking around searching. Next, the objectives, the items you use, some of the puzzles are not logical at all, like putting the toy crane on the top of the building to take something of… tiny tiny plastic toy crane. So, when you are done walking around pointlessly and wondering how an umbrella is supposed to fight off the wolves, you have time to listen to the music. One third of the game an alarm siren is giving you a headache, and then battle horns take over, prepare aspirin. The good thing I can say about the game is the idea of “comic noir style” cut scenes, but again, only few of them are done in this style and the inconsistency is bugging me. The map is useless to be honest, nothing is marked there and you need to guess which location is which. It’s not even good for the achievements collectors as you need to play the game 3 times on every level of difficulty to get 100%. I’ve finished the whole game just to write a justified review, skip this one, there are much better HOPA games out there.