An immersive puzzle game that is hard to put down
The game still feels like an interactive story that you can take part of by solving puzzles. It's an effective way of keeping the player glued into the game because not only will you be curious as to what will happen next, but also at the same time challenge you with its puzzles. It's that combination that made the previous title a hit, and fans will be happy to hear that this retained that winning formula.
Those who are familiar with the game are already aware that this title is in 2d and you move around by tapping on a door, arrow, or path where you want to go to. You will then be presented with puzzles from the people that you come across with or engages when called for by the story. The puzzle's difficulty varies and the level of frustration depends on how good the player is at solving a particular puzzle.
With this game you get rewarded with "picarat" points for every puzzle that you solve which you can later use to unlock bonus items. The higher the puzzle's difficulty level and the less amount of wrong answers will give you more points. You are allowed a total of 3 hints per puzzle by using "hint coins" that you can acquire by tapping on objects in the environment.
The game is pleasing to the eye eventhough you'll spend most of your time staring on static characters. They are at times animated but it is only made up of a few frames but is good enough to make the characters better convey their 2d emotions. One thing that I noticed from this game is that the video clips are now more evenly distributed. None of which are in any way intrusive that is sometimes an issue with other titles.
Majority of the background music or even effects were borrowed from the previous title. It isn't really a bad thing, but I think they should have used a new set of music for this title to make it feel fresh to those who have already played the previous version. There are VO's on this game which is as always something that you cannot expect to be applied with every single conversation given the limited storage of the DS cartridge. And as boring as reading texts might sound, it is sometimes better to read than try to listen to VO's since you'll often times finish reading the text long before the VO is over.
The touchscreen is still heavily used on this title, because it is after all a point-and-click game. You can however press the A button to skip or move on to the next text bubble during a conversation.
I only have a few complaints with this game, all of which applies even with the previous title. First is the way of acquiring the hint coins. Randomly tapping of things isn't in my opinion all that fun nor a rewarding (as solving puzzles) thing to do. Some of the puzzle answers are also subjective in nature wherein someone might contest that there's another way of solving it, yet the puzzle is going to give you a different solution with no explanation in the end why that is so. There is also quite a lot of text to read on this one. Most players might actually enjoy that, but I personally am not a big fan of games that will make your spend half of your time playing, and the other half reading.
Overall, the game is still well worth the purchase specially for those who have enjoyed the first title. And as early as it may sound, the next version is already in the works. I guess its already somewhat expected with this type of game because all they need to do is come up with a new story and set of puzzles.
.:My reviews are only as good as everyone else's. Take every single one of them with a grain of salt:.