Nancy Drew #32 Sea of Darkness

I just finished the game and I have to say in many ways it was a welcome return, for me, to the most enjoyable ND adventure elements. Apart from the usual few fiendish puzzles that had me consulting a walkthrough and the time I was completely stumped about how to progress after missing something minor seeming (that to me was very easily missable) I felt that the game was well written, had a good balance of characters, back stories, locations, types of puzzle, wonderful graphics and the voice acting was spot on, especially a really 'perky' sounding Nancy. The ship in particular was so well designed, beautiful graphics, surprisingly large to wander around and convincing. The game could also feel genuinely creepy at some points, which was very well conveyed.

In my view this is a better game overall than the last few in the series have been, although I haven't played the Shattered Medallion as I saw so many poor reviews of it! The game environment felt more expansive than many, having more places to explore and travel to in the older practical style of travelling rather than looking at a moving dot on a map etc, which made it feel all the more realistic. An extra bonus would have been to involve a full on volcanic or lava related quest which would have enhanced the Icelandic feel even more! I personally really enjoyed learning some Icelandic words which were fascinating but hated the food serving game which I never once succeeded at! At least the 'chores' in this game were of very different types There were one or two annoyances such as the sudden arrival in Iceland on the first click at Nancy's desk, the inability to change the gift chosen for gift wrapping and the fact that I missed certain scenes and character interactions due to the non-linearity aspect.

It was strange to hear the new ND voice announcing herself at the end and to be honest it was a pretty standard sounding young American female voice so time will tell if the change of voiceover is successful. Also impressive were the singing credits at the end, sung by one of the voiceover actors, which all added to the authenticity of the experience. It's a shame that the writer of the game left HER Interactive soon after because I thought she did a very good job. I wonder too if Ned's character will have gone in the next game - there was something about the exchanges between Nancy and Ned in this game that made me wonder if the phone/comms aspect might be handled differently in the next one. The subject matter (Salem witches) in the upcoming game is a classic mysterious one which sits very well within the Nancy Drew world and appeals to me, but a lot will depend on how well it's written of course. I enjoyed and agreed with much of Jenny's review of the Sea of Darkness but I would have given the game an A- for its high quality and enjoyability!

Thank you for that very informative review.

If and when Midnight in Salem is released, Katie Chironis (the writer for Sea of Darkness) said that she had already written all of the text for Midnight in Salem. Whether or not that will remain intact, what with all the changes that the next game is going through, I don't know for sure.

Thanks, Vegpot !!

Thanks for the review... I was playing Shattered Medallion, this is the first game ever that I deleted before finishing I was almost at the end and finally decided this was not fun anymore.

Glad you found it helpful Winfrey, I thought it was worth writing a good review because I really enjoyed this ND adventure and they had been palling a bit of late

It's good to hear that maybe they are back on track.

Who knows looney4labs - I did think this one was a definite improvement over recent offerings, but things are all change at HerInteractive now, so it's going to be interesting to see what the next ND adventure brings!