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Danse Macabre: The Last Adagio CE is a pleasant experience overall, but unfortunately the story gets bogged down somewhere in the middle. You assume the role of a young woman whose sister Adele performs the lead role in Donatella di Fiore -– the same ballet whose original opening was followed by the theater burning to the ground. Your sister is kidnapped after her performance, and you must explore the Paris Opera Ballet Theatre to learn more about its tragic history and to attempt to rescue her.

The graphics in this game provide an elegant atmosphere that suits the locations and story. Reproductions of classical paintings of the ballet grace the theater walls. My favorite environments were the opulent lobby, the menacing catacombs, and the luminous, frozen garden.

I expected a good musical score in a game with “Danse” and “Adagio” in the title, and I wasn’t disappointed. The opening tango made me want to seize a rose from Adele’s bouquet and do a bit of dancing myself. (This impulse also apparently influenced the developers in their “Making of” video.) The game music varies between soothing, spooky and dramatic orchestrations. Voiceovers are competent, and the lip synch is reasonably good. My one auditory quibble – the theme that plays during the mini-game sequences should have had a less repetitive melody.

Instead of Hidden Objects, you can elect to play a bubble shooter game which is surprisingly fun. The game also contains many inventory challenges, including the ability to combine certain items. Inventory items have sensible uses, though they are often found in surprisingly elaborate containers. The mini-games are mostly standard types – a pipe connection puzzle, Towers of Hanoi, figurines that move in certain poses, a sliding block puzzle, etc. However, there were a few puzzles that were novel and (appropriately) music mini-games that you don’t have to be a musician to solve.

Happily, the game’s difficulty level is extremely customizable, allowing you to disable the helpful messages, and set the skip and hint recharge timers exactly where you want.

The story is told in five chapters, plus (for the Collector’s Edition) a Bonus chapter. The animated cutscenes tend to be very brief, though what’s there is effective. More plot details surface in written form – mostly in journal excerpts.

The first two chapters of Danse Macabre, and the last two (including the Bonus) were excellent – providing an immersive atmosphere and a tantalizing sense of deepening mystery. The middle chapters, however, didn’t contain enough story progress to maintain my interest. I wandered around the deserted and sometimes dilapidated backstage areas, solving puzzle after puzzle without encountering much in the way of character development or plot exposition.

In addition to the Bonus chapter, the extras in the CE enable you to finish up the rose bouquet collectibles and a Souvenir Room lets you to revisit each location to collect an item for display. You can also replay some of the puzzles and HO screens—though not the bubble shooter game. The cut scenes can also be viewed again – a feature I always appreciate.

Was the Collector’s Edition worth it? I’m on the fence with this one. This would have been a better game if the developers had deleted one of the middle chapters and used the Bonus chapter as part of the main game. But I know that, given the importance of a CE version to a game’s bottom line, that type of streamlining will forever be unlikely. The story in Danse Macabre does end satisfactorily in the SE, making the Bonus a nice, but not necessary, addition.

Hi everyone! First time posting in this very useful thread. I’ve been on a casual gaming marathon lately and am looking forward to share my thoughts on several titles soon.

But in the meantime, I wanted to react to Panthera’s post above. How I agree with you! I can’t stand this or any self-proclaimed “reviewer” on Youtube who are obviously desperate for fame. I can’t understand why people find them funny and entertaining, when in fact they are offensive, disrespectful and stupid.

Within - 07 May 2014 10:48 AM

Hi everyone! First time posting in this very useful thread. I’ve been on a casual gaming marathon lately and am looking forward to share my thoughts on several titles soon.

I have been on casual game marathons myself when I haven’t had the time, inclination or concentration for ‘full-blown’ AGs & they’ve given me many hours of entertainment. I’m now back on an AG’s marathon for a while! My thought on reviewers of games is that it’s always useful to read both positive & negative comments but the reviewer to be fair should have an interest in the genre + ‘sub-genre’ to give a fair assessment of how they view the game i.e. comments from a person who really doesn’t like casual games at all don’t mean a thing & are not in the least bit useful to anyone that does like them! I’d really like it if reviewers, whether they post negative or positive reviews, either about Casuals or ‘regular’ AGs could add a list of 2 or 3 games they rated highly - there’s such a variety of games it would give you more of an idea of that reviewer’s taste & whether it compares to yours!

I completely agree, chrissie! And regardless of how I try to see it, I feel insulted by these reviews.

I watched the video and I don’t think it’s really meant to be a review. It’s meant to be a comedy sketch. TotalBiscuit didn’t choose a recent game as an example of Hidden Object games – he chose House of 1000 Door: Family Secrets—a game that released in 2011. It’s possible he chose it at random, but it’s also possible that he chose it because the opening sequence is fun to talk about in a shocked, satirical tone.

He’s concerned, as Panthera mentioned above, because dozens of Hidden Object games are suddenly being released on Steam, so he’s decided to check them out. I’ve also recently noted that Steam is adding these to the catalog. So if you go on the “Adventure” page on Steam and look at recent releases, there’s a good chance that the first page will offer a steady stream of older Hidden Object games and not, say, Blackwell Epiphany. (The reason, of course, is that Hidden Object games didn’t make it onto Steam when they first released, so now there’s a huge backlog built up.) So you can’t find the recent adventure game releases easily anymore by looking on the Steam Adventure New Releases page. You have to click through pages of HO games to find them.

Some of TotalBiscuit’s criticisms in his commentary are valid, IMHO. These games do create totally artificial barriers. And they do bury humdrum items in elaborate containers. So you find the flyswatter in the jeweled chest with the sliding tile puzzle for a lock (for instance). Or perhaps you find the puppet head in the stream at the back of the garden with no explanation as to how it got there. (Did it get thrown out the window during a brawl? Did the neighbor’s dog try to bury it and kick it in the stream by accident?)

Now, other game genres have unreasonable conventions too. Especially if you’ve never played them, so you aren’t used to choosing to suspend disbelief. For example—how can the action hero kill 3,000 people and make it out alive himself? How can he heal instantly when he picks up a first aid kit? How can he die and come back to life? Why can he find increasingly powerful weapons seemingly abandoned in various places? How can he say a total of 6 repetitive phrases over and over in the course of the game, and still manage to keep his lovely female companion from being bored with his conversational skills? Etc.

I agree that it makes no sense for TotalBiscuit to complain that Family Secrets is too easy and then, in the same breath, complain that he doesn’t know what to do next in the game, that items would never be hidden in the places they are hidden, and then use the hint button every time it refreshes as if that’s what he’s supposed to do. (Wiping tears of laughter from my eyes again now. Is there some sort of biscuit idiom or humor that his name refers to, I wonder?)

I think where the comedy sketch hurts most (for me, personally) is when he can’t imagine having ever met the sort of person who would enjoy this type of game. As if all us playing HO games are a bunch of aliens from Mars. He can’t imagine sitting down with me and holding a civilized conversation. At least, that’s the implication.

Am I overstating this? 

Panthera - 07 May 2014 03:09 PM

I agree that it’s comedic framed, but I do not agree that it’s not framed as a review.
In several of the other videos in his “Steam sells” series, he comes with concrete recommendations on whether you should buy the game or not, and if it’s worth the money they’re asking for it/a place on Steam.

And, like Becky, I find it ridiculous where items are hidden. I can’t stand the “I can’t pick that up with my bare hands” mechanic that he rightly complains about.
But, I do not feel like he’s playing the “it’s too easy” *presses hint button* for comedic effect. He never recognizes the game as a game, or gives it a fair chance. He keeps pressing hints not because of a felt difficulty, but because he can’t be bothered to actually try playing the game.
That’s what I felt the most during the video, that he never gives it a chance, never accepts it as a game, and doesn’t acknowledge anything he’s doing as “gameplay”.

I felt that was as much a part of deriding us HO gamers as his “I can’t see myself being able to hold a conversation with a HO gamer”, he just never acknowledges either the genre or us players as gamers or even real persons.
“Grandma game”.

You’re right, I haven’t seen TotalBiscuit’s other reviews, so I don’t have any context. His review struck me as being rather like Conan O’Brien’s Clueless Gamer reviews (though TotalBiscuit, believe it or not, uses much more polite language), where Conan doesn’t understand the conventions and makes amusing comments as a result. All of the Clueless Gamer reviews are like that—whereas it seems TotalBiscuit’s are usually much more serious?

rtrooney - 06 May 2014 06:53 PM

As a side note, I’ve come to a grinding halt on the CPT. I’ve found the pot and ice pick. I saved at that point and for whatever reason can’t bring myself to get back in the saddle. First, I don’t like timed puzzles but this game has worn me out. Take a timed puzzle and add an ungainly interface on top of it and you have….total frustration. Plus, I’m going away this weekend to help celebrate a big event in my granddaughter’s life. We’ll see how I feel when I return. I really hate to give up on this one. Which is why I’m getting my game fix from casuals the past few days.

Congratulations to your granddaughter! I’m past where you are on the CPT - I’m not a fan of timed puzzles either, but I did manage to get through that part. Maybe taking a break will mean you are refreshed and able to return. If not, I’m sure there will be future CPTs.

I bought Fall of the House of Usher during the ERS Half-Off sale. Black Cat is also one of my favorites. I haven’t kept up with the series, though—I’m partway through Premature Burial and should probably finish that before I start Usher.

I recently finished two of the games recommended here—Corpatros: The Hidden Village and Crystals of Time. I liked the music and the graphics in Crystals, especially the garden areas, the beach, and the island, which had a kind of romantic “Wuthering Heights” quality to it. There were a lot of non-interactive Hidden Object screens that repeated—I think I found the tiara, for instance, at least four times.

Corpatros was different, and I like casual games that are off the beaten path. The 3D effect was odd but novel, and the rainforest setting was somewhat unusual for a casual game. The game didn’t hold your hand at all for the puzzling, and a few of the puzzles were tough. The ending was unexpected.

Both games had quests in which young women went searching for their fathers. If there’s a “moral” here, it’s that the outcome may be better if you are a treasure hunter, rather than an archaeologist.   

I’m filling a gap in my gaming education by starting to view some of TotalBiscuit’s reviews. I started with his review of Dear Esther. TB was dismissive of it as “not a game” and also dismissive of its story. He didn’t roast it the way he did House of 1000 Doors though, which actually meant that his review was not nearly as funny. I have played Dear Esther multiple times and spent hours trying to piece the story together—I remember the game/interactive experience much more clearly than I remember most other games. It was fascinating.

My tastes clearly are almost the opposite of TB’s. Should I be dismissive of him as a result?

I liked Corpatros as well (thanks Colpet).  The “3D Effect” reminded me of a pop-up book.  Nice to see developers trying new things.  Empress of the Deep 3 was enjoyable and gorgeous.

TotalBiscuit is a hoot!  I’d never seen his reviews before and now I’m a fan, although I’ll take what he says about games I enjoyed with a grain of salt - I actually liked House of !000 Doors, 2 and 3 especially.  He actually “liked” The Stanley Parable, go figure.

Becky, about Dear Esther, there’s a question that’s been bugging me.  I’ll have to put it in a spoiler tag:

I hear there are ghosts.  I’ve played it several times and never encountered one.  Could be my video card, I suppose, though I suspect it’s a leg-pull.

EDIT:  Apparently not a hoax, as some sleuthing on youtube has turned up several interesting videos.

rtrooney - 21 May 2014 07:11 PM

I would say just the opposite. Back in the day, and this means way back, there was a popular music critic who wrote for one of the top high fidelity magazines. I disagreed with him on almost every review. Solution: If he liked it, I wouldn’t buy it. If he hated it, it was a must buy for me. It worked out about 95% of the time.

I’ll have to find out the games that Mr. Biscuit loves and make an effort to avoid them then. 

Dara100 - 22 May 2014 11:22 AM

TotalBiscuit is a hoot!  I’d never seen his reviews before and now I’m a fan, although I’ll take what he says about games I enjoyed with a grain of salt - I actually liked House of !000 Doors, 2 and 3 especially.  He actually “liked” The Stanley Parable, go figure.

I was unimpressed with The Stanley Parable, so maybe Tim’s theory holds true. I have an immediate negative reaction to games set in office buildings. I’ve spent so much time working in boring-looking office buildings that I don’t want to play games set in boring-looking office buildings. A personal quirk, I know. Apparently millions of people love to come home from work at the office and then can’t wait to play a game where they explore an office. I just don’t have a wild enough imagination to make that work, somehow.

Dara100 - 22 May 2014 11:22 AM

Becky, about Dear Esther, there’s a question that’s been bugging me.  I’ll have to put it in a spoiler tag:

I hear there are ghosts.  I’ve played it several times and never encountered one.  Could be my video card, I suppose, though I suspect it’s a leg-pull.

I have never seen the ghosts myself. I don’t know if it’s a leg-pull, or if the ghosts are so abstract that I look straight at them and think they are just another bit of heather. Or a shadow. Or a rock with a human-like profile. Or something. I do sometimes wonder if part of the script was “ghost”-written. That is, some of the language in the game is rather stilted and I wonder if the Chinese Room developers programmed their computer to write some of it.

rtrooney - 21 May 2014 07:11 PM

I recently purchased and played Nightmares from the Deep - Davy Jones. It’s the third game in the trilogy. (Or at least that’s what the Artifex Mundi website says.) It’s quite different from the previous two. For one thing, the daughter, Cora has a more prominent role. While not an active character, she does much more than lie on a slab, unconscious, waiting for mom to come to the rescue.

I’ll write a more thorough review in the next several days. I think it is quite good, but I want to play it a second time just to make sure my impressions are correct.

After reading this, I purchased Nightmares from the Deep: Davy Jones during the Artifex Mundi 50% Off Sale. This is becoming a habit! The next game you recommend, I’ll look for a sale a few days later. I’m looking forward to hearing your additional thoughts on the game. I’ve played the first one in the series, but not the second yet.

Thanks for the reply, Becky.  Please see my edit on my previous post.  I think that you need to replay the same game, which was something I didn’t actually do since I had it installed on sever different computers.  When I went back and replayed a game I got one right away at the lighthouse.  No mistaking it as fog this time as it did some interesting things.  Some of the “sightings” online though I think are like the Face On the Moon pictures, just tricks of the mind as you alluded to.