Review of Nancy Drew: Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake by Khan4

The first Nancy Drew to introduce the PDA. At last would you say! But unfortunately it comes with wrong balance : the PDA tells you too much, so added to phone calls and other hints, you don’t get to think much. The game doesn’t give you the opportunity to be smart. So you don’t get stuck and it’s not hard, but it’s not satisfying either.

Moreover, the real puzzles are not many and are often easy or uninteresting. And picking up insects or taking pictures of birds doesn’t count as a puzzle, and those will take you much time.

The travelling sequence has to be done too frequently and cannot be passed. I get something, I travel to talk, I travel back, I get something else, I then must travel again to talk and then back, etc, etc, etc…

I had my share of these flaws near the end when this happened :

I travel by boat to talk to somebody to get a phone number (after already many back and forth for not much). So I travel back to make the phone call. Which forces me to travel once again to give something and get something back… the next day! So I come back, and return the next day. Ok, I get my thing so I travel back, AGAIN, run through a certain labyrinth, do a certain thing and ho! It was not enough to go further, the pda tells me to phone the first number again… So I go back through the labyrinth, I phone (no pun), I get info, I run through the labyrinth AGAIN… this time I pass and.. boom! The flashlight runs out just when I need it and I’ve never used it before! So I have to walk back the labyrinth, travel and there I’m told to fix something in order to get batteries… Haaa finally, a puzzle? No, just some pieces to be arranged according to a plan I’m given, which is boring AND annoying because I have to switch back and forth between the puzzle and the plan, which seems to be the only difficulty of the thing. And then only, at last, it’s ok, I get to travel back (AGAIIIIIIN), walk the labyrinth AGAIIIIIIN, and continue… (to some real puzzles I’ve lost my interest in at that point. Anyway, I was practically given the solutions…)

After that I only finished the game because I love the series and I was close to the end.

Ghost Dogs had a good setting, interesting story and great potential, but after loving The Scarlet Hand I was pretty disapointed by this one.

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Time Played: 5-10 hours
Difficulty: Very Easy