Whispering Rogue

Chronicles of Mystery: Curse of the Ancient Temple

 

Intriguing story! Tons of puzzles and riddles! Yes, absolutely!! … If you’re a complete idiot… Kept me amused for maybe 2 hours, while I waited for my body to wake up properly before I did the housework but it was nothing more than that, most unfortunately. This game completely failed at being a detective-type game and succeeded at being a series of ‘Duh’s’ and ‘No Shit’s’ BUT there were some interesting elements added to this game to keep you coming back for game play every once and a while.

GAMEPLAY

You play an apprentice historian (or something like that) and like a few of these games for DS I’ve reviewed, the professor has gone missing and you must gather clues to find him. Well, kind of. You don’t have to search for clues so much as get given them on a silver plate- How the hell everything came together, I still boggle at. There are some ‘nice’ mini-games scattered throughout, and even the puzzles are on a timer (not that there’s really any penalty for going over-time) but everything didn’t quite fit properly. “Oh, I had a photo of that temple, but I tore it up” Did they have a messy break-up? What other cause is there for ripping up a photo? Not too much of it made any sense and that started to give me the shits. Now for the BUT. There are times where you can unlock trophies, optional extras and such for the game and this actually results in a Hidden Object game. Once you successfully finish the game, an entire new game comes to life which is PURELY Hidden Object, and you can unlock more hidden object ‘worlds’ if you get the right achievement, ie. Find 5 clues in 10 seconds, that kind of thing. And these guys are quite good at hiding stuff, so thankfully I didn’t have to go through the actual game again, but can come back now and then and look for a candlestick or a pineapple

GRAPHICS

These were rather well done- simple yet effective as the DS always seem to give us- with some nice cut-scenes. The backgrounds were clear and un-complicated, so finding things was not a retarded struggle. I especially like the parts where the main character frowned- it just looked funny.

MUSIC

Again, music was clean suited the situations well. No voice-acting again, but that just means you can be listening to the TV instead.

STORYLINE

An apprentice historian loses her professor. He leaves her a series of notes, people to contact, and a huge maze to run around for exercise! By now, most of us know that the Angel of Death refers to the Ark- a weapon of ultimate destruction- ya know, that whole religious thing, and I guess the professor was looking for it, pissed off the wrong people and got himself abducted and of course, being the all-important heroine you must save him. I got lost somewhere along the way, and didn’t care who was looking for what or if the world was about to end (yippee) it all ended in a big rush, which was fine since it meant the game ended!

 

Hmm, the place where I bought the game a few days ago aren’t selling it anymore. Go figure. Yes, this game is crap but I liked the fact that I unlocked a whole Hidden Object game so there is still reason to keep playing. For a bit longer at least.

TTFN

Shade