izigame.me

As much as I love Hidden Object games and games published by Artifex Mundi, this is a game that I am on the fence about. While there are things this game has done well, there are other things that make this harder to complete and enjoy.
This is the first in a series about a woman trying to figure out her identity and how it ties to these otherworldly entities. The beginning of this story begins with her mentor disappearing and the protagonist looking for him. We don't really know the ties this woman has to the mentor until much later in the story, so this game essentially is a prequel to us learning about who the protagonist really is. In comparison to many of Artifex Mundi's other published games, this one really lacks in storyline, which makes it hard to understand what is happening and how it all ties together. This game felt like an exploratory Hidden Object game, trying to figure out about the machine that supposedly killed the professor instead of focusing on the story of why this was happening and the correlation to the main character. The small bit of story that we do end up getting is confusing to understand. I am hoping that more of the questions that were raised in this game get answered in the next game because for right now, we don't know much about why this is all happening.
I also thought the cut scenes were a little lack luster considering some of the other cut scenes I had seen from this publisher. Most games at least show the character's mouths somewhat moving to the text and their movements were a little more fluid. We didn't get much of that through the game. The cut scenes at the end were very underwhelming and it felt as though they didn't have the attention to detail or consideration they should have for the plot. I am willing to give some leeway here, especially since I know this is a game from a decade ago, but a little more could have been done to at least make the game a little more interesting to play.
The Hidden Object games themselves were interesting, though I do have my gripes with those too. On a few occasions there were items that were misspelled or mis-named, the biggest one I can remember being a scorpion being named Scorpio. I was expecting the horoscope, but thankfully it is depicted as a scorpion so it makes that one easier. There are more that other people have noticed and outlined in the discussions. There were also a fair amount of items in the puzzles that I just didn't know, the Hidden Object puzzles in the caves and mines being the hardest for me. I had to look up what many of the items were, and even then, it was hard to find them in the puzzle which left me frustrated. I do enjoy the wide range of items that were used, some even being used more than once, but I wish it was a little easier to pick out items.
The music in this game was a little more repetitive than others, but for the most part, I thought it fit the atmosphere enough that I wasn't bothered by it repeating. I would appreciate just a little more variation in the score while playing the game, especially during the moments that should be hyped up, but this is fine.
I do enjoy the variety of achievements that had been provided for the game, though I did have some struggles with getting some of the achievements, namely the ones that had a time limit or couldn't have mistakes made. For the most part though, they were relatively easy to finish, especially after a second playthrough.
As excited as I was to play another game in the Artifex Mundi collection, I am disappointed in the game and frustrated by some of the puzzles and lack of direction. I really hope that the next game in this series answers the questions left behind by this one and the quality of it increases. While I don't recommend playing this game, I would recommend it for anyone looking for some backstory to the character.