Grim Legends 3: The Dark City Review

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Welcome to latest Artifex Mundi game that has been ported from PC to PS4. Grim Legends 3: The Dark City is the third as you may have guessed in the series known as Grim Legends. The previous two were Grim Legends: The Forsaken Bride and Grim Legends 2: The Dark City. It’s another hidden object game, the last one i reviewed was Enigmatis 3: The Shadow of Karkhala which i stated was the best hidden object game so far, it’ll be interesting if Grim Legends 3: The Dark City carries on the upward trend.

Most of these kind of games act as stand alone adventures so you can just jump in and play without needing to know the backstory, but i think it would give you a better overall experience to play the first two games. You play as Sylvia the member of a mysterious monster hunting group called The Order. After losing your memory the Incarceri Stone is stolen, which is bad news as it contains the Koshmarr, a terrible creature from another world. Unfortunately this has led to the townsfolk of Lichtenheim being possessed by demonic creatures known as Maskwraiths who will serve their masters evil deeds.

For the uninformed the hidden object genre is very similar to a point and click adventure. From a first person perspective you move between scenes that contains objects and puzzles which need to be picked up and completed to progress along the story. There are people to talk to and items to combine. Grim Legends 3: The Dark City follows the same mechanic. In other titles you can bypass puzzles by playing games, you can create spells or analyse clues on a detective board. In the case of Grim Legends 3: The Dark City the latest idea is a battle game against the Maskwraiths where you must use you spells to defeat them and progress. For someone who has played many of these kind of titles it’s a fun change, probably less so if Grim Legends 3: The Dark City is the first Artifex Mundi games you’ve played. One thing to note is that the plot to Grim Legends 3: The Dark City is probably one of the more adult/darker stories that have been told.

Grim Legends 3: The Dark City presents a beautifully detailed Gothic backdrop across many scenes. You’ll be moving back and forward between these scenes a lot so it’s important that they are not bland to look at, you can tell from the screenshots that they excellently hand drawn. It’s the same situation for the hidden object puzzles as well, they are highly detailed and very polished to look at. The animations are for the most part well done and there’s usually a seamless transition between the in-game sequences and main game. These are both areas that older title fall down on, this is not the case with Grim Legends 3: The Dark City.

Puzzle wise there is the usual variety within Grim Legends 3: The Dark City. There’s never been a gradual increase in the difficulty of hidden object game puzzles, some are very simple and others require a lot more thought or trial and error depending how you play (there is a hint system to use if required). Vocally the Grim Legends 3: The Dark City characters come across well, not too many stereotypical performances or dialogue that feels forced/out of scene.

Grim Legends 3: The Dark City is another good entry into the hidden object game genre. If you’ve liked of the other titles then you’re sure to enjoy what Grim Legends 3: The Dark City has to offer. The new mechanics give Grim Legends 3: The Dark City something a little different to offer whilst it maintains the recent upwards curve for Artifex Mundi in terms of quality. If you fancy a casual gaming experience then Grim Legends 3: The Dark City is the kind you’ll want to play.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Playstation 4 code was provided to Bonus Stage for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to press@4gn.co.uk.

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