Review by Llama Mama

This is the 3rd Nancy Drew game I’ve played (my previous two were #12 and #13) and I can’t say its my favorite. I REALLY wanted to like this game too! I’m a horse junkie, and a ND junkie, and I was all excited for the two to come together, but it just didn’t work out for me, unfortunately. I’m going to split by review up into sections so I can give the game a more accurate rating.

PLOT - ⁴⁄₅: Nancy is invited to Shadow Ranch, which belongs to Bess and George’s aunt and uncle, the Rawleys.. But when she gets there, Bess and George are a no-show, and the Rawleys are in the hospital after Mr. Rawley got bitten by a rattlesnake. Nancy then learns that a mysterious glowing horse has been making nightly appearances at the ranch, and that everytime it shows up, a freak accident happens. She also learns about a outlaw named Dirk Valentine who, in the 1800’s, was in love with a girl who lived on Shadow Ranch, and supposedly left her a hidden treasure somewhere. Could Dirk Valentine’s treasure have something to do with the horse? Is there really a treasure? Who will stop the horse before something really bad happens? Well, it’s up to you, as Nancy Drew!nnThis is practically the same plot as Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon (I guess it would be the other way around, cause this game came out first, but I played Last Train first so it’s backwards for me) so it didn’t really catch my attention. The plot was executed pretty well, though, but I still prefer Last Train. Everyone says how much fun the horseback riding was, but I didn’t think it was that cool. You just point and click, same as always, except theres a horse head in front of you. But I will admit that by the end of the game, my horse Bob and I were pretty tight.

CHARACTERS - ⁴⁄₅: The characters were good in this game. They weren’t really THAT much fun to talk to (except Bess and George), but some of them were intersting. Tex is the horse wrangler guy, he’s tough, mean, down-right scary looking, and he doesn’t have much to say. Mary Yazzie owns the gift store near the ranch, her character was boring and her voice was really annoying. The cook, Shorty, was nice, it was funny how he always wanted to gossip with Nancy, but I thought he was creepy looking, like a big scary teddy bear. The foreman, Dave, was quiet, but it was really sweet how he had a crush on Nancy. And Charleena wasn’t that cool cause all you did was talk to her on the phone. Overall, I think they did a good job on the characters, they weren’t amazing, but the voice acting was good (except Mary IMO) and the graphics for them were also good.

SETTING - 4.⁵⁄₅: This game is set in Arizona, and I think that the makers of this game did a great job getting that desert feeling. The decorations in the house were just perfect, and the ranch looked so realistic. The ghost town was pretty spooky, and the desert was barren, as it should be. The only problem I had with the setting was the music! The song was good at first but then it just got really annoying and repetitive. I would give the setting a 5 but for the song I’m gonna have to knock off half a point.

PUZZLES - ²⁄₅: If you were to ask me what was the ONE thing that bothered me about this game, I wouldn’t hesitate a second to say CHORES!!! I hated them! Fixing the wire and collecting the eggs wasn’t so bad, but picking those vegetables, AHHH! I got sent home like 20 times for picking unripe vegetables. I mean really, who sends a guest home for picking an unripe tomato? I ended up printing out like a map of the garden from a walkthrough so that I knew which vegetables to pick. But those chores were just a total turn off. I felt like some of the other puzzles in the game were also hard, I spent like an hour trying to do that impossible magnet thing, then another hour hunting for arrowheads on the ground. It was just ridiculous. I don’t know, mabye there were some really fun puzzles in this game, but I can’t remember them cause all I remember is that awful garden. The puzzles in this game are really not my cup of tea.

IS IT CHALLENGING?: YES! Unless if your an expert at collecting vegetables, baking cakes, spending hours searching the ground for arrowheads, and solving invisible puzzles. I’d give it a ⁵⁄₅ for challenge, but it’s not challenging in a fun way.

ENDING - ⁴⁄₅: The ending is good. The maze at the end is confusing, definitely challenging. And if it weren’t for a walkthrough I wouldn’t have ever guessed how to catch the culprit. I was kind of surprised by who the culprit was and what their motive was. Overall the ending was good.

FINAL SCORE:nPlot: 4nCharacters:4nSetting: 4.5nPuzzles: 2nChallenge: 5nEnding: 4n= 23.5 divided by 6 = 3.91, I’ll give it a 4 overall, but a 3 for fun.