Review by Llama Mama

This was the first Nancy Drew game I had ever played. Although its not my favorite it is still a good game and great for people new to the series. I’m going to split my review up into different sections so I can give the game a more accurate rating.

PLOT - ⁴⁄₅: Nancy is invited to the Lilac Inn by an acquaintance of hers named Emily Crandall. Emily’s mother recently died so Emily’s guardian, Jane, is staying with her until she turns 18. She invited Nancy because strange things have been happening at the Inn, and the adventure begins right when Nancy arrives as she’s confronted by a mystery including stolen jewels, missing wills, exploding kitchens and plenty of excitement. I liked the plot because it was very straightfoward - find out whos behind whats been happening to the Inn. It does a pretty good job of keeping the player interested. Another thing I liked is that I felt like everything that I was doing was connected to the plot and had a purpose. The plot isn’t as complicated as some of the other ND titles, but for a beginner it’s a good introduction to how these games work.

CHARACTERS - ³⁄₅: The characters are alright in this game - not very memorable. Out of the main characters, though, my favorite would have to be Jane. She was the only one with interesting things to say, and I really liked her accent. As for the rest - Emily was nice, a little boring, though, Topham was definitely fishy, and the banker, Jim Archer, was so forgettable that I forgot his name and actually just had to look it up on Wikipedia. The main characters are just average. But my favorite characters were Bess and George, as always, and the telephone operator. I kept spending all my money on the pay phone talking to them cause they were so amusing. Plus the people in town were also fun to talk to.

SETTING - ⁵⁄₅: This is the only Nancy Drew game set in the 30’s (as a tribute to the books). Her Interactive totally aced the 30’s feeling, I really felt I was there. The music was great, real swingy and jazz like. And driving around Nancy’s blue roadster was also lots of fun. I had to have delivered like 50 telegrams throughout the game just so I could drive around in it. The setting is just really well done.

PUZZLES - 4.⁵⁄₅: The puzzles in this game aren’t very hard. I’m not very good at puzzles, but I managed to figure out most of these on my own, which says alot. I only used a walkthrough on a couple of really complicated ones. A lot of other people had trouble with the mini golf game, but I don’t remember that one giving me trouble. The only one I really hated was fishing. It took me like forever to figure it out, but once I looked it up I realized I’d been doing it all wrong. But for the most part the puzzles were all fun and easy, which I really liked because I never felt frustrated or bored while I was doing them.

IS IT CHALLENGING?: Not really. On a scale of 1 to 5 I’d give it a 3, mabye even a 2 if you’re really good at puzzles. But like I’ve said before, this is a good game for first-timers.

ENDING - ⁵⁄₅: I thought the ending was really great. I was a bit surprised by the culprit, which is good, and their motive was good. Everything made sense and there were no loose ends. Catching the culprit was also alot of fun once I got the hang of it. The ending isn’t extremely thrilling or scary or anything, but it makes alot of sense with the plot, thats why I thought it was so good.

FINAL SCORE:nPlot - 4nCharacters - 3nSetting - 5nPuzzles - 4.5nChallenge - 3nEnding - 5n= 24.5 divided by 6 = 4.08 rounded to 4 stars