byAaron M. Fugate
I am so glad that Mystery of the Seven Keys is out! I have finished the game, and while I have many thoughts on it, I'll have to stick to a concise rating of the different elements of the game. In this review, I will be comparing KEY to both Midnight in Salem and to the other 32 games in the ND series, but this is hard to do in full because it's really different from both sets. Bear with me.
Gameplay -- 7/10
This is the same rating I gave MID -- the new user interface is, in my opinion, worse than the one used for games 26-32, but it's not bad. I do love being able to interact with inventory items and other objects in 3D. However, the point-and-click navigation seemed a little janky. It was nice to have that throwback to the older games, but it was obvious the game was made for the modern navigation and the point-and-click seemed almost like an afterthought. All the same, I'm glad it was included. The hint system was OK, though I would have rather been able to see the puzzle solutions while working on the puzzles like in games 26-32.
The game ran just fine on my computer. However, I was disappointed that there were several places where I couldn't save the game. I had to let it run while I left my home, just because I was in the middle of the marionettes puzzle. That shouldn't have to happen. Also, there were some small misspellings throughout the game. Not terrible, but certainly not as professional as it could have been with better proofreading.
I don't have an official place to put this in the rating system, so a quick note on the voice acting. Everyone was OK, not great. Everyone, that is, except for Nancy (Brittany Cox). I want to give her the benefit of the doubt that it was just direction that she was given, but she does not sound natural when delivering her lines. Her questions sound like statements. She adds emphasis in weird places and doesn't add it in places where it would make sense. I'm fine with moving on from Lani Minella -- believe me, I had enough issues with her inconsistency -- but maybe it's going to take a few voice actors to find the right permanent replacement for Nancy. Brittany Cox just might not be right for the role. Or it's the directing. Either way, it was very distracting.
Plot -- 7/10
The plot was a bit hard to follow at times, but not bad overall. I did have more trouble toward the beginning of the game and less toward the end, which I guess is standard. There were some good twists at the end that really made the game more interesting and helped flesh out some of the things hinted at earlier. I am just torn between congratulating the game on being less direct and linear than MID and wishing some parts had been easier to follow. I don't know. I'm going with a 7 for now.
Setting -- 9/10
Have to hand it to the HeR crew and friends on this one. Prague is one of the better settings in any game, and they did it justice. This is a significant part of my enjoyment of the games generally, and it did not disappoint. I appreciated that there was much to explore, and the lack of unique NPCs, while jarring at first, was not a huge drawback. I just wish Nancy could actually have eaten a potato pancake! Come to think of it, did she eat anything at all during the game? She'd better get some of Hannah's home cooking when she gets back to River Heights, poor girl.
There is a little less charm in the setting than the games used to have. I think the old graphics were more comfortable, and even though the newer look has been pretty well-executed (and knock's MID's graphics clear out of the park!), it still just leaves something to be desired.
Characters -- 8/10
I was glad to see that there were so many characters in this game. They were not all equally fleshed out, but they did each get a decent bit of screen time. I should have liked more time to get to know the Dean. Perhaps a round of Mariáš could have been arranged? Oh, well. There was a good variety of characters and it did help make the game more nonlinear. I would have liked some more pointless dialogue that wasn't crucial to the plot, just characters chatting away with Nancy, but I guess MID had enough for two games.
The phone characters were... underwhelming. Again, this was a point of enjoyment in older games. I loved just calling up the phone characters and chatting away about nothing at all. There wasn't much phone conversation that didn't tie in directly to the plot. It would have been appreciated.
Culprit -- 7/10
Trying to get through this without major spoilers. I appreciated that the Dean's captor was the person I had pegged from before the reveal as the one to blame. But making someone... else... liable was a downright mean trick, HeR. Especially someone who was so sympathetic and had been so nice the whole game. I'll probably get over it around the same time I get over the culprit reveal from CAP. Which is to say, never.
Puzzles -- 6/10
I'm not going to spend much time on this. I have never had patience for puzzles and am not going to start enjoying them now. I enjoyed some more than others, as I do with all games. I did like that there were more in this game than in MID. But if you really want a good opinion on the puzzles in this game, stop reading this and ask someone who plays the game for the puzzles. And then come back and finish this. Or don't. It's your life. I play the game for the characters, the plot, and the chance to live vicariously as the detective I never got to be. Don't ask me about the puzzles.
Overall score -- 44/60, same level as TRN, CAP, TMB, SPY
I was glad to see this game massively improve over MID. However, it still lacks some of the charm and professionalism that characterized the older games. Is that all in nostalgia? I'm not sure. But HeR Interactive is off the schneid. They've got one good new modern game down. Can they keep it going and improve as they go? Let's hope so! KEY could be the magnifying-glass-shaped precursor to great things in the future.
