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Am I the only person who doesn't like this game?
Hello, all! I will preface this review by stating that I am a suburban girl. I'm not very outdoorsy and I have absolutely no interest in country life. I never liked this game when I was younger, and back then I could never make it past day 1, but I've seen many reviews about SHA being an all-time favorite for many players so I thought that I should give it another whirl.
I have finally finished SHA in its entirety and I cannot see myself ever revisiting it again. I see so many problems with the game and I honestly do not understand what people love so much about it.
Pros:
- Dave Gregory is admittedly cute.
- The setting is unique in comparison to all of the other Nancy Drew games.
- Game play is long, so you get your money's worth.
- Characters are all worthy of suspicion.
- There is a mystery within a mystery.
- Senior Detectives can still receive hints!
Cons:
- Nancy is made to do repetitive chores. In some games, tasks like these make sense because characters aren't supposed to know that Nancy is sleuthing around - she's supposed to just blend in. However, in SHA everybody knows what she's up to, AND she's a guest of the Rawleys! Who makes their guest do chores like these when she is on vacation? She isn't related to the Rawleys, so it makes even less sense... if it were Bess or George, maybe I could see them having to help out around the place because it belongs to their family members. My biggest issue with having to do chores for Shorty is that he has nothing better to do than to do them himself. There are a total of four people on the ranch (including Nancy and Shorty himself), so I don't know who he could possibly be cooking for all the time because Nancy never eats more than a bite of cake in this entire game. If he couldn't go on with his recipe without vegetables and eggs, why didn't he just take maybe fifteen steps outside and grab them himself?
- This game comes with a larger interface than other old games, but this new interface does not come without issues. Having to open up Nancy's inventory, grab the desired item, and close the inventory before using it (and then sometimes having to open up the inventory again and put the item back) becomes awfully tedious. I much prefer being able to access my items right from the screen. Nancy's cell phone is pretty -high tech- here but when I would go to search the web for something or try to click on someone's name to call them, I always ended up clicking the wrong thing for some reason - the design here could have been streamlined.
- I understand the importance of books (or even web searches) in ND games, but I really think that SHA is just a bit too literature-heavy. For some people, this might make the game more realistic - in real life one isn't likely to turn right to the page (or scroll right to the section of the webpage) that he/she needs - but I always feel the need to read every last word and it took up a lot of time.
- Dave's feelings for Nancy honestly make no sense, and then Nancy tells him that she only "sort of" has a boyfriend. Poor Ned!
- Having to remove the horse's bridle and put it back in its place before reentering the ranch seemed a bit unnecessary to me. It was annoying when I was just coming back to the ranch to quickly ask Dave or Shorty a question before returning to the outside and I would have to take off the bridle, put it back, then grab the bridle again, ask Tex's permission to leave, then put the bridle back onto the horse before going back out. Time waster.
- Tex trusts Nancy with tasks that, if done wrong, may actually kill the horses. Come on, now. You just met this girl yesterday.
- Tex is annoyingly creepy. I still don't know why the Rawleys hired him.
- Some of the puzzles in SHA are RIDICULOUSLY difficult for an older game. I'm 21 years old and I couldn't solve a good handful of them. I'm sorry, but I honest to goodness do not think that Dirk Valentine seemed smart enough to create such challenging puzzles. For some, if you didn't get the puzzle right on the first try, you'd have to go back and complete a different puzzle another time, then retry... it could be an endless cycle. Very frustrating.
- Bess, George, Frank & Joe somehow know how to give clues about things that they have no idea about. Nancy could say, "I need help figuring out how to make a fire!" and they would all tell her, "Look to the left of Dave and you'll find kindling!" I mean, I'm making this up, but some of the hints that they gave (however helpful) just didn't line up because there's no way that they could know some things without being there/Nancy telling them.
- Charleena Purcell's voice/attitude
- Why does Nancy have the option to call home and then say, "I don't need to talk to anyone at home!" ???
- Some of the settings are so colorless and drab.
- Nancy could hang onto multiple random papers, but she wasn't allowed to hold onto Dirk Valentine's clues. Wouldn't she want to bring those with her so nobody else could find them, seeing as she was suspicious that someone else was sabotaging the ranch in search of the treasure that these clues would eventually lead to?
- Mary Yazzie is too short tempered. And how come she is always referred to by her full name when everyone else is just Dave, Tex & Shorty most of the time?
- I think that some dialogue was carried over from previous games and it didn't seem to fit in well here (example: phone message to home).
- There could be a phone number written somewhere on the screen and you might not even notice it but Nancy would have it added to her contacts already. There goes the need for strong detective skills!
- I believe that some questions were left unanswered.
Final thoughts:
I understand that everyone has different preferences, and can see how some people might love this game's setting. However, I think that SHA's problems extend far beyond the location in which it takes place. Generally when I pick up a mystery, I have to force myself to stop playing for a while so I can be a real person (or just get some sleep), but I was so uninterested in this game that toward the end, I ended up basically following a walk through so I could just finish it and move on.
Overall, this is probably one of my five least favorite mysteries from the entire series.
I have finally finished SHA in its entirety and I cannot see myself ever revisiting it again. I see so many problems with the game and I honestly do not understand what people love so much about it.
Pros:
- Dave Gregory is admittedly cute.
- The setting is unique in comparison to all of the other Nancy Drew games.
- Game play is long, so you get your money's worth.
- Characters are all worthy of suspicion.
- There is a mystery within a mystery.
- Senior Detectives can still receive hints!
Cons:
- Nancy is made to do repetitive chores. In some games, tasks like these make sense because characters aren't supposed to know that Nancy is sleuthing around - she's supposed to just blend in. However, in SHA everybody knows what she's up to, AND she's a guest of the Rawleys! Who makes their guest do chores like these when she is on vacation? She isn't related to the Rawleys, so it makes even less sense... if it were Bess or George, maybe I could see them having to help out around the place because it belongs to their family members. My biggest issue with having to do chores for Shorty is that he has nothing better to do than to do them himself. There are a total of four people on the ranch (including Nancy and Shorty himself), so I don't know who he could possibly be cooking for all the time because Nancy never eats more than a bite of cake in this entire game. If he couldn't go on with his recipe without vegetables and eggs, why didn't he just take maybe fifteen steps outside and grab them himself?
- This game comes with a larger interface than other old games, but this new interface does not come without issues. Having to open up Nancy's inventory, grab the desired item, and close the inventory before using it (and then sometimes having to open up the inventory again and put the item back) becomes awfully tedious. I much prefer being able to access my items right from the screen. Nancy's cell phone is pretty -high tech- here but when I would go to search the web for something or try to click on someone's name to call them, I always ended up clicking the wrong thing for some reason - the design here could have been streamlined.
- I understand the importance of books (or even web searches) in ND games, but I really think that SHA is just a bit too literature-heavy. For some people, this might make the game more realistic - in real life one isn't likely to turn right to the page (or scroll right to the section of the webpage) that he/she needs - but I always feel the need to read every last word and it took up a lot of time.
- Dave's feelings for Nancy honestly make no sense, and then Nancy tells him that she only "sort of" has a boyfriend. Poor Ned!
- Having to remove the horse's bridle and put it back in its place before reentering the ranch seemed a bit unnecessary to me. It was annoying when I was just coming back to the ranch to quickly ask Dave or Shorty a question before returning to the outside and I would have to take off the bridle, put it back, then grab the bridle again, ask Tex's permission to leave, then put the bridle back onto the horse before going back out. Time waster.
- Tex trusts Nancy with tasks that, if done wrong, may actually kill the horses. Come on, now. You just met this girl yesterday.
- Tex is annoyingly creepy. I still don't know why the Rawleys hired him.
- Some of the puzzles in SHA are RIDICULOUSLY difficult for an older game. I'm 21 years old and I couldn't solve a good handful of them. I'm sorry, but I honest to goodness do not think that Dirk Valentine seemed smart enough to create such challenging puzzles. For some, if you didn't get the puzzle right on the first try, you'd have to go back and complete a different puzzle another time, then retry... it could be an endless cycle. Very frustrating.
- Bess, George, Frank & Joe somehow know how to give clues about things that they have no idea about. Nancy could say, "I need help figuring out how to make a fire!" and they would all tell her, "Look to the left of Dave and you'll find kindling!" I mean, I'm making this up, but some of the hints that they gave (however helpful) just didn't line up because there's no way that they could know some things without being there/Nancy telling them.
- Charleena Purcell's voice/attitude
- Why does Nancy have the option to call home and then say, "I don't need to talk to anyone at home!" ???
- Some of the settings are so colorless and drab.
- Nancy could hang onto multiple random papers, but she wasn't allowed to hold onto Dirk Valentine's clues. Wouldn't she want to bring those with her so nobody else could find them, seeing as she was suspicious that someone else was sabotaging the ranch in search of the treasure that these clues would eventually lead to?
- Mary Yazzie is too short tempered. And how come she is always referred to by her full name when everyone else is just Dave, Tex & Shorty most of the time?
- I think that some dialogue was carried over from previous games and it didn't seem to fit in well here (example: phone message to home).
- There could be a phone number written somewhere on the screen and you might not even notice it but Nancy would have it added to her contacts already. There goes the need for strong detective skills!
- I believe that some questions were left unanswered.
Final thoughts:
I understand that everyone has different preferences, and can see how some people might love this game's setting. However, I think that SHA's problems extend far beyond the location in which it takes place. Generally when I pick up a mystery, I have to force myself to stop playing for a while so I can be a real person (or just get some sleep), but I was so uninterested in this game that toward the end, I ended up basically following a walk through so I could just finish it and move on.
Overall, this is probably one of my five least favorite mysteries from the entire series.
R3
Play my game! 
) but the way Bet and Ed told Nancy to just enjoy herself and then get on her if she does something wrong has always bothered me. That, and collecting eggs, picking veggies, and even setting up a basic campfire are all easy tasks just about anyone could do. Splitting wood and feeding horses can be a different manner, especially when the horses are on such specific diets.
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