The Tomb of the Lost Queen is Lost on me.

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  • K<3M
    Registered User
    Amateur Sleuth
    • Jan 2019
    • 32

    The Tomb of the Lost Queen is Lost on me.

    The Tomb of the Lost Queen reminds me of the straight A kid that sits in the counselor’s office and is told, “Your grades are great, but colleges look at more than just grades. They want you to be well-rounded. You’re missing some extracurriculars to make you well-rounded.” In the case of the Tomb of the Lost Queen, this game has great puzzles, but it is not well-rounded and lacks just about everything else that colleges, I mean, Nancy Drew fans are looking for in Nancy Drew games.

    I’ll end with the puzzles because I like to end my reviews on a positive note. To start, the Tomb of the Lost Queen has a promising plot, but there were too many holes in it. I ended the game with more questions than when I started and after finishing it felt like the game makers were rushing to meet a deadline and left a few key pieces of dialogue out.

    To go in further detail about the plot, there are two characters that randomly show up shortly after the beginning. Nancy recognizes their random appearances in her journal but when she talks to them, she already knows their names and it seems like the formal introductions were never made. As the story progresses, there’s rumors that are being shared about the characters but Nancy only hears of them from other characters. She comes across some evidence that supports these rumors but only once does she confront a character about her discoveries and get a straight backstory out of them in true Nancy Drew fashion. It’s very discombobulating to only obtain key information about characters through gossiping. Even at the end when the culprit is discovered, the discovery doesn’t come from Nancy finding incriminating evidence or hearing the culprit make a confession. No, it is another character who tells Nancy who the culprit is. Even after capturing the culprit, I really didn’t even understand what their motive was because there was very little evidence during the game that made this motive obvious. Yes, there were people talking about the motive, but there was little concrete evidence to support it.

    All of the characters average each other out to be a mediocre Nancy Drew cast. Dylan and Jamila are good characters. Jamila is the only one with a strong backstory, and Dylan provides some quality comic relief. However, Abdullah and Lilly are not as great. Abdullah has an obnoxious egotistical personality, which would be fine if he had some good qualities to balance it out. However, there were no good qualities about him. Lilly is also annoying. She sits in the tent all day reading a book and refusing to go into the tomb because she’s “afraid of curses.” I feel like Abdullah should have kicked her off of the site if she wasn’t going to make herself useful. It would have been admirable if the creators had put her in two places—sometimes in the tent and sometimes somewhere in the tomb. The game would have been more interesting that way.

    The setting is okay. Exploration is limited to the tomb and the camp because the tomb is in the middle of the desert. This makes sense and all, however I wished that there are more parts of the camp that I could click around on. Everything is limited to only the important parts of the mystery. It also drove me crazy how careless Nancy handles materials in the tomb. She’s in a tomb that’s thousands of years old, and she’s touching things like she’s at someone’s house. It would have been a more fun and realistic addition to the game if you have to put special gloves on her before she touched anything in the tomb with the consequence being Abdullah kicking her off of the site for being careless.

    There are three added activities in this game, which is about average for a Nancy Drew game. The first is an Egyptian board game, but it gets boring pretty quick. The second is being able to drink water from the water tank. The third is one that I haven’t seen in other games and it is to complete phone research. One of the characters that Nancy can talk to on the phone is Professor Hotchkiss, and sometimes Hotchkiss will request Nancy to find something out about the tomb for her. You have to send Nancy into the tomb and look for what color a cat is or what’s pictured above an archway et cetera and then report back to Hotchkiss by choosing from a selection of responses. Hotchkiss never responds with any sort of clue as to whether or not you gave her the correct information, but it’s all still fun.

    As I mentioned before, the strongest part of the game are the puzzles. There are a lot of them and normally I’m not a fan of when too many puzzles are thrown in. However, all of the puzzles make sense in this game because the majority of them are designed to unlock parts of the tomb. They were all unique from each other and required a little extra discovery to figure out how to solve them. Often times the “instructions” for how to solve them must be found in another part of the tomb or in someone’s notes about their discoveries. This extra legwork that must be done makes the puzzles all the more challenging and enjoyable.

    Nancy Drew and the Tomb of the Lost Queen is perfect for the player who plays for the puzzles and couldn’t care less about anything else. However, this game’s huge plot holes and mediocre characters, setting, and added extras make it hard for me to rate this game as anything higher than subpar. There are more well-rounded Nancy Drew games out there with just as many quality puzzles. Instead of the Tomb of the Lost Queen, I would recommend playing the Legend of the Crystal Skull or the Trail of the Twister.
    I discovered that Secrets can Kill. I Stayed Tuned for Danger. I read the Message in a Haunted Mansion. I uncovered the Treasure in a Royal Tower. I watched the Final Scene. I washed away the Secret of the Scarlet Hand. I pet the Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake. I rode the Haunted Carousel. I dodged the Danger on Deception Island. I lassoed the Secret of Shadow Ranch. I overcame the Curse of Blackmoor Manor. I unwound the Secret of the Old Clock. I traveled on the Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon. I unveiled the Danger by Design. I captured the Creature of Kapu Cave. I discussed politics with the White Wolf of Icicle Creek. I unearthed the Legend of the Crystal Skull. I unmasked the Phantom of Venice. I exposed the Haunting of Castle Malloy. I paid the Ransom of the Seven Ships. I heeded the Warnings of Waverly Academy. I chased the Trail of the Twister. I stood in the Shadow at the Water’s Edge. I shattered the Captive Curse. I upheld the Alibi in Ashes. I opened the Tomb of the Lost Queen. I condemned the Deadly Device. I sang to the Ghost of Thornton Hall. I did justice for the Silent Spy. I repaired the Shattered Medallion. I navigated the Labyrinth of Lies. I illuminated the Sea of Darkness. I was awake at Midnight in Salem.
  • neverquit8
    Registered User
    Amateur Sleuth
    • Mar 2010
    • 88

    #2
    “she’s touching things like she’s at someone’s house”
    This made me laugh because it’s so true. Way to do the character an injustice. It’s not someone’s grandma solving a mystery, it’s Nancy Drew. She wouldn’t be touching stuff and missing things. Like how she’d go down one tunnel see nothing, go back later and see a medallion just appear on the ground. NANCY DOESN'T MISS CLUES. If MID doesn’t clear up the sloppy writing style I’m going to be so annoyed
    you said you were
    afraid to lose me
    and then you
    faced your fears
    and left


    m.t

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