What did you think of this game?? (NO spoilers please)

[Mysty]

Come rate this game for us and give us your overall opinion. We want to know. You can make your vote and then either post and explain why you rated it as you did (without game event or cultprit name/gender spoilers). OR just provide us with a link to a past review you may have written. This is meant to be helpful to all those gamers who may not have played this game yet and come here to find out what we thought of it. So keep that in mind when posting please. Thank you!

[wai17]

so. much. reading.

Full disclosure: I'm only like an hour into the game and I'm a twenty-something woman (so not really the target audience).

I came here to see what everyone was saying about this game, but was surprised to find that no one has said anything yet! Is everyone really that mad at HER or just genuinely not curious about/interested in this game? Anyway, I figured I'd give it a shot cause I'm always up for new ways to procrastinate :P I haven't given it a star rating yet because I want to wait until I get to the end before I do that, but here are my initial thoughts:

The graphics are fine IMO. If you're into Nancy Drew, then you're probably OK with less than stellar graphics...
I don't love the controls (they're wasd with the mouse controlling which direction you go). They work well enough but can be a little nauseating if you don't keep your mouse steady. I'm not huge PC gamer besides ND so this is probably normal... idk.

As for the game itself... the plot is simple but not boring. You're trying to save a young girl and her family from pirates. The things she was able to make aren't super believable, but I can suspend my disbelief haha. So far I'd say it's kind of like those room escape games where you progress through a space and don't have to return to any past locations. The puzzles have been pretty easy so far. There's been one or two I've enjoyed and a couple I thought were way too simple - the kind where you can really really quickly try every option until you get the right one. If a lock only has like five possible ways to open it, it's a bad lock... just saying.

My biggest qualm so far is that there is SO. MUCH. READING. You get hints/explanations for the puzzles through journal pages you find throughout the island and usually it's pages and pages of the girl recounting how her dad gets her to figure out how to prove certain scientific phenomenon. It's very educational, and I've definitely learned new things from what I've read, but I find myself skipping through the educational stuff to get to the bits that explain the puzzles. In the journal pages, there are always one or two sections that are highlighted yellow and those are the bits that explain how to do the puzzle. So far this game is like 85% journal-entry-type-novel about a young girl learning about science through experiments and 15% actual game play. I'll probably finish it but just skip through educational reading.

TBH this game just makes me miss ND even more. I'd take a Ransom of the Seven Ships quality of game at this point lol! Just give me something!

[katyisblonde]

Nancy's Upset

I'm only an hour or so into the game, but that's because it has some pretty big issues and I'm really disappointed. I have had to completely restart the game twice now due to different glitches that ruined my save file. The first one made the right half of my journal cover the top half of my left journal page making it so I could not read either side. And since reading the journal is the most important (and tedious) part of this game, I had to restart it. On the next file, my character suddenly lost the ability to walk up stairs. She would just walk into them like they were a wall and couldn't go up them. Ridiculous.

From the game aspect? I'm also pretty disappointed. I know HER had said ages back they were going to try out a new gaming engine, but it is NOT good. I've had to take breaks from playing every so often because the new camera makes my head hurt. Part of the beauty/fun of the ND games was scouring every "screen" for clues/objects. But now since there are no screens it's just a lot of shaky camera angles, even with the smoothness turned up all the way

The story line is also very yawn. There's a reason people like mysteries, it's fun to be surprised and meet other characters and get into interesting situations. This game is seriously lacking in all of those departments. I know I'm only an hour in or so but seriously, where are the other characters? I don't get what's going on with this game.

I feel like back in the day people only asked for harder puzzles/scarier games/interesting characters/etc. So I don't understand why HER's next plan was to completely throw out their game formula and make this weird game. Not every ND game was my favorite, but this is the first time I've played a game from HER that I genuinely regretted buying.

*EDIT* Okay I just finished, and I'm............even more disappointed! Like wow. no. Had a THIRD glitch near the end that made me quit and reload the game and lose progress. At least this time I didn't have to completely restart with a new save file. I can honestly say I will never play this again. No. Just no. I have such a headache from the spinning camera and the pages and pages (and pages and pages and pages) of reading I had to do. I'm all for Herinteractive including education information in games, I've learned lots of things from the ND games over the years! But this was straight up school. Not even for fun puzzles. One word describes this game and it's TEDIOUS. Bye Herinteractive, everyone else? Save your dollahhhs

[Dianeb]

Useful tool for students, but not my cup of tea

I also posted this on a separate thread.

This is not a Nancy Drew game. From what I can gather, it was released by another company called The Young Socratics. The website describes the game this way: "Odyssey is a science puzzle adventure game focused on scientific reasoning and argumentation in astronomy and mechanics from the ancient Greeks to Newton."

Playing this game forces you to read a book on these subjects. I would say that 80% of the game is reading pages. If you like to read science textbooks, this is the game for you.

I finished the game and, I have to admit, I learned some things. (Being a college educated adult, I already knew some of this stuff.) It's not my favorite kind of game, but it is useful for getting kids interested in science. I would say it's geared toward at least high school. Young kids would have trouble with it.

[mary9836]

I think that

I think that I will never play this game. The reviews seem not great and it appears they offered this game to fill a hole they have created for themselves. Sad. Bring back Lani and Nancy Drew!!!!

[lookagain]

Odyssey Kept Its Promise

I don't understand the negative reviews. I went back and rewatched the game previews, and I feel the game is as described.

1. It's not supposed to be a Nancy Drew game or even play like one.
2. The ads made it clear the game was heavily educational (science etc.)
3. I didn't experience any game glitches. The game ran smoothly.
4. The graphics were absolutely beautiful. No fading or cheap quality as mentioned by other players.


I rated it 9/10 stars because this type of navigation makes it harder to turn around and interact with objects. I didn't see a save function, it only auto saved. I played the game with a school teacher, and she complained about the nearly 300 pages of in-game reading.

This game is not my cup of tea (I prefer ND style mystery/adventure), but I would never give a game a poor rating just because it's not my favorite type.

[blanchess01]

Not good!!!

Wish I had seen the reviews before I purchased. Complete waste of money! Horrible!!