Forgotten Places: Regained Castle

Truth be told, I've never been a huge fan of hidden-object games, their simplistic nature just never appealed to me. Still, weirdly enough I have a couple of those under my belt. I like those games I've played before, so did I like that one? Let's find out.

Story:

You play as Jane, a young woman who lost her parents very early and only had Sir Charles Willmore, the man who raised her after her parents died. And on her 21st birthday, she receives a mysterious letter from her guardian, warning her that she’ll “be next.” She gathers her things quickly and rushes to his castle. Upon arriving, she learns Sir Charles has passed away (not without a mystery, I'd like to note), and his death might be tied to an ancient family artifact - a mysterious box that requires several lost keys to open.
As Jane you'll be navigating the castle and its grounds, learning about the history and secrets of the Willmore family. While big story chunks will be given in dialogues, more intricate details and clues are hidden in letters, newspaper clippings, and other notes you gather along the way.
The game's story isn't unique or particularly grand, but it has mystery and provides a decent set dressing for Jane's journey.

Graphics:

The visuals are mostly okay. Design-wise the castle, its rooms, and outside areas are atmospheric and somewhat detailed, so the creepy haunted vibe is there. However, almost every outside scene has an ungodly amount of greenish-grainy colors, and sometimes everything blurs together. The castle interior is far easier on the eyes (in a better meaning) and looks like a rich dude's castle, no complaints here. 

The hidden object scenes on the other hand...sometimes rough to say the least. Some scenes are fine, while the other is low res and you barely can tell what are you looking at. I didn't expect 4k quality assets of course, but still.

Character art for what little there is, is mostly fine. People look like people. Birds and cats look like birds and cats.
Animations are basic, but it was funny to watch black cats moving at 2-3 frames at most.

Audio:

The audio is nothing special. The background music sets up a creepy tone, but I can't say I remember even a single tune. Sound effects are minimal, all the chimes and usual clicking sounds you expect from hidden-object games are there. Oh, and no voice acting this time by the way, so that means you’ll be doing a lot of reading. While this isn’t a dealbreaker, it does slow the pacing down, especially since you have to manually click through dialogue boxes and wait for the inventory bar to reappear.

Gameplay:

The gameplay is absolutely the same as in any other classic hidden-object game: you explore rooms and castle grounds, find items, solve puzzles, and uncover clues. The hidden object scenes are straightforward, with listed items and minimal interaction (like clicking a lid to reveal more objects). 

You can also just click all over the screen if you can't find a specific item. There's no cooldown and you won't get punished for misclick. I vaguely remember the cooldown mechanic in similar games: you couldn't just click away, you HAD TO look for items. 

Exploring the environment ain't hard either. Usually, your arrow cursor changes to a hand icon or magnifying glass icon when you hover over a point of interest. 

And if you're still stumped, you can look at your map, which shows the place where something can be found or done with the items you currently have in your inventory. 

If you need even more help, you can use the hint button which in this game took the form of a perfume bottle. Click it and it'll lead you where you need to go or show you what you need to take/use. 

The puzzles are mostly intuitive and easy to understand and can be solved with trial and error. You'll be matching colors, rotating disks, sliding tiles, nothing extraordinary. Usually, there is a journal entry that hints at the solution. 

Although a couple of the endgame puzzles with painting where you had you untie the knots by dragging one over the other or the one involving jars with chemical elements, had zero explanation. I had to consult the discussion Steam tab to find out what I was doing wrong. 

All the other mechanics are kinda frustrating, not gonna lie. Using inventory items requires clicking and dragging them to the exact spot, which feels annoying, especially when you miss the target by a couple of pixels. 

Navigating between scenes is also can be a hassle: you have to click the “X” or a back arrow to exit close-up views. Which gets progressively frustrating when you have to backtrack (of which you're gonna do a lot). 

The journal, while handy when you need a hint, pops up automatically every time you find a clue, which interrupts the game flow.

The next section can be considered nitpicking, but I have to talk about it. There's something that pissed me off more the anything: the precise nature of these games and their logic.

What I mean by that is: that at some point, there was a Bermuda Triangle piece stuck in a globe and I needed to get it out. Judging by the art, it could've been done with bare hands. But I had a screwdriver in my inventory, realistically it's possible to get in unstuck with a screwdriver, but nope, I needed a specific dagger. Not even a knife, of which I've seen several. 

The other thing was a fallen tree in the middle of a walkway. Except I could see that I could clearly walk around it. Heck, you could jump over it. Ain't happened either.

I can't say that I hated the game, despite all the negative stuff I've said about it.
It's just that there are much better games in the same genre out there. It's an okay 4-5 hour experience which you can somewhat enjoy without feeling like your head's gonna explode.