PC User Reviews

You ever play a game that just refuses to f$*king end? The game comes to a natural conclusion, in gameplay if not narrative, but decides to go another round. Or three. Or seven. Or ten. Or maybe you should just hand me your keys, Jewel Quest Mysteries: Curse of the Emerald Tear. Christ, even the title never stops. What can I say about this Hidden Object Game except "why?" Why is this genre full of examples of games that decide they need a minimum length greater than they can budget assets for? This game is a prime specimen of that. There are 17 hidden objects scenes which you unlock 1 by 1 after completing a number of previously beaten scenes and the one you just unlocked. That doesn't quite add up, does it? For every level you unlock -barring the first 4- you have to beat an additional 4 levels per permutation. That's a grand total of 17 scenes for 75 games of I Spy. Meaning you beat every level at least 4 times. Ignoring the horrible monotony that introduces to the gameplay loop, let's look at how that effects the difficulty progression, shall we? The games starts out with simple hidden objects lists as it should. Then, as you progress, it adds complexity to these lists with increased number of objects, vaguer descriptions and better hiding spots; a tried and true formula. Except when you consider that you now know these scenes better than you know yourself. It becomes less a game of 'find the hidden object' and more 'remember were you last saw your keys and wallet.' This isn't a difficulty curve so much as it is a difficulty parabola. Then there's the upgrades which are a neat idea, but they're mostly useful in the early game when you don't know the scenes, before you can actually afford them. So 4 out of 5 of these upgrades may never see any real use. As far as HOGs go, the story actually works well. It provides conflict, and motivation to the gameplay. Although I'm electing to ignore the usual HOG ludonarrative dissonance. "I'm on a quest to find Tutankhamen's lost sacred treasure. Luckily I'm finding all these clues to its whereabouts," your character says as she continues to pick up random US dollar bills and modern kitchen utensils. Of course, that's totally King Tut's favourite skateboard. He was THE historical sk8er boi. Perhaps history degrees are less useful in this universe than our own. That's the real fiction. Otherwise it is mostly historically accurate, and alludes to greater conspiracies which is always a good idea for a HOG. Just try to ignore the world's least dramatic cliff-hanger ending. My only real complaint regards my previous rant about the game's length. Do yall know the term 'red herring'? Because I'm pretty sure that term was coined specifically for this game. If you argue otherwise I'm just going to claim you got your history degree at the same university as Emma Holmes here. Most HOGs include other puzzles or adventure mechanics in order to break the monotony of the gameplay loop, but here we have the reverse. You see, Emma-reld Tear is actually a spin-off game of a non-HOG puzzle franchise simply titled Jewel Quest. Here the hidden objects break the monotony of the match-3 puzzle board gameplay. For being the titular mechanic, the puzzle boards you play at the end of every permutation are unwelcome. My kids are no longer allowed to bring puzzle boards into my house. They can carry out that disgusting habit in the back alleys like the other puzzle kids. You complete a board by making a match on every tile. Really, it's 2 aspects that ruin this experience. First is the coins, used for useless specials, which have an upper limit of how many can be on the board. This means that if all of them are on the board and evenly distanced, then they now present an almost permanent obstacle to other matches being made there. Secondly is the board shapes. They start off fine and square, but then they hit teens and grow awkward hairs around the side. This is a problem because now it mostly requires RNG to match them. You have to hope the right jewels fall at their base, because there's no other directions matches can be made from. And good luck trying to get jewels from elsewhere to their position without them being matched and destroyed. Now the game's not just monotonous, but frustrating as well. Those are always a winning combo. The Tetris-like puzzles I have no real complaints for, but subjectively they weren't for me. The game's art is nice, but it suffers from the same low resolution scaling that other HOGs from this time do. This can still make it hard to make out certain objects. I can only think of 3 memorable scenes, the other's are just fine. This could be better given the importance of scene art in this genre, but it works well enough. The game's okay, but the official health advice is to block out a long weekend for it. Also official advice is to not study history at a tertiary level. But that's just common sense...