Recent reviews by talgaby

If you like sad fairy tales, you will love Dark Parables 16. It is a truly touching story that knows how to toy with the player's emotions.
Too bad it is attached to an annoying fragmented objects game.

After the boredom of Dark Parables 15, I was surprised by the writing quality of Portrait of the Stained Princess. It mixes the Ugly Duckling with Wagner's version of Lohengrin and some Spanish folk tales to create a bittersweet casual game masterpiece.
On the surface, it seems to be about a princess stuck inside a portrait, but the real story is learning how she got there. It is a tragic tale of unrequited love, a dark prince who genuinely wants to find happiness, and a lineage of knights carrying a terrible burden. If we add in the optional backstory fables, we get one of the best stories in this series.

Sadly though, the gameplay is either dull or just weak. Our goal is always the same, find some chest ornament. Sometimes we solve a boring puzzle to get one, sometimes it just lies in the open. Sometimes we assemble it in a fragmented object scene.
Of course, the latter is what we expect from a FROG, but these scenes are the worst part here. They are either laughably easy or nearly impossible, with no middle ground. I wish we had a compilation of just the story bits, that would make a surprisingly good visual novel.

Dark Parables 15 is a mediocre fragmented object game with beautiful art and a woeful lack of things happening in its story.

After their failure in Dark Parables 13, Eipix had to sit one game out before they could come back with The Match Girl’s Lost Paradise. They obviously tried to reflect on their errors, but the results are questionable. To put it frankly, both the game design and storytelling feel uninspired.

Everything in the gameplay aims for the bare minimum. The puzzles are simple time-wasters with no difficulty. The straightforward point-and-click segments feel sluggish, despite the quick-travel map. As for the fragmented object scenes, they are simply dull and a bit eye-straining.

The story pretends to try more, but not much. As usual for this developer, we start with a great premise, learning that Andersen’s little match girl grew up to be a serial killer sorceress. However, we never move from there up until the last minutes, where it just dumps all remaining twists on us.
Usually, the collectable backstories help with a weak plot in a Dark Parables game, but not here. They are focusing on the match girl’s childhood and her tutor, but apart from showing us her past, it doesn’t contribute anything.

Return of the Salt Princess temporarily brings us back to the old Dark Parables developer and their old methods. It is an improvement compared to the previous games, but one with its own share of problems. Still, the great fragmented object scenes alone make up most of those.

Return of the Salt Princess also means the return of Blue Tea Games, the original creators of the Dark Parables series. It feels nice to have them back—even if it was just for one game—but that doesn't mean we can forgive them for neglecting years of advancement in casual game design.

Many old design elements return from past games. There is no custom difficulty, nor distinct cursor while playing. The map lost its quick travel feature, despite forcing the player on long backtracking trips. Worst of all, we are back to searching for a plethora of medals that fit into dull wall sockets.
On the plus side, the puzzles are acceptable, and there are tons of high-quality fragmented object scenes. They are easily among the best within the series.

Although the early games had a complex world, Blue Tea tries to start with a fresh slate here. It is one damn good slate; the story about the salt princess and her guardians is a tale about love and destiny, shocking twists and betrayals, and the strength of a family. It is a shame it has weak voice acting and some pacing issues (except for the bonus chapter; that is great).

Dark Parables 13 is a crime against humanity in a fragmented object game format. Playing it hurts the eyes, and not even the exciting backstories or the lovely scenery can help with that.

Requiem for the Forgotten Shadow has a great atmosphere and some good collectable parables. Everything else is, however, terrible.

The fragmented scenes are the worst. Everything has the same colour, the fragments are too small, and there are too many details on all background objects. It hurts the eyes, and it can even make you dizzy.
It is still not as bad as the adventure-lite parts. There is a strange blinking effect on many actions, it is like an epilepsy test. At least it is easy to tell which items to collect and where to use them.
Finally, the puzzles are long and tedious. The last one is a mouse-only quick-time event, probably the worst puzzle I ever met in a hidden a casual adventure game.

Although I was praising the backstories, I can say the opposite of the main story. It quickly falls flat on its face with lousy pacing, a dull plot, and probably the worst voice acting in a game published by Big Fish Games.

If you are going through the entire series, then, sure, play this one too. You will regret it, but if you are a completionist, that can hardly matter, eh? For everyone else, just stay far away from Dark Parables 13.

On its own, The Thief and the Tinderbox is a decent fragmented objects game with an interesting story and mediocre gameplay. However, it does not fit the series as a whole, and it never bothers to even try.

If you are here to see if this casual game would suit you, then as long as you enjoy good enough fragmented object games, it will. It is not exactly based on a parable we are dealing with the evil sorcerer Rasputin and his strange relation to fairy tale character… Still, the pacing is good, and the story has some nice ideas.
If you play this game as your twelfth Dark Parables though, then I will hardly surprise you when I say that it does not fit the lore. Heck, it does not even have a single thief in it! It just does its own things without ever caring about the series.

Well, at least, in the end, the story is enjoyable; I just wish the gameplay would share these characteristics. The point-and-click segments are delightfully tame, and the puzzles are okay, despite one of them appearing nearly half a dozen times. The fragmented object scenes, however, are very hit and miss. Some are almost insultingly easy, others are endless hunts for tiny hard-to-describe parts on a monochrome dark scene.

Unlike the other TOK games, TOK Hardcore takes itself seriously as a semi-challenging puzzle game. Well, as long as you do not use the helper option.

For the most part, TOK Hardcore has the same simple circuit puzzles as the other games in the series. We still get only a handful of T-shapes, so most of the levels are just building simple straight lines from the source to the end nodes.
However, the "hardcore" part means that we have a limited number of moves, and we must make a move every few seconds or the level just stops. There is some leeway, but this adds a challenge to the game as we must be sure on the path we are building; otherwise, we run out of moves.
Sure, if you are a devoted puzzle gamer, TOK Hardcore is barely more than some relaxation. As the achievements show, everyone can complete it—at worst, it is a slow-learning memorisation game. For this price tag though, you cannot find a better circuit-builder casual puzzle game with this many levels. (Well, unless they make a Tok Hardcore 2.)

If you want a cheap and quick set of simple circuit puzzles, then TOK is a decent choice.

Words like 'minimalist' and 'simplistic' fail to describe TOK. Its 60+30 circuit/pipe puzzles are beyond easy. However, if you need a very non-challenging and low-priced game to satisfy your pipe puzzler side, then it is a harmless pick that lasts maybe an hour or less.
And I do mean it has no difficulty. Only a handful of stages use T-shapes, but even those have maybe one or two. So, all puzzles boil down to a straight line, which is not exactly great variety. You build zig-zags, and that is it. It is almost numbing, but this also means you can play a puzzle game where your brain goes into autopilot.
Interestingly, that can be a strangely soothing experience, especially with TOK's calm piano music. Well, for 3 minutes, then it loops, so I suggest turning it off quickly.

Fair warning: one scene has a spider the size of a truck (or common house spider in Australian terms).

The good-looking surface of Dark Parables 11 hides a dark, dreary, drab, and dull game. If you decide to play it, get ready for endless backtracking.

If we define a video game as a product meant to entertain players, then we cannot classify 'The Swan Princess and The Dire Tree' as one. This supposed fragmented objects game is so boring that it can murder your soul.

The story is a disjointed mess about a traitorous bodyguard and her largely unexplained plot for revenge. Revenge for what; who is that chick that sometimes pops out and orders you around; why do we have to spend half of the game to play nurse to a redheaded guy? If you need answers, then gather all the hidden parables, because the cut-scenes will leave you in the dark.

Then again, the dark is a comfortable place, because then you do not have to endure what I will humorously refer to as gameplay. The fragmented object scenes never invented brightness, the fragments are microscopic, and they are often the same colour as the background. The best solution for the needlessly long puzzles is waiting for the Skip button. As for the adventure-lite parts… I hope you like running in circles, because, trust me, this will be your entire life if you play Dark Parables 11 for some masochistic reason.

Dark Parables 10 has a surprisingly engaging story with some predictable fragment object gameplay elements. It is better suited for those who are not familiar with Eipix's portfolio.

So… Goldilocks is a martial artist, whose sister is a queen trying to take over the world by unleashing an army of robot bears to find a wish-granting star. I guess we definitely see a unique interpretation of the Goldilocks story.
Despite the strange premise, the story is excellent. It has a good supporting cast, nice pacing, and some exciting twists. Overall, Goldilocks and the Fallen Star is probably my favourite Dark Parables games from Eipix.

I wish the same were valid for the gameplay. If you are familiar with Eipix's hidden object games, then you will know all puzzles by heart. If not, then you will simply find them repetitive. The fragmented object scenes range from great to downright obnoxious. Finally, the adventure game portion is an endless search for wall sockets and things to put into them.
Oh, also, do not even try to search for the bonus collectable snowflakes without a guide. I am sure it is physically impossible.

Dark Parables 9 is perfect for those who like good fragmented object scenes with a nice story but need little else in a casual adventure.

Since this was their second Dark Parables game, Eipix tried to do something more familiar for them in The Queen of Sands. For example, they wrote an actual plot with plenty of cut-scenes, supporting characters, and backstory. Although I do not know if it is clever or questionable that it takes some time to recognise the current parable. (It is Beauty and the Beast, but there is no Beauty.)
However, I have some problems with the plot. At its core, it is about gathering magical items to prevent some evil-doer finishing an unexplained ritual. It feels too generic for this genre.

If you like fragmented object scenes, you will enjoy the gameplay. They can be challenging, but they are always fair and fun. As for the rest…
The puzzles are okay, I guess. They have some variety, but they don't stand out from similar games. The adventure game portions usually give you a lot of items, but the map indicators help with them. Overall, it is an okay casual adventure game made for FROG lovers.