LogFAQs > #954452530

Nancy Drew 32: Sea of Darkness (PC)

This took a great while to get back into. Part of it was because I had already played this one and was debating playing it again so recently. But I'm glad I did. I discovered parts that I thought I knew but didn't. ND32 holds a special place for me. It was one of the first ND games I've ever played, maybe the one that really got me into this series. I used to await the series until the whole drama with game 33 happened (tl;dr change in management at Her Interactive and the decision to change engines to Unity made the dev cycle reaaaaaally long in a game series where 2 games are churned every year).

And that's when I decided. I was going to go back and suffer through the old games, playing them in order until ND33 got made. Or if it didn't, I would've lost this cosmic bet I made to myself. But luckily enough, it finally did release and I hear it is not good. But I'm a fan now so I'm gonna have to play it and see for myself.

As for the game itself, I think its great. My opinion of it is stronger than before. I couldn't understand the format of an ND game back then and thought it was just a regular point-click affair but knowing where its come from and how much has changed...essentially several liberties have been taken in ND32 that's different from previous affairs. I'm gonna save myself the embarrassment of geeking out on the subtleties of this game because nobody will understand. But I'll give you an example: I was amazed that for the first time Nancy finds herself in two death-defying traps instead of the mandatory one that I've been getting for the past 31 games. It's such a refreshing twist.

The game itself is still a treasure hunt essentially, but now its way entrenched in the central plot of another mystery. All the suspects actually have stakes and character developments that happen throughout the game and the villain ultimately did it for other reasons than just being a greedy sonofabitch. I think this game has one of the most sympathetic culprits actually.

Gamewise, there are puzzles I've never seen before so right off the bat it didn't recycle anything. It even had a primitive version of the 1024 game you see in mobile phones nowadays. There's even one puzzle that lampshades the fact that its extremely abstract in nature that even Nancy finds it silly to "fix a heating lamp this way". The way that the treasure is found; the ship being part of the setting and for logical historical reasons is wonderful and never feels contrived. And the music is amazing as always.

I also did not realize at the time that the game was set in Iceland, which I've always wanted to visit. It is quite beautiful and idk this game will probably be the closest thing to it for a long time.

Now all that's left is ND33 Midnight in Salem and I'll have "caught up" with this series once and for all!

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It's not so cliche anymore when it's happening to you.