Well, I’m going to be honest why I picked this game… when I found out the name of the prince was Prince Adam, well I couldn’t resist… some of you might remember a certain cartoon called He-Man and Prince Adam was his blonde alter ego. Yeah I always had a thing for Prince Adam. Anyhow… enough of my pre-puberty crushes…on to the game.
I LOVED this game. It’s more like an adventure game than just a hidden object game. You play the Princess Isabella… and as you might remember, I love to think of myself as one fine princess. You were supposed to marry Prince Adam, but when you arrived at your beautiful castle, much to your dismay, an evil witch has cursed the entire castle and imprisoned its occupants in mirrors. So now it’s up to you to save the day!
You begin outside the castle and collect items you may need. As you go room by room through the castle, you have to collect pieces of the mirrors to release people from their prisons and lift the curse in each room. Sometimes it’s as simple as removing all the evil items you see in a picture, other times it’s as difficult as fixing the stars in the constellations. Whatever it is, once you remove the curse from the room, it transforms from dark and dreary to beautiful. Think Beauty and the Beast and the end scene.
Oh and I forgot to mention, you’re not in this adventure alone. You have your trusty fairy with you to help. She looks like Tinkerbelle, but for some reason this game and all the imagery reminds me of Sleeping Beauty… one of my favorite all-time Disney movies… I guess that could explain why I liked this game so much.
When I was little, I used to put on my fancy pink nightgown and go to sleep, so in the morning I could pretend I was Sleeping Beauty and hopefully get out of all the farm chores… for some reason, my mother was never fooled… huh. So clinging to that memory, I like to think of my fairy as a version of Fauna… (that was the green fairy in Sleeping Beauty in case you don’t remember!) As you go along, you can teach her new skills like breaking vases and burning ghosts. She can come in handy when it comes to lifting the curse in each room and finding quest items.
As far as game play goes, it’s really exciting. You have a map that lets you see all the rooms that you’ve visited. It will tell you if you’ve cleared the room and done everything you needed to in there, or if the room is still cursed. This is great when you want to see how you’re doing or if you’ve found an object that you can use somewhere else. Like I said before, it’s less a hidden object game and more an adventure/puzzle solving game so you really have to think about where to use certain items.
The imagery and scenery are also worth mentioning, as they are pretty spectacular, especially when each room is transformed into a sparkling shiny room after youlift the curse. It’s truly a great story and a great game… and I may or may not have been playing this weekend when I should have been reading the first 5 chapters of E.M. Forster’s A Room with a View… but class isn’t till later today, so I still have time… right? I know, I know… not a good way to start the semester… oh well, I better get used to cramming…
