I love Nancy Drew. I love the games (I own all 15). This was the only one that I truly dislike. When I first heard about it, I was really excited. I love the Hardy Boys - and the fact that we get to play them (more so than in "Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon") was awesome. But this game disappointed me so much. The game seemed to revolve around the fact that you could play the Hardys - that was the whole point, it seemed.
The animation was great, I will admit. Though I never really imagined the Hardy Boys looking like that, I will admit that each character looked fairly realistic, and the movements were a lot more fluid and realistic than the choppy, repetitive motions of previous games. Classic case, however, of animation dominating the game.
The mystery itself seemed wrong. Most of the puzzles were tiresome to do, or far too easy. And I disliked the ending. I didn't feel like the resolution was complete (I had to ask a friend who the culprit really was just to be sure). In all 14 of the other games, the ending was dramatic, intense and/or exciting, at the very least. This one was just "Click....click.....click....(pause to think)...click....oh, shoot. Guess I'll have to use second chance! Click....click..." How did HerInteractive go from the well-developed "Danger By Design" of summer 2006 to the animation-oriented-only "Creature of Kapu Cave" just a couple of months later? If you want to try out a Nancy Drew game, you should try maybe "The Final Scene", "Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake", most really, apart from this. This is not an average game for HerInteractive.
I just hope "Whit Wolf of Icicle Creek" is better.