This review contains spoilers, click expand to view.
A Christmas or two ago Holly was asked to help Santa save Christmas Day, now she must find her missing daughter! Holly’s daughter has disappeared into a magical storybook that brings its characters to life. Following after her Holly must navigate a land full of fantasy characters in order to rescue her child. Holly isn’t alone. Santa’s lead elf is on hand to show Holly the way and it’s up to you to make sure they reach their destination before time runs out!
Holly really has a lot of patience. In her first game Holly: A Christmas Tale (2007) our main protagonist was plucked out of obscurity to help merry St. Nick deliver his Christmas presents around the world. It’s not the kind of request most people who work in a department store get on Christmas Eve but Holly managed it. Now Vendal Games returns with the sequel Holly 2: Magic Land (2009) where the title character finds out her daughter has gone missing. It turns out her daughter has wandered into a storybook so rather than call the police or check to make sure she hasn’t totally gone insane after hearing what occurred Holly bravely takes it on the chin and follows her daughter into a magical land of anthropomorphic creatures and a busy train conductor. What a gal. Thankfully she has one of Santa’s elves to guide her so they can both experience this craziness together. Gameplay is pretty similar to Holly: A Christmas Tale with a couple of exceptions. The game feels longer as you cover more ground so that must be a good thing I guess? No it isn’t because when you reach your daughter you end up having to backtrack all the way back along the map screen like some twisted version of Snakes and Ladders. No one likes backtracking but Magic Land makes it part of the plot as she has to gather all the people she’s encountered along the way so they can vote her their queen or some nonsense like that. Playing this game it at a glance doesn’t feel too different to the original as it has you finding certain objects across screens broken up with none too complex minigames. It’s the hidden object hunting here that’s the issue. In the original game you were trying to find toys or presents, it was straightforward. Here you have to find very, very small objects or extremely thin ones that blend into the scenery extremely easily. The player indeed has a number of hints (one can be theoretically obtained from each screen) yet you’re really going to have to use these to find these little specs dotted around and with limited hints it doesn’t take a genius to figure out you’re going to run out. Yet this game was aimed at kids…
This game falls into the trap many HOGs do of having to find objects that only a computer could scan for. You have to wonder if the developers play tested the game. I’m curious to know who Holly 2: Magic Land is aimed at as it’s too difficult for kids while having a story that’s too childish for adults. Unless you want a proven way to get eye strain I’d give this one a miss and that’s a shame considering this is about a storybook world come to life. It should have been so much more involving and more competently made than this. Holly next time you’re asked to go on these journeys just say no.… Expand
