Having defeated supernatural forces within Central America and Thailand you now get a call from a supposedly haunted house in Greece. TheHaving defeated supernatural forces within Central America and Thailand you now get a call from a supposedly haunted house in Greece. The house’s owner Dayona has been experiencing paranormal activity. When Dayona is captured by the evil Stephanos so she can be used as another sacrifice you find yourself navigating yet again light and dark. Defeat this evil spirit and unite a long dead family to save the world from destruction!
Beginning a game series that showed promise with its light and dark concept but felt undeveloped the sequel a year later arrived and seemed to undo any good work the first game did. Now Orneon hope to have another crack at it with Secrets of the Dark: Mystery of the Ancestral Estate (2013). Having got caught up in supernatural shenanigans from Mexico to Thailand the next instalment sees our journalist protagonist investigate a haunted house in Greece. Yes folks, no Peter to have to worry about! Yahooo! Instead the player has to rescue the house’s young owner Daytona – erm...I mean Dayona (DAYOOOOOONA!) from shifting light and dark supernatural forces. There’s something about a ghostly madman called Stephanos needing Dayona as a sacrifice (a replacement for Peter) before an eclipse; needing you to reconstruct a massive powered lamp in order to defeat him but really the game story is just an excuse for the normal puzzle solving and hidden object hunting we’ve come to expect. The light and dark elements of the series this time however are mostly put to one side to allow investigation of this haunted funhouse. Some of the game later involves traversing to other parts of the island on a raft or using what could be considered the most unstable lift carriage I’ve seen yet in this genre. Talk about rickety yikes. The story and characters lack depth; I think there’s some plot about Stephanos wanting ultimate power but his greed or reasoning for wanting such power is never properly elaborated on. The haunted house location is a bit more typical of this genre and serves the game well. Puzzles range from fairly easy to usual maddeningly frustrating although the puzzle where you have to rotate shapes outwards is refreshingly original. The collector’s edition is better structured unlike the standard edition Eclipse Mountain where most of the game was locked away in the CE. The problems with previous games however do remain the same. Mystery of the Ancestral Estate is probably the least offensive game up to this point. It’s okay and won’t bore you completely. It’s not a bad game; it’s just not a great one. There’s still a feeling of the developers having the required elements and then working on autopilot as is often the case with many games in this genre.
Mystery of the Ancestral Estate is an improvement over the previous year’s Secrets of the Dark: Eclipse Mountain (2012). Play time is longer and the story is a little more involving even if the supporting characters lack depth. A lack of ambition is still evident from Orneon and the game can’t quite be totally recommended based on the fact there’s nothing that differentiates it from other HOGs. Mediocre if you don’t mind that.… Expand
