This review contains spoilers, click expand to view.
You are called to an island when a sixteen year old girl named Maria disappears under mysterious circumstances. She received a cursed gift from a supernatural force that exists in another dimension. Her father is desperate to see her safe return but the more you uncover the more you realise this was not another random kidnapping by demons. As the island is engulfed in evil you face your greatest challenge in rescuing a teenager stuck in another dimension while trying to destroy a cursed plant which is capable of resurrecting the ultimate destroyer of our world!
Developers Orneon take a fourth crack at this light and dark HOG series with Secrets of the Dark: The Flower of Shadow (2014). Our central protagonist really gets around doesn’t she? This time she’s trying to stop an evil flower that is helping harness a teen’s soul in order to resurrect an evil goddess whose nucleus is a massive beating heart. With Flower of Shadow it’s pretty obvious Orneon have taken the concept of their series as far as they can go. The light and dark gameplay is relegated even further to the sidelines as in previous games. There does some to be a lack of hidden object scenes this time with most of the gameplay about using items on objects and solving puzzles. Those puzzles vary in difficulty. Puzzles like forming a net are quite fun as is cutting snakes’ heads off in a more violent version of Whac-A-Mole. The game introduces a couple of new ideas; one of which is a little creature that can detect items for you to pick up. When powered up the little critter also makes an able flashlight. The sequel also gives you a nice little gadget which decodes and unscrambles dark energy barriers. It’s a cool little device although the best part is later in the game when you can use it against evil energized bats. It never gets old shooting and disintegrating bats with a laser. In all there is a lot of variety and travelling is helpfully achieved at times using a plane. Backtracking is kept to a minimum as well thanks to a map that allows you to jump straight to places you need to go to. So there are improvements. However we probably could have done without searching for lost kittens in a drain. Part of what makes Flower of Shadow more successful still is it provides an improved back-story for its cast of characters. Unlike the sacrificial lambs of previous games Maria has been kidnapped as revenge for her father flying into the supernatural demons years before (in a flashback that nicely combines animation/FMV). Her father mistook these entities as UFOs so now the family has to pay the price. The local mystique provides help but rather ridiculously can only do so when you make her a cup of coffee. The world is coming to an end but she needs coffee... I like the story introducing another protagonist halfway through even if he looks a little too Ron Weasley for my liking. The only real sticking point is the length is a little on the short side. If you bought the standard version you’re worse off. Like with the other games in the series Flower of Shadow could be bought as a Collector’s Edition and once again locks a quarter of the game away as a bonus incentive to buy this version. The CE contains the usual bonuses like concept art, collected mini games, an integrated walkthrough etc however this time around they’ve also wisely included an achievements list. It’s a limited although passable way to extend the life of the game.
While the light and dark morphing could be utilised more Flower of Shadow succeeds where other games in the Secrets of the Dark series fail by offering more variety in gameplay yet more importantly giving us a reason to care for what we’re doing. It’s the length of the game that let’s things down and this hurts any character development the game tries to deliver. Certainly buy the CE version as that is the most value for money; just don’t expect the best HOG ever. It’s just an okay game and that’s fine.… Expand
