Separated from her father during a storm Greta awakens to find herself shipwrecked on the mysterious Arcelia Island. She is along, the crewSeparated from her father during a storm Greta awakens to find herself shipwrecked on the mysterious Arcelia Island. She is along, the crew and her father nowhere to be seen. It soon becomes clear the storm was no natural disaster but a curse placed on them by a disgruntled witch. Her power comes from four orbs which are capable of creating powerful curses that hidden around the island. She’s poisoned the land and wants Greta’s father in the hope of harnessing the power of the orbs. As Greta you must search the island to find these cursed orbs with the help of magical hermits, elves, fairies and the like before the witch does. Everyone on the island is counting on you...
HitPoint Studios may not be that well known and if Big Fish Games are the publishers they ought to have known better because The Secrets of Arcelia Island (2011) is a buggy game indeed. Let’s start with the good: the game taking place on an island means a certain new geography needs to be implemented. It needs to be imaginative but also make sense spatially. HitPoint Studios do a good job of that offering numerous ‘worlds’ where each cursed orb you need to collect is hidden away. We get a fairytale world with elves and fairies, an ice world which has been frozen by the lead villainess, a swamp as well as a Mad Max inspired barren wasteland complete with dead amusement park. It all somehow fits together quite nicely. As with many hidden object games each new area will only unlock when you find items from each area of the island to use on the barriers. The music itself can be repetitive with its epic royal theme played endlessly which only fits at the end of the game anyway so during most of the adventure it feels inappropriate. As an adventure Arcelia Island isn’t that bad but the puzzles go from being very simple to begin with to being too difficult right at the end. The learning curve is very much rushed. This isn’t taking into account that the ending doesn’t make a lot of sense and the player is left wondering whether the game is uneven in fleshing out its characters. There’s a lot of exposition but that does not guarantee making characters relatable. The biggest issue with the game is a bug that while isn’t game breaking story-wise does ruin the enjoyment somewhat. Scattered around the island are journal pages and when picked up they can be solved like a jigsaw puzzle; providing more lore for the game. The problem is a nasty bug crashes the game whenever you click on the journal or try to solve one of the jigsaws. I mean I know Arcelia Island is a place with curses but does that have to mean the game as well? The game thankfully autosaves regularly but at the end of the day if you avoid the journal you only have access to about 85% of the game. That 15% is still a big chunk and with no patches released for Arcelia Island I have to wonder whether Big Fish quickly considered this a lost cause with their ‘new game every day’ policy. It depends how much money you want to waste.
The Secrets of Arcelia Island is a fairly mediocre title ruined by bugs that make the game incomplete. Had actual game testing been done what we got would have been at least average but I can’t recommend a HOG that crashes every time you try to access part of it.… Expand
