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Return to Ravenhearst: completed!

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Back in 2016 there was a sale on the 3DS eShop which included a few hidden object games. This wasn’t a genre I had a lot of experience with, but I quite fancied trying it; and at £1 each there wasn’t a huge financial risk. I bought Ravenhearst, and since it was only another pound, the sequel Return to Ravenhearst. I then played Ravenhearst occasionally over the next seven years or so, largely regretting my purchases.

It turns out that hidden object games are OK. I enjoy the scavenger hunts included in Two Dots; there were parts in the Layton games with similar mechanics. The issue is that I don’t like too much of them. I quickly got bored of the format, after a few puzzles, which is why it took many years to complete the first game.

The biggest issue with the Ravenhearst games is that they were made for the PC, and have been shoehorned onto the 3DS. There are lots of games which have great conversions; these aren’t a good example. The pictures you have to search for are fuzzy and indistinct; what’s more, the list of objects you have to find is frequently vague. The objects are early 20-century in style (meaning that if you are told to search for a phone it is often one that has the separate speaker), and use the American terms for things. Being asked to search for a “top” was an exercise in frustration, particularly when the eventual item looked nothing like a spinning top anyway.

The first game was restricted to the hidden objects puzzles, with occasional jigsaws which progressed the story. The sequel has expanded the scope a lot, to the point where there is now a whole map to explore, with a subterranean town accessed beneath the manor’s fireplace, and you find hidden object puzzles by searching for the sparkles. Completing the puzzle gives you an object, and you have to use these objects to progress, either directly or by using them in a different type of puzzle contraption. Again, these contraptions are very difficult to use because you often can’t see the buttons due to screen resolution. There are often clues written around the puzzles as well, but in some cases these were again unclear.

In the end I followed a walkthrough to complete the game. I got stuck at a point where I’d opened a new location, in a cemetery overlooking some cliffs, but there seemed to be nothing I needed there. I had found a puzzle over the fireplace which required a sun and a moon, and I had found the moon, but searching everywhere revealed no sun. Following the walkthrough, I was supposed to notice that the cemetery is overgrown near the tree, and then use the shears I found previously to cut it down – but I had to use them three times, and there was no noticeable difference in scenery after I used them once. Even if I had guessed this was what I had to do, after the first attempt I wouldn’t have tried again.

The game took quite some time to finish, even while following the walkthrough, and the story turned quite unpleasant. Finding the tomb for a woman and her twin daughters, who the manor’s owner had used to gain life force for him and his (unrequited) love, was pretty disturbing. Releasing their ghosts was creepy – even though I had to read about that in the walkthrough to understand what the fuzzy visuals were meant to be showing.

I don’t think I’ll bother with any of the other games in the series.

Cannon Fodder: wayward roofs

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I deliberated for far too long there whether the plural was roof or rooves.

I have played Cannon Fodder many times before. I think, but I can’t actually remember, that I completed it on the Mega Drive; I certainly got pretty far, but without unearthing the cartridge (and the passwords in the manual) from my loft I can’t be sure. I have also played it on an Amiga emulator, but my preferred method nowadays is via the GOG copy I bought for virtually nothing a few years ago. The game was made for mouse control, and going back to the Mega Drive (via emulator) really does emphasise that.

I have a terrible tendency to restart levels if anyone dies, and play through the levels incredibly slowly as a result. I edge through the maps, often with just one or two of my squad, which works OK to start with but when you get to the bazooka-wielding enemies any delay in movement can be fatal. I will reload a level many times rather than accept a single death.

Don’t worry RJ, I’ll probably just reload

I’ve played up to the fifth mission this evening, and was doing well through the first phase (with bazookas at the end of the long river) and the second, but then when destroying a building the roof, which always flies off in a random direction, landed on my squad. This is when save states would come in useful.

Donkey Kong Bananza: breaking everything

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When I first heard of Bananza, I was concerned about the way in which DK could smash pretty much everything, I was worried that it would mean you could just brute force your way through the levels, that there would be little innovation throughout the game, relying only on the destruction mechanic.

I needn’t have worried, of course – it’s a Nintendo game, and in the hour I’ve played so far I’ve come across loads of game mechanics which substantially expand the moveset and ways that the levels work. You can’t just break everything and hope; there are different strengths of materials, there are bombs to break harder ones, there are enemies that provide you with stones to throw at others, there are floating islands that you don’t want to drop off the side of.

I purposefully didn’t read too much about the game before release, but my son Edward did – he’s watched countless videos and read articles and listened to podcasts – and he was incredibly hyped to see the giant monkey king thing and water raising a bridge and the little stone companion. I don’t get to play with him watching enough.

There have been some laugh-out-loud moments. Try and hit one of the other apes, and you’ll high-five them instead. You come across an ape who’s proud of the house he’s built, and then one hit of the walls means that the next time you talk to him he’s wistful he didn’t buy insurance against you. There is a joy to the destruction, and it’s rewarding as well, uncovering hidden banana chips and even hidden crystal bananas.

I’ve finished for the evening just after DK lost his stone companion and gained a different one. More on that some other time.

Wreckfest: a bit squeezed

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I’m not sure I’m going to be able to get a lot from the shops in my Supervan any more.

I am stuck on an event in Wreckfest where I have to drive a Robin Reliant, and everyone else has four wheel cars which can actually take a corner. It’s a four-race series and I’ve managed to come third on the first race, and then get completely wrecked on the second. I’m sure I’m missing something; this isn’t even that far through the game.

Flock: completed!

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I haven’t written about it for a while, but I had been playing Flock in small chunks since I started it back in December, until I reached a bit where I couldn’t quite parse the instructions. Having identified and charmed the Emperor Cosmot and the Cloaked Rustic, the forests were unveiled and I explored, including the giant mushrooms of the Skyfish Caverns. There weren’t many skyfish there, save the occasional Barbeled, but there was a large cave with ominous noises coming from within.

My aunt hinted, after a while, that the occupant of the cave needed an audience, and so I should find five crystal sprugs – but searching the nearby pools with crystals surrounding them gave me only two. Frustrated, I decided to explore the world more and try to find other species that I hadn’t yet found – leading to a male painted skyfish, a dappled baffin, and a slumbering rustic – and eventually I noticed more crystal pools in the swamp area in the middle of the map. Three more crystal pools, in fact, each holding another crystal sprug.

Sprugs collected, I went back to the cave and a giant skyfish emerged, which I named as the Encrusted Skyfish as it was covered with (what look like) barnacles. This then meant the final areas of the map opened, and I went exploring again. I found a fifth sheep, the final family of animals (the burbots hiding on the ground), and realised that I didn’t yet have the drupe whistle so started to search the meadows for it. I found it, charmed a few drupes, and then on grazing another meadow I found a burgling bewl who had stolen my aunt’s feeding bag. I had to chase it down and charm it, then on returning the feeding bag to the starting area the credits rolled. Game completed.

Not quite, though. Up to this point I had played for about 10 hours, and I hadn’t grown tired of the game mechanics, so I decided to fill out the creature guide and become a master of as many different families as I could. I’d already charmed quite a few cosmets, and that bar filled up quite quickly. I loved exploring, listening to hints from the researchers on where to find the last few creatures, and then tracking another male painted skyfish through the landscape until he met a female. The ability to fill feeding stations to attract some of the last few entries was very useful – and I’m glad I didn’t try to fill this out before rolling the credits.

At the very very end, when I was going back and forth finding the last few skyfish to charm, it started to wear a little thin. But the flowing movement still charmed me, and I was spurred on by the fact that the game is leaving Game Pass in a few days so I didn’t want to leave it incomplete. By all measures, that’s not the case now. Credits rolled, creature guide complete, mastery of everything, all achievements unlocked.