Grim Tales: The Stone Queen Collector's Edition
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Very good addition to the Grim Tales saga
The trial was very enjoyable and the challenges good. Will enjoy adding this to my collection.
January 5, 2013
Excellent!
Stunning game, probably the best Elephant game I have ever played! Dont want it to end!
January 5, 2013
About Time
I played this RAW demo when it was still in the works a while back. I have keep it on my list to buy, waited & waited for it to come out. NOW it's here. I just love all of the Grim Tales games. Purchased it right away. Thank's BIG FISH, can't wait for the next one. A wonderful way to start the New Year. True no achievements or morphed objects. Still the demo was all it took for me to wait, now the waiting is over.
January 3, 2013
Fun game but not the best
Loved the story, puzzles and areas were fun to explore but too much back tracking. There was a map which I continued to forget about so I don't know if you could use it to jump to each location which would have made the game a lot more fun.
Graphics were good, creative characters and scenery. I definitely recommend the game but as a SE more than CE because the bonus game was not worth it - too short!
January 5, 2013
Oh My Goodness!
This Game was HARD! I couldn't have finished it without referencing the Strategy Guide almost every minute! A lot of running back and forth, and lots of locations to remember - too many at times. The Graphics were lovely but due to the difficulty of the Game, I certainly will not be replaying this one again.
April 2, 2013
Poorly Designed
I'm hit-and-miss with Elephant Games, usually, but they do have their strengths, especially in things like side tasks (i.e. morphing objects, collectibles), and they're usually pretty steady even if I don't necessarily find them very engaging. The Stone Queen, however, is amateur hour at its worse; it lacks in both Elephant Game staples and general good sense, far below its siblings from this developer.
1. The player is spoon-fed needed information, regardless of how they're playing the game. For example, early on the player comes to a scene. If you click on a hatch on a car, trying to explore, first, it tells you that "[Name] must be hiding proof of his nefarious deeds behind this strange lock. I must look for a cross-shaped key!" How does the player character know this? Why the convenient newspaper sitting right there... that you haven't yet picked up.
In a 40 minute trial something like that -- where the player character remarks on a detail that the player hasn't yet interacted with and thus doesn't know -- came up, to my count, 8 times. An additional 9 times something came up that you simply could not know, such as details about a town you've supposedly never even heard of before.
What's the point of having an interactive game if the gameplay doesn't depend on your choices and what you explore/fail to explore?
2. Often times when you pick up an object or find an obstacle it will tell you exactly what needs to be done, whether that information is obvious or not. Since these are not logical jumps it's helpful to the player (as they would probably have had trouble figuring out what to do), but that's bad form on two levels: hand holding and having such confusing gameplay that the player needs their hand held.
3. If you do get stuck you can use the Hint system, which will literally tell you what to do next (i.e. precisely where to go and what to use when you get there). It's like having a Strategy Guide instead of a hint system, which is not a plus for me as the two things hold different purposes.
4. Why does this town have bizarre locks opened only by pendants? Why do they have safes if they're going to write the code on the safe (I wish I was exaggerating but it's literally written on the safe)? There's no logic.
A good contrast to this would be the Echoes of the Past games or the Puppetshow games where the puzzles and odd locks are intentionally introduced by the villain to slow people down. We don't get the same sense here (and if so what sort of dumb villain leaves a safe code written on a safe?)
5. Speaking of puzzles, these can barely be called that. Within the five puzzles in the demo, not including the safe one (I refuse to count that for obvious reasons), the puzzles took me on average less than 30 seconds. The only one that slowed me down was a mosaic form puzzle and that was because each box had to be individually marked. I'm quick with puzzles, quicker than average, but they still tend to take me a minute or two to think through. These puzzles required no thought. I didn't even need the instructions as it was obvious upon sight what each was meant for (one within the demo, for example, was a simple 'match the pairs' exercise).
6. As I said earlier, there are no extras whatsoever -- no morphs, no collectibles, no side tasks. Now, usually I'm not a huge fan of these things but they do add colour to a game and allow the player to interact more thoroughly with the world. A lot of people really like them and Elephant Games is, along with Blue Tea Games, pretty well known for them. So it's a negative mark that they're missing.
There are some pluses to the game but they are few: the settings allow you to enable/disable 'Special Effects' like fog/odd lighting on hidden object scenes; the music (that is there -- it's very light on music) isn't overbearing; the storyline itself is straightforward. But they are far outweighed by the minuses. I cannot recommend this game even to new players and if you're a fan of Elephant Games I'd suggest giving this one a miss; it might as well be by a different developer entirely.
February 20, 2013
One of my favorites in recent history
I like more adventure and less HOS and this game was perfect in that respect. Unlike others, I like having lots of stuff in inventory and having to figure out what to do next. That is part of the fun. Puzzles were a mix between hard and easy. I also like the fantasy story lines versus the horror ones. Enjoyed the bonus game play also which I thought was pretty rich.
January 24, 2013
Good!
Good graphics, good storyline, lots to do. Puzzles were challenging although HOs were pretty standard. The only thing I didn't like was the backtracking, there is a lot of it! You do have an interactive map which is fab but kept forgetting what to do where which was mildy irritating so resorted to the hint button which I wouldn't do normally.
I am not sure why but this game (as others have said) is not as good as the others in the series, still enjoyable though.
January 18, 2013
Loved it!
I have been a huge fan of the Grim Tales games since the first and this one has become my favourite. I didn't even try the demo first.
The storyline is interesting, I love that it continues along from the other games but is also its own story. That little boy that we first met is now grown up.
The graphics are amazing.
The mini games are challanging and some of the HOS are tough. The map is interactive and shows what tasks are needed in each scene so that if you get stuck you can easily see what you have to do next.
If you loved the other games then you will love this one!
January 14, 2013
It's not grim when the amount of characters increases!
The previous 3 in this series focused on one type of monster. This one has varied creatures of all sorts.
This is a psychological visual trip!
The real world is right next door to the fantasy one like uptown right next to downtown.
Use the map to jump to places and you find yourself going from the human world to the Stone Queen world.
The queen's world looks like a theme park. It's like going to have fun for awhile and leaving back on business.
I can understand why some fans of Elephant are disappointed, but to me, this is their MOST ADVANCED WORK YET!
January 13, 2013