Don't let the "Hidden Object" tag deceive you! Where Angels Cry is a mediocre point and click adventure with the environment progression of a HOG, but... without any actual HOG scenes whatsoever. Sure, it contains a selection of unimaginative puzzles and constant item collection - and it almost excites you with the promise of a medieval mystery as it starts - but sadly the game cannot avoid ending up as a short and tedious adventure with a distasteful plot presentation.

It is the Year of Our Lord, 1286 and as I have stated before, we are promised a medieval mystery. We take the role of a nameless monk who'd be sent to a secluded monastery set high in the Alps from Vatican, to investigate the murder of a fellow monk and the miraculous phenomenon of an angel statue crying blood as we are already there. So far, so good. We have The Name of the Rose atmosphere mixed up with Wainwright's Stigmata storyline. Yet, the actual thing here has little to do with either of these fine stories. No one knowing your true identity, you are mostly free to investigate the monastery that consists of 4 areas and a village nearby. With each passing moment and each new discovery, my expectations diminished with the game until the last scene - which was the moment that I threw my already diminished basket of expectations out of the window.

Here in this paragraph, I'll be ranting about story and concept build up, so whomever would like to try this game and avoid spoilers, please skip ahead or stop reading. First of all, I know that the given concept here must have been tempting to hurl in all medieval clichés, but there really should be an orderly and meaningful way to do that instead of all this soup of terms like "sin", "temptation", "sacrifice", "Angels", "Templars" etc. Whomever arranged the storyline, clearly has a vague outline of the concept and kept throwing in these notions until they somehow stuck together to make a setting. The storyline is so badly arranged, it crumbles to pieces the moment you'd ask an intelligible question like "why the f*ck the Spear of Destiny is here of all places?" or "what has done the prior abbot so meaningful and beautiful that an angel would descend from heaven to cry for him?” See, all these questions have no satisfactory answers. There is just the accumulation of medieval motifs, hoping to build up a storyline eventually.

Environment art is considerably dull and badly rendered compared to pretty screenshots that we see in the store page. Those are taken from the iPad/Android version with enhanced graphics. Environment design itself is somewhat alright, but nothing actually breathtaking. Apart the main character, all others are voice acted properly but the dialogue text itself is agonizing, ridden with the unnecessary - and narratively false - amount of usage for words like "nay", "pray tell", "alas" for everyone around to establish a false sense of authenticity! It was hilariously contradictory to see a simple peasant woman capable of using Shakespearean terms - completely wrong though!

The game consists of 7 short chapters which would give you approximately 3 hours of gameplay. You are to walk around, collect random items disguised in a similar color palette environment, use them in appropriate places and solve a selection of easy puzzles now and then. That's basically it. We have already an achievement system here in the game which has never been converted to actual Steam achievements sadly - lessening to need for exploring the game to an unnecessary extent.

I hear that the game has a sequel - which would be far better than this, I hope. Even if you are strictly into medieval concepts like me, I wouldn't recommend the game. For casual HOG lovers, there are surely greater games you may explore. For the adventure gamer: avoid the game like the plague.

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So far this is a pretty well executed casual point and click game developed by a very small team compared for the price.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this game, it is a casual game and a small casual game gem for the price, or while waiting for the 2014 game of your choice. It will transport you in that world.

The game definitely has cinematic ambition for mood, plot, etc..
Settings are well thought and bring good mood.
Designs are well created.
Voice acting....while it is pretty good acting and it is the team's choice, I believe it is better to stick with original voice actor instead of trying to pull accents even though it is supposed to be in the alps, hopefully it does not dither to suspension of disbelief but it definitely can be confusing for very short time, so my definite choice would have been "speak English or Italian for a good majority of the acting and elder monk(s) or special key role(s) (for example) can use a mix.
Character animation are limited and that is a good thing in this case and game.

Total hours played does not say much about my experience. I stumble on this game on Steam while working on Photoshop, Maya, Mudbox, and Articydraft open at same time, although I repeat again this game may suffer of a little - here and there, it definitely is worth it overall and I had to voice up before I go back to work or it would grind me all day long ;-)

You're being tasked by a cardinal to investigate a remote monastery in the Alpes, as a brother disappeared and that the head seems to hide something...

If I should compare the game to a book, I would The Name of the Rose (if it's the right English title - too lazy to check about that) of Umberto Eco. You're a monk that needs to investigate something strange in a monastery, however, the similar background stops here. Indeed, the story isn't as complicated and mysterious as that book.

However, playing a monk in the Middle Ages is nice, because the genre isn't really full of games like that. However, Where Angels Cry isn't really a full hidden object game.

Indeed, the game is lacking of hidden objects scenes. You're just in front of a point-&-click game, where you find items, combine them, use them and then, you have also some puzzles. The majority of them are easy but some of them will give you an hard time. And I could say the same with the items to find: some of them aren't really visible, nearly being drowned in the background. Finding nails for example is hard as they're not really shown.

What's good with the game is that you're visiting the same locations but at different moments. Indeed, some chapters are set during the night, whether you're in the monastery or in the village.

The graphics are acceptable. True, I've seen better games in that field. Because Where Angels Cry seems outdated. Really like it was released 10 years ago and not 3 years ago at least. If you play that game, it's not for them anyway. The soundtrack and the voice acting were fine too.

In other words, Where Angels Cry is an average game. I spent 7 hours in it because of three playthroughs: one for the game, one for the guide I've made for finding the angels and one to review it, as I wasn't really sure of my memories for this one - apart that I've bought the next game quickly, apparently pleased by the aspect "monk detective". For the price, you're not robbed but I suppose that it's better to wait for a discount.

And whoever thinks I'm reviewing it because I will play soon the sequel... well, you're right :).

Where Angels Cry has a great premise for its story, but it feels like as if it had no budget to expand on it. Its repetitive gameplay and the insane item placement did not help either.

Where Angels Cry is one of the earliest games made by Cateia, when they still relied on one design style, which I like to call ‘Myst with less puzzles and even more pointless running around’.
In other words, gameplay pretty much consists of endlessly searching a few low-resolution rooms, hopelessly entering vague sub-screens to collect a near-infinite amount of items placed in the most inconvenient and illogical places. Some items unlock a few enjoyable puzzles, but the game is still dull even by point ‘n’ click standards.

The story fares a lot better; I would even say it is good enough to suffer through the gameplay for it. It is a little bit like the film adaptation of Eco’s ‘The Name of the Rose’: it is set in the early medieval times, where we play as a monk sent to a remote monastery to check up on some strange events. The plot eventually touches the supernatural, but it retains a great mystery thriller atmosphere to the end.

I like casual point and click adventure games, and picked up this and Nightmares from the Deep on sale. I enjoyed the latter, but this? There is hardly anything here. No story, the object hunting is tiresome, ridiculously short, and the puzzles unoriginal. (Tower of Hanoi? Really, guys?)

Give it a wide pass even if on sale.

A rather short, but well made adventure. If you like games like Myst or The 11 Hour, this is something for you. It has some nice puzzles, minigames, dialogues, finding and combination of items and all of them are possible with logical thinking. Of course, it also has some strange puzzles where my first thought was "that was unnecessary complicated", but they were not too much weird, like using a rubberduck to build a trampoline. The price of that game is really surprising. The voice acting is well done, it has beautiful music which fits perfectly into the game (for the most time) and quite decent graphics, even though the world looks rather stiff sometimes and they could have animated a little bit more. But for just 5 euro you cant do anything wrong and i would say the game is even 10-15 euro worth.

Its a decent hidden object game. For 5 bucks I felt it was money well spent.

The voice acting was ok, the storyline was somewhat interesting but I kinda felt urged to continue to play just to find more objects and puzzles. The storyline wasn't really motivating.

Its certainly not a triple A title but I enjoyed most of the puzzles and digging around for hidden objects.

This is like a stocking stuffer for people who enjoy hidden object games, I would definitely recommend it for anyone with modest expectations.

Although I normally love this type of game and have an absolutely stupid number of them, this particular one is not passing muster with me. Skip to the end for the TL;DR version of this review.

I could forgive the mediocre graphics. They seem simplistic and lackluster compared to some of the vibrantly detailed comparable games, but they get the job done.

I could also forgive the simplistic and unoriginal puzzles. After all, most of these games recycle the same types of puzzles over and over again, and it wouldn't be the first time that I came across a tedious Tower of Hanoi puzzle. If you're looking for actual hidden object scenes, look elsewhere; I didn't find a single one in this game.

These things aren't egregious for a simple time-killer of a game. I can forgive them.

What I cannot forgive is the game-breaking bugs that will force you to either start over from the beginning or quit the game in disgust. I got to a point where I absolutely could not find another item I needed, so I gritted my teeth and used the hateful "HINT" button (I really dislike using hints!) so I could progress.

The hint took me to a place and told me to use the object that I couldn't find in the first place. You heard it correctly, the hint told me to use an item I HAD NOT PICKED UP YET and could NOT find. After further research, I discovered that there is apparently some sort of bug where necessary items are in the same screen/scene as minigames, and if you don't pick it up immediately before finishing the minigame puzzle, you are completely borked. Utterly, thoroughly, and irrevocably borked. But the game doesn't realize you're borked, and acts like you are holding it the whole time. Baffling.

So you can either restart the game, or quit in disgust. I chose to quit in disgust. The game is simply not compelling enough or of good enough quality to wade through it a second time and pray the same thing doesn't happen again.

Had this not happened, I would have finished, and given it a conditional recommendation (try it out if you're out of other comparable ones to play, pick it up on a big sale, use it to kill some time as long as your expectations aren't high, etc.). But with these bugs (and the fact that it has happened to other people in different parts of the game as well, so it's not an isolated error), I am changing this to a fervent "not recommended" verdict.

TL;DR - The mediocre graphics and puzzles are not enough of an excuse to pick up a game that could easily force you to restart multiple times if you happen to hit one of the several game-breaking item bugs.

Type of Game: Point and Click Softadventure

Genre: Pseudohistorical Mystery

Supposedly a hidden object game, without any hidden object scenes. More an adventure light, with some conspiracy theories.

Rating: 3 out of 10.

This ought to be a hidden object game, yet it really isn't a hidden object game, neither it's too much of an adventure and it also has interactive novel stuff put into it (continuing the dialogue isn't really offering a lot of choice).

The game had some ambitions and it fails in each of them. Graphically neither the best, nor the worst it's still below mediochre. Neither a real adventure, nor a real hidden object game, the dialogues which appear like they offer a choice, although they really don't and this superficial "Templer"/"Devils Worship" Conspiracy is really putting a stop on that game.

The developers have to decide beforehand, what their story should be like, and not experiment with different gametypes, while achieving nothing. The story, as well as it started as a murder mystery soon loses itself into pseudohistorical mumbo-jumbo. The Albigensian-Crusade was about half a century before the story, and the Lombardi was one of the hotspots of that order - but they had nothing to do with either devils worship...

Recommendation: Only for Adventure collectors, to keep their collection more or less complete.


This game has tried to much to be nouveau, but failed their ambition. Take care, and read other Reviews, look around who in your aquaintance has the game and ask, if they liked it. Even five bucks are a bit too much for this.

This is a glorified hidden picture game with barely any plot and no significant logic puzzles worth mentioning. If you want something mindless and casual it may do the trick, but I regret the purchase.