After waiting almost 5 years for this release and having played all 32 Nancy Drew (ND) games by HeR Interactive, I must conclude that this is unfortunately a huge let down for all avid fans. I am aware that this is the developers first time using Unity and I expected some glitches and differences in gameplay as they try to modernise Nancy; but the horrific graphics, clunky gameplay and lack of puzzles made it stray too far from the essence of Nancy Drew and it appears rushed.
For those who may be new to the world of ND, it is still lacking in the core elements that make a successful point and click mystery game, but I am hopeful that HeR Interactive will take on board the critiques and better the next game, as I truly do believe they can improve and bring the Nancy back that we all adore.

Pros
+ Hardy Boys.
+ Interesting historic story of Salem.
+ Classic ND mystery.
+ Steam achievements.
+ Mini games

Cons
- Graphics are beyond atrocious, no expressions and too many glitches to count.
- Excessive dialogue. We all know Nancy loves a chitchat, but the game is drowning in it, far more all other ND games.
- Clunky gameplay. It is extremely difficult to select certain objects, and this is combined with terrible camera angles.
- Some characters follow you around and are ALWAYS standing directly behind you, so when you turn around, they are right there blocking your view which makes it impossible to move back or to look around the area.
- Awkward and frustrating movement system (even more so than the titles made back in 2005).
- Lack of puzzles and those that are there are extremely simple.
- It features a great deal of mundane gameplay going from point A to Point B to talk to a character with no clue hunting inbetween.
- Has completely lost many features that were present in all prior games which gave it that true ND atmosphere, some of which include:

• No phone charms to collect
  
• No checklist to tick off, it is automated with Nancy never mentioning it.
  
• No Bess or George to call for hints, there is no option for Ned either
  
• No case file or journal
  
• Not beginning in Nancy's room at the start of the game.

As mentioned earlier, the technical problems may be associated with the developers lack of experience using Unity and trying to modernise a franchise that started in the late 90's is no easy task.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1940323311

In classic ND style, the protagonist and amateur sleuth, Nancy Drew, finds herself drawn to a suspicious arson case in Salem, Massachusetts and begins investigating. The investigation leads to a connection between the historic Salem witch trials and the property involved in the fire. Strange, supernatural happenings start occurring and Nancy starts to wonder if Salem's heinous past is reappearing to haunt the town, or is something or someone else behind these ghostly sightings?

Despite an egregious attempt to bring Nancy Drew to the world of 2019, it is still a point and click game, like the previous games. Moving the cursor to the sides of the screen allows Nancy to turn around and pointing it at doors allows the protagonist to enter. Where it goes downhill is the addition of RMB to look around. Any detective/puzzle game involves meticulous observations of the rooms to discover objects of use and this title is no different. However, when using the side arrows to look around, players must hold down RMB and move the mouse to subsequently look around the room and then click on points of interest, yet I found trying to use this feature very frustrating and the camera angles never synced with my movement, making it near impossible to survey the whole scene.

There were only a handful of puzzles and all could be solved as soon as players come across them, which is very unlike the typical ND game. Originally, players would have to come back to a puzzle after obtaining clues from other areas or objects to unlock it, but in Midnight in Salem, this is not the case. This caused dull gameplay and removed any challenge for players.
Some examples of puzzles include matching up radio frequencies and lockpicking. Towards the end of the game there are some more challenging puzzles whereby players do have to consult a note for the solution, but the overall lack of mini puzzles throughout the game make it feel more like a story with no detective elements.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1940323361

Graphics have never been of upmost importance in ND and the characters have always been portrayed as awkward, but for a 2019 release, the graphics are so outdated and clunky that it appears and plays like a game released in 2009. Characters lack facial expressions and fluid movement, they're commonly seen in a freeze position when not interacting with them. Objects have sharp edges and look very unrealistic. Besides making it 3D, I do not see any aspect being truly modernised.

In fairness, HeR Interactive have now tried to revamp the franchise for the first time and incorporate a 3D environment. Once again, this is not something they are privy to and are still very much on the learning curve.


Although Midnight in Salem lacks the classic Nancy soundtrack (besides in the opening credits) the sound was generally, well done. Nancy is now voiced by a new actor for the first time and although I do miss the original voice, I believe this is a good decision to try and modernise her character, giving her a younger but mature and upbeat voice, not that of an older woman like in prior games. The Hardy Boys still have the same voice and hearing this is sure to bring back feelings of nostalgia for those Nancy enthusiasts like myself.
Overall, the dialogue is narrated well and brings each character’s distinct personalities to life.

Sadly, the camera angles and movement mechanics are both areas that need improvement. From my playthrough, I was commonly stuck due to other characters somehow instantly appearing directly behind me, so much so that they take up the entire frame and it was unnecessarily difficult to move past them as it does not display the forward arrow if other characters are present, it only displays a speech bubble to talk to them. This also made searching the area near impossible, because once I turned around, my entire view is blocked.

Looking around is quite clunky and imprecise, making a simple task like turning a dial extremely laborious and directly effects puzzles where precision is crucial.

There were many moments of leaves falling indoors, characters mouths moving after a conversation has ended, or not moving at all or conversations ending abruptly and the scene changing in a millisecond to somewhere new. Each of these directly affected the fluidity of the game and is the opposite of the developer’s goal of modernisation.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1940323804

For $AU35.95, it is not worth the cost in the slightest. I still recommend this to devoted ND fans, but I advise waiting for at least a 50-60% off sale. For newcomers, I would recommend the other 32 Nancy Drew games and to avoid this instalment entirely.

Despite HeR Interactive's best attempts to modernise Nancy Drew, the end product is more outdated than ever, filled with excessive dialogue, lacking both puzzles and atmosphere seen in each of the other 32 games. I hope the developers take all the fans critiques into consideration and now have some experience with the Unity engine, ready to implement in the next game.

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Prefacing this by putting this game into context. Warning, it's going to be fairly long preface, but I think it's important to explain this game's place in the line of HeR Interactive games.

I've played every Nancy Drew HeR Interactive game (including the Dossier games, except SCK Remastered) since the very early 2000s. That means I've been following HeR Interactive for nearly two decades and watched them go from two very good to decent games a year to the latest release schedule which is this game, Midnight in Salem (MID), released in the past 4-5 years.

This alone is by far the greatest contributor in negative reviews for MID, because people were expecting a god tier Nancy Drew game, especially since the last few games have not been up to scratch compared to older games, and ... this game isn't it.

If you're like me, you've played previous Nancy Drew games, you will have to temper your expectations to enjoy the game, but it's possible to enjoy this game, for sure (more on that later).

People look back at the previous Nancy Drew games with rosy glasses of nostalgia, but let's face it, past the first 11 games, they've been easily hit or miss. When #14 (DAN) and #15 (CRE) came out, the message boards were up in arms about the decline of quality and it wasn't until #16 (ICE) that people could breathe a little bit. Ever since that, the hit or miss of game reception has been more prominent and the general expectation was probably one good game, one meh game a year, which is still amazing by game production standards. So when MID came around, after 4-5 years of (almost radio) silence, and it's radically different than other games with more let-downs than not, it's going to get negative reviews. And now, for the actual game review --

I'd probably re-class MID as a walking simulator with a handful of puzzles, because the movement within the game is the closest to 360 degrees as we've gotten with improved graphics from HeR Interactive, there's not much interaction with objects in the game as you'd expect from this improved graphic design, and the few puzzles are scattered about and you could argue there's too many at the end where you'd be like, whoa, I guess this game has puzzles now??

Playing on master sleuth difficulty, the PUZZLES are either mundanely too easy or too difficult, either because 1) I have the instructions but even so following them, it does nothing and I know I know I AM following the instructions level of puzzle design failure, 2) mouse controls are wonky. There are also some puzzles which aren't really puzzles but rather a way of showing off the new design engine / more fluid first person game movement and I dislike that they're counted as "things to solve."

An easy plus in this game are the CHARACTERS. Their DIALOGUE is interesting although gone are the days where you decide how Nancy says something and I missed that aspect. The ending however has a few endings and I was impressed by it, considering the lack of real dialogue choices for the remainder of the game.

The PLOT about witches in Salem is, again, interesting, aided by the multiple characters. Did you hate having to read through mountains of text in previous games? That's all gone now. There is some learning about history as in every Nancy Drew game, but it's kept tamed. My sole issue is there was information which felt repeated. It's like, I get X did Y. I don't need to hear about it in 43927 ways (mild exaggeration, but you get what I mean). What I liked about the plot was its connection to wider social issues. Everyone was a suspect, but it wasn't all clearly black and white, right or wrong sort of morality that you could have expected. There was some nuance and that was fairly impressive. Even if the gameplay was very linear and handholding (master sleuth even had a task list on Nancy's phone, I mean, come on!), the way it flowed from day to day was impressive.

The game also was missing some needed HUMOUR. The humour I got derived from unintentional things, like why do some characters NEVER SIT. They're in THEIR office and yet they're standing around and I will never understand that. So, yes, the character animation didn't feel dynamic. Some postures and gestures were easily weird and detracted from the rest of the graphics.

And now for some additional pros--
- Frank and Joe Hardy are in this! And they're great. At one point, Frank is solving a puzzle and says he has no clue how to do it and I thought that was one of the most relatable and truthful things in the game.
- New Nancy's voice isn't bad AT ALL. She sounds younger, but not immensely younger. After a while, I forgot Nancy had a new voice.
- Ned Nickerson is still annoying, but fortunately not as annoying as other games and also kept to a minimum here. Rejoice, ♥♥♥♥♥♥ fans.
- There are a bunch of cutscenes, but I think they're done nicely! Properly scared a bit (but I get scared easily so take this with a heapful of salt).

MID is now a walking simulator with some puzzles and that's fine. I got around 9 hours of GAMEPLAY from it on master sleuth getting all achievements, and that's impressive! The plot sustained my interest and the characters made up for the lack of puzzles. While not anywhere near the top of HeR Interactive's line of Nancy Drew games, it's still worth a play and decent to the point of preferring to play this over a few other past games!

I hope HeR doesn't get dissuaded by the negative press and the staff changeover and continues to make Nancy Drew games. They were a big part of my childhood gaming experience and it would be a shame to see MID be the last one!

As an avid Nancy Drew fan growing up, of both books and games alike, I was excited to hear that HER Interactive is still making Nancy Drew games! That said, this game was not what I expected.

Pros:

• A new, modern and clean-looking interface. Simplistic and refreshing.
  
• Interesting story and mystery material.
  
• Voice acting was good, though a bit stilted. New Nancy sounds great, and good ol' Ned is back!

Cons:

• Some voice acting left a lot to be desired, such as the tourist in the square when you first head there, behind the protesting crowd. It sounded as if recorded on a laptop. Horrible quality sound. So far, this was the only instance, and everything else sounded great.
  
• Similarly, the dialogue sounded a bit too scripted in some areas, and the flow was lacking compared to previous Nancy Drew games.
  
• The graphics are not entirely satisfactory. I don't know exactly why they bother me, as they aren't horrible, but they're also not great and I find that they just put me off.

• Game play is stilted and feels a little awkward.
  
  Overall, I... didn't really feel like I was playing a true Nancy Drew game, like the ones I grew up with, or even the ones released just a few years ago. Having played Sea of Darkness recently, I think that game performed better than this one. While I still enjoy this game and intend to play it to finish, it just didn't feel like what I truly wanted or was looking for. That said, it still seems great and I entirely recommend it. Even if you're a fan of the old Nancy Drew, this game is something worth looking into, even if you only get it on sale. I hope HER Interactive continues to make Nancy Drew games, but I would love something that looks and feels a little more like the tried and true Nancy Drew.

As a veteran Nancy Drew fan who's been playing these games since the early 2000's, I have to say that this is easily the worst game in the series, bar none. And the worst part is that this isn't bad in a spectacular, dramatic way in the same vein as something like Sonic '06. No. It's bad in a boring, pitiful, mundane sort of way. Like Shovelware back on the Wii. Mechanically speaking, this game functions. Not well, but it functions. There are environments to explore. Puzzles to solve. Characters to talk to. Achievements. Etc. But the spirit and quality I've always appreciated in this series of games are gone.

The controls are technically useable, but half the time you're fighting with the game to get to where you want to go. It feels like they couldn't decide if they wanted this game to be point-and-click or proper movement in a 3D environment. So they tried to do a little of both, with the result being something worse than if they'd just picked one or the other. The environments are explorable, but are riddled with graphical errors and unfinished assets. Music is functional and encourages the emotions it is meant to, but is repetitive and bland to the point where you forget the melody the moment you stop hearing it. There are barely any puzzles whatsoever, and the few that are in the game are either snooze-indusingly easy or needlessly obtuse with no in-between. Long-winded, charmless, rambling dialogue constantly clutters the game, purely to pad out playtime due to lack of gameplay. Character models look fine in screenshots, but their animations are all janky and wonky and never look like real human movement. Ironically, this means that the average NPC is creepier than the ghosts, who in turn are never scary because the bad animations and camera angles ruin any fear factor. All of the achievements are easy to get. But there is no fun gameplay to act as an incentive, nor are there any rewards for bothering to do them.

The worst part though is that Nancy just does not feel like Nancy. And the new voice actress isn't the problem here; it's how she's written. The Nancy I know has always been feisty, adventurous, and meddling. She speaks her mind without apology. She isn't afraid to break the rules, or sometimes even the law, to do what she thinks is right. She sleuths in areas she is forbidden to enter and defies those who naysay her in order to solve the case. This Nancy is nothing like this. She's overly-polite, even when she has right to be upset with people. She's deferential to authority and never breaks the rules. She doesn't come to any conclusions or make any breakthroughs on the case on her own merits, rather the plot moves forwards after outside events push suspects into confessing. This version of Nancy not only fails to be the free-spirited, sassy detective I grew up with, she also fails to be a compelling, active protagonist in her own story.

I don't regret my time playing Midnight in Salem. Playing it helped me understand why the rest of the fanbase dislikes this game so intensely, and it also confirmed what I had suspected all along; that this game had a troubled production. It's obvious from the unfinished levels, to the wonky animations, to the surprising lack of gameplay, that there was drama brewing behind the scenes. Rumors abound of people losing their jobs, and of dysfunction within HeR Interactive (the developer behind the Nancy Drew game series) after a rocky change in leadership. While I have no hard evidence that these rumors are true, I am inclined to believe them. So much of this game smacks of a company floundering to finish their creation. The ridiculously long development period and constant delays before it's final release. The fact that they had to outsource this, which the company has never done before. The complete lack of any new games in the years since this one's release. But above all else it's just that this game feels unfinished. It completely lacks the quality and polish I've come to expect from HeR Interactive. And I can't imagine a company this close to it's fanbase and so well-known for the consistency in their games would release something like this unless something had gone seriously wrong within the company.

The Nancy Drew series has brought a lot of happiness and positive to memories to people, and to see it in such a sorry state is disheartening. HeR Interactive still has a website where they sell digital downloads of their games and merchandise. But they've made no announcements on new games. I suspect at this point it's because they just don't have the manpower or the resources to make any. Both HeR Interactive and the Nancy Drew series deserved to go out with a bang. Not a whimper. The fact that this game will likely be the last in the series doesn't make me angry or bitter. It makes me sad.

If you're a fan of games like Ace Attorney, Professor Layton, or anything made by Telltale, then you will like the Nancy Drew series. Most of the other entries are available here on Steam, and I would heartily recommend you try at least one of them out. If I had to give specific recommendations though, Treasure in the Royal Tower, Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon, Shadow at the Water's Edge, Secret of Shadow Ranch, Ghost of Thornton Hall, Sea of Darkness, Warnings at Waverly Academy, Danger on Deception Island, Curse of Blackmoor Manor, and Phantom of Venice are some of the best in the series. I would happily recommend them to anyone who is a fan of puzzles or point-and-click-adventure games. But please do not buy Midnight in Salem. This game is not worth your time or money, and the Nancy Drew series deserved a much more dignified ending than what this game can provide, as did the company behind such a beloved collection of games.

Thank you for taking the time to read all this. I don't normally post game reviews, and I now this one is very long-winded. But I felt it was necessary to express my feelings on this title as a veteran fan. These games mean a lot to me, and I hope that the people who've worked for HeR Interactive have been able to move on to bigger and better things and are still able to look back on their time at the company fondly, even if it had to end like his. They've brought a lot of joy and positive memories to people over the years and they should be proud of that. Sleuth on fellow detectives!

UPDATE: As of writing this, it appears that I was wrong about Midnight in Salem being the last entry in this series. HeR Interactive has confirmed on their socials and website that a new game, Mystery of the Seven Keys, is currently in development. So far we have no confirmation on a release date, but they have been pretty open with behind-the-scenes development updates. A lot of what is being shown looks promising, but trailers always lie to some extent and I can't give feedback on a game I haven't played. I'm hoping that this new game breathes new life into this series. But until it comes out, there isn't much else I can think to say about it. Let's hope that this newest case is a step in the right direction for the series.

Long time ND game player here. The graphics were funky - mouths not matching up to speech when talking. A severe lack of puzzles. It felt more like a visual novel with non-stop conversation than a sleuthing game. I did appreciate the variety of characters and how you were always guessing who the culprit could be. I could have done without Dierdre Shannon, but her conversations with Nancy did add some humor. The conversations in the game didn't feel stiff, but they went on forever and you felt a lack of control over how they went.
One big thing I did notice is the linear game play. Everything was step by step. You had to complete one task to move on. You couldn't sleuth around, do a puzzle, leave the puzzle, progress in some way, then come back to the puzzle and progress further.
I have two recommendations: If you are a long time Nancy Drew game player, give it a try but it isn't what the old games were. If you are a new Nancy Drew game player, don't play this as your first game - pick one of the numerous others first.

I have played every Nancy Drew video game that has ever been published and enjoyed all of them to varying degrees. However, not only is this the worst Nancy Drew game I have ever played, it might actually be the worst game I have ever played in general. The controls are at best, confusing and at worst, nauseating. Surprisingly, the horrendous graphics were not even the worst part, though it is impressive that a 2019 game had worse graphics than the first Nancy Drew game published in 1998. If you were hoping for anything even moderately resembling a traditional Nancy Drew Game, save your money, your sanity, and your time.

This game has a lot of mixed reviews and now that I've finished it I get them. This is pretty different from any other ND game that I've played, and I've played almost all of them. The graphics are kind of different, there's a really weird side story about Ned and Nancy kind of having a hard time in their relationship and there being jealousy on both sides which was just weird and out of place in this series. The end is kind of weird as well, but I wont explain why because spoilers. There also seemed to be a lot more dialog and cut scenes than puzzles, which is off brand for Nancy, as well as Nancy having a new voice actor (but her voice is very nice). But all that said, I don't think the newness of this game should deter you from it. It's fun, it's spooky, it's educational and informative and historical, and in that way it is a classic Nancy Drew game and I recommend it. I think if you're reading the reviews before buying it, vs going in blind and being surprised by the changes, you're already informed and open minded enough to really enjoy this game.

Should have listened to the reviews, but having been a loyal fan of the ND games, I had to experience it for myself. This was a really bad game. The puzzles were easy (and shockingly few in number compared to the rest of the series). The plot was boring and the dialogue felt like it droned on forever without really adding anything to the story. Most of this game was listening to people talk.

One of the worst parts of this experience was the game's mechanics. They felt incredibly clunky and unnecessary. And the graphics were just as bad as always, but now I can view 180 degrees. Sure, I can look all around now...but there really isn't anything to look at. It adds nothing, and in fact makes moving around difficult and awkward. I kept rotating my view to find clues, but none to be found - so what was the point of adding this feature?

All of it felt wrong. They changed my girl Nancy's voice (though I'll admit, I got used to it by the end) and be tryna' break up her and Ned?? Miss me with that.

I don't recommend. Choose an older game and enjoy the experience. Or, if you've played them all already...sit it out and cry, idk. Hopefully HER Interactive will listen to us and return to their roots. WE WANT PUZZLES. And for you to leave Ned and Nancy's relationship alone, in the name of God. Thank you for reading.

This game is a decent game, and it did give me a couple hours of actual gameplay. However, there are several issues that detract from the positives and cause me to advise against trying this game.

Negatives:

Navigation: The navigation system is, unfortunately, pretty bad. Most of my gameplay was spent trying to click to the right places.
Controls: This game is extremely difficult to complete without an external mouse. Using a trackpad (or worse, a button-less trackpad) is frustrating, slow, and can feel impossible.
Puzzles: The puzzles were SO easy. Even on Master mode. In some cases, it was hard to physically maneuver the puzzle (see above). Even with the abundant cut-scenes, I was able to finish the game on Master in a few hours, with no hint system and no notebook. So it is noticeably simpler than previous Nancy Drew games.
Pacing: The player has no control over where to go, who to talk to, or what lead to follow. The story follows a linear path and you are guided through, one puzzle/storyline at a time. The game was mostly cutscenes and puzzles, with only a few moments of agency in choosing what to do next. Also worth noting that until the endgame, there are very few opportunities to make your own conversation choices.
Graphics: I almost don't want to include this, because Nancy Drew games have never been known for graphics, but the visuals are distractingly bad. There are glitchy moments with floating heads. Most scenery is generic assets. The default game setting for graphics is "low." Even when the graphics are set to "high," the text is absolutely unreadable without going into the advanced settings and manually tinkering with the resolution. Scenes lagged, dialogue was not synced, and the characters moved in unnatural ways. I don't think the graphics needed to be great, but it would have made a big difference if the text was readable and objects didn't float randomly.
Null Achievements: The Achievements at the end of the game are all null. Names are null, descriptions are null, status is null. I am honestly shocked that this problem made it through testing undetected. It is such a glaring issue. It didn't feel great to finish the game and see that the awards hadn't even been fully developed.


Positives:

Voice work: Voice work in general was great, and the new voice for Nancy was really good! It was nice to have the same voice for Deirdre as in past games.
Plot: The plot lines were really good. Everything fit well together, motivations made sense, etc. The characters were decently fleshed out, considering there were so many of them.
Puzzles: Although they were too easy, it was nice to see some innovative puzzles in a Nancy game. On the old engine puzzles were often reused. These took full advantages of the 3D aspect, and with some added difficulty they could have been great.

Overall, my feeling is that the story for this game is decent. It had potential. But, given that the game moves entirely linearly, and the controls are as bad as they are, I cannot see myself ever wanting to replay this. For fans of the old games, this is nothing like those. The pace is controlled. There is very little exploring. It is almost entirely puzzles and cut-scenes. If you are looking to kill a couple of hours with a mystery game and don't mind spending $20 on an unpolished, glitchy game, this one has a nice story and MIGHT be worth a play. Otherwise, I would stay clear.

This game feels like the individuals who created it never played it themselves. The story is cheesy and forced. The dialogue is long, boring, and frequently unnecessary. Little things like the graphics, movement, manipulation, and music are all of poor quality. At times, the music is so loud you cannot hear the dialogue. The movements of the characters are awkward and don't fit the dialogue. The puzzles or short, easy, and infrequent. All around, this was the worst Nancy Drew game in the collection.