Very nice game

I got this game for free, so I shouldn't be mean, but I just can't recommend it.

The good

Relatively bright and colourful visuals
Collecting hand and foot prints to buy game upgrades is a good touch
The voice acting is reasonable

The bad

Repetitive and grating music
Some of the music is inappropriate to the game, like upbeat acid jazz and lounge music in tense, supernatural scenes
Story is mostly incoherent
Lot of translation issues
Not that many HO scenes
Some of the puzzles are tiresome, and there's too many of them
Game crashes a lot under Windows 10

Play time is not realistic -- I fell asleep a couple times while playing. (A testament to my own illness, not the game's quality.) I think it probably took right around 3 hours of actual playtime.

I like the game... but it's buggy. There were a couple times where I had to quit out to Windows and restart so the game would fix the state it was in. It was like the game was in two states at once, say Act 1 and Act 2 simultaneously. Quitting did resolve the issue, though, and I was able to progress.

The English translation of this game is so-so. It was missing articles and some words were mistranslated, and was a little rough around the edges. This made a couple of the HOG items difficult to find, but it almost added another layer of difficulty.

I played on the highest difficulty setting, and I had the feeling something wasn't working as intended. There's an eyeball mouse state, that the in-game help says is for getting a more detailed view. But when I click, nothing happens. Having played a ton of games like this, I'd have expected VO or text describing what I was looking at, but nothing of the sort appeared. It really felt like a bug, as opposed to a strange design decision.

In the bonus episode, there's a train minigame that I found impossible to complete, because the train bugged trying to go around a curve and instead went on its own path, in no relation to what was possible or likely. This, too, felt like a bug. Fortunately I was able to skip past it so I could progress.

I'd love to be able to recommend this game, because I found it more fun than most in its genre, but I can't do so in good conscience unless the issues I encountered are addressed. That said, if you don't mind a little buginess, dive in.

This game feels like it was made by someone who really, really loved it. Along with some other people who did not.

Glitchy, multiple crashes to desktop, poor translations--especially important in a hidden object scene (raspberries are not strawberries, ropes are not twine, etc.). The artwork and the mechanisms of gameplay are fantastic, but they're held back by very rough and rushed coding. One planetary puzzle I "solved" multiple times (it played a happy noise and kicked me out of the puzzle), but I still couldn't progress, so I had to wait for the skip button to light up in order to continue in the game. Finally finishing the game was a relief, and when I saw there was a bonus chapter, I noped right on out, and I've never done that before.

It's a pity, because it's got a lot of heart, a lot of good ideas, and some really wonderful settings. But ultimately it's so faulty, I can't recommend it.

This game contains game-breaking bugs. I encountered a point where I could not proceed unless I entered a room through the door, but doing so crashed the game.

Another game from Space Monkey, Black Swan, also contained a game-breaking bug, so clearly these developers don't care about making playable games. Avoid everything they do.

Be a detective, photograph clues, analyse evidence via puzzles & add them to the evidence board.
This can at times be a difficult game as you have trouble knowing what or where you should go next. There is a map with a ? For where you have something to do, there’s a hint option too.
You can upgrade the UV light, Camera, evidence analyser etc to make them more efficient with points gained from using the UV light to find hand & foot prints throughout the game.
There are a few freezing issues but in my case not as many as other reviews have stated.
The Bonus section is unlocked when you have completed the game (I hope, I haven’t yet but I will update this review if it doesn’t) with wallpapers, music & a bonus game amongst others.
I haven’t had any problem so far with not being able to click on an object in a HOG however some of the items are mis-named.
There’s a bug with the game which I have found when in the Submarine, I needed to put a fire out but I couldn’t use the extinguisher, I moved backwards & found myself back to before I entered the Sub I couldn’t return so part of that was not completed yet I could move onto the next chapter.
There’s supposedly a strategy guide too but I cannot find it.
If you enjoy games where you have to think about what to do next then this is for you.

This game is beautiful and maddening at the same time. It does so many things well for Hidden Object games, tries to implement some fresh new ideas, but ultimately gets hung up on poor translation. It is surprising to me that you have really good voice acting for a game in the genre along with great artwork and some new puzzles. However, I just can't get past the number of errors in translation that really make the storyline a bit of a mess. I think if the developers had invested a few hours of time in someone fluent in english, it would have eliminated most of the frustration from this game and made this a gem in the hidden object genre.

I did not have any of the stability issues that others had previously reported. It runs stable on my Win 8.1 machine with no hiccups. I think there is a lot of talent on the development team that created this, but they are being held back by some really easily solvable problems. I am sure there are others like me who would gladly participate in a beta to help with the localization issues, and I'd love to see an update that addresses those.

Great game but crashes very often on WIndows 10.

As I got this quite cheaply in a bundle I don't regret playing Taken Souls: Blood Ritual Collector's Edition. The artwork, story and other elements are interesting and in some ways quite good, but I must reluctantly give it a thumbs down to discourage anyone purchasing it at anything approaching retail price. On Windows 7 I haven't crashed as much as some, but there are some glitches. Most of all I just have tired of the clumsy feel and drudgery of progression. By chapter three I think I've had enough.

I was enjoying this game, however it keeps crashing. I figured out how to sort one crash only to play for another few minutes and encountered another one. It's a shame as could have been fun to play.