This game was pretty good, but not entirely awesome like its predecesor, Room 18. The story is kind of weird in the sense that you and your detective partner get to investigate crimes happening in a hotel. The weird thing is that the building has been chosen to represent the final battlefield of two important orders: the Twilight Order and the Gray Order. Now these two orders don't have one species of a race. No, they have several representative creatures from the fantastical folklore. I would have wanted the two orders to be represented, solely, by the werewolves and the vampires. But, okay.

PROS:
- Main Game + Bonus Chapter + Secret Room;
- Pretty backgrounds;
- Fast-travelling map;
- Hint button tells you what to do, not shows you;
- Interesting HO minigames;
- Portrait collectibles along with murder puzzles.

CONS:
- No journal entries;
- Repetitive music;
- It feels overloaded with puzzles;
- The story lacks engagement and suspence.

All in all, it was a pretty good game. When I've heard of vampires and werewolves, I wanted to continue the game so badly. But when I saw other mystical creatures, I wasn't anymore engaged in the story. Maybe a bit drawn to the Necromancer. She has cool design! I also played away for the portrait collectibles. So, it is good to play.

i liked this one, story is a bit whatever, but enjoyable

to slow

Excellent game

Plot is kind of all over the place, the game isn't very fun, puzzles are fine. There are parts of the game that just full stop and expect you to have an item interact with a piece of the map that you didn't know was an intractable piece? Not a good one. 3/10

A solid addition to the Haunted Hotel series with a nice plot of warring factions and mythical creatures 7/10

So number 5 in the Haunted Hotel series introduces us to James, an investigator who seems to have been around for many events in history. The game keeps this character fairly mysterious as we play his sidekick. It did amuse me that we seemed to do most of the work while James stands around, maybe this is how he operates. It did make me wonder am I the latest in a line of assistance who take all the risks while James gets the credit. I think exploring this character could be a nice subplot of future games, tying them together, but we shall see.

So James has been asked to come to the Final Journey Hotel to investigate. When we arrive we find a maid who is worse for wear, spectral forms preventing us from going to the upper levels and before too long a corpse. We know from the intro that there is some fight between two mysterious factions going on at the hotel but how does it all tie together?

The games plot does a good job weaving the elements above with mythical creatures and ancient societies to create an interest story that does have some twists and turns. It did it's job in making me interested to see what came next, the ending is a little bit more routine but the journey along the way was worth it.

The hidden object portions have gradually been reduced in the series, from the first where they dominated to now where they probably make up about a quarter of game play. They are nice to look at and most objects seem appropriate for their location. A few require a extra step to reveal, (find the key, open the box to find the object) and these are indicated. None of the puzzles were too taxing.

The majority of the game is visiting locations and picking up objects and using them in other locations. I think these are to a high standard. Nothing made me question why that would work there. Mostly if I found a barred location I had some idea of what object to look out for to open it. When I then found that object it was just remembering where it needed to be used. I did appreciate the sounds that accompanied them, like the screwdriver turning, it all sounded nice and tactile.

The final quarter are the puzzles. There was a reassemble a parchment which is close enough to a photo that I will let this game slide (it was missing in the last game). Otherwise the puzzles are a decent mix, none of them had me reaching for the hint or skip button. On reflecting back I can't remember many of the puzzles which suggests there is nothing particularly standout here.

I had no issues running this on Windows 11, no bugs and no crashes.

Overall it is a good continuation of the series. It introduces an interesting potential returning character to give the series an arc and has a entertaining story. But doesn't really do anything new with the puzzles.

7/10

I really enjoyed this game as well as the bonus.

I would recommend this game to anyone. 5 stars.

S'alright.

I wish I could say I enjoyed this game, however it was mediocre at best. No map (at least if you were playing as advanced or hardcore), making it extremely difficult to go through the areas. You had to remember everything which was tedious at best. Puzzles weren't that great, lots of repetitive steps. You mainly have to find an object that fits into a figure outline, over and over and over. Unfortunately a disappointment in the series