Sometimes HOG are hit or miss. This one was a miss,

It's sad because while playing it you can feel that the game had potential but it just missed the cue in so many levels.

For starters, all puzzles and scenes are extremely easy. I think it's been the easiest HOG I've ever played.

Add to that the the dialogue and writing is just... it just doesn't feel like it fits. Maybe with some revisions and better acting by the voice actors would've made a world of a difference. The writing just missed the mark.

In the same vein of writing, some of the translation to English didn't quite get it right. This includes in regular dialogue and also during the hidden object scenes, which tend to be a little harder trying to decipher what that word is supposed to mean. Although going back to the first thing, it still was easy even though with some missed translations.

Now to the graphics. The bad: The characters look a bit cartoony, which isn't exactly bad. What makes it bad is the background art. The good: The background art or scenery even in the HO scenes is so pretty, detailed and way more realistic than cartoony.
When you mix the two, it jst doesn't blend properly. There are ways to do this and many games have succeeded at it, this one just makes it feel off.

My last bad would be the collectibles. I like having collectibles, its like a little extra fun thing to experience but there is no way to track it while you are playing. The map doesn't track it nor does it show any tracking on screen. The way I found to track it was going to the Achievements page and looking for the collectible achievements which shows the ?/9 count. I ended up missing a few due ti this and I am currently depating if to go back just to get those, since the game is very easy.

Good things:

I like that it has achievements and other Steam bonus things like cloud save etc. This is always good for me since it allows me to either play in another device or be able to erase and replay at a later time without losing everything.

Game play wise, the first thing I noticed was that there are some items (very few but still) that are re-used instead of having to search for an identical item back to back to, let's say, open a box. I love when items can be repeatedly used. It makes more sense than having a crowbar disappear after using it once.

It has a mix of regular HO scenes and the detective mode, which is a sort of reverse hidden object where you have to find the object by finding "clues" of the crime scene.

Overall it's a not so great HOG, but maybe for someone starting out- like a first timer, or starting out, it may not be a bad option because it is easy.

I chose not to recommend it since to me, it has more cons than it does pros and the price tag is way too high for the content and game play time. It wasn't 3 hours for me, I'd say maybe 2 hours 15-20. The extras were pausing to change a video on the side, food or bathroom breaks or to write notes for this review.

If the game goes below $2-3 USD maybe, and that's a big maybe, I'd recommend it. As it stands now, I can't.