Recent reviews by Pax

I played the games years ago and again more recently. It's not perfect, but the story was interesting and I liked the characters. I'll agree with other reviews about the lack of dialogue-ending clues and navigation being a bit clunky. Still a decent adventure if you enjoy the genre.

Didn't play before the patches but have to say I'm really enjoying what's here now. No, it's not like the past King's Bounty games in world navigation but it stands well on its own as a fun time. I personally enjoy the story and don't mind so much conversation. The battles are fairly typical KB-style battles overall. Maybe a little closer to a HOMM battle. It's fun so far for me. About level 15 right now.

I'm really enjoying the game. Story has been interesting. The group banter, while eventually repetitive, is fun. The cinematics and voice acting are mostly very well done (a few exceptions on the voice acting, but not glaring).
Overall, highly recommend to those who enjoy TB tactical cRPGs. I play a few table-top RPGs, but not D&D, so can't comment on faithfulness to rules.

Short, HO's are often too dark to navigate, puzzle mechanics are ridiculously obtuse, UI is annoying. There is literally nothing good to say about the game. Quite literally the worst HO I have ever played. Sad, because Art of Murder: FBI Confidential was a decent point and click adventure game. This is simply a mess and is a dark mark for the series.

The graphics are beautiful, but the game play simply gets tedious after awhile. I guess I was expecting more of a point-and-click experience than a "draw a line puzzle" type of game.

Edit after about 1.5 years in the game and at level 50:

As the game progresses, the hidden object games one must play to level a building gets effectively tedious. Even playing a bit in the morning and then in the evening when the timers are shorter it takes 2 or more weeks on a single building to get from level 4-5.

AS for my time played - look at it. You're right, I'm not actually playing the game that much. Who could? Herein lies my biggest gripe: collecting resources. I generally collect one or two sets of resources a day. They renew every 6 hours. It currently involves literally 3 hours per collection. So I am AFK ALOT. Sometimes I choose my 15 resources (gets me about 225 wood at a time, so it's not minor) and: go to work for 8 hours, go to the store, mow the lawn, go to sleep, cook and eat dinner with the family, watch a movie - you get the picture. In fact, I've almost quit the game dozens of times just because of the resources. My recent solution is to decide not to care and just pop in each evening, do some HO's, collect from my factories, and get whatever resources I can before I log off. I won't be playing much longer, I suspect, and I have paid for a total of 18 months premium account thus far. In my opinion, the devs really need to rethink resources and their collection specifically, because it has completely turned me off the game.

For what it's worth early on, I'll leave my "recommended," assessment, but it is a very weak one at this point. Have fun in it while you can if you like city building, HO, and just want to goof off a bit here and there. If you want to truly get into a game, unless you really like tedium, choose a builder that is complete at initial purchase and doesn't involve a continuous money sink to fully experience it.

Old review:
For what it is (a free-to-play hidden object/builder) it's a decent game. I've enjoyed my time in it. The quests are a fun diversion and it's easy to minimize it and go back as I'm doing other things on the computer. I also like the ability to recruit neighbors, as I tend to focus on single player games and thus have a limited Steam friends supply.
The biggest negative is the extensive hidden-object-finding games one must play to upgrade a building. I also am not a fan of "find the difference" and would love it if we could choose what types of games we play in the villa.

Not a horrible little HOG Christmas game, but very short. Took me less than two hours. At the price, I guess it's not too bad.

The story was cute, if not deep.

One issue is the English translation. Some of the hidden object descriptions were so far off to be laughable. A tiara was described as a "sea anemone." No lie. Other poor translations were a bit more semantic, but still created confusion. Overall. I'll give it a thumbs up for the price, the borderline cute old ladies, and the Christmas theme. Wish there were some middle ground other than thumbs up/thumbs down.

I would not buy this game unless you have 2 -3 solid hours to sit down and play it through. Maybe if they fix the save game corruption, I'd change my review. The game itself is a fairly standard HO and fun enough for what it is.