Customer Reviews

The Lost Crown: A Ghosthunting Adventure

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

= PREFACE =

If you have played DarkFall I: The Journal, or DarkFall II: Lights out, then you don't need to read this review, you have probably bought the game immediately anyway. Yes, the entire game is one mans' job, Jonathan Boakes', and its not just acceptable; it is magnificent!

= SCENARIO =

You are Nigel Danvers and you find yourself limited to an interesting treasure hunt session in a somewhat isolated town called Saxton. Very soon some weird things will begin to happen. Will you survive these horrible events? Will you find your way in hunting down the hidden treasure? You are abount to find out SOON!

= GRAPHICS =

This time it is a 3rd person view, better in my opinion. It is almost full screen, with some space down for inventory (i 'd like titles in inventory items) , and some space up for the "Control Panel" Icon (The author *could* put there some option to quick save/load/quit) The graphics are mostly gray/screen, something that enhances the games mystery
theme, with a few nice drawn color additions. The ghost drawing an animation is very good, PLUS, almost all screens include some very very nice animation. Especially nice is the movement with the night vision of a camera on. Thumbs up and the best animation I 've seen!

P.S. You will be looking for some items in the forest at some point of the game, do not assume that all these items are colored.

= SOUND =

Being a professional musicologist, I have to judge that section stricly, and sound in this game is really good. Mysterious, ghastly and evil sound effects and music will compose a great atmosphere. However I (almost) missed what it hit me in The Journal and Lights Out: The sound isn't actually a part of the game action, it is there for a nice background - you can get the same pleasure by turning the sound off, something that would ruin the Darkfall's atmosphere.
Voices are good and clear.

= CONTROL =

No keyboard. Yes, I don't like that. Everything is mouse-driven, and, although you have a map, you can' move with the map, you have to walk to the locations manually. Also, it is not clear the fact that you don't have entire access to the town at certain points of the game (for example, in night 1, you can't go to a specific location but you don't get a warning message).
Subtitles are provided :)
Go top left and you have a menu which opens Save/Load etc. Only 8 saves ! :(

= ATMOSPHERE =

When a game is a masterpiece, reviewers are cruel. The game's atmosphere is very very good, but I still think that DarkFall I and II (and Darkness Within) is better in that section. There is nothing wrong with Lost Crown, but .... how should I tell? DFs were more evil, more frightening, whereas Lost Crown is more like a mystery than a horror game. This is not bad at all; but when you have played the DFs, you are somewhat expecting to be terrified even more!
It seems that Nigel finds the entire adventure more exciting than frightening... Well perhaps I will change my mind after I replay it a few times, but If I knew that the place I wondered around was haunted and there were evil ghosts everywhere kidnapping cats, I 'd get my a$$ outta there ASAP, not stay and even sleep in it!

= PLOT and RIDDLES =

This is the area in which the battle between this game and DarkFall I and II ends. DFs were very good, but relatively short. This game has a big plot scene (and I MEAN big) and lots of (inventory based, with one or two exceptions) puzzles. Also, because the game limits your access, you don't have to consider wandering around the entire town if you are stuck, so this effectively reduces your frustration. There are no tough puzzles, just a common sense of logic. Yes, this is my small complain, DFs were a lot tougher to finish - but also a lot quicker to finish.

= Vote For =

* Big plot
* Animation in almost all screens
* Great graphics and sounds
* Will run even in lower-end PCs
* No bugs/crashes (Well, don't try to use the walkie talkie at the night after you have used it previously in the day, or suddently the sun will appear again !)
* Subtitles allowed

= Vote Against =


* Not scary. No match for DarkFall I, II, Darkness within, Shadow of the comet etc... Perhaps not being scary is an advantage, but I miss it nevertheless.
* Only 8 saves (No comments...)
* No method to bypass the text - very annoying when you make the mistake of asking something that you have already asked. This thing would prevent me to play the game again.
* I don't like the way that Nigel reacts to horror events; For example, I wouldn't be that 'cool' to simulate a call to the spirit as he is in first night; It seems to me that he was already aware to what would happen.
* No keyboard; yes I don't like the mouse. Especially when you have to click some times to save your game. At least, double click works :)

= OVERALL =

A piece of excellence. Get it, its really worth your $. It is a masterpiece, perhaps lacking the actual horror element, but a very fine job nevertheless.

==== [SPOILER] ====

I didn't like the ending. I don't know why, but I never like the endings in most games. Can't anyone ever create a magnificent ending like that in Monkey Island 2 or Laura Bow 1 ?

This game was on my want list for awhile after I saw news of it on-line. After getting it, I'm highly pleased at the outcome. If you are, like me, a paranormal investigator (when time and people allow that is), then "The Lost Crown" is a must-own for your collection of books, games and videos. I've played through "Dark Fall: The Journal", "Barrow Hill" and most of "Scratches" (still haven't completed that one yet. The cellar music alone will freak you out for quite awhile. Perfect for any Halloween haunted house setup), but "Lost Crown" is the best in the subject of history, characters, locations, imagery, music, sound effects and, most importantly, spectral phenomena (be it EVP, photo or video).

I've seen many state that this is a "very boring game". It all depends on your style of gaming. Sure, "Lost Crown" is slow in pace, but I like that. This isn't a shooter, it's an investigative journey filled with tons of fascinating data about the fictional town of Saxon, which is based on real locations of Cornwall, in South-West England. The three games I mentioned before weren't fast-paced either, but that did not make them bad. On the contrary, a slower pace creates more tension in the story. Granted, I would like to have been able to make Nigel run, but the double-click feature of quick jumping to the next location while moving is very handy.

Graphically, the game is beautifully done. Even though the views are all in black and white, with sparse coloring of objects here and there, this adds a film noir kind of look to the places. The use of real photography makes the environments much more realistic and enjoyable to experience. I've made a bunch of great desktop wallpapers from some locations (taking Nigel out of the images, of course). Would have been nice to see more 3D insects and animal life additions to the scenes though. There are some here and there, like the seagulls and cats in town or the ravens of Northfield church or the horses of the Ager's homestead, but more would have been better.

Character wise, the third-person perspective of everyone is another well-done addition. Normally you spend the whole game in first-person POV with titles like this. You do have segments of this style in "Lost Crown", but it is mainly used for when you look at objects. A slightly negative point for me concerns the moving of the 3D characters. Sure, this isn't a title that has had thousands of dollars spent on its creation, but everyone could have been less robotic their movements. Other games with characters of less detail have moved more smoothly and swiftly than those in "Lost Crown". It shouldn't have been all that hard to do give them accurate turning and walking fluidity.

Another con concerns the maps. You obtain two in the game - one of the town and the other for the countryside (from a photo taken in the museum). Most games that I have played over the years normally gave you the ability to click on a map location and instantly jump there. That isn't the case with "Lost Crown". Nigel must travel everywhere on foot, no short cuts (except for a few location skips later in the game, but they are involuntary). This makes it slow going when you want to get somewhere quickly. It's not a nasty negative, just slightly annoying.

On the subject of sound, the game makes really good use of it. The music isn't irritating and fits every scene it is used perfectly. As Michail mentioned in his review, turning the music off doesn't take away from the spooky atmosphere of the locations since the sound effects fill in the gap nicely. Now, my one big complaint concerns the voice acting. It's not bad, but it isn't good either. Most of the time, you feel like they are trying to read the subtitles slowly while talking. I keep wanting to yell like a director and say "Talk faster! Put more realism in your voice!" Tonal inflections of emotions during conversations are not always done well. I wonder if the Darkling Room creators just had office personal do the characters. Again, the voice acting isn't awful, but it sure needs some energy put into it.

Now I come to the part that grabbed my interest in the game from the start. Ghosts. Yes, this title does them justice and in realistic ways. The spirit photography taken at locations looks amazingly accurate, the EVPs are really, really good (I should know, since that is my speciality and have hundreds of personally recorded, crystal-clear examples in my collection) and the Night-Shot Infrared Camera POV is spot-on accurate (expect for the scan line, but that's supposed to be something Haddon Industries did to enhance the camera). There are some definite creepy segments while out ghost hunting, like the dark spirit attack on the train rails and when the spirit walks out of the locked room in the museum after viewing the video of the town. Other games only use sound effects and moving objects to startle you. "Lost Crown" brings both of those and excellent ghost effects as well. Now, I don't agree with Michail when it comes to Nigel's enthusiasm on searching out the spectral places of the town and countryside. The character reminds me a lot of myself, for I am like that. :) Michail says, "If I knew that the place I wondered around was haunted and there were evil ghosts everywhere kidnapping cats, I'd get my a$$ outta there ASAP, not stay and even sleep in it!" Well, that's your viewpoint, definitely not mine. If a place is haunted, that just makes me even more excited to check it out, even if a sleep over is needed. Not alone, of course. You should also have a partner or more with you when doing an investigation, for safety, in case of an accident and help with various equipment.

Though the ghostly aspects of the game were the real draw for me, I have found learning about the history of Saxon and other knowledge obtained about it very, very interesting. Until I played "The Lost Crown", I wasn't aware that nearly every location in it was a real place. This really makes the game special, like a virtual trip to a city you might never get a chance to visit. Another reason why virtual city games like "Driver3" (yes, it was poorly done, but the cities were accurate and fun to drive/walk around in), "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and San Andreas" (more so GTA4) and other titles of similar style are fun to explore. But, in the case of "The Lost Crown", you are learning and visiting a real place that is graphically displayed in accurate details.

In conclusion, "The Lost Crown" is a very enjoyable game that is leaps ahead of other titles with similar stories of paranormal activity and exploration. The length of it is also a plus in my book. Whereas the three games I mentioned before were fun, they were also very short. If you like a slow paced ghost investigation game with real history intertwined throughout the story as you explore real locations, then "The Lost Crown" is for you.

I got this game in January, and was instantly addicted to it. It is almost like a good book or movie, it draws you into it as if you were there, it is that good.

I played it every night for hours and still it took nearly 3 weeks to complete it. The puzzles in it are not bad at all, everything you need is intuitive and somewhere within reach of the particular scene you are in. If you haven't found everything you needed, Nigel will say, "I am not yet finished here." or something like that. He will not go where he doesn't need to be so you won't be running about wasting your time in the wrong places. Places open up as you progress through the game.

This game has it all I think. You have the ghost hunting equipment like a tape recorder, a hand video camera, and a remote video setup for the haunted house Nigel lives in. There are many scenes to explore, with all the best elements besides the ghosts, caves, swamps, a seance, crystal ball, lonely railway walk in the night, dark walk through a tomb and a graveyard.

I really liked the black and white scenes with a few objects in full color thoughout the scenes. It gave it a 50's style haunted movie sense to it. Some scenes are in near full color, like the visits to the old lady, but in a faded color sort of way.

I highly recommend this game. I plan play it again after the memory of the details fade a bit so it will be like viewing a favorite movie or a good book again. It is so hard to find a good haunted ghost game out there. This is the best I have played since Phantasmagoria I.

Another note about this game, just when you thought it was over, there was still more! Just like a good horror movie, there is more when you thought you were done with it. This game is the type you won't mind playing again.


The Lost Crown: A Ghosthunting Adventure

This is a game that you can't stop playing once you start because you NEED to know what's going on with this town, and where this treasure is, and who/what is haunting your house, Saxton in general, who/what is trapped in the caves, and the church, and in the woods, and in the cabin by the tracks, and why! There are a lot of secrets to learn, scandalous murders to discover, spirits to identify, mystery to be scared of, and things to give you nightmares. Don't play it in the dark!

It's a game by Jonathan Boakes, who, if you have ever played a game he's made before from start to finish, you know has made another masterpiece because failure just doesn't seem to be in his capacity. His name is a selling factor in itself. He's probably the only creator's name you'll see in the center of the box cover as a main advertizement, because his games are that good. If you loved Dark Fall, you'll adore this. It's right up there, but with more story, more timeline, and interactive characters you can talk to.

Each individual panel/scene you walk through has anywhere from a few to a huge number of things to click on and explore, search through, read, see more closely, etc. All of this brings incredible life to the town of Saxton that you got off the train at, and then got flooded into staying. All the minute details reveal a town of two faces. One that is popular with tourists, full of surperstitious but friendly enough people, and has flowers growing around town if you're only there for a few minutes. But within 10 minutes of gameplay you're pretty freaked out because you start to realize (and this grows with each passing frame) this Saxton has murder, a grisly history, voices in the walls, macabre imagery absolutely everywhere, lots of ghosts (no character will ever deny the ghosts. they'll give you frightened warnings in a nervous way while making sure no one is watching, but no one will ever say the town is a safe place, and if they did, you'd never trust them because, let's face it, you're not blind.). You start to see that some characters are literally and dangerously insane. You even get the distinct impression and increasingly scary feeling that you're not in the twenty first century anymore, that not all the people you're talking to are really alive anymore but they don't know it, that perhaps some people have split personalities because by night someone may be doing something very disturbingly out of character...

The whole game keeps you unsettled in a place frightening enough that you'd really like to find some solid ground, and for a gamer who lives for scary stories and/or movies, the things that jump out at you or literally go bump in the night, and the twisted tales you learn of really hit the spot. The effects are very effective and eerie, modern, believable, but still simple. There isn't a lot of useless walking around because the story moves at a nice pace, is interesting, and the clues do make you think and effectively take you to where you need to be without being painfully obvious. Sometimes you need to experiment and play around with the things you get, like the ghost hunting gear you come by, in order to figure out what they're for, but it's never too complicated.

Jonathan Boakes is somewhat of an icon in the scary/puzzle game community for creating the best point and click games with a frightening edge available in the world. This isn't just personal oppinion, he's actually award winning and has a cult following. While Dark Fall is viewed by most people as his star creation, I found that this story entrapped me even deeper than Dark Fall did, though Dark Fall is more nightmare-inducing. I think this game is actually part of the Dark Fall series in a distant way, because the main character is a Dark Fall character, and the reason he's hiding in Saxton in the first place is because he stole evidence of the Dark Fall demon from a company that was looking into sending someone to go check out the Dark Fall hotel. It turns out that it is at the end of Lost Crown that Nigel is asked to go and look into the hotel by the company he stole from. So you realize that Lost Crown is literally the start of Dark Fall, which is SO neat to people who have played it. If you haven't, buy this and buy Dark Fall, and play them both. Greatest game investments you will ever make!

Sorry to be contrarian, but I would rather have my money back.

This game gets five stars for atmospheric graphics and sound. That's about the only good thing I can find to say about this game, which I will not finish.

Most of the game is spent moonwalking your main character through eight to ten accessible sites. The main character moves with glacial speed, and playing this game is primarily an exercise in Buddha like patience as you must criss cross the town 150 times.

The voice acting is so appallingly bad it is actually interesting. I spent a lot of time wondering just how it came to be this bad. Unfortunately, the worst of it comes from the main character, who is also the one who does the most speaking. The inflections of all the words and phrases are wrong -- think William Shatner as Captain Kirk, to the power of 100. "Oh! How. LONG. Have you been. In Saxton!" No one speaks like this or reads like this, so I wonder if they recorded individual words and phrases and spliced them to make whole sentences. It's the only explanation I can figure out.

The game is absolutely linear. Not only must you do the next thing, you must be sure to do it in the right (nonobvious) order or the rest of the game won't unlock, leaving you to moonwalk fruitlessly about town repeating your previous actions and conversations in the hope that you'll unlock the lucky sequence. Fortunately (?) every character is willing to have exactly the same conversation with you an infinite number of times . . . And indeed, you must select every possible conversational response with each character, and hear every possible answer in the tree. Save me some grief and just have them spew the entire thing when I meet them, rather than making me jam the return key a dozen times.

Not only linear, but also buggy. The first time I met Bob Tawney, he refused to talk to me and told me he was busy. I got on line and found out that many people had this problem; you have to review everything in your inventory, then have all your conversations again, trying to figure out what unlocks Tawney . . . A phone call to the wrong number requires you to announce the solution to a mystery, and there is no way of opting out.

It only adds insult to injury that the main character is a twit.

Can't conceivably finish this. I'm glad so many other people enjoyed it, but I have to say honestly that they must be more patient souls than I am . . .

I am not even finished with this. It is SO interesting, and there are SO many places to explore. There are no puzzles for the sake of puzzles thus far. I really hate when games do that...like the last Sherlock Holmes game did.

The earie music, and ghosts suddenly moving around, and the MUSEUM!!! So many things to see, and movies to watch.

Maybe you super smarties won't find this enough of a challenge. I want adventure, and a mystery....not the constant puzzle after puzzle.

This has just been a trip! And it takes a while to play this...not because you are stuck on puzzle 2005. It is because this game is so rich in detail and story.

If you have not played this one, you must! Jonathan Boakes is a master at his craft. This game is very long and well worth the money. It is very detailed, and easy to manuever in the game, easy to access and use inventory items. I was so into the story line and could not wait to get some answers at the ending. I was slightly disappointed with how it ended. But the enjoyment I received from playing it outweighed that. A must have for any adventure game lovers.

Just to respond to the negative reviews which generally speaking find two main flaws - the game isn't very frightening and its too slow going.

On the scary factor, this is going to be very subjective because different people have different reactions to supposedly supernatural events. Maybe I am very easily frightened but playing this game in a darkened room there were several moments that made my heart race. One was when you are using the camera in Northfield church and the wandering spirit of Thomas Ager pauses to stare straight at you while doing his 'rounds'.(Those eyes!). Another was in the museum where the silence in the butterfly collection room gets shattered for just a couple of seconds by some shadowy figure clumping from one room to another. Just finding out how many of the 'people' you interact with are actually dead caused me to freak out a little too. On the other hand,the spirits that you need to ward off with a special charm on the railway track weren't particularly frightening, as it didn't appear that they could harm you at all.

So we've established that I am a scaredy cat, what about the pace of the game? Once you have mapped out the game in your head (the actual maps provided don't let you teleport to anywhere) it doesn't really take long to get from one location to another and I didn't find any of the conversations to be too long winded or irrelevant, certainly compared to other games in this genre. The voice acting it has to be said, is generally abysmal, you can tell there isn't a single trained actor doing any of the voices and Mr Boakes himself is appalling as the main character. Not since fifth grade high school have I heard such misplaced emphasis on unimportant phrases,lack of inflection and badly timed pauses in the reading of a script.

My main gripe with the game is that there so many unanswered questions at the end. Yes, you find what you were supposed to be looking for and yes, you clear up a few supernatural mysteries related to the lost souls that inhabit Saxton, but nothing explains why Danvers ended up there in the first place or who the mysterious Mr Haddon and his corporation are and why he is so concerned that the lost crown should be found.

I only gave it 3 stars for 'FUN' because it wasn't fun listening to the dialogues and I genuinely found some parts of the game disturbing. 4 stars overall though because it looks great, is easy to play, lasts a long time and has a story with numerous sub-plots that draws you along until the rather disappointing ending.

When I first heard about this game, I was so excited ~ a mystery/adventure/ghost hunting game with REAL equipment? What a great concept. And Mr. Boakes really pulled it off. You really do get to use the cameras and EMF detector and the recorder. What fun!

Others have given great descriptions of this game, so please check those out.

If you can only afford to buy one adeventure game this year, this is the one you should get. It was well worth the extra wait (was originally due in November - I don't know what caused delay, but this ran smoothly on my computer).

So for sheer entertainment, I give it 5 stars.
For ease of use, 5 stars.
For overall quality of production, including atmosphere (WOW), 5 stars.
For plot, and progression of game, 5 stars.

Overall, a great game, and I really wish more computer software companies would make the effort to put out more awesome games like this one.

I will definately be buying anything else Mr Boakes comes up with!

Ok, I love Johnathan Boakes. he makes all these spooky thriller games. But you have to know how to play them. It's a bit harder with a set character you can move around and see. Many of his games are first person, making the main character yourself. But I still manage.

The voice acting, as with all his games, is decent but not great. Good enough to not take away from the story. The graphics are not the best, but good. Especially if you concider the budget restraints.

As for actual gameplay, I've played it several times, but you might want to play it with a walkthrough on hand, and liberal use of ctrl F on that walkthrough.

Setting is very interesting though sometimes takes a little while to get used to, but once you do it's like you really are there, learning to roads of this little village.

I like ghost hunting games and supernatural games, So this one's right down my alley. The numerous array of characters and their personalities is interesting and refhreshing.

Overall, if you know what to expect and have the right mindset, this is a very pleasant game that gets a little better each time to play it. Great for just killing time ith a slightly spooky 'thriller'.