Customer Reviews

Nancy Drew: Ransom of the Seven Ships

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

The ND games are always at least moderately fun, but this one offers something of a departure from the feel of previous efforts. Largely, I found it fell short.

From almost the first moment of the game, you're presented with a lengthy and ever-increasing list of tasks to accomplish. Thankfully, these can be completed in pretty much whatever order you like; however, the motivation behind them is rarely more than "because El Toro/Johnny/that squawking bird said so." Even at the end, there's no real sense of urgency - perhaps because there's practically no one to talk to. No phone, no funny e-mails, no Prudence Rutherford. Just a stressed out George and a none-too-talkative beach bum. There are barely any suspects, and while the big villain reveal at the end is clever, for me it took away from the story not to try to figure out whodunit on my own. Also, the island, while beautifully depicted, is limited. Driving and sailing have always felt like time wasters to me - I much prefer the near-instant mass transit systems of some previous games - and the locations offer little to explore beyond the bare essentials.

As I mentioned, the game is highly task- and puzzle-driven. I found some of these puzzles to be obtuse or simply way too hard; at times I knew what I had to do, but I just couldn't do it in the limited time available or without what seemed like a lucky stroke. One of the mini-games is a (long) game of complete chance, which I don't remember ever happening in an ND game before and is really pretty boring. The puzzles might have been more of a pleasant mental exercise and less of an irritation if not that so many of them were timed. I've never needed so many second chances before, and found myself resorting to the Internet to get the solution because I got sick of either dying and restarting or leaving the puzzle to refill my air tank and return.

Unlike many of the previous ND games, I had little sense of discovery or excitement with this one. There's no deep storyline to unfold or layers of secrets to discover. There's just a lot of traipsing around the island collecting stuff that seems completely pointless until it's required by a later puzzle. If you like the ND games for the mental workout of the puzzles, you'll love this one; if you prefer the character interaction, the snooping, the suspense, and the wit of many of the previous games, this one won't be your favorite. It's not mine.

I had always heard that Curse of Blackmoor Manor was the most difficult ND game so far. I can't comment on that, being as I haven't played it. What I can say is that I have played many of the Nancy Drew games and Ransom of the Seven Ships beats them all for difficulty level---and I'm playing on junior mode! For those of you who like wall-to-wall challenging puzzles (some of them timed, no less), you will probably enjoy this game very much. For those who don't like having to look at a walkthrough every 30 minutes or so to figure out what to do next/how to solve a puzzle, I would recommend that you steer clear. I really can't believe that I am actually saying this, because I *love* the Nancy Drew games--but I feel that potential purchasers need a heads up about this one before they decide whether to buy or not to buy.

This is going to be a love-it-or-hate-it game for a lot of people, I suspect. It will either rank in their top 5 or their bottom 5, but I feel there will be very little middle ground here.

But this one was especially fun to play. If you aren't familiar with Nancy Drew games, they are adventure/mystery games that feature a good storyline, puzzles to solve and obstacles to overcome. The graphics are almost always very good. And, like the books, they are very family friendly.

This game takes place on an island and you travel from location to location in a golf cart. You will also sail and scuba dive. You will have to solve puzzles to advance through the game, some of which are pretty difficult. I always use a walkthrough when I play because I don't like to get frustrated (I highly recommend Universal Hint System for walkthroughs), but even with a walkthrough some of the obstacles are still difficult. Beating the monkey at the coconut game comes to mind.

The only thing I didn't like about this particular game was the lack of characters with which to interact. But all in all, a very exciting and satisfying game.

Sigh. This game looked so good, thrilling, and exciting. And really, it had a great plot, but overall, it was poorly executed. So much more could have been done with this just average game.

Plot:
The plot was amazing. Bess, Nancy's best friend, has won a trip to a tropical island! You as Nancy Drew, and George Fayne, are excited to go, but Nancy has to arrive a day late - and when she does, she finds out Bess has been kidnapped! The kidnappers want you to find a long-lost treasure if you have any hope of getting your friend back. I thought the plot was great. It was simple, and you knew what your goal was. The plot gets a 10/10!

Characters
Sadly the characters were very lacking. My favorite part of ND games is interacting with characters, finding out their motives/secrets/getting comic relief, etc. Unfortunately there really have been no memorable characters since TRN.
Besides George (who does nothing the whole game besides shake a phone trying to get it to work...), the only person on the island you can talk to is Johnny Rolle. He's a Jamaican beach bum who won't let you borrow his stuff unless you fix his stuff in return. I actually quite liked Johnny. He was a complex character with a cool accent, and you discover a huge secret about him in the middle of the game which is great. Now if we had about 3 other characters it would have been great!
Coucou is a parrot...kind of like Loulou from CUR, because Loulou is Coucou's grandmother. How original. Coucou is like the "teenage" Loulou, she was actually very funny and helpful, moreso than Loulou was. Coucou helped provide some comic relief.
George is kinda useless the whole game. She doesn't offer help and really you don't even need her. Plus she looked like a granny (so did Bess). Kinda disappointed in that. So the characters get a measly 4/10 because I liked Johnny and Coucou.

Graphics
UGH. Are the graphics people getting lazy or something? Why were we in 3rd person for practically the entire game? :( I really prefer clicking around the island rather than using the car/boat to get around. I appreciate the graphics more when I can actually see them! The beach and the water were well-done though as was Coucou. IDK if it was just my game, but Johnny's shoulders were like...disconnected from his body the whole game. The graphics get a 6/10.

Ending
WHOA. Totally wasn't expecting that! The twist with the culprit is incredibly surprising. I loved it! I just wish the actual ending puzzle/sequence was more intense. It wasn't timed; there wasn't even any music in the background! Not very exciting. But the twist was great, so the ending receives a 7/10. Also, I liked that the ending didn't require chasing someone like the past like 5 games have.

Length
This game was a pretty decent length. Not too long, not outrageously short, although I wish it was a little longer! That being said the length gets a 6/10. It did feel a little too short. I finished it in 3 days playing less than 2 hours a day.

Miscellaneous
Where do I start?

The music sounded like they just ripped it off from Danger on Deception Island. Sometimes the music would be cheery and upbeat and sometimes it would be really intense/scary when it didn't need to be.

I really do not like playing mini-games! I've noticed this is a trend in the later games. Mini-games should be optional. I do not like having my progress in the game being determined by luck. So I really didn't like when I had to visit the monkeys and play games with them.

As previously mentioned, the third person drove me crazy. More of the game was in 3rd person than in 1st person! I felt like I wasn't Nancy the whole game. sigh. Plus I kept getting lost on the road, it would have been much easier to just click around and have signs or something. Dear HER, please get rid of the 3rd-person driving and walking!

I loved the puzzles in this game. I know some people found them hard, but I liked them! I have felt like the puzzles weren't hard enough in past games so these were good. I also liked how if you read El Toro's journal the puzzles were pretty manageable. However, there were simply too many puzzles. It got very tedious! But, the only puzzle I disliked involved hourglasses. That drove me crazy!

I can't help but compare this game to FIN (the Final Scene, game #5) because both games involve a kidnapping. However, in FIN, you were on the edge of your seat, fearing that you would run out of time and Maya would never be found. In this game, no one seemed to care that Bess was missing! There was no rush, no intensity to the game that I feel like they should have added. I mean, this is Nancy's best friend at stake here! Miscellaneous receives a 5/10.
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Overall, this game gets a 5/10 (rounded up to 3 stars). It's definitely a better "island" game than Creature of Kapu Cave (game #15) is. If you like scary games, though, this one is definitely not for you - it wasn't scary at all. Of the two games involving a kidnapping, The Final Scene (game #5) is much better and has more memorable characters.

My daughter and I are fans of the Nancy Drew games and look forward to each new release. So it pains me to say that this game is a failure in almost all respects. Recycled plot, severly limited character interaction, no dialogue, no snooping, no humor - so many of the elements that normally make a Nancy Drew game fun are sadly missing in this latest installment. The game is loaded with puzzles, many of them challenging, but they are randomly presented and don't flow with the plot or each other. Many have time restrictions that seems forced for the sole purpose of extending gameplay by making you have to re-play them again and again. The game presents numerous locations, but each location is very confined, so the overall environment seems very cramped and small. The plot is weakly held together at best and the game ends with many loose ends that are never cleared up. I thought the resolution of the mystery was a huge cop-out and a way to avoid having to tie everything together. All this being said, there were some good aspects: game installed and ran without problems or glitches, and the voice acting, as always, was terrific. If you are a fan of the Nancy games, you may want to skip this one. If you are new to the Nancy games, please, do not pick this as your first encounter with the series! There are many more worthy titles in the series to play - like Danger on Deception Island, Shadow Ranch, Ghost Dogs, or Phantom of Venice to name just a few.

I liked this game. But I didn't love it. It lacked in communication with the other characters; except with that annoying parrot that shredded my nerves. I really liked the ending. The twist at the end helped make up for some of the slow storyline. What bothered me about this game was the difficulty in the majority of the puzzles, even in junior mode. After giving it my all for about 5-6 tries, I would cave into viewing the walkthrough more often than I like to do. The storyline was pretty straight forward from the beginning but didn't really expand from there. There wasn't much development in the story, just progress in finding my clues. Her Interactive needs to get back to basics of writing a full story that develops smoothly throughout the game. Their games used to get me sucked into the story like reading a book would, or watching a movie. Now it's just there's a goal; a clue; a task; go get it. Not very enthralling anymore.

I have been a long time Nancy Drew fan, and have played all but the first game in the series. I have loved most every one of those games, but this one has been an utter trainwreck. I was tempted to quit the game before finishing and just throw it in the trash.
Pros: NONE
Cons: There is very little dialogue, the game cannot be completed without constantly checking a walkthrough as the puzzles are tedious and tremendously difficult to solve. I just graduated college and did not have the ability to solve most of them without either using paper and pen and stopping the game or most frequently, looking up the solution to ease my temper. The storyline is very confusing and dull, did not get me hooked at all. There is very little to explore at each location, there is no map to get you from location to location, instead you have to drive aimlessly or sail randomly through the ocean to find pointless clues. Worst part of all, there is no phone or any person to give you hints when you are stuck!! I could not wait for the game to be over, so I could see one of the most pointless endings of the series. I now plan on selling this useless game to another unsuspecting fan who will not heed my advice but will end up severely disappointed. I will think twice and read reviews before I ever purchase another Nancy Drew game again!

I have every ND game and this is the worst of the bunch. In fact, it's the only ND game that I never finished playing. Way too much driving and not enough sleuthing. I got bored with it very quickly. The underwater games were almost impossible without online cheats, and that was junior mode. If this were the only ND game I had ever been exposed to, I would never play another ND game again. There are many other ND games out there that are definitely worth playing, such as Deception Island, or Shadow Ranch. This one just happened to be in the same boat as Castle Malloy...boring. Hopefully HI was just hitting a slump and they're on the rebound.

After watching the trailers for this game I was really excited to start playing it. The plot looked great, I was excited to finally see Bess and George in a game and I thought, since this is HeR Interactives 20th game, it should be great!! I was wrong. From the first couple of minutes of playing this game, I knew it wasn't going to be good. First of all, there was way too much 3rd person. I don't mind a little 3rd person, but being in 3rd person for practicaly the whole game?!!Characters... There was 2 characters. 2 CHARACTERS ONLY!!!! George Fayne and a beach bum. How exciting... Another big problem was the amount of puzzles. They were overly difficult and I didn't enjoy any of them. I had to use the walkthrough for almost the whole game. The hourglass puzzle at the end of the game was impossible. I tied using walkthroughs, hints from HeR Interactives hints and tips board, and everyone in my family tried the puzzle. And I still didn't get it. So I never finished the game. I have never not finished a Nancy Drew game before, and I have played all but 3 of the games. I wanted to see the rest of the game, so I watched the walkthrough. While I was watching the ending, I was really confused and didn't understand what was going on. All I'm going to say is that HeR Interactive should have put something on the box of this game saying to not play this game unless you have played all of the games before it so that you don't get another game spoiled for you. And of course, 1 of the games that I haven't played was the one that was spoiled.

So long story short:

I wish I had my $20 back!!

Probably needless to say, I didn't like this game. I found it not to be that fun, and the length was WAY too short. Also, the Nancy Drew games are known to be a first person point-and-click series. This game really took away from that as about half of the game was in third person, (not that you ever see Nancy from more than just the top) and you use the arrow keys rather than pointing and clicking when in third person.

Story-You're friend Bess won a vacation on an island resort for five days, and she invited you and her cousin, George (it's a girl) to go with her. You are forced to leave a day later than Bess and George, however, as you have to attend something with your dad. When you get there, George is frantic, for Bess has disappeared! The game story then becomes finding a lost treasure (which is the ransom the kidnapper is demanding in return for Bess) rather than finding Bess, which to me was a bit strange.

Graphics-The graphics were lovely unless you are in third person, then it seems cartoony. Otherwise the graphics are realistic and nice!

Sound-The sound is nice, as well. The music is very island like, and the voice acting was pretty good. Of course, there are only 4 voices (a beach bum, George, Bess who you only see at the end of the game, and a parrot) and you don't talk to them that much.

Gameplay-Like before mentioned, a lot of the game is in third person. When you are traveling from location to location you ride in a golf cart, which is SO slow. I wish they had just done the point and click map like they have done in the past. Also you have to ride in a sailboat, which is frustrating and in third person, as well. At one point you use a metal detector, which is the only third person I actually enjoyed. The puzzles in this game I found way too easy on Junior Detective and way too hard on Senior, so I felt that was a big flop.

Fun-Other than all of these other bad things, there isn't much fun. You basically rush from one place to another to solve one (stupidly easy or hard) puzzle after another. At two points you become George, and her puzzles were really fun, so I enjoyed that, but otherwise, the rest of the game is rather boring.

Length-It took me 3 days to finish. When playing straight through, it takes about 8 hours. Unfortunately, I don't have an urge to play it again, because it just isn't as much fun as the older games.

It's an OK game, I just don't find it that fun. Some might find it fun, especially if you aren't going to just sit down and accomplish as much of the game as you can. I recommend buying only if you can get it $10 or cheaper. If you're a huge fan of the series, maybe you might want it right away, but otherwise, wait until it goes on sale.