Alchemy Mysteries: Prague Legends (iOs) Review

G5 Entertainment brings a spooky experience to your iDevice of choice.

Alchemy Mysteries: Prague Legends is a tale of mystery and intrigue, powerful hidden forces, and an unlikely hero. Young Eva is an orphan who has suddenly fallen into good fortune. A distant uncle in Prague has left her a mansion in his will, but all is not as it seems. Right from the start, Eva’s journey is plagued with odd discrepancies and ghostly visitors who do not appear to have Eva’s best interests in mind. It will take everything she has to figure out the mystery of why she has really been brought to this place.

Alchemy Mysteries is a hidden object adventure where figuring out what you need to do next plays just as big a part as searching for hidden objects. The gameplay is a blend of fixed hidden object puzzles (where you search for a specified list of items on a fixed screen) and simply finding objects hidden around the various environments you visit. The second type of hidden objects can feel a bit frustrating at times, as there is little to separate usable items from background items, which means you’ll often resort to random clicking simply because you don’t know what you are looking for.

Once you find the objects you need, you must figure out where and how to use them. Some items must be combined with others to make one usable object, while others are used to interact with the environment around you. You’ll find broken rungs to ladders, fix leaky valves, and uncover an unlikely amount of paranormal visitors rushing your screen. There are a number of different environments to explore, from the aforementioned mansion to a quirky antique shop to your deceased uncle’s crypt, and you are able to wander freely among them in your quest for clues.

While it could be easy to wander aimlessly around in a vain search for what to do next, Alchemy Mysteries does have a solid system for keeping frustration at a minimum. There is the standard hint button, which recharges after each use. You can use this to point you in the right direction if you’re feeling stuck. You also have a journal that you can reference that shows you the story points you’ve hit on so far.

One of the more useful features is the game’s map. It shows all the areas of the game, each of them marked with a variety symbols that make it quite a handy tool. “V”s mark areas that have all tasks completed, green exclamation points mark areas where actions are available (and red ones mark places where no actions are available). Unexplored zones and areas not yet opened are also marked, making for an effective guide (and it’s clickable too, meaning you won’t have to waste time wandering between locations).

The real draw to Alchemy Mysteries: Prague Legends is the well written story line. The puzzles are challenging, the graphics are fairly well done, but none of that really stands out from the crowd without an interesting story that ties it together, and thankfully this game has it in spades, and I love that it doesn’t feel predictable. It’s a great choice for casual gamers who love a good spooky story.

Alchemy Mysteries: Prague Legends is a hidden object adventure that’s heavier on story than action – thankfully it has the right kind of story to pull it off. You’ll be pulling for scrappy Eva as you work through the game (not to mention trying to figure out what the heck is going on). Alchemy Mysteries is a great choice for casual gamers and spooky story fans alike.