Thank you to Big Fish Games for providing a complimentary game code to facilitate this PC game review. All opinions expressed are my own.
Being a casual gamer, I am a huge fan of Big Fish Games. They have such a vast inventory of PC games for people like me, who only have time to play once a week (or sometimes less). I have played many different hidden objects games before, but this new release, Dark Parables: The Little Mermaid and the Purple Tide Collector's Edition, has been my favorite thus far.
For this game, I played in "casual" mode, which let's me ask for hints and allows me to use a map that indicates in which locations I still have pending business. The game is quite intricate. There are multiple buildings and many different rooms to unlock in each one. The hidden objects portion is split into two facets. There are hidden objects throughout the regular game areas for which you can earn achievement awards when you find them and there are hidden object mini games. In the mini games, you must search for pieces of three objects and when you've found all the pieces, the fractured objects reassemble and then join together to make one item you need for the game. Much of the game is collecting objects to access another key item or to unlock more content. For myself, I did not find the hidden object mini games to be extremely challenging, but there were always 1 to 3 objects per game that were a challenge to find.
In addition to the hidden object games, there are a variety of mini games. Usually, the hidden object games are what I enjoy the most, but this game offers mini games that I found to be quite unique and challenging because they mostly involve problem-solving. See the example below . . .
As you can see, the graphics are quite beautiful for this game, which adds to the magic. The storyline is about a detective (yourself) who finds herself in a fantasy world with mermaids, man-eating eels, and sorcery. I would say it took me approximately 6 hours to play this game from start to finish. During the last two hours I had 3 children glued to my side because they started watching me and got hooked by this game. In my opinion, young children might be frightened by the eel and some of the evil-doers, but I think a child who is 9 or 10 years old or older would enjoy this game as much as an adult.
I also want to point out that my Windows tablet with an Atom processor ran this game just fine, although it was much easier to find the hidden objects on a 22" monitor than on a 10" screen.
If you have some time to kill at night or on the weekends, I highly recommend this game. It was quite entertaining all-around. You can try Dark Parables: The Little Mermaid and the Purple Tide Collector's Edition for free and then purchase the full version if you like it at www.BigFishGames.com.
Game System Requirements:
OS: Windows XP/Windows Vista/Windows 7/Windows 8
CPU: 1.6 GHz
RAM: 1024 MB
DirectX: 9.0
Hard Drive: 862 MB
Game Manager System Requirements:
Browser: Internet Explorer 7 or later
