Lost Grimoires 2: Shard of Mystery

When it comes to royalty in video games, it would appear that most blue-blooded characters are only there to be kidnapped or assassinated, otherwise they have no say in the grand scheme of things. It naturally follows that the players are the ones responsible for finding them or catching the assassins, since the royal guards are never to be trusted with such important missions.

Lost Grimoires 2: Shard of Mystery is a hidden-object adventure game that puts you in the role of a woman tasked with solving almost every problem encountered by the royal family. Hence, besides having to cook medicine for the ill king and take care of various other things, you must also go looking for the missing prince and go head-to-head with powerful dark magic. Thankfully, your character is resourceful enough for that not to be a problem.

The game features the usual HOPA mechanics, which means that you move from one scene to the other in search of useful items that allow you to unlock containers or tackle puzzles. Depending on the chosen difficulty level, the objects you can interact with are highlighted or not, thus allowing you to really put some effort into it or just enjoy the story while everything is almost done for you.

Most of the items can be combined with others, but some are only used once in order to bypass a certain obstacle. You can keep them in your inventory until then, but it’s kind of a shame that your character throws them away after only one use. As for the puzzles, they usually require you to spot the correct pattern and click on things, but there are some hidden-object scenes every now and again as well.

In terms of interface, the game provides you with everything you need on the screen at all times, so you rarely have to fumble through menus. The graphics are very nice as well, especially since the environments are hand-drawn and extremely detailed, with a few post-processing effects added on top to make the whole thing feel more like a fantasy tale.

All things considered, Lost Grimoires 2: Shard of Mystery does not stray too far from the classic formula of the genre, so if you are a returning fan you should find everything in its right place. However, even beginners can learn the ropes in a matter of minutes, because everything is about as simple as it can get.

NOTE: This is a downloader for the game. Once run, the application will automatically download and install the game on your computer.

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