Haunted Legends: The Secret of Life Collector's Edition

The Fountain of Youth myth is pretty common around the world, since every culture has some kind of legend regarding eternal life and the means to acquire it. Every story involves a great challenge, on the other hand, which means that those who wish to reach the fountain have to put up with unfair situations in order to gain their immortality.

Haunted Legends: The Secret of Life Collector's Edition is a puzzle game with a bit of horror added for taste, as well as a big mystery for you to solve. The gameplay mechanics are no different from the rest of the entries in the series, meaning that you’ll be searching for items, combining them, and using the resulting objects to unlock your way further into the story.

Speaking of which, the plot revolves around a man who is suffering from a grave illness, one that threatens to take his life in the near future. However, he has found a cure for it after traveling the world, and it’s somewhere in a small and apparently peaceful village. As it turns out, the said village is anything but peaceful, and you must solve a murder in order to prevent a curse from infecting everyone there.

While there are pure hidden object sequences to deal with as well, most of your time is spent trying to move on to the next area. To do so, you usually have to find a particular object to unlock a door or a gate, because keys are not always necessary. The gimmick gets repetitive after a while, but the puzzles vary greatly over the course of the game. Hence, while the recipe doesn’t change at all, at least you are technically not doing the same thing over and over again.

Many of the puzzles don’t make too much sense to begin with, since you could easily think of a much better solution instead. There is only one way to advance, however, and you are not rewarded for thinking of alternative answers. Thankfully, at least the graphics are beautiful and detailed, because every scene is expertly drawn to inspire the proper atmosphere and mood.

When it’s all said and done, Haunted Legends: The Secret of Life Collector's Edition may not be very appealing to hardcore puzzle lovers, but it’s one hell of an adventure for casual players looking for an intriguing story and a bit of relaxation. You have the option to increase the difficulty at any point, in case you find it too simple or too bothersome.