Secret Files 2: Puritas Cordis

Adventure games must make use of different elements in order to relay suspense and action, since the point-and-click mechanics do not allow for very thrilling shooting sequences. However, they can use story, mystery and interesting puzzles in order to reach the same results and provide you with a memorable experience along the way.

Secret Files 2: Puritas Cordis is a follow-up to a mostly successful first part and it aims to continue to story, in order to provide you with more answers and quite the adventure. Although you mostly play as the main character, Nina Kalenkow, you also get to control a few others along the story, as well as have them cooperate in order to solve puzzles and come up with solutions together.

As far as the story is concerned, the plot revolves around the secret organization known as Puritas Cordis, which is responsible for causing almost all the natural disasters happening around the world. There is also a conspiracy regarding some parchments and a lot of people die trying to protect them. Naturally, one of them happens to fall into your hands and you must decide the best course of action.

Just like in the first title, the game manages to catch you from the first couple of minutes, especially since the events unfold rather quickly in the beginning. The gameplay becomes more relaxed after that, because you return to basic puzzle solving sequences and the story slowly starts to make sense, as long as you enjoy trying to figure out riddles and combining items together in order to obtain the objects you need.

Visually, the game truly excels when it comes to level design and graphics quality, although most of it happens to be static backgrounds. The characters are all modeled in beautiful 3D and the animations are quite convincing, although they get rather sloppy when they move too fast. The professional voice actors make the characters a bit more believable, while the ambient sounds have been picked with care this time around as well.

In the end, Secret Files 2: Puritas Cordis as everything you might need in order to enjoy a good few hours in the company of an interesting story, sturdy characters and functional gameplay. It also ties up some loose ends from the first part, in case you happen to be a fan or the series, but the plot makes sense even if you didn't play the first part.