Shrouded Tales: The Shadow Menace Collector's Edition

Being a wizard is one of the coolest professions in most fantasy stories and video games, although it’s usually a bit more difficult to handle than a warrior or a ranger. In essence, mages are only good at casting spells, naturally, so they are fairly feeble if an enemy manages to avoid the said spells and makes it in melee range. Hence, progress is usually a bit tougher, but the rewards are worth it.

Help a mage rescue his friends and stop a villain

Shrouded Tales: The Shadow Menace is a hidden object adventure game designed to provide you with a joyful adventure and a fair challenge in regards to the puzzles. Don’t expect revolutionary gameplay mechanics, nor stunning 3D worlds to explore, but if you are a fan of the genre you should already know how to approach a game such as this one.

The story centers on a wizard’s apprentice who is about to graduate and become a proper mage, but things get a bit out of hand. Hence, an evil force kidnaps his friend and his teacher, and it’s up to him to go after the villain. Thankfully, the magic you know comes in handy throughout the journey, since you can make proper use of various spells to work around obstacles or even defeat enemies.

Just like in all the other HOPAs you might have played, most of your time is spent investigating the environment for useful items that might come in handy later on, although it is actually mandatory to pick up every possible item. These objects also allow you to solve puzzles, although the mechanics are nothing out of the ordinary, given the fact that you have to move things around or simply find the right pattern.

Even so, it’s a wonderful adventure through a world full of magic and interesting places, so the experience remains engaging from start to finish. Thanks to the detailed artwork and the nice cutscenes, you actually feel like you are part of a different world over the course of the adventure. The atmosphere is completed by decent sound effects and nice voice acting for every cutscene.

Shrouded Tales: The Shadow Menace might not be the most original adventure game out there, but it’s certainly polished and fun. Thus, the interesting story and challenging puzzles can keep you engaged for many hours. 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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