The Curio Society: Eclipse Over Mesina

Secret societies seem to be running everything nowadays, at least if you give credence to certain theories that are floating around. Whether it’s a group of influential people trying to create a new world order, or a bunch of executives fixing the price of jelly at a global scale, conspiracies appear to be at the center of everything people care about.

The Curio Society: Eclipse Over Mesina is a puzzle game in which you are given the chance to join one of these mysterious societies, although it’s not one you might be familiar with. Instead of controlling the world, on the other hand, this group seems to be concerned with everyone’s well-being, which is why they are so keen on solving mysteries and stopping bad guys.

The story starts with the main character receiving an invitation to join the Curio Society, but the test is not as easy as it appears at first. After a brief introduction, you find out that your task involves statues that have come to life and a very powerful sorcerer that needs to be stopped. Thus, the game revolves around your struggle to stop the sorcerer and save an entire town from destruction.

In case you are not familiar with hidden object games, the main goal is to examine your surroundings and pick up any useful items. These can then be used to solve puzzles and unlock the way further, with a few variations along the way. Certain mini-games are part of the experience as well, although they are fairly simple to solve most of the time.

To complete the atmosphere, cutscenes are used to provide you with details about the story, and they are pretty well made considering the technology used. While the animations are fairly basic and unremarkable, the artwork is quite striking, and it’s obvious that the designers put some effort in the locations you get to visit along the way. The voice acting is decent as well, but there’s not a lot of it.

All things considered, The Curio Society: Eclipse Over Mesina should be more than familiar to the fans of the genre, but it’s not groundbreaking enough to convince new players. Thus, if you know what to expect, this is about as engaging as any other hidden object game.