Nightmares from the Deep: The Cursed Heart - Back and Forth and Back and Forth Again...

Hidden Object titles can really vary in quality. Some don't put in any at all and just paste pictures on top of pictures, placing in the minimum of music and hope that nobody notices. Some others on the other hand actually try and put work into their titles with clear plots and well-made graphics. So where does this game fall quality-wise then?

Well first off, the graphics definitely are on the side of decent, each area is filled with detail and interesting things and never do you really come across anywhere that's 'dull' as such what with glowing sea-fauna on the ship, dark caves on the island and the occasional surprise reveal, each working to create a very pretty set of scenes. On the other hand, everywhere is pretty much static, the occasional animation just appearing as stilted and stiff. This applies to every part of the game, with puzzle animations composing of as few frames as possible and character animation, just consisting of single poses with little in the way of actual transition.

Onto the actual gameplay though and its quite basic, as you roam around the locations, you find puzzles, hidden-object scenes and items to pick up. As with most adventure games, you can pretty much pick up anything that isn't nailed to the floor and then spend time rubbing every item you have against puzzle areas to see if they work. It is a casual game however so there's no penalty ever for getting anything wrong, nor can you actually really get much wrong. The puzzles themselves while interesting occasionally, never pick up any real difficulty and the 'Skip' feature in each puzzle will likely be untouched on each play.

The HO (Hidden Object) scenes as usual hit my irritation of these games, requiring you to pick up a mass of unrelated items before the game lets you continue with the item you need from the lost. However the HO scenes are few and far between, the game thankfully isn't swamped with them but there is enough to keep those who do enjoy these in safe hands. The game however loses major points with me for the giant amount of backtracking required at all times, throughout the game, you can expect to repeatedly get confused as to what to do, only to find out the game wants you to backtrack back a large distance for one small 'suddenly appearing' HO scene or one unrelated item-piece puzzle, before you continue. Its all very irritating to have to repeatedly traverse the same locations time and time again for minor things.

Overall its a decent enough 'Hidden Object Adventure' with decent enough production values (I have to note its one of the few on steam with a decent widescreen option), but its also one that frustrates with high amounts of backtracking present.