Dark Tales: Edgar Allan Poe's The Masque of the Red Death Collector's Edition

[h1]It's more like a neutral verdict, but it IS better than the Gold Bug[/h1] It's another dodgy entry in the Edgar Allan Poe games, and I once again find myself wholly uninterested in a bonus chapter. Unlike the last one I played by Big Fish, this title seems more stable as I managed to get through it without any crashes. Animations remain subpar though - entirely cringeworthy, lame and uninteresting. The story itself and the idea of being able to choose who you think is 'more' guilty is pretty good though. By choosing one over the other, you aren't saying the other is innocent though... to be fair they should all go to jail. While the game may actually run correctly compared to Gold Bug (that crashes every half hour), it does have other problems. During search scenes it can be hit-and-miss when clicking on items - not good when the whole genre revolves around such scenes. In addition to this, some areas have points of interest that are unexpected, such as chandeliers. I played on casual because I just wanted to finish this backlog game faster, and to my surprise I found myself using the hint button a lot. Even on casual there are no obvious clues as to what to do, and some de…

This series seems to follow the plots of Edgar Allen Poe’s stories. Of course, with you and a Detective involved. This one seems to be about a vigilante calling himself the Red Masque, and the Mayor who he has issues with. HO scenes are fun, minigames challenging, and the plot engaging. Recommend in the bundle, just for ease of purchase.

If you loved Edgar Allan Poe's books this is a fun game to play through ! ✨ I think Detective Dupin is handsome lol

The voice acting is nice, which is always a fun surprise. Despite its age, every HO scene is clear to tell what's what. Every clue step has logic to solve. You use a hammer and chisel to break rocks, not make a strength potion for a rock golem to give you its replicating baby. Worth it even without playing the series as a whole. The afterstory section is a little rushed but the actual story in it is nice.

My experience with the game was tampered by game-breaking bug I encountered where I couldn't pick up an item critical for progression and I had to restart the whole playthrough from scratch. That being said, even before that I wasn't terribly impressed. While the plot is solid, the creators decided to spice things up by giving you ability to choose the real bad guy of the story: the vigilante who runs around committing murders or his victims, the corrupt city officials. Unfortunately, the game doesn't go in depth enough to make anything interesting with that concept and your choice doesn't affect much other than what 5-seconds cutscene will play at the end. The pacing also caused problems. You'll be picking up objects left and right, often a long time before you'll have use for them, forcing you to scroll through increasingly longer item menu to find something useful. And the puzzles can get rather obtuse. I would never figure out that a HONEY would be ingredient necessary for creating a leather mask. "The Masque of the Red Death" isn't a horrible game per say, but there are better hidden object games out there - in this very series even! 5/10

Plot - 6/10: The game's plot, inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death," offers a captivating and dark narrative, but at times, it felt slightly disjointed, affecting the overall immersion and enjoyment of the storyline.