European Mystery: The Face of Envy Collector's Edition

[h1]Short version: 65%[/h1] Face of Envy is a conflicting game. On one side, it has great artwork, a strong plot premise, and good hidden object scenes. On the other side, we have the lack of puzzles, the incredibly repetitive story, and too much running around. [h1]Long version:[/h1] European Mystery 2: Face of Envy is more of a reskin of the first game than a sequel. Our French detective returns in a case very similar to his previous one, only this time he is chasing a serial attacker in Italy as he is using magical jewellery to rob victims of their physical features. The keyword is “chasing”; the plot is an endless cycle, where every time we enter a new area, we can see the perpetrator escape to a new portion of the map, so we spend another 5-10 minutes rounding up a key to progress. The repetitive story accompanies solid but unremarkable gameplay. There are plenty of nice hidden object scenes but few conventional puzzles (we have the running around instead). Essentially, it mostly feels like playing the leftover ideas and scenes from Scent of Desire, with slightly different scenery.

I helped an ermine, got to name him (Gabe Knight, of course) and then he helped me access some hard-to-reach areas through the story! Cutscenes are well done, villain story is silly to follow, and the gem alchemy mechanic was fun. Biggest drawback was that some of the lock-piece-in-place puzzles were a bit too pixel perfect.

Fresh off your case in Paris, you are summoned by another friend to Rome. Nobles are being injured, even killed for some of their jewels. You feeling up to the challenge (you must be a medieval Sherlock Holmes), decide to take the case. Guess your retirement will have to wait! The minigames are challenging, the HO scenes fun, and the plot engaging.

Hidden object adventure. Story is renaissance with access to map.