The Myth Seekers: The Legacy of Vulcan

Although this is a somewhat decent Artifex Mundi hidden-object puzzle adventure (HOPA) that could have possibly gained a recommendation, a game-breaking bug near the end prevents that. There's a puzzle with matching keys similar to a memory game except you can never pick the last key, cannot progress and therefore need to restart from the beginning. It doesn't happen all the time, but it happens too often if we read reviews and forum posts. It happened to me after playing more than three hours. The bug was not fixed for close to 9 years and at this time, I don't think it will ever be. I think the only safe recourse, if you're intent on playing this, is to skip the puzzle when it appears. You'll lose the achievement of solving all puzzles without skipping, but that's less frustrating than losing all your progress. A few extra review notes although they became secondary. It's a typical later-day Artifex Mundi HOPA. The decors are beautiful. Character faces are hit or miss. For hidden object scenes, not a ton and not just finding the word in the scene, so I appreciate that. The objects to find are well integrated.

The setting was in Italy and the story was about Roman gods so that made it interesting. There was fast travel on the map. Like usual after a certain number of scenes older areas got locked off. The morphing collectibles were a bit difficult to find. They don't flash quickly so you really have to be watching for them. But there is an indicator on the screen when there is a collectible, so that is a good thing to pay attention to, to not miss any. The HO scenes were a bit tough. The one achievement of completing three in under 45 seconds each made them stressful also. There were a few easy HOs though where it could be done no problem if you are fast.

The game works, there is a functioning map, the puzzles were decent, and there is even a visual indicator for the bonus collectables, so I'll recommend it. However, I do have a few gripes, starting with the mythology. Tempestus and her magic wand were a horrible but hilarious addition, as was the concept of giving Bellona any form of prominence in the story of Vulcan. The game even gets the thunderbolts wrong, and the protagonist, at one point, casually discards a phoenix. It was baffling. And, on top of all that, our protagonist also suffers from "amoral idiot video game character" syndrome, frequently to her own detriment. As an example, say you and your buddy drove out to the middle of nowhere, and ran out of gas. He leaves you with his car while he hikes to the last gas station you saw. Now you need something from the trunk. Do you - a) Wait for him to get back, in order to use the keys to unlock it? b) Find or fashion a lockpick, in order to unlock it without waiting for him? or c) Find and use a crowbar (or something similar) to force the lock but damage the car, rather than wait for your buddy? If you looked at all of these options and instead chose to trigger a rock-sli…

Solid hidden object game with lots of puzzles and HO scenes. Theme is ancient Rome and the Roman Gods. Fun for some hours to relax but keep your brain busy.

This was a good game

Things are hidden until they aren't.