Update Eight: 15 June 2017
Demon Hunter: Chronicles from Beyond
3.4 hours of playtime, 28 of 28 achievements
tsuper review: 5/10
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
I want to again thank BLAEO user TRENT for gifting me this game, mostly because I seem to embarrass him every time I do. It meant a lot to me, and it gave me a pleasant afternoon’s worth of fun!
The first installment of the Demon Hunter series falls into the same archetype as most Aritfex Mundi hidden object games: this came out long enough ago to be dated, but still has value in its strong foundations that the newer games are built on. The story is… kind of barren, and the voice acting is fine (except for the main woman, but she only speaks once, thank god). Artifex had yet to switch over to primarily 3D models for their character closeups, and I must say I prefer this a lot more. The backgrounds are as stunning as ever.
This game certainly seemed to mark a specific point in hidden object game development. There are a lot of ideas here that a different from other hidden object games… but it’s mostly because those ideas are bad ideas. Certain minigames, the ‘morphing object’ bullshit in the hidden object scenes, and the types of achievements unlocked are things this game tries but luckily other games don’t. There was a LOT of time limit achievements in this, which I despise. I hate time counters in games - it adds unfun stress, not challenge. If I’m given a 2-minute timer for a task I otherwise could do in 45 seconds, I’d still get panicky. I’m glad most other hidden object games just restrict it to the ‘finish a hidden object puzzle/minigame in under a minute’ handful that are manageable.
The one thing I did really like about this game is…. there are a LOT of hidden object puzzles! I always thought that, for them being called hidden object games, the actual puzzles themselves didn’t occur too often. Not in this game! I didn’t keep track, but there felt like a lot more hidden object scenes, and you revisited each one twice. Overall, a nice game, and a lovely gift c:
Next up: Playing an SG win. Time to get programmy.
See you soon!
Alchemist achievement was absolutely terrible. I disabled cloud save and kept a back-up save just before that puzzle. It must have taken me around 6-7 tries (during some of which I really believed I beat the timer) but fortunately I finally unlocked it but it did not leave a positive impression about the game for sure.
yeah that one blew. Especially how far into the game it was - it was like the second-to-last minigame.
They really did cool it with the timed achievements in other games, thank god.
Ugh those timed sequences must be awful. I’m going to delete that game from my library…thank you for the warning!
Well, it doesn’t affect the gameplay - it only matters for the achievements. The game isn’t timed.
Yeah, this time limit thingies are super annoying! Somehow got rid of them anyway :D
Where as the morphing thingies? I encountered them in Enigmatis 3 as well, so… they are in a few others as well. Even in new ones. Just be prepared ;)
Have fun with the sg win :)
Happy backlog killing
I also didn’t bother with the timed achievements. I try - not saying I always succeed, but I try - to do achievements only when I enjoy them (or don’t mind them, at least). Life’s too short for that sort of nonsense. I really enjoyed the second Demon Hunter game: they just decided to go Whole Nutty, turned it up to 11, and didn’t even pretend to be sensible.
I try to adopt that attitude when I can - being okay with dropping a game I dislike even if I only got 30% of the achievements and therefore will hurt my score, knowing that there are some achievements I just Won’t Do (like insane difficulty and speedrun achievements).
…But I refuse to let a friggin HIDDEN OBJECT GAME get the better of me. I refuse!
Thanks to ninglor, I’ll be playing the second Demon Hunter game next. I’m glad it’s got some good rep to back it!
I hope you enjoy it. It’s gleefully silly. Me, I’ll play a game a second time to collect achievements if I enjoyed it enough the first time, but I won’t often do timed achievements or perfect-record stuff. You know, never get killed, never step off the path, that sort of thing (at least not unless there’s a good solid save in the game, which we don’t get in HOGs). In Demon Hunter, or the first Grim Legends game, or even Puzzle Agent 2 … I had a good time playing them, but I just don’t have time and patience to muck around in there too much for the last few achievements. I mean, for what? For a number on Steam? Psssh. Who cares.
I will poke away close to forever on, say, the stupid Radio achievement in Portal, or the Don’t-Step-On-The-Beach game in Half-Life. (Well, maybe not the beach one, though it’s fun to try sometimes.) They’re a kind of mini-game in themselves, and they are tucked into fully-realized games that are a pleasure to revisit. I went back for the achievements in Year Walk, because they added little grace notes to a game I loved already. I guess my thinking is pretty much the opposite of yours; with rare exceptions, I’m not going to let a Hidden Object Game keep me stuck in my chair for another day when I can just close it up, shift it to the Finished collection, and move on.
Did you end up doing the friggin garden gnome one, too? in Episode 2? I know it’s a digression, but you bringing up the beach achievement brought back very fond memories of achievement hunting…. jesus god, 10 years ago. I agree with what you said re: fun little games within bigger realized games, and how it can change how you play. Doing the gnome run through Episode 2 was fun and really changed the tone of the game. It is also where I happened to run into the ‘Party Hunter’ - a hunter’s texture didn’t load correctly and instead it was bright pink and yellow and looked like it was covered in silly string. Coming upon that while that god forsaken gnome was staring through the screen into my soul was….. well, I still remember it, all those years later.
As for the others, luckily for me I can finish the attempt within a few tries, especially once I found out how to back up my saves so I can have unlimited tries. But, yeah, if it was going to take me upwards of a few more hours I’d give up, too. It’s find a good balance between enjoying the numbers and actually…. having fun.
I did not do the garden gnome. In fact, I think I never finished Episode 2, because my computer at the time wouldn’t get past the middle of it. I’m vaguely remembering a tube tunnel with energy balls zooming up its two channels, and you had to time your jumps between them, and my machine would lock right there. Something along those lines. Completely forgot about that, I should get back in and play the two sequels again. I know I played Episode 1, but it didn’t stick in memory. I think it was fairly annoying?
My favorite discovery achievement was the one with the Vortigaunts singing in the cave in the reservoir level. Not that I found it on my own, or anything, but once I followed directions it taught me a lot about how the devs contrived to hide things in the game. And I know what you mean about memories: time creeps right up on me when I think about Half-Life!