In case your are wondering, no this is not an HD remake Professor Layton and the Curious Village, this game is The Jim and Frank Mysteries: The Blood River Files made by the Indian company 99 games released in 2010, since its my first ever review i’m going to split it up into categories, so here we go
The Story: The story is about Jim & Frank going on a quest to Tinyville after Jim’s grandfather sent him a letter on his 15th birthday where they have to solve the case of the blood river files, then later on there is something about a werewolf which turns out to be fake, a shady sheriff, an evil governor, some mine with rubies in it and a museum curator who turns out is running the whole thing, framed the governor who is also his brother in making look bad, then Jim’s grandfather shows up and catches the curator in the act and the 3 celebrate with milkshakes, the end! Yes that’s basically the whole story for 5 chapters. (4 of which you have to pay for 2.99 last time I checked) TLDR: the story makes The Curious Village story sound like portal in comparison
(Still a better Werewolf than the Guise of the Wolf)
The Artwork: The Werewolf scene, the Euraekas, (the paper-money version of hint coins)that correct/wrong coin and the background of Tinyville ripped from curious village is the BEST artwork I found when playing the whole game, the rest of the time, it looks like this
Notice that this kid is bigger than the teenage protagonists? this is the definition of Off-Model even though the character models is the worst thing that I ever seen in a video game made for children and this is from the Updated version, the original looks like this
Honestly I don’t know which is worse so here’s a nice looking Eureka for an opinion on which one is better
The Characters: Jim is a sheltered young man who came from a family of scientists and college professors who’s parents often forgets his birthday to go to conferences, Frank: The more out going one with the appetite, and the lively grandfather sends Jim quests despite his family’s displeasure who only appears in the very last part of the game. The characters are as flat as a fake Pokemon card, the boys sound like their 10 despite being 5 years older, The sheriff motive for helping the curator is never explored, the Curator just want the rubies for moneys sake and the rest of the characters are just there to give you puzzles or tasks, like using the ios tilt controls (which by the way is awful) to go through a maze, to chopping wood rhythm style, to making potions in a style similar to Puzzles and Dragons
Did they just Photoshop the characters into a painting? (dies inside)
The Gameplay: This is the only thing that this game even has done half right, this game has a variety of different puzzles, from math puzzles, to matchsticks, to the tasks mention above one is a rush hour puzzle, to the ever dreaded sliding puzzles, the Eurekas that you find in the game (2 in each area) can be used to buy vague hints, or save them to skip them entirely (admit it you all want to skip the sliding puzzles) but in case that you don’t have enough, is that you can buy them as in in-app purchase ranging from 30 Eurekas for 0.99 to 390 for $10.00 which considering the games length and the fact that the 1st chapter is free, these are a bargain, but your movement is even more linear than a layton game that you have no free exploration whats so ever and you only go wherever the plot wants you to go
(I wish the hint coin is that detailed)
The Bonuses: there are extra puzzles that can be unlock in the game, some storyboards in the game and such, but the real bonus that I like is the picture that you had to construct if you complete the puzzle and tasks through out the game which shows that the governor, the curator, and the grandfather used to be friends that that point, so that’s nice
oh I forgot to mention there is a sliding puzzle in the game that is eerily similar to the dreaded fleeing princess puzzle from curious village
(nope, not a rip-off at all)
The verdict: this game is the most shameless ripoff of the Layton franchise even more so than May’s Mysteries, the story is to childish even of the most child hearted of adults, the characters are bleh, the art looks like is made from Dingo Pictures, some of the puzzles are to tricky for kids that you need to check on at all times before they throw your iPhone in frustration, and the tasks that involve tilting are unplayable and those are like half of the tasks that you need to do to beat the game (lucky that these are skipable after a few tries) so I give this game a - ∞ out of 5. if you want to try a Laytonesque on your iPhone download the really weird Puzzle Agent games, or even download Mays Mysteries onto your PC over this Eldrich Abomination, only play if you are really curious over it, so I leave you with this werewolf sliding puzzle that they spent their full attention on instead of the character models, thanks for reading, and tell me what you think of my first review
(even Twilight had a better werewolf than Guise of the Wolf)
