Shiver 4: The Lily's Requiem

Shiver: The Lily's Requiem
by Artogon - January, 2015

Series links: Shiver 1: Vanishing Hitchhiker, Shiver 2: Poltergeist, Shiver 3: Moonlit Grove, Shiver 4: The Lily's Requiem

Available at:
Big Fish as Collector's Edition /
Steam as Collector's Edition



From Artogon, creators of Shiver: Vanishing Hitchiker, Shiver: Poltergeist, and Shiver: Moonlit Grove, comes another chilling tale!

It’s your first day as head doctor of the Blackwill Hospital, but trouble starts before you even enter the building! A young woman collapses on the street, attacked by someone – or something. As you treat her, you realize she may be connected to your past… and you may be the only one who can save her from the strange illness that also claimed her mother. Only one thing is for certain - they never prepared you for an adventure like this in medical school!

The Collector’s Edition includes:

• Release Beatrice from the siren’s spell!
  
• Collect pearls and use them to buy things for your house
  
• Earn achievements and complete the Aquarium Collection
  
• Get music, art, and wallpapers
  
• An available Strategy Guide
  
• Big Fish Blog Walkthrough
  

Shiver 4: The Lily's Requiem (IHOG)
This is a standalone story

Options include separate sliders for SFX, Music and Ambients, Large Icons, Full-screen and Disable Special Effects.  Choice of Casual, Expert or Custom difficulty, which you can change at any time.

Story:

You've finally returned to the town where you started your medical career, ready to take on the role of head doctor at the local hospital. A young woman who collapsed in the street has been searching for you, but why?  How is she connected to your past, and what is this strange illness that is affecting her?

Early on in the game, we have dialogue options when interacting with others, but this is optional (can be turned off in the Custom difficulty).

Collectibles:

Be on the lookout for two types of collectibles:  Small gray-black pearls - which can be found anywhere, including zoom-ins and HO scenes - and aquarium additions.  The pearls are used to "purchase" new furniture for your home (four styles to choose from), and the aquarium collection is for your pet fish, of course! :D

Hidden Objects:

There are multiple kinds of HO types, including:

• Standard to-find lists
  
• Highly-interactive lists
  
• Scrambled word lists
  
• Find-by-silhouette lists
  
• Hidden Object Puzzles (ultimate goal listed; you have to figure out the steps to achieve it)
  
• Find x-number of items
  

I was delighted to see the scrambled word lists, as I've never seen this kind of HO before!  It made finding the items much more interesting~



Other Gameplay:

There's a nice balance of HO's, puzzles and adventure gameplay.  Inventory items with a green border around them need to be interacted with in some way, and we sometimes use items in unusual - but logical - ways.  I am the queen of makeshift solutions, so this really appealed to me!

HINTS are refillable, and will give you a directional arrow during the adventure portion without discharging your hint.

Our Diary documents our journey, but doesn't add anything to the story.  Any mini-game hints that you find will be in there, but you'll never have to actually look, since the page will pop up on the screen the second you enter the puzzle that it corresponds to.  These minis are nicely-varied, and mostly not the same-old, same-old that we usually see in HOG's.

There is a Tasks tab in the diary in case you can't remember what you're supposed to be working on.

The MAP has an insta-transport option, and is interactive unless you're playing in Expert mode.  Did I mention that this is the BEST map ever?  I absolutely ADORE the 3D effect they used.  I've seen it attempted in games before, but usually they're hard to read.  Not so with Lily's Requiem!


Sights and Sounds:

I really enjoyed the graphics for this, and I discovered something when I had to step away from the game for a couple of minutes... When I came back, all of the extra *stuff* - Diary, task bar, hint button, strategy guide, link to your home and map - was gone. *POOF*  Turns out that you can have wallpaper-quality screens on ANY location by simply not touching the mouse for 30 seconds!   Oh my gosh, as someone who loves looking at the artwork (and taking screens), this was really exciting for me! :p

To be honest I really didn't notice the SFX and music all that much, though I can tell you that the cutscenes are fully-voiced.

CE Content:

• Bonus Chapter
  
• Integrated Strategy Guide (has section that shows collectible locations)
  
• 16 Wallpapers
  
• 16 Concept Art
  
• Battleship Mini-game
  
• Match-3 (bring item to the bottom of the screen) Mini-game
  
• Pinball Mini-game
  
• 17 re-playable HO Scenes
  
• 17 re-watchable Videos
  
• 48 in-game Achievements (access via the cabinet in your home, NOT on the Extra Content page)
  

Bonus Chapter:

You're not going to be left with a cliffhanger if you only have the Standard Edition, but this extra hour or so of story is the true ending of the game.  The gameplay is just as good as during the main story, and unlike most bonus chapters I've played, has more than one type of HO scene.

Verdict:

Every Shiver game is excellent in its own way, but they are all very different! No cookie cutter games in this series!  The variety of hidden object types was refreshing, the graphics beautiful, the story held everything together nicely, and the overall experience very entertaining!  Recommended!