European Mystery 2: The Face Of Envy

European Mystery: The Face Of Envy
by Blam! Games - February, 2014

Series links: European Mystery 1: Scent of Desire, European Mystery 2: The Face Of Envy

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



A series of robberies takes a deadly turn in European Mystery: The Face of Envy! You’ve been called out of retirement again by an old friend in Italy. Something very unusual is happening on the streets of Rome... Nobles are being robbed of their jewels in broad daylight and falling dangerously ill afterward. As you begin to investigate, you realize that the case is even stranger than you first thought - the villain takes on the physical traits of his victims right before your eyes! But who is he? And what is his mysterious plan? To find out, you’ll have to explore the sights of Rome and solve challenging puzzles in this thrilling Hidden Object adventure!

The Collector’s Edition includes:

• A bonus mystery that takes you to the city of Dresden!
  
• Wallpapers, concept art, and videos
  
• Wonderful music tracks from the game
  
• An available Strategy Guide
  

For the Standard Edition

• Strategy Guide
  
• Walkthrough (Big Fish)
  

Click images to enlarge
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No significant differences from the Beta.

A One-Man Crime Wave****

BASED ON DEMO

FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Delightful & unusual start to this game. Delightful for its excellent cut scene graphics. Unusual because it starts with a renaissance man preening before a mirror – hardly stirring stuff? No, but then things go downhill fast!

SIGHTS & SOUNDS
Lovely hand painted graphics. Excellent colour palette ranging from bold to subtle, light to dark. Everything clearly lit and wonderfully detailed. The music is awesome, authentic (to my uneducated ears) and melodic. The voiceovers are very good, but there is no lip sync.

WHAT’S HAPPENING?
After your last case in Paris, you gained some notoriety, so it is not long before you hear from another policeman in need of your skills. Off to Rome for another mysterious series of crimes. This time someone is robbing nobles blind – literally, in one case. Not only does he rob his victims, he also leaves them suffering inexplicable ailments. Your investigation starts with the jeweler who has made all the pieces stolen so far. But you arrive too late to question him... and the masked villain gets away.

GAMEPLAY
This game has an interesting modification to some of its HOPs, which are mostly interactive lists. In the modified ones, every item listed is interactive! That’ll keep you busy! There are also at least one multiples HOP. I barely noticed the puzzles. There are not a lot of them, and those in the demo are easy enough for me to feel comfortable. There is a directional hint, notebook and interactive jump map. You can toggle the indicators for the map in the options menu, and choose from 3 modes of difficulty.

Signature feature. Like the first European Mystery, Scent Of Desire, this game has a unique mixing kit. In this case, it is a jewelry creation box. You must find certain ores or gems, collect and charge (with rays of sunlight) powerful crystals, then follow a blueprint to compose the item you wish to create. Actually more fun even than the alchemy box in Scent Of Desire.

Something to note. The inventory bar can be locked by clicking on the lion face in its centre. It had me believing there was no lock for a while.

CE BLING!
There are the sunlight rays mentioned to collect, along with 35 hidden masks, and a collection of journal notes. All 3 have related achievements. There is also an achievement for using a helper. This seems to be a beautiful ermine, but it’s possibly more than one. It’s not clear. There is no further information about the CE extras in this edition.

COMBINED IMPACT
I had a wonderful time playing this game. It is reasonably easy, so the expert crowd won’t like it, but for most of us, this is a great way to be entertained.

I recommend this game!

Hi JTF! I never played the first in the series - who are the devs?

Blam!

Pretty cool. Both games, but this one is even better than first, which I got as SE, and then wished I'd got the CE because it was so cool!!