Living Legends 3: Wrath of the Beast (IHOG)
Options include separate sliders for Music, Sound and Voice, plus Custom Cursor, Full-screen and Widescreen. There are three difficulties to choose from, or you can go with Custom Mode. Difficulty can be changed at any time via the Options menu.
Story:
Goldilocks died brutally three years ago, leaving her husband and you, her only son, behind. As protector of the village, it's up to you to keep the people safe, but bear attacks are on the rise, and these are no ordinary bears...
Although at first it seems like this is a standalone game - and can be played as such - but there are deep ties to the two previous games in the series if you're going to delve deep into the story and play all of the collectible-unlocked cutscenes (see info on "Morphing Items" below.) At Steam you can only get the first two games via the
Living Legends: Frozen Fear Collection. These are excellent games, so I highly recommend playing the whole series!
We don't exactly have a
Journal - Please see the info on the MAP below.
In addition to semi-frequent cutscenes, the tale progresses via notes and clues that that we find. Most of the info that we find is highly-interactive, but a few of these notes have quite a bit of text.
We learn some of Goldilocks' background story via her diary. Periodically we'll find an item to unlock a new interactive entry, and will be rewarded with a useful new item.
Gameplay:
Our
MAP is interactive and has insta-transport available. It also has tabs for
Notes (you can re-watch cutscenes here),
Tasks and
Achievements.
Be on the lookout for
Morphing Items/
Runes as you play, and be aware that there can be one OR two on a scene (none on zoom-ins or in HOS). These are absolutely necessary to find in order to unlock all of the story-cutscenes in the rune-collection area. These cutscenes are fully-voiced and completely interactive! They're puzzle-cutscenes, and I absolutely loved them, not only because they're fun, but because the background story is really interesting. All of the Collectibles are pictured in your
strategy guide if you need help!
The devs added an interesting twist to the gameplay by adding a different mode that we can play in. Playing in this mode (deliberately vague - no spoilers!) requires finding certain items, as does returning to normal mode.
Inventory items may need some kind of interaction, and are indicated by a + sign when you have everything you need. Two of these items are actually full-blown puzzles - very fun!
Speaking of
Puzzles, there are a few tried and true minis that we've seen dozens of times, but there are also some really interesting and fun-to-complete Mini-games in there, too!
Using a
HINT during the adventure portion of the game will either pinpoint something on the screen or point you in the direction that you need to go next.
The
Hidden Object Scenes vary, with the first half of the game being done entirely through highly-interactive find-by-silhouette scenes, while the second half (including the bonus) are your standard, lightly-interactive find-by-list scenes.
In addition to the above, there are also scenes where we need to find x-number of an item and those where we need to find related pairs, such as fire and ice or a saucer and a teapot.
My only wish is that they had mixed up the HO types, instead of having it split with the first part one way and the second part another.
Sights and Sounds:
The entire game is voiced, and while the voices were done well enough, they did not use believable emotional emphasis AT ALL. The only person who came even close was our character, himself. I really believe that the devs do this on purpose, to keep things from becoming too dark and upsetting for the casual audience that is their demographic. *sigh* Still, it makes it so that the younger generation can play it, so I suppose that's good. ;p
The graphics range from pretty to quite lovely, and the music/sound effects were enjoyable, as well.
The main game took me about four hours to complete.
CE Content:
- Integrated Strategy Guide
- Bonus Chapter
- 34 Collectible Morphing Items/Runes (all found in the main story)
- 8 Wallpapers
- 22 Concept Art (mouse-over to see final artwork)
- 33 Rewatchable Cutscenes
- 5 Music Tracks
- 14 Replayable Puzzles
- 9 Replayable HOS
Bonus Chapter:
The extra chapter starts five years after the main story ends, and gives us true closure both for this game and for the series up to this point (the first three games). It was just as fun to play and just as interesting as the rest of the game.
Verdict:
I loved the first two games in the series, so I had high hopes for this one... and I was not disappointed! I love how very interactive everything was, the artwork was lovely, and the game overall was just FUN. This really is a great series, and I recommend playing them
all!
