Junior Mystery Stories (Nintendo DS) - Review by Andrew

Introduction

Like Reality TV Shows, it appears that the Hidden Object game is here to stay and their rise in popularity has been impressive, to say the least, with their growth no doubt fuelled by the expanding Casual Gaming sector. That and and the fact that these types of games are incredibly easy (and therefore cost effective) to produce with the vast majority actually ported from the PC and Mac. Junior Mystery Stories is an attempt to bring the genre to the younger gamer but given that losing things is one thing most teenaged do very well, how well they cope with attempting to find them too?

Gameplay

If you haven't played a Hidden Object game before the clue is in the title and the lions share of the gameplay is simply locating objects in a variety of crowded locations and then ticking them off a list. Sounds dull and to be honest it can be but what these games provide is completely accessible gaming and in order to give your 'seeking out' a bit of purpose, the developers here have also added a plot. You play Rachel aided by a mysterious talking toy, Mookie, as she explores her missing Uncles manor house in search of clues to find his whereabouts (we didn't say it was a good plot). What this all means, in terms of gameplay, is not only locating a huge amount of random objects but also 20 pieces of a Mythical Tablet which is at the centre of the whole mystery.

During all of this you'll also have to complete a series of mini-games although not all of these are as entertaining as they should or could be. The highlights though include a great little version of the timeless board game Mastermind where you must attempt to guess the hidden colour codes with only a handful of clues. The block-pushing puzzler: Sokoban and other gaming classics such as Lights Out (or Light Up, as it's called here), Pipemania, Tangram and even a Spot the Difference challenge. Once unlocked these can all be played from the main menu, which is at least an attempt at extended gameplay after you have completed the main adventure.

Controls

While the Hidden Object section of the game is all stylus driven, there as a handful of the unlockabele mini-games which require the D-pad and face buttons. These are all simple enough and you do get instructions before the game begins but it's refreshing to see that the developers didn't attempt to control all of these games using the touch-screen

Graphics

Most Hidden Object titles have a kind of filtered photography quality about them with the visuals generally lifted from 'real' locations. Everything here has been hand drawn and the characters of Rachel and Mookie are particularly pleasing. We did have a few problems with finding things though and not because they were incredibly well hidden but due to the fact that they didn't appear to look like what we were searching for. There's also the usual problem of the screens being just too small but rather than scrolling around a larger area (which is what generally happens with these conversions) each area is instead split into segments which can be navigated with the D-pad.

Sound

I don't think I can recall a game with audio quite as bad as Junior Mystery Stories. The music is the first thing, which you'll encounter and while there's a generous amount of variation here the sampled loops are so short it becomes irritating very quickly indeed. The 'speech' follows the same pattern and the most you'll get from Rachel is single word mutterings and she'll never even attempt to string together a sentence.

Dual screen

Gamers will occasionally, if they've misplaced their stylus, simply use their nail to do the odd touch-screen interaction. We'll tell you now that that's absolutely impossible here and some of the objects will require pinpoint accuracy before you'll be able to cross them off your list. Don't be tempted to just randomly tap everywhere on the screen either as this will just knock valuable seconds off your timer and generally does nothing to help locate what you are looking for anyway.

Final comments

The problem with Hidden Object games is that there isn't really much variety out there and other than changing the location or attempting to pen a gripping plot they're all essentially the same. Junior Mystery Stories has gone heavy on the plot and this may just reach out to the younger gamer. The mini-games are a nice addition although only a handful are actually any good and with no high score table there's little point in revisiting them once completed. If Hidden Object games are your thing then there's certainly enough to locate and uncover here but other than the storyline, there's little to separate it from any other titles in the genre.

Pro: Hours of Gameplay, Unlockable Mini-Games.
Con: Appalling Audio, Nothing Original
Final score: 6.4

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