Dark Tales: Edgar Allan Poe's The Masque of the Red Death Collector's Edition

This game ended up being one of the worst mystery/solver games I have ever played. Don't waste your $$, even if it's on sale; thank God I got it for free.

This game is very enjoyable with fun puzzles and an engaging story. The player's decisions dictate which ending is given, which I thought was a nice touch.

Die Krönung aus der "Dark Tales"-Reihe!!! War man bisher schon begeistert von den anderen Teilen der "Dark Tales"-Reihe, so kommt man auch hier wieder voll auf seine Kosten! Eine spitzenmäßige Grafik, eine immer zum Anlaß passende Musikuntermalung, eine leicht nachvollziehbare Logik und ein bis in die Haarspitzen spannender Handlungsstrang-dieses Spiel ist wahrhaftig die absolute Krönung aller "Dark Tales"-Spiele und ich kann es daher nur empfehlen!

[h1]It's more like a neutral verdict, but it IS better than the Gold Bug[/h1] It's another dodgy entry in the Edgar Allan Poe games, and I once again find myself wholly uninterested in a bonus chapter. Unlike the last one I played by Big Fish, this title seems more stable as I managed to get through it without any crashes. Animations remain subpar though - entirely cringeworthy, lame and uninteresting. The story itself and the idea of being able to choose who you think is 'more' guilty is pretty good though. By choosing one over the other, you aren't saying the other is innocent though... to be fair they should all go to jail. While the game may actually run correctly compared to Gold Bug (that crashes every half hour), it does have other problems. During search scenes it can be hit-and-miss when clicking on items - not good when the whole genre revolves around such scenes. In addition to this, some areas have points of interest that are unexpected, such as chandeliers. I played on casual because I just wanted to finish this backlog game faster, and to my surprise I found myself using the hint button a lot. Even on casual there are no obvious clues as to what to do, and some deductions made little sense. The easiest example of this is a pile of rubble somehow needing a (crappily made) broom to sweep it, despite rubble usually being so heavy a broom wouldn't do much to it. When you finally use the broom, it breaks straight away. It would have been faster to clear it with your hands, but the game doesn't let you. There are just so many instances of this (poor deductions and poor reasoning) that it is no wonder I had to keep using the hint button. Most HOGs have this problem to various degrees, and you learn to gloss over them and keep playing, but I just found it particularly bad here. Not all HOGs are created equal, and this game is a good example of that. Even with in-game achievements and things like photos to collect, I struggle to really recommend this game. Either get it heavily discounted or not at all.

This was a very good hidden object game. Superior to most of the Artifax Mundi games, in my opinion. There was great variety in the hidden object scenes. The mini-games were not the same ol', same ol'. Many things to find per screen usually. Some cons to consider: I don't think the story was that great. I personally don't care about story too much, but it matters to some people. It's an older game, so there is no map, but that didn't bother me in the least.

This series seems to follow the plots of Edgar Allen Poe’s stories. Of course, with you and a Detective involved. This one seems to be about a vigilante calling himself the Red Masque, and the Mayor who he has issues with. HO scenes are fun, minigames challenging, and the plot engaging. Recommend in the bundle, just for ease of purchase.

If you loved Edgar Allan Poe's books this is a fun game to play through ! ✨ I think Detective Dupin is handsome lol

Un HOG sympa avec une enquête qui nous amènera à désigner le coupable de l'histoire, celle-ci ayant donc plusieurs fins. Qui sera donc jugé pour ses crimes, le maire qui saigne (au propre comme au figuré) ses contribuables ou le vengeur masqué? L'un des meilleurs de la série, sans aucune dimension ésotérique (je n'aime pas ca).

Plot - 6/10: The game's plot, inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death," offers a captivating and dark narrative, but at times, it felt slightly disjointed, affecting the overall immersion and enjoyment of the storyline.

My experience with the game was tampered by game-breaking bug I encountered where I couldn't pick up an item critical for progression and I had to restart the whole playthrough from scratch. That being said, even before that I wasn't terribly impressed. While the plot is solid, the creators decided to spice things up by giving you ability to choose the real bad guy of the story: the vigilante who runs around committing murders or his victims, the corrupt city officials. Unfortunately, the game doesn't go in depth enough to make anything interesting with that concept and your choice doesn't affect much other than what 5-seconds cutscene will play at the end. The pacing also caused problems. You'll be picking up objects left and right, often a long time before you'll have use for them, forcing you to scroll through increasingly longer item menu to find something useful. And the puzzles can get rather obtuse. I would never figure out that a HONEY would be ingredient necessary for creating a leather mask. "The Masque of the Red Death" isn't a horrible game per say, but there are better hidden object games out there - in this very series even! 5/10