[b]Fierce Tales 1: The Dog's Heart[/b] (IHOG)
Options include separate sliders for Music and Sound, plus Full-screen and Custom Cursor. Choice of Casual, Advanced or Hardcore Mode. Difficulty can be changed at any time.
[b]Story[/b]:
The snowy town of Houndspoint has always had a real kinship with their canine friends... Until now. Suddenly large dogs have started attacking people and stealing their beloved pets! When your mini poodle, Pippa, is dragged away by these beasts right in front of you and your children, you are determined to find out what is causing this strange behavior and save your little friend!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1850875357
Our [b]Journal[/b] tracks the story and clues that we've found, but doesn't offer much in the way of extra story. In order to understand what is going on, you're going to need to read every scrap of journal, research, etc. that you can get your hands on. These will remain where you find them (they don't go into your journal), but you can go back to them and re-read whenever you like.
[b]Gameplay[/b]:
Our [b]MAP[/b] has fast-travel, but is not interactive. There were so many illogical tasks that we were expected to do that I got lost a lot. I was happy to see that there are directional [b]HINTS[/b] available!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1858316784
[b]Hidden Object Scenes[/b] are lightly-interactive lists, and there is no misclick penalty when in Casual Mode (not sure about the other modes.)
[b]Sights and Sounds[/b]:
The character design is... different. Sometimes they look like your standard human, and other times they look like characters from a [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjFzPl5F56c]Puff's Facial Tissue Commercial[/url].
Graphic-wise the scenery ranges from pretty good to very nice. Here's a scene which I especially enjoyed:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1858314838
Music seemed to be on a short loop, and got repetitive quickly.
[b]CE Content[/b]:
[list]
[*]Integrated Strategy Guide
[*]Bonus Chapter
[*]9 Wallpapers (3 resolutions to choose from)
[*]13 pages of Concept Art
[*]7 Music Tracks (I don't see an option to save)
[/list]
[b]Bonus Chapter[/b]:
The extra chapter is basically a prequel, following events that took place before we became part of the story. It explains very little, and is not needed to understand the main story... As a matter of fact, for me it did nothing but cause more questions.
[b]Verdict[/b]:
I really struggled to finish this one. It's not that it's a bad game, it's just that I quickly got my fill of ridiculous tasks, and wondered what far-fetched action they would want me to take next. The game also neatly glossed over some very serious events; things which [i]should[/i] have had a huge effect on the story but didn't.
I think that this is a well-made game with pretty graphics, but if you're a story-lover -- or hyper-aware of logic like myself -- you might want to give this one a pass.
