Nancy Drew®: Mystery of the Seven Keys™

It took this game only 74 minutes to crash in a way that literally nearly bricked my PC. In those scant 74 minutes, the game managed to thoroughly un-impress me with a poorly written and awkward script, stiff and unnatural the voice acting, and annoying UI and puzzles. I cannot in good faith recommend this game, even to longtime HeR fans like myself. I own every single other ND game in a physical collection, but I refuse to keep this one. Returning immediately.

Even if not for the gameplay feeling gutted and hollow compared to the "old" Nancy Drew games, it would be so much better with Lani Minella as the voice of Nancy. I grew up with THAT voice being Nancy, so I'm obviously biased, but when you only *hear* and rarely see a series protagonist, their voice becomes a massive, integral part of the protagonist's perceived "identity". I don't want to sound mean but this new voice actress doesn't feel like Nancy Drew at all, and if that weren't so jarring, maybe I'd be able to look past some of the gameplay's lacking points (and there are so many...) Sure, maybe it would only be for the nostalgia factor. But altogether the new Nancy to me feels like just a stranger in a strange game. Thanks to Lani for so many years of playing the iconic Nancy Drew I know & love. Growing up with very little social life Nancy always felt like a friend as a kid and this game series inspired me to read and write more mystery stuff. I'll miss it.

It took me awhile to buy this game based on the mixed reviews, but I'm happy that I caved because now I understand why. There were a few times I was confused by what to do next because it wasn't always obvious and a few puzzles were kind of ridiculous, but overall I think the game was fine.

While this game was far better than Midnight in Salem, it was still lack luster. The charm of the old point-and-click Nancy Drew games was not there for me. It seems as if HER is trying to create moody, suspense filled mysteries, but they have lost sight of what made Nancy Drew games so special. I can appreciate their attempt to branch out and try a new style of game that might appeal to a wide variety of audiences; however, HER is losing the loyalty of avid Nancy Drew players who appreciated the old games with a well thought out mystery/story and a good mixture of puzzles and tasks. The pace of the story felt rather slow to me and disjointed. It took far more effort to figure out how to continue the story than was necessary. It was difficult to know where to go or what to do next. There were also fewer locations to explore than you might think. There was a map available but it only showed one portion of square, which was easy to explore without a map. Useless. There were not as many puzzles as I was hoping for in this game, plus the coffee making portion of the game was simple, boring, and completely unnecessary. While I do enjoy making food or drinks in previous games, this task felt completely pointless and simple compared to the old games. I don't want to spoil anything, but the mystery behind the seven keys, and what it took to recover said keys, was disappointing and also lack luster. Let's just say that it is not as in depth as you might expect. Another nit-picky thing is that the timing of the dialogue lagged too much. There were pauses between each line of dialogue that made it unrealistic and distracting. The conversation did not flow as it should. Things I DID like about the game included the following: 1)you had the option to play the game in point-and-click or free roam 2)helping set the stage for the marionette show was engaging 3)the computer puzzle was challenging 4)there were mysteries within a mystery that I appreciated.

For the price of this game, I would not recommend. As others have stated, it is just not the same as the others in the series. The voice acting for Nancy was robotic sounding and I seriously thought they used AI to do it. I enjoyed some of the puzzles, but felt like the story wasn't filled out. That there wasn't a clear reason for Nancy to be involved in this mystery thematically. Also, they dragged the ending out. It was probably 3x longer than it should have been. Midnight in Salem was better if we are comparing universally disliked Nancy games. Take with that what you will, but the only reason I got this game in the first place was because it was on a really good sale. With this type of reception from their last two games, I'd honestly be surprised if HerInteractive makes another one.

I have never felt compelled to review a Nancy Drew game before. This one is horrible. You HAVE to play in Junior and use a guide if you hope to understand what's gong on. It isn't intuitive at all. If you attempt the old point and click mechanic it's extremely difficult to use. I got stuck within minutes of every next step I take, then I have to look up the insane reason why it's stuck on the a guide. HER Interactive should be ashamed of this game.

For reference, I played Midnight in Salem (MIS from here on) and enjoyed it while also having many issues and being uncertain about the future of Nancy Drew games. While not quite up to the bar of the previous style Nancy Drew games, they improved a lot with this entry. There were a lot of puzzles throughout the game, some of which were pretty obtuse, but I played on Master Sleuth difficulty and thus didn't have a checklist and hint system available to me in my journal. That said, it was nice to have a lot more puzzles to solve again! The character models and acting were also a step in the right direction from MIS, which had some trouble with the new engine at times. This one was a lot longer than most Nancy Drew games and felt like it had multiple "acts" which largely got better with each act reached. I was excited to come back to this game after each session to keep exploring and see where things would go next. Additionally, it was fun seeing a lot of easter eggs and tie-ins to the previous games, trying to make this one fit into the bunch better. Some of the issues that I still have with this game are occasional points where you can't move forward with things the game seemed to be telling me to do unless I went and did some random other task that may have been mentioned a while prior as well as the mixed control schemes not always getting along well. It felt like the "modern" controls which were more free roam than point and click were preferred by the developers as they handled better, but I mostly played with the classic point and click style. TLDR: It may still have some issues that were seen in Midnight in Salem, but this was a marked improvement seen in graphics, amount and style of puzzles, and connection with other games. This game made me more hopeful that if/when we get another game, it might get even more things right. It's a little pricier than the other games, but worth checking out on a sale!

I wanted to like this game... Gameplay is clunky, and the flat copy/paste NPCs littering the environment are awkward. I own a lot of Nancy Drew games, but this one has no personality.