The second story in the Enigmatis series sees you take back control of the detective on the hunt for the priest who inexplicably escapes from you at the end of Ghosts of Maple Creek. The trek leads her to an abandoned camper van at the side of the road and some more... you guessed it – missing people that need to be found.
After a little bit of puzzle solving, you find a little girl and you need to find her parents who have mysteriously disappeared. This leads you on a quest to explore Ravenwood and find her parents who have been captured, not by the priest but by his evil counterpart – the Raven – who wants to drain their lifeforce to make him more powerful. There. That’s more of an explanation than the first game.
The best part about the game is that at a certain point, you encounter someone in a prison cell who starts helping you by giving you some items to assist you on your quest. It’s a similar mechanic to Nightmares from the Deep in that you have to collect coins to open his cell and set him free. The funny part is that, it is so fucking obvious that the guy in the cell is the priest – it looks and sounds like him so this is no spoiler – but even when the cell in opened, it’s still treated by the detective as a massive surprise.
Game play wise, in addition to hidden picture scenes, there is now a pair matching game, as well as the puzzles from Clockwork Tales where you need to find and build items from a scene instead of using words. You play the pairs game instead of doing hidden pictures so it’s up to you how you play.
The theme seems to stick with the similarly named titles in that the music is consistent with the first game – I actually found the music to be quite good in these titles which is saying something for me. However, there was one major annoyance with it in this game. The music drained out all of the dialogue from the cut scenes which meant I had to read it rather than listen to it. There didn’t seem to be a way to change this in the settings as the dialogue was connected to the music, so it looks like a development cock-up.
Achievements – 1,000 Points – 36 Achievements
As these games seem to progress, they seem to build on what they’ve done previously in terms of both gameplay elements and achievements. The other titles in the series had between 11 and 20 achievements but this one boasts 36.
What they have done, though, is introduce a lot more story based achievements which are obtained by playing through the game. There are 17 story related achievements versus the 2 of 3 from the previous titles I’ve played. If you play the game on expert, you can 18 on one playthrough without going off the beaten track.
Next, you get the obligatory hidden scene achievements for completing a hidden scene in less than a minute, with less than 4 mistakes and finding three objects in three seconds as well as playing all of them without hints. There are the same achievements for not skipping any of the puzzles and also for finishing a puzzle in less than a minute.
We are now back to requiring two playthroughs as the pairs mini game needs to be played for all scenes as well but this time, they have realised that expecting their shitty slow automated games to be completed in less than a minute is ridiculous so now you have to do it in less than three minutes.
Now for the fun bits. There are more collectibles. You need to find 30 white butterflies and 30 illusive objects throughout the game world. The butterflies are fine but the illusive objects are irritating as they fade in and out of existence. You need to be able to see and click on them quickly which was fine for the most part but we missed one right at the beginning of the game. Convenient really, as it wasn’t time consuming to pick it up but as the game needs two playthroughs anyway, there’s no real pressure to get these without a guide on the first run through.
Downloadable Content – N/A
All in all, Enigmatis 2 was another enjoyable game despite the sound issues. I still think the second playthroughs are redundant and the additional games don’t offer anything exciting but it takes around 8 hours to run through twice and that includes playing exert mode without a guide.
After a little bit of puzzle solving, you find a little girl and you need to find her parents who have mysteriously disappeared. This leads you on a quest to explore Ravenwood and find her parents who have been captured, not by the priest but by his evil counterpart – the Raven – who wants to drain their lifeforce to make him more powerful. There. That’s more of an explanation than the first game.
The best part about the game is that at a certain point, you encounter someone in a prison cell who starts helping you by giving you some items to assist you on your quest. It’s a similar mechanic to Nightmares from the Deep in that you have to collect coins to open his cell and set him free. The funny part is that, it is so fucking obvious that the guy in the cell is the priest – it looks and sounds like him so this is no spoiler – but even when the cell in opened, it’s still treated by the detective as a massive surprise.
Game play wise, in addition to hidden picture scenes, there is now a pair matching game, as well as the puzzles from Clockwork Tales where you need to find and build items from a scene instead of using words. You play the pairs game instead of doing hidden pictures so it’s up to you how you play.
The theme seems to stick with the similarly named titles in that the music is consistent with the first game – I actually found the music to be quite good in these titles which is saying something for me. However, there was one major annoyance with it in this game. The music drained out all of the dialogue from the cut scenes which meant I had to read it rather than listen to it. There didn’t seem to be a way to change this in the settings as the dialogue was connected to the music, so it looks like a development cock-up.
Achievements – 1,000 Points – 36 Achievements
As these games seem to progress, they seem to build on what they’ve done previously in terms of both gameplay elements and achievements. The other titles in the series had between 11 and 20 achievements but this one boasts 36.
What they have done, though, is introduce a lot more story based achievements which are obtained by playing through the game. There are 17 story related achievements versus the 2 of 3 from the previous titles I’ve played. If you play the game on expert, you can 18 on one playthrough without going off the beaten track.
Next, you get the obligatory hidden scene achievements for completing a hidden scene in less than a minute, with less than 4 mistakes and finding three objects in three seconds as well as playing all of them without hints. There are the same achievements for not skipping any of the puzzles and also for finishing a puzzle in less than a minute.
We are now back to requiring two playthroughs as the pairs mini game needs to be played for all scenes as well but this time, they have realised that expecting their shitty slow automated games to be completed in less than a minute is ridiculous so now you have to do it in less than three minutes.
Now for the fun bits. There are more collectibles. You need to find 30 white butterflies and 30 illusive objects throughout the game world. The butterflies are fine but the illusive objects are irritating as they fade in and out of existence. You need to be able to see and click on them quickly which was fine for the most part but we missed one right at the beginning of the game. Convenient really, as it wasn’t time consuming to pick it up but as the game needs two playthroughs anyway, there’s no real pressure to get these without a guide on the first run through.
Downloadable Content – N/A
All in all, Enigmatis 2 was another enjoyable game despite the sound issues. I still think the second playthroughs are redundant and the additional games don’t offer anything exciting but it takes around 8 hours to run through twice and that includes playing exert mode without a guide.
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