Eventide 3: Legacy of Legends

Artifex Mundi games are now quite easy to coast through in terms of the story and game play. There have been so many that Eventide 3 doesn’t offer anything new in terms of game play. The only real addition is the furthering of the story, but again, it only serves as context for the game play.

Eventide 3 suffers from the same stupidity of previous games where items you find have the one specific use despite appearing to be useful for more than one thing… and once they have been used for their defined tasks, they are discarded. Even if the item is a knife which has a multitude of practice uses. This is just par for the course at this point.

The only real issue with the gameplay is that sometimes, the cursor is a little picky in the hidden picture scenes. There were several instances where I thought I had found an item only to be told I was incorrect… then clicking maybe a millimetre to the left triggered the pick-up. Slightly annoying.

The main story focuses around another sassy female protagonist and her brother John. The fern flower from the previous story makes a reappearance and, as with any magical artefact, it attracts the attention of an evil sorcerer. In order to stop him and save your brother, you need to navigate hidden picture scenes and solve mini-games, as well as competing in rune battles with some enemies. There is also the usual double-cross where a character gets you to do something for them before revealing their true evil intentions. Essentially, it’s tried and tested so no real reason to change it.

Graphically, it’s the same as ever and musically it’s in keeping with the style and theme of the game. It doesn’t suffer from any niggles which is good considering it’s a basic structure but there have been music and inventory issues in past games so it’s good these don’t reoccur.

Achievements – 1,000 Points – 27 Achievements

With 27 achievements, Eventide 3 follows the new trend of rewarding players with achievements just for playing the game. 11 are earned just for completing the story. There is another one for completing it all on expert as well.

With all the Mundi games there are a massive haul of missable achievements that can be categorised into three areas; puzzles and hints, collectibles, and rune battles/portal travel games. There are the usual ones for completing all the games without using hints and finding objects in pictures within a certain time limit. This one requires you to complete a hidden picture scene in less than 30 seconds and the only real way to do this on a first run is to abuse the fact that the timer stops when the game is paused as you can still see the hidden object puzzle.

Regarding collectibles, there are two sets to pick up and 6 achievements attached to them; pick up one, pick up half and pick up all of each set. This is where I came slightly unstuck as I missed one collectible on my playthrough. Luckily this was near the beginning of the game and I was able to cross it off quickly – and the collectibles carry across playthroughs.

The last set is for the rune battles and portal travel games. You need to win all the rune battles without making any mistakes and complete the portal travels in the same vein. There doesn’t appear to be a time limit for these and both games are spot the difference and pair matching respectively so it’s fairly straightforward.

Downloadable Content – N/A

Eventide 3 follows the tried and tested blueprint from the previous games. It doesn’t try anything risky and provides a casual gaming experience to be enjoyed by all. I managed to get through it in less than 4 hours so it’s not overly long. The only downside is the retail price as these are currently going for £11.99 on the Xbox marketplace. This feels overpriced for the amount of content you get.