Grim Legends 2: Song of the Dark Swan

Pros

• A gorgeous world rendered in a whimsical art style
• Decent amount of variety to the different puzzles
• Mixes adventure gaming with traditional puzzle solving

Cons

• Entire game can be finished in just a few hours
• A bit overly reliant on hidden object puzzles

Grim Legends 2: Song of the Dark Swan is a blast from the past that evokes classic point and click adventure games like King's Quest, Grim Fandango, and Monkey Island. And while this may not be the most action packed game on the market, and it might not offer the same fantastically developed worlds and clever dialogue as the best entries in the genre, it's a nice bit of nostalgia that holds together well.

You play as a fantasy adventurer tasked with freeing the queen from a deadly curse. In doing so, you need to prove her innocence of a terrible crime, save a prince, and get to the bottom of a mystery between two fantasy kingdoms. It's a story that trucks in some well known tropes but manages to hold together well and find a nice balance between darkness and optimism.

The art style here is worthy of attention. This isn't a game that's going to push the boundaries of your graphics card, but the detailed and cartoony style reveals a pretty excellent art direction that really immerses you in the setting. The story itself may be littered with tropes, but this is a game that really sells itself on the strength of its design.

And while the DNA of the traditional adventure games are in place here, their execution is a little more simplified than what you'd find in the classics. The whole game plays out essentially as a series of different puzzles, and while there's a decent amount of variety here, none of them are overly complicated. Developer Axis Mundi has taken liberal inspiration from hidden objects games as well, and much of the game boils down to poring over a static environment and trying to find a series of objects hidden within it. These objects are often combined together to find a solution to a puzzle, but they can sometimes be a little overly obvious. That said, it's a nice change of pace from the sometimes obtuse solutions that were littered through the adventure classics or yore.

But the hidden objects games are spaced out pretty evenly, and they're accompanied by some cleverer and more diverse mind benders. You'll find yourself working through a pretty extensive variety of different puzzles over the course of your quest, and many of them offer a satisfying sense of accomplishment when they're finally completed.

And while the story itself may start off routine, it develops into a pretty charming and immersive adventure by the time it's over. Helping with this is the inclusion of a number of different assistants that can use their powers to assist you with puzzles and add some flavor to the proceedings with their own unique and charming personalities.

Pros

• A gorgeous world rendered in a whimsical art style
• Decent amount of variety to the different puzzles
• Mixes adventure gaming with traditional puzzle solving

Cons

• Entire game can be finished in just a few hours
• A bit overly reliant on hidden object puzzles