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Nancy Drew: The Creature of Kapu Cave Review (continued)
More User Submitted Nancy Drew: The Creature of Kapu Cave Reviews
Date: 2007-01-07
Anticlimactic
Worst Ending Ever!! I was expecting at least a chase or something! Very Disappointing!
Date: 2007-01-05
A Pretty Good Game
I enjoyed this game a lot! It was really easy, and that's how I like the Nancy Drew games to be. This one took place in Hawaii, which is really cool. Really, the hardest part of the game is when you have to collect "Frass". Doing that seems to loom over you, but it's really not that hard. Once you finish with that, you're almost done. What I found strange was the ending. Yeah, you have to get away from the villian, but doing so is weird. Instead of the villian trying to kill you (like in The Haunted Carousel) or the villian spraying stuff in your eyes and blinding you (like in Treasure in the Royal Tower) this villian tries to get away, but the end scene is sort of like a game board type thing where you try to beat the villian to the door.
The people you meet are: Mike (Big Island Mike) Mapu (the guy who owns the store), Pua Mapu (Mike's daughter; she teaches people how to surf), Dr. Quigley Kim (a doctor who asked Nancy to be a research assistant for her), and Dr. Craven (the scientist at the Hilihili Research Center). You talk to several people on the phone also. The coolest part about the game (in my opinion) is that you can switch back and forth between Nancy and Frank or Joe Hardy and play as either one of them (kind of like in Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon, only you can play as Frank or Joe longer). All three of them do a little bit of solving the mystery.
Overall, if you like easy Nancy Drew games, this one is for you.
Date: 2007-01-04
A hot mess
The graphics are really nice BUT: The games is too short and there aren't many puzzles. The puzzles that are in the game are very easy. It took me 8 hours to finish this game. The ending is a hot mess.
Spolier Alert:
Nancy doesn't solve the mystery. She just walks in on it. As Nancy you basically sort through frass the whole game.
Date: 2007-01-03
A pale shadow of former greats like "Danger on Deception Island"
I've played every one of Her Interactive's Nancy Drew games, and except for the last two or three, loved all of them. Her Interactive offers pre-teen girls the chance to use brainpower, not firepower, and to pick up various educational tidbits that tie into the games. The graphics and voicework have steadily improved from the very first Nancy Drew game Secrets Can Kill, but the last three games (Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon, Danger By Design, and Creature of Kapu Cave) have seen some backsliding in tired puzzles, monotonous find-the-object and perform-the-task-to-get-the-needed-object, and the lack of suspense that made games like Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake and Message in a Haunted Mansion great.
Creature of Kapu Cave finds Nancy on an assignment in Hawaii, land of swaying palm trees, hula dancers, and pristine beaches....but you'll have to read travel brochures if you want to see any of those things. The "beach" in the game is pitifully small and doesn't allow for exploration beyond collecting seashells--and most of the time, you end up going back and forth to the beach to collect the same shell. Nancy is working as an intern for Quigley Kim, an aspiring entomologist. Nancy also investigates a mysterious genius with serious anger-management issues. But where is the mystery? The intrigue? The "I'm being followed by something creepy" moments?
One nice feature is the ability to switch between Nancy and the Hardy Boys by calling each other on your cell phone. Navigation is done via "GPS." Nice concept, but the animation quickly grew repetitive every time I needed to select another location.
Most of your time is spent in the jungle collecting frass. What is frass? To put it delicately...bug poop. Yes, Nancy spends a frustrating amount of time collecting and analyzing bug poop. Frank and Joe Hardy are undercover, checking up on Big Island Mike and Pua Mapu. Mike runs Big Island Mike's Excursions, a sort of barter economy where you catch fish and make seashell necklaces to earn Big Island Bucks, which can then be traded in for souvenirs, fishing bait, and necklace supplies. Pua is an up-and-coming surf champ. Other than that, there is a noticeable lack of secondary characters and potential suspects.
The puzzles are the game's major weak point. Much of the game (at least half) feels like repetitive filler: making necklaces, collecting shells to make more necklaces, playing the annoying arcade game to win stuff to make more necklaces, and sitting around trying to catch fish. There were no "fun" puzzles: spending hours sorting through insect parts and bug poop does not count. There is also an optional arcade game, Wiki Tiki, which has the most annoying song ever heard in a video game. The game is based on Paper, Rock, Scissors, and is purely based on what the computer draws. Prizes include shark's teeth, which can be used in more expensive necklaces.
Also, there are very few locations to explore, and very restricted movement within those locations. The beach, for example, is about four or five clicks long. You're blocked from continuing down the beach by a fallen tree. This is Hawaii, so more beach to explore would have been nice. The jungle screens all looked the same. Similarly, Kapu Cave offered pretty scenery but little to explore or interact with.
Overall, the game felt...empty. The amount of mind-numbing, repetitive filler puzzles added nothing to the overall experience except frustration. The ending held no hint of mystery or a rewarding payoff. I can only hope that the next Nancy Drew title is a return to Her Interactive's glory days.
The Good:
+ Voice acting
+ Graphics
+ Music
The Bad:
- Length (very short)
- Weak puzzles (including at least one known bug)
- Weak story
- Noticeable lack of characters to investigate
- Limited locations and restricted freedom of movement
- No sense of mystery or suspense
- Two words: frass jars
Date: 2007-01-02
Flashy graphics but over in a flash
I've played every Nancy Drew game and I was so excited to get this one for Christmas! Too bad I was done by the end of the day. The game was so easy to complete if you are familiar with Nancy Drew games. I was shocked when it ended. Seems like HerInteractive wanted the game out for the Christmas season and ran out of time to develop a good quality game with complex puzzles and a good story-line. If the game was truly developed, Nancy wouldn't have to talk for three minutes at the end to explain to us users what really happened. We would have figured most of it out in our detective work in the game!! Cool new features: GPS and Hardy Boy Switch. I hope this doesn't mean the end of a winning streak for the Nancy Drew series.
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