Mystery Tales: The Reel Horror – Review

Sebastian Fleming’s Horror Cinema was the place-to-be during its glory day. Sebastian, a genius movie director, was famous for his ability to realistically convey the sense of fears from his actors. Now that the mastermind is dead and only his legacy remains, could Sebastian’s ghost be haunting the now-abandoned cinema? Use your paranormal and investigative skills to crack down this latest Mystery Tales case!

This latest Mystery Tales sequel departs from the series’ usual underworld demonic theme to a slightly more realistic one. Fantasy elements are definitely still serve as major parts of Mystery Tales: The Reel Horror, but at least the game sets in the present day – and somehow this makes for arguable the most enjoyable Mystery Tales game to date. Part of the credits have to go to the wonderful premise and the perfect delivery of the storyline; the stakes are high, the characters are interesting, and the suspense is consistent.

Mystery Tales: The Reel Horror still features Domini Games’ signature fluorescent visual style and extravagant effects, that we are not usually fans of. Regardless, we must admit the level of details in each scene is simply incredible and the cutscenes are stunning – this is obviously one of the best looking games from Domini. The audio side of the production is also breathtaking, this includes the heart-pounding soundtracks and extends to the great voice-overs.

Looking at the adventure part alone, Mystery Tales: The Reel Horror might seem like a regular HOPA game. However, Domini Games makes a conscious effort to differentiate the game when it comes to its hidden object scenes and puzzles. The hidden object scenes come in a nice array of formats, some of which are unexpectedly smart and innovative. As for the puzzles, they are not the most original, but they are all impressively complex and challenging. Mystery Tales: The Reel Horror also switches out the good-old magic glasses for a high-tech smartphone, which turns out to be less distracting and more useful.

Mystery Tales: The Reel Horror has a fair length of roughly four hours, and the prequel bonus chapter comes in at around an hour. The Collector’s Edition includes some cool features like collectibles that come in the form of horror movie posters and a cinema that you can restore and decorate using tickets, as well as the standard features like a strategy guide, wallpapers, concept art, soundtracks, videos, repayable hidden object scenes, replayable puzzles, achievements, and morphing objects.

Mystery Tales: The Reel Horror takes the dark fantasy series to a new high, it is the perfect balance between the new and the old.