Elf kings and dragons? Dark forests and clockwork pets? Sign me up! Emberwing: Lost Legacy is a hidden object adventure set in a playful but dark fantasy world. It all starts with a mother fixing her son’s broken toy. A …
Elf kings and dragons? Dark forests and clockwork pets? Sign me up! Emberwing: Lost Legacy is a hidden object adventure set in a playful but dark fantasy world. It all starts with a mother fixing her son’s broken toy. A dragon kidnaps him and sets the house on fire, setting off an adventure through countryside and village in a realm pulled straight from your favorite fantasy book series. Exciting!
Finding items is the name of the game, and Emberwing: Lost Legacy has got plenty of them. An expansive map gives you room to roam as you explore your surroundings to their limits. Items, including interactive objects, can be found all over the place. They’re so frequent you’ll fill up your inventory bar within the first half hour. Finding where they go is a refreshingly logical affair. Can you guess where the pump handles fits? Try the broken water pump, of course. How about the circular dial? Try the circular dial space! There’s practically no guesswork, leading to a straightforward but challenging game of item use and puzzle solving.
Fantasy worlds naturally lend themselves to creative mini-games. Why open a box when you can solve an ancient runes puzzle to crack its magical barrier? Emberwing capitalizes on this by including ultra brief mini-puzzles at every turn. They find a nice balance between complex and unique, simple and recognizable. Sometimes you just need to swap a couple of tiles around, other times you have to decipher an entire series of puzzles just to make it through round one. Either way, Emberwing’s mini-games are worth the effort.
Hidden object scenes keep it simple with a small list of items labeled at the bottom of the screen. Quite a few will be highlighted, denoting an interactive object you’ll have to do some work to uncover. Many scenes will feature multi-part puzzles or items that can only be collected once you remove an item sitting on top of it. It sounds circuitous, but the whole thing plays out with surprising (but entertaining) linearity.
As is the case with most Boomzap hidden object adventures, Emberwing: Lost Legacy hits all the right notes at precisely the right times. The lush visuals draw your attention in, while the focus on active storytelling (no lengthy cutscenes or mountains of dialogue) keeps things moving at a steady clip. Hidden object scenes, mini-games and puzzles perform precisely as they should, delivering a good challenge without leaving you feeling stumped. When mixed in with that wonderful dark-ish fantasy setting and a storyline revolving around dragons and elves, you’ve got a recipe for a perfectly entertaining hidden object game.
