Hotel Dusk: Room 215
List Price: $29.99 Publisher: Nintendo Salesrank: 542 Released: 2007-04-07 Our Price: $16.96 Platform: Nintendo DS Availibility: Costumer Rating: Features: Players hold their Nintendo DS like a book and use the touch screen to grill characters, search for clues and solve mystifying puzzles. Players follow the plot twists and turns as they hunt for their missing friend and investigate the mysteries of Hotel Dusk. Customer Reviews: Beautiful, engaging, somewhat unsatisfying… I’m surprised Hotel Dusk: Room 217 or Hotel Dusk: Room 111 hasn’t been released yet. The ending of this game left so many unresolved mysteries, I felt a little let down after 15+ hours of game play. On the other hand, I did (mostly) enjoy those 15+ hours, so the game gets four stars. Additionally, the artwork is beautiful and adds to the ambiance of the game. As others have said, this is a dialogue-driven game. You figure out who to talk to, they tell you what to do next. You complete some small task, and then you know who to talk to next. Except when you don’t quite catch it, and you spend a while wandering around the halls since you can’t re-read the dialogue once you’ve left the conversation. There were two things that especially frustrated me about this game: - The length of some of the dialogue. Sometimes someone will start talking, have a lot to say, and you won’t be able to interrupt to save your game and come back later. Or you’ll ask the questions in the wrong order, and have to listen to all the answers twice. This always happened to me at exactly the same moment the boyfriend starting demanding dinner. I recommend saving just after each long speech so that if, god forbid, you have “Retry” you won’t have to sit through it again. - Object interaction. Frequently in the course of this game I would know that I needed a particular item for a particular task, but would be unable to interact with that item, or look as closely at a painting as I wanted to. This prevent the game from being its own spoiler, but I can’t stand it when a game impedes my interaction with the environment. The featured review Amazon’s published calls this a “visual novel”, and I think that’s a pretty good term for it. There’s an engaging and forward-moving story, but the gamer has very little control over it. The map set-up and the presented choices during conversation make it seem almost non-linear, and even though there is no good reason (other than ease of development) not to allow many paths to the same ending, there is only one path forward. And did I mention how unsatisfying the ending is? Several tangential mysteries are raised during the course of the game, and while significant breakthroughs are made in each, none is fully resolved. I smell a sequel! Hotel Mystery on your DS I am just getting started with this one but can say that from first impressions this looks like a great game. I was pleasantly surprised with the graphics on this one, hand-drawn and pretty colors. the story seems to be solid as well and the gameplay handles well. if you are looking for action, this is NOT your game. If you like slower-paced, point and click, solve the puzzle games this will suit you. I also find it interesting that you can “die” in this game even though it is point and click. Not to give a spolier but i was mean to someone in the game and got chewed out for it by another character and then got a “game over”. it was kind of fun and surprising. It felt like those “choose your own adventure” books that i used to read as a kid. ehhhh This game has an interesting premise, but ultimately will bore you to death. The touchscreen controls take all the fun the out of menial tasks such as walking, turning and interacting. The dialog should be the highlight in a game like this, unfortunately it is bogged down with elemantary school level dialect. If you have some serious time on your hands this game may work for you, otherwise I would suggest simply reading an actual novel. Great Investment I bought this game because I was looking for something different to add to my collection of games. I was hoping that it was at least as good as the back cover made it sound. It definately was … if not better. I like that you’re not just walking around finding clues, talking to people, and trying to tie it all together. You also have puzzles to solve along the way. Some clues require the use of something you picked up earlier to solve, or you need to find something in order to solve it, or make it work. When I hit the end of the game, on one hand I was relieved. I finally solved the case, it wasn’t just another twist in the story. But at the same time, I wished it wasn’t the end. I wanted to keep playing. Keep solving mysteries. It left me wanting more. The only thing I did not like about this game was that sometimes the text typed too slowly. It takes longer to type than it takes me to read. And also, if you’ve been through this conversation before, it stinks to have to take 5 minutes trying to skip past the conversation to get the point where you responded incorrectly the first time. Although, I did find a possible remedy. Back out of the conversation, save your game, and hop back in. It’s a time saver. This game, is definately a good investment. I hope Nintendo continues to make more games like this one in the future. Fun and different game After reading the reviews I couldn’t wait to get this game and I wasn’t disappointed. The storyline is interesting enough to keep you playing far longer than you should. Gameplay requires that you hold the DS as you would a book and it is quite a comfortable way to play. The only negatives are some overly long conversations that make it very difficult to save quickly and put the game away for later if need be. Overall, an excellent and satisfying choice for mystery loving adventure gamers.