Dark Arcana: The Carnival

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While trying to put my bias aside, this was one of my first horror / mystery / suspense "adult" HOGs back in the days of using the ye ol WildTangent service when it was still using those purple coins to play games, and I enjoyed it as a kid. So learning about the port here to Steam made me curious if I was blinded by the sheer eeriness of the game or it was just as good as my rose colored mirror shards remember it being. And I have to say its a bit of both. The games story is complex, the themes went over my head as a kid but coming back with an adult mind it was mind blowing that I picked this game to play back then compared to the million other HOGs on the service along with replaying a few other nostalgic picks I wish had steam releases (bring back Twisted Tales: Broken Tune I beg of you) and the twist is a true gut punch. I love how the story was told and while the cinematics are a bit outdated with some laughable 3D models, it was still impactful compared to other games I've played in the HOG genre past and present. But also the monkeys paw of that a lot of the good dialogue is the flavor text the MC says when looking at things. The Art is really pretty to look at, while a carnival setting is pretty common in HOG games, I feel that this one stands out compared to others once you enter the mirror world, the twisted version is clever but also sometimes hard to navigate when some places look the same or take a while to travel to but thankfully you have a fast travel map, making it easier to traverse through the mirror world and hoping not to get confused trying to find places. The HOG scenes are a highlight and some of my favorites are in the mirror world, but like a few other AM games, the objects are either easy to spot or hard as nails to find, especially when there is darker / shadowy areas or objects get lost easily within the clutter of the scenes or finding redundant items in some scenes. You do go back to these scenes often but the mirror world is the worst of it when it takes you back to the same 3 or so areas when some other areas get 1 or 2 puzzles. Theres also some misspelt words or odd similar words leading to confusion on what I need to find and the click penalty is HORRIBLE compared to other AM games but I can give a pass for the game giving you an alternate way of doing the HOG scenes with a game of Monaco, which is great for returning to scenes and not wanting to do them. But for a good part, the HOG areas are fun and both the normal and mirror world have fun areas but I prefer the eerie feeling of the mirror world. The puzzles on the other hand, are a great mix of both easy, medium and hard, having you sit to figure out what to do and some puzzles stumped me as much as they did back when I was a kid. I feel that their easily spread out and the items you need for them are also easy to find and I don't believe there's any redundant items because some like sharp objects have a few uses in them before you are given a new object. I did not have to skip any puzzles but the seesaw one was pretty close but that was on me not remembering the solution. No annoying bugs or anything of the sort to report here, it was decent puzzles that gave me some troubles but thankfully not to the point of Moon logic or looking up a walkthrough. Same goes for no collectables, which Im thankful for as the specify reasons of no need of a walkthrough. I say that Dark Arcana is good middle ground of the fond memories of it as a kid and I can see both the good and mediocre in it. It was still as eerie as I remembered it and I had no troubles going through it and the story was solid and while there was some tricky puzzles or same HOG scenes in a row or even hard to navigate mirror world once your in it, it is a fun short trip with the bonus chapter also being fun albeit a bit short for a bonus chapter but AM games always have shorter Bonus Chapters compared to other companies. I highly recommend this game if you get it via a bundle or on sale, its very fun and it's still charming to this day with some faults that other reviewers have covered. I still really enjoyed it and it is def a guilty pleasure pick (and one of the few "dogwater" games I mentioned in another review lol) that I say even if its okay, its still a good time.