Endless Fables 4: Shadow Within

Disappointing after the well done third game in the series. Nothing connects the way it should, the pacing is off, most of the puzzles are random clicks to get random stuff to put in a random place to get more random stuff. While this is typical for the hidden object genre, it has never been that apparent or frustrating for me in other games. It's just badly done here, without polish and with little thought. The pacing is also off, and the dramatic music routinely sets in when there's no immediate tension. It's as if the third game was done with love by a team passionate about the genre, while the gameplay here was rote routine severly lacking inspiration- some cutscenes and some of the art excepted. A pity. edit: An egregious example of the many puzzles that are sloppily done and end up not working as they should because of this, breaking the flow of the game into a slog: You have collected three weapons, which should fit into the empty hands of frozen knights, but don't. The reason is that you first have to take one of the weapons that they still have - a spear - in order to reach a bag in a neighboring scene. When you get the bag, the spear disappears, and only now can you give the - unchanged - three weapons to the knights. Horrible design.

It is the last part of the series that puts an end to the fantastic stories we have become accustomed to from this series. Enjoy!