The Lost Crown: A Ghost-Hunting Adventure

Developer darkling ROOM have tried to tell "a ghost-hunting adventure", which is commendable given the scarcity of such games (especially with the Ghostbusters hiatus), but unfortunately they've let themselves down in several key areas.

Voice-acting is the first you'll notice. It's really hard to put into words how excruciatingly bad the acting is, but the phrase "unnecessary pauses" comes to mind. Combined with an often stupid script, the spooky atmosphere the game craves disappears. When main character Danvers enters a phonebox and exclaims "What's this?" upon seeing the (gasp!) phone, I wanted to punch him. This feeling would constantly return, as he's an unlikeable sarky shit.

Being pointlessly overloaded doesn't help it either, with many unnecessary areas and examinable objects (a mouldy Toilet Duck?). The player isn't so much solving puzzles as wandering around aimlessly, hoping for something interactive. The unskippable dialogue and blocky animation doesn't help either.

What makes me downright sad reviewing The Lost Crown is that all the way through I was thinking "If they'd just done that, that, and that this would be a very enjoyable game''. They didn't, so it's an awkward, confusing mess of an adventure that I can't recommend. It's got a cool Sin City art style and it can get a bit scary, but not nearly enough.

More effort next time please, and see me in my study afterwards.