“Echoes of Sorrow” is a fascinating, dark, hidden objects game with a very good story but also a game that has a few quirks such as its frequent loading times and questionable mouse positioning for exiting a scene. But the gameplay and storyline made up for those little quirks and in the end, I really enjoyed “Echoes of Sorrow!”
VIDEO GAME TITLE: Echoes of Sorrow
YEAR OF INITIAL RELEASE: April 20, 2011
VIDEO GAME GENRE: Hidden Objects/Fractal Objects/Interactive Hidden Objects
PUBLISHER: Viva Media
MEDIA: (Available on several Viva Media Packs or as a download)
MEDIUM REQUIREMENTS: Windows 7, Vista, XP, 1GHz, 1 GB of Ram, 400 MB, Video Card 256 MB VRAM
RATINGS: E for Everyone
RELEASE DATE: April 20, 2011
VIDEO GAME HIGHLIGHTS:
Echoes of Sorrow pushes the boundaries of storytelling and character development in games with its account of what happens when a woman sets out to remember what she has chosen to forget. Within the familiar framework of a hidden object adventure, players will accompany Rose into a stunning dream world that allows her to explore four tragedies that shook the foundation of her soul. As she battles the Darkness that tries to stop her, she begins to piece together the reality of what happened and realizes she must either wake up or die.
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Viva Media is a distributor known for releasing hidden objects and adventure-lite video games created by Russian video game developer/publisher Alawar Entertainment.
And most often, there are some games that are featured in a variety of collector’s editions or video game packs.
One of those games is “Echoes of Sorrow” which can be found in the “Sacra Terra: Angelic Night – Collector’s Edition”, “Legends of Terror -12 Game Mega Pack” or the most recently released “Mystery Masters Secret Stories Collection – 15 Pack” or available online via download.
“Echoes of Sorrow” revolves around a young woman named Rose and the game begins with Rose running away from a man who appears to be after her. She trips and hits her head on a rock and is taken to the hospital.
As Rose lies unconscious, she is take into a dreamworld where everything looks dark.
In the middle of a courtyard is a statue of a woman chained and four areas that can be visited. A home, a college, a prison and a church. What do these areas signify for Rose and who is this dark ominous shadow looking at her?
Help Rose through her unconsciousness, piece together important and tragic moments of her life and bring her back to consciousness.
INSTALLATION:
“Echoes of Sorrow” was included with my “Sacra Terra: Angelic Night – Collector’s Edition” and installation was easy. Viva Universal dashboard appears and you can select which game to install. While others had problems with the downloaded version, the versions included with the packs have no problem on my Windows XP laptop.
GAMEPLAY
“Echoes of Sorrow” is a game that is hidden objects (HoG), fractal objects (FRoG) and interactive hidden objects (IHog) and is a casual game with very few puzzles. If anything, this game is a straight-up hidden objects game but definitely one of the better storylines in an Alawar game (that is included in several packs).
The game is dark and eerie but it fits perfectly with Rose’s storyline as she has suffered quite a bit of tragic moments in her life. With that being said, this is not a horror video game but a game about one young woman trying to piece together things from her life, tragic moments that lead to a surprising conclusion.
The storyline is well-presented with cut scenes and movement (not fully animated) but the good news is that these scenes are longer, especially how things are ended. It’s not as abrupt like other Alawar Games, there was a build up of storyline and I’m glad the developers focused not just on gameplay but also the storyline.
The areas you visit are areas that are familiar to her and require one to play through a hidden objects area, open up a special item which then can be used in another area. As you progress in the game, certain things can only be found in one area and you’ll have to backtrack to that area later on in order to complete it. So, there is interactivity with the hidden objects and a few fractal objects that you need to put together.
The gameplay takes about 4-6 hours depending on one’s ability to find hidden objects. But there is a hint button that can be used during the hidden objects section and it reloads quickly. You will not get penalized for multiple selection mistakes and the difficulty level, if one is easy, three is average and five is difficult, “Echoes of Sorrow” would get a three.
Personally the hidden objects sections are not that difficult but it took awhile to figure out that you can’t complete one section 100% (that is what took me awhile to figure out), you need to keep progressing in the game by visiting areas when they are open and then get these objects to bring them back to another area. Puzzles are mostly putting pictures that were ripped together or putting pictures in an album or wall, but because the shadow of the pictures can be seen, you can figure these puzzles quite easily.
While the hidden objects gameplay and the storyline were very appealing, the game does have three quirks.
The first will most likely test beginners as the hint is only for the hidden objects. It will not tell you where to go put the objects or where you should go next. Fortunately, there are not many scenes to visit, so it doesn’t get too confusing but you need to observe and move your mouse around to know which objects you need to find later in the game.
The second quirk is the mouse positioning to exit out of an area is too high. Typically, you need to go towards the edge of the screen to leave an area, but in this game, they didn’t do that. So, you need to make sure that if you are an inch or an inch-and-a-half away from the edges of the screen, that if you are trying to search for a hidden object, you aren’t whisked away from that scene.
And this leads to probably the worst quirk of the game. It’s the loading times. It’s something you don’t usually see in Alawar Games as going from one area to another is fluid, but for this game, each scene will bring up a load screen. Some that takes seconds to load and others that may take a minute to load. So, with the mouse positioning quirk, I found myself going back and forward to scenes which took a while to load and while my patience was slowly getting tested, those who don’t have any patience at all, will probably go crazy by the load times.
But aside from the loading screens, “Echoes of Sorrow” had really good gameplay and a much better storyline compared to other casual Alawar Games that I have played.
GRAPHICS:
As for the graphics of this game, the settings are well-detailed, dark and eerie. But it’s a game that looks very good although a game that looks as it was developed several years ago and was released in 2011.
AUDIO:
The music is actually pretty good for this game, but like other hidden objects games, it’s piano and synth-based and doesn’t interfere with overall gameplay. One of those soundtracks that you hear mostly during the loading screen or the title screen but since you are focused on the gameplay, you’re probably not going to remember the music all that much.
REPLAY VALUE:
There is no replay value for this game. You beat the game and that is it.
For a game that comes with various Viva Media packs, “Echoes of Sorrow” is a fun game and those who want to slowly get into more dark and eerie type of games.
To tell you the truth, aside from the look of the game and certain scenes of violence, by no means is this game horror-based. Without spoiling the game, all I can say is that Rose has suffered a lot of tragedies from her childhood, her teenage years and adulthood. She is a person that has suffered a lot of pain and the object of the game is trying to help her out and piece things together. But when you find out what happened in her past, you can’t help but be surprised by certain story elements.
It’s important to note that while this game is available for download, if you are a frequent purchaser of Viva Media/Alawar Games, I recommend purchasing the “Legends of Terror -12 Game Mega Pack” or the most recently released “Mystery Masters Secret Stories Collection – 15 Pack” as you get more bang for your buck as you get other games that you will probably be paying $8-$10 for. But instead, will pay between $16-20 for a dozen or more games.
As for the game, it’s a straight-forward hidden objects game for the most part with some interactivity and some fractal objects that have to be found. There are very few puzzles, but they were very easy to complete. The game is overall a casual game and it gives players anywhere between 4-6 hours of gameplay.
The game does have its quirks and the mouse positioning of going from one scene to another, plus the long loading times is a bit of a drag, but to play this game and really get into the overall storyline made it worth it.
For “Echoes of Sorrow”, I give it a RATING: C+