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Eventide: Slavic Fable Review

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Artifex Mundi games have taken us to the depths of the sea to break a curse, a steampunk world with deadly tremors to halt, and a spooky cult-like village where people tend to go missing. But now it’s time for a new point-and-click journey location, as another of their hidden-object adventures arrives in the form of Eventide: Slavic Fable. Will it turn the tide on a genre that feels as though it is becoming increasingly samey and overly familiar with each subsequent release?

Eventide: Slavic Fable’s tale centres on Mary, a famous botanist responding to an urgent request by her baba’s (grandma) heritage park to aid her in some way. It turns out there’s more than meets the eye at the park, and after Mary’s baba gets kidnapped, the secrets held within the place begin to unfold. Her captor wants to take over the world, no matter the cost, and it’s up to Mary to use her botanist skills amongst others to stop the evil Boruta.

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The story actually turns out to be an interesting one, full of distinctly different magical creatures inspired by Slavic mythology. It’s not a particularly complex tale to grasp, however, throwing in such varied characters from start to finish keeps the intrigue at a high point in this extraordinary community maintained by baba. There’s even a little paragraph of information about each of the creatures featured in Eventide, which can be accessed by finding the bestiary card collectibles along the way, thus providing a real purpose to find them.

One thing that continues to hold these games published by Artifex Mundi is the pure awful standard of voice acting. Clarity isn’t an issue, as the spoken words are completely understandable; it’s more a problem with the quality of acting. I’m not sure I can convey this without being offensive to the voice artists, but almost all of the voices are in no way emotionally convincing, and instead come across very wooden during moments of supposed distress – it’s laughable. I gather that the budget probably won’t allow for high-end acting, but it takes the shine off key parts of narrative, so I’d rather they didn’t bother voicing at all.

As always, the game can be played on either Casual or Expert difficulty, depending on whether you’ve a keen eye for areas of interest, or need more of a hint here and there. Scouring each location can lead to finding collectibles, interactions by using items you’ve picked up and initiating hidden object scenes and mini-games. It’s in the hidden object themed parts where there’s been a real effort to change things up more than usual.

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Simply finding a list of items within a scene has now been tweaked to include pieces lurking behind these items, which subsequently form an item of interest. But that’s not all, for there are mosaics filled with blended objects and things to find in them; these are wonderfully bright and colourful, and the objects needed are well merged into the mosaic. It certainly makes a change from the standard hidden object areas, although if I was to slightly criticize, it’d be with my lack of fondness for the darker scenes that make everything look quite indistinguishable.

Mini-games are an important cog in the machine to ensure that things are kept as fresh as possible, and the variation throughout Eventide is great. Of course, many of the mini-game types have been seen in other forms in previous games of this genre; the solutions and presentation are never the same though. Maybe you’ll have to rotate wheels to form a picture, finish a jigsaw of sorts, or move threads around until none overlap. Honestly, they are better than my less than inspiring descriptions of them.

When all is said and done, there’s an encore chapter to contend with featuring what I’ve come to understand is baba as a young girl, who ends up journeying through the wilderness to find a special plant to help her mother. Does it bring anything new to the experience? Not really, it’s merely more of the same procedures seen in the main story; just a really short version of it lasting no more than 30 minutes.

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All the locations are so beautifully presented that I often forget that these are actually hand-drawn, which makes it even more impressive. Creating all the mythical creatures to be so very different from each other deserves commendation. The animations aren’t up to scratch though, coming across as being very average on the whole.

Eventide: Slavic Fable really tries to tweak what’s generally been a winning formula, and in the mini-games and hidden object scenes it has certainly worked for the better. Visually it’s mostly bulging with vibrancy and detailed far better than you’d expect by hand. Although the price is still reasonable, the whole of Eventide can be finished in less than four hours, which comes up short against all other Artifex Mundi games on Xbox One. I also have issues with the voicing. But more importantly are issues with the cursor, as it often fails when placed over correctly found items.

The theme is right up there in terms of creativity and the mini-games test your mind and patience in a great balance. What you have to ask yourself is, can the flaws be overlooked? I think so, because Eventide: Slavic Fable is still a good investment for relaxation. It’s just a little short.

James Birks
James Birks
Been gaming casually since the SNES as a youngster but found my true passion for games on the Playstation 1 (the forbidden word ooo). My addiction grew to its pinnacle with the purchase of an Xbox 360 & Xbox Live Service. A recovering GS hunter that will still play literally any game.

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Rustiko
Rustiko
7 years ago

Looks good.
Let’s give it a chance.

Dom Heitzman
Dom Heitzman
7 years ago

the game looks amazing

Westley
Westley
7 years ago

great concept cant wait to try it out

Hxy3000
Hxy3000
7 years ago

I’m up for some pointy-clickety

iceelady
iceelady
7 years ago

The visuals alone compel me to give this a try

Mike Piccinino
Mike Piccinino
7 years ago

Looks like an interesting change from what I usually play!

Koding
Koding
7 years ago

Love these games!

Henri Stadzisz
Henri Stadzisz
7 years ago

Quite colorful, I liked the visuals

Aaron Reck
Aaron Reck
7 years ago

I can’t wait to put my hours in with this one.

Anton Kostin
Anton Kostin
7 years ago

Looks pretty interesting

Hamza van Santen
Hamza van Santen
7 years ago

It looks like a beatiful game with a nice story.

Jared
Jared
7 years ago

I really enjoyed the first Nightmares game and will most likely pick this one up too. Agree with the voice acting. It is pretty comical đŸ™‚

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