An Honest, Spoiler-Free Review of Nancy Drew #34: Mystery of the Seven Keys

[@samanthamanuele655]

I'm still only over halfway through the game, but I feel the same about the puzzles! It's so disheartening to use the hint system and say "Well, yes, I know that" at all the hints and STILL feel like you don't have the right information to solve it until the last hint possible. I also agree about the lack of vocal cues. And about the point and click, I very much appreciated how easy it was to switch between the two navigation systems, but sadly the point and click is clunky like you said. I noticed it would take you to places that have absolutely no relevance or items to find, which can be confusing. To be fair, the point and click in the older games isn't always polished either though. Overall, though, this game is MUCH improved and made me excited for future games. I can't wait to watch your more in-depth review after finishing the game

[@WizardKittenYT]

Thank you so much for your thoughts!! I completely agree! I hope you enjoy the ending!

[@KrystalHarwood-z1b]

me too! i cant wait for the nighttime ghost hunt!

[@liz5089]

Thank you for doing a spoiler free review! I haven’t played it yet, and appreciate having a review I can safely watch.

[@WizardKittenYT]

Absolutely!! I hope it helps!

[@alisonw.peters4614]

My magnum opus of Brittany Cox's voice acting as Nancy. First of all, Brittany is a talented woman, and can do a far better job than most of us. However I've noticed a few things. She seems to be more of an actress than a voice actress. I believe that in the recording studio she may rely a bit more on her body language to convey tone. Now since Nancy Drew games are in first person, we never see Nancy's arm movement, facial inflections and body movement. Meaning we rely solely on the tone of voice to determine 100% what she is conveying. Is Nancy being sarcastic? Snarking? Kind? Thoughtful? All needs to be conveyed on how she says it. Something I think Brittany wasn't fully aware of when recording.

[@WizardKittenYT]

You may be on to something there! Whatever the cause, the end result was so distracting! I hope this is considered moving forward.

[@GraemeCree]

High praise indeed. Brittany is better than an amateur. Well yeah, she is. Let's give her that much. But how she is compared to other professionals is the important question. Not so hot. She seems to do well in manga games, playing kid's voices, but doesn't seem cut out for this part. She always sounds like Barbie Detective, like she's reading off a page. Activision's experience making graphic Infocom games is somewhat applicable. Their first effort was a quick cash-in called Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2 (a poor sequel to one of the all-time great text games), and they just grabbed people in their offices and had them read lines. And it showed. For their next effort, Return to Zork, they got professionals. Not stars, people you've never heard of like Ernie Lively and A.J. Langer. But they were definitely professionals, and it made a huge difference. Brittany is somewhere between LGOP2 and Return to Zork. For their next game, Zork Zemesis, they still didn't have stars, but used a couple of people I HAD heard of, like the murder victim in a Columbo mystery, and a guy who'd played guest roles on Star Trek Next Generation. I don't expect HER to ever go that far, but Return to Zork level voice acting would be just fine.

[@englishatheart]

@@GraemeCree I hate when people make that ignorant statement. "Amateurs" are only amateurs because they haven't gotten to do it much. That in no way means they wouldn't be good at it if given the chance. Amateur doesn't equal bad, and experienced doesn't equal good.

[@GraemeCree]

@@englishatheart Nobody said what you thought you heard. A professional is just someone who gets paid for it, as opposed to an amateur (someone who doesn't get paid). Although there may be numerous individual exceptions, on the whole the pool of people who get paid for it are going to be more talented than the pool of people who don't. That's more nuanced than the black-and-white "Amateurs bad, Professionals good" line you think you're hearing, but clearly true. Of course, allison didn't even say that much. She just said that Brittany was better than "most of us", i.e. the players, most of whom have never done any voice acting at all, even on an amateur level. That's why I thought her praise was pretty faint, if not outright insulting. Like saying "Zach Wilson is a better quarterback than most people who have never played football at all". She probably didn't mean to be insulting, just said the best thing she could think of and didn't realize how it sounded. I'm not slamming her, I can't think of anything better either.

[@minutestodawn]

thank you very much for the well-crafted and thoughtful review! as a longtime fan, i have been very dejected about ND and any future games since MID's release; i'm so happy to hear HER seems to be turning things around.

[@WizardKittenYT]

I am so glad you liked it and I can definitely understand feeling dejected! It makes a lot of sense!

[@DianeLeafBeUponYou]

Thank you for the thorough review! I've been waiting to hear your thoughts. The marketing the HER team had done leading up to the release made me hopeful enough to purchase and play the game, but I was still skeptical going into it because of MID. I was delighted to find it so improved from MID! As you mentioned, the puzzles were not executed in the best way, but I was so excited that it actually had puzzles that I didn't care as much. Hopefully that is an area they will improve in for the next game. The biggest drawback for me is probably Nancy's voice acting, but even that I got used to and it only occasionally broke my immersion. I loved all the references to previous games! It felt like the team was acknowledging the past and communicating that they are listening to what the fans want and expect rather than just playing on our nostalgia. Like you, I was mournfully discouraged after MID, but this game gives me hope for the future of the franchise and for the first time in years I am looking forward to see want they put out next.

[@WizardKittenYT]

Well said!! I completely agree!

[@bookworm598]

Loved hearing your take as always! I'm glad to hear you have a lot of the same feelings about this game, specifically when it came to the puzzles. About halfway through I was seriously considering not finishing because I kept getting so incredibly frustrated. I knew immediately which puzzles you were referring to when talking about the puzzle issues. I think for me, the controls were a part of the problem, I wouldn't be able to figure a puzzle out because my pointer wasn't on this very specific part of the screen. I would then look it up online to find out I knew what I was doing, I just wasn't doing it in this very specific way the game was forcing me to do it. For example I had figured out what the answers to the riddles were but it wouldn't let me do anything until I asked for help that I didn't need. There were also times where I was squinting at the screen because I couldn't zoom in far enough (although that might have been the fault of my computer) I agree that having so many phone contacts and then using them so few times seemed like a waste. And it made me unreasonably angry when I would try to call someone and Nancy would essentially tell me "no". Even if we would get their voicemail or we'd call and then there wouldn't be any talking points is better than Nancy just refusing to call. What's the point in playing as Nancy then? It also made me get really annoyed by Nancy's voice actress. With AI voices now a thing, I want to have an AI Lani voice read some of the lines in this game just to see how much of it is poor writing and how much is poor voice work. Another thing that bugged me was how there were so many things that you could only do in very specific order (for example you could only mess with the clock in the cafe after a certain point, only pick up the laptop charger once you got the laptop, only pick locks at certain times). It made things feel very restrictive, again like I wasn't actually in control of Nancy's actions. One last thing I had issues with was the environments, because while they all looked nice, you couldn't interact with a lot of it (you couldn't pick things up in the shops, or buy potato pancakes). Because of this is felt sort of like a sim's room that is built waaay too big and there's all this extra space for no reason. I agree that overall this game makes me a bit more optimistic compared to after playing Salem, so let's hope this is heading in the right direction!

[@WizardKittenYT]

Well said!! Yes, just so many logic, intuition, and progression issues!

[@biologygeek4242]

Thanks for the review! I'm personally waiting for either a physical release or it to come on steam, but it's great to know that they're listening some and improving!

[@WizardKittenYT]

My pleasure! Hopefully the Steam release will come soon!

[@hiimdaisy26]

Absolutely agree with the vocal cues and lack of explanation on some of the puzzles. I was so ready to grind and try to get through the puzzles myself but it just wasn't gonna happen for a few of them... That being said, I enjoyed the game and think it is a promising sign for future games!

[@WizardKittenYT]

Yes!! Wanting to be able to do the puzzles independently but being unable to is so disappointing!

[@F66x]

My biggest hope is that the long development cycles is time well spent into the future. There's speculation Covid held it back some, which is fully valid. I'm willing to have the games take this long if they receive the amount of polish and improvement this one did, and it couldn't have been easy on anyone to have the old dev cycles. Comparing footage between this and MID, I was actually pleasantly surprised by how well-optimized they managed to make it. Your statement about the next game being the MHM of the Revival era is super hopeful and I think it's possible! I've heard other reviews say the puzzles in MID were too simple, so maybe they tried to over-correct. A lot of them involving math is personally intimidating to me for when/if I pick this up, but that's my personal skill-issue. Agree with you on a lot of the lines. Brittany (Nancy's VA) was actually much better in MID, and I'm disappointed in how she was received in that game. There's not going to be a replacement for Lani, but if Brittany is voice acting like this because she feels hated by the fanbase or doesn't feel supported, I can't blame her. I wouldn't put as much into a performance either.

[@WizardKittenYT]

It's definitely a risk for the games to take four to five years to release and I'm curious if COVID delayed this like you're saying. MID took the same amount of time too, so I'm really curious to see if they can increase the pace but still maintain quality. If not...I'm not sure how funding can possibly last that long?

[@andreap838]

​@@WizardKittenYTNot only was covid likely a factor, but it looks like they had a switch in studios they worked with (Not Mipumi or whoever that was from MID). If they keep the same studios as KEY and possibly already have a trademark (Missing Clue?) then I am crossing my fingers that the next game will come out sooner. We shall see!

[@whenyoucoolasacucumber]

While COVID complications is a valid excuse of course, especially in he states where the paleolithic managers refused to make a smooth transition to Work from Home, it feels like that period has been used as an end all be all blanket excuse, from corporations and fans both to excuse things that certainly will happen again because they were managment or direction oriented and only made worse by the horrible circumstances. One can hope that with all the negative press the two post moder games have produced in the ND series specifically that HER will change their mindset..

[@F66x]

@@WizardKittenYT That's a good point about the funds. ND remains niche, so I'm hoping they break even on this. ^^; @andreap838 I hope they do! It seems like they did much better with the partnership this time.

[@user-xb5xr8ib8b]

Thanks so much for making this review. I've been really nervous about like if buying the game is even worth it and if I should play it with a friend who isn't as familiar with the games, for fear of them getting a bad example. But this review tells me if I just have the right expectations going in then it'll probably be good so thank you for the heads up and it seems like a fun game. I actually liked Trail of the Twister and Shattered Medallion, since my standards are kind of low I guess, so that sounds like I'll like this one!

[@stefanielozinski]

I've been waiting for this review! Thank you!!!

[@WizardKittenYT]

My pleasure!!

[@kt_vip1371]

I very much so appreciate the review, I am personally waiting for the game to come out on Steam, while watching your review, I got distracted by the two Gentlemen in in the bottom corner of the screen @ 13:14 Is it just me or does anybody else see Rhett and Link? lol

[@WizardKittenYT]

So glad you liked it!! Hopefully it comes out on Steam soon!

[@PianoGirl091]

This review gives me hope. I haven't played the game yet, but if YOU think it's an improvement on MID, then I'm sure I will too! Thanks so much for your review, I can't wait to play!

[@WizardKittenYT]

Yes! I can confidently say it's an improvement!

[@brunette3cookie]

Thanks for making a spoiler-free review! I wanted to know how it was without knowing everything just yet. I don't have a gaming computer and my normal laptop cannot handle playing this. Here's hoping for a Switch port!

[@WizardKittenYT]

Absolutely! I definitely hope it becomes more accessible to more players!

[@italiangamerjoe7501]

Wow, great review! Amazing points and it was really cool hearing all your feedback about the game. I agreed with a lot of your sentiments! Can’t wait to see the spoiler version!

[@WizardKittenYT]

Thank you so much!! I'm glad you liked it!

[@fabianjanecko9275]

I wish they did a hybrid of the wasd controls and the OG controls. When in the outdoor locations there could be a little walking nancy symbol and we could be free to zoom through and then in the indoor locations switch to her magnifying glass/directional arrows so the indoor spaces would be more cozy, curated, and feel more detective-y rather than just exploration-y. Im just really missing the comfort of point and click and the amount of detail they could pack in with the old system.

[@fabianjanecko9275]

I do love how they did it with the desks though !

[@WizardKittenYT]

I do definitely miss the detail of the original locations. I doubt they'll ever be able to make them as cozy and charming with this new system!

[@Airbugg]

Thank you so much for this spoiler free review! I've been waiting for someone to do this! It's great to hear that even though the game isn't perfect, at least it shows that the her interactive team is on the right track. I look forward to what they have in store for us in the future! Question: Would you say that the game had a lot of scary/creepy moments? I know each of the nancy drew games had a certain genre, and that some omitted magic/ghosts/etc altogether. Just curious as to where this game falls in the spectrum. (Ex. alchemy) Hope you can clarify this. Thanks!

[@WizardKittenYT]

There is a supernatural element to the game and there was one good jump scare, but otherwise I would say that the vibe for the scare factor is closer to Scooby Doo!

[@jacksampsonforever]

Really appreciate your honest review, Kitten, I've been waiting for it. Catnip to you and Queen Mel! I haven't purchased it yet, and I MAY buy it (and see if it works on my 8 year old comp). Glad you kept to your high standards. The question remains: will we wait four and a half years before the next game?

[@WizardKittenYT]

I am so curious about the wait for the next one! Everyone keeps saying COVID delayed this one...but we'll see because MID took virtually the same amount of time. And no teaser...so I guess we'll see!

[@stacyk123]

I'm so excited to see what the next one will be. Once they get the fine tuning done. Hopefully, we don't have to wait another 4 years. Now that they've got their stride back, I'm hoping they'll get back to at least one a year. If all games are going to be this big I don't think they'll ever get back to 2 a year.

[@WizardKittenYT]

Oh yeah, definitely not two a year. I am really curious to see how long the next one will take!

[@hkdaisy101]

I agree with your review. Looks wise there were big improvements since MID, but man the puzzles were HARD I think even on amateur sleuth there wasn’t one puzzle I did completely without a hint or looking up answers. I also was sad that even though there were lots of bigger locations in public places you couldn’t go in to 90% of the buildings around, really wish we could have explored a church or castle or something to do with the setting .

[@WizardKittenYT]

Agreed!!

[@kelsey1467]

@@WizardKittenYT but is that more of a budjet the only have so much money how many locations do you want to explore i kind of feel that way with the haunted carousel i kind of agree with another reviewer that the didn't take advantage of the setting but is that the developers or we can only do so much with the budjet

[@WizardKittenYT]

@@kelsey1467 I think it's both. When you have a limited budget, you just have to make wise choices.

[@meg8815]

I just hope one day they will release a game with the old system so everyone can play. It would be easier to swallow if it were comparable to the graphics in sea of darkness and characters were more memorable.

[@WizardKittenYT]

I agree, but they had to switch systems because their old platform wasn't compatible with newer computers ☹️ would be nice to at least have the same charm!

[@meg8815]

@@WizardKittenYT maybe if they come out with a game that hits more of my criteria I’ll think about investing lol!

[@staticradio724]

Thanks for this in-depth review! I probably won't play it myself, because my laptop is shitty and old and $32 seems like a lot for a game like this. But at least now I know it's worth watching a let's play!

[@WizardKittenYT]

Of course!! I'm so glad the review was helpful!

[@anna3036]

Excellent review. Thanks for both the complete review and the spoiler free one. I do think, though, that comparing the new game to Midnight in Salem is wrong because that game was horrible. So anything else would be great. Not a good way to compare. If it could be compared to the ND games in general without MIS in the mix, that would be more clear.

[@PAUL-uk1le]

What do you guys and gals play this game on I'm looking at laptops for my niece she wants a macbook I want to go PC any suggestions

[@WizardKittenYT]

@@PAUL-uk1le I think it would require a gaming laptop, but beyond that, you'd probably be good!

[@PAUL-uk1le]

@@WizardKittenYT Thank you I love your channel. I subbed and will watch old video's

[@Pumpkinnight120]

I haven't played this game yet because Her Interactive is asking way too much money for shipping on physical copies. I might look into playing it on Steam when it comes out there but I'm not sure.

[@GraemeCree]

I need to give HER some heat for their attempt to double dip. By delaying the release of the physical edition of the game for a month, and then making it a special, limited, one-time offer, that means that anybody who wants a physical copy is probably going to get stuck buying the game twice (once as a download, and again as a physical copy). As far as I know, they never mentioned whether or not a physical copy would ever exist when the game was released (we had assumed there wouldn't be one at all), and so they gave nobody a heads up that they might do better to wait for the physical copy if they only wanted to buy the game once. We didn't get stuck, luckily, as we hadn't bought the game when it came out. So when they offered the physical copy we figured we'd just get that, as our one and only purchase. Many weren't so lucky. We won't be playing the game at all for another month at least, until the physical copies are shipped (you don't get a download with it). We had only avoided buying the download early because we were still unhappy about the shenanigans over MID, not because we were expecting new shenanigans over this game. I wouldn't call all this unethical, exactly, but it's definitely unsavory.

[@jennifersowers6421]

I agree with the puzzle assessment. Some of the mechanics of the game also upset me. Trying to integrate items with other items had me so frustrated. I quit one of the puzzles and just got the answer from the hints because I couldn't figure out how to put the TOOL together to START the puzzle. It was so frustrating. I also wish they would just get rid of the background people and focus that energy on other things. I don't mind moving through an empty public space if it gives the game makers the ability/time to do other things that makes the game better. Better than MIS for sure... but so much worse then the original games :( underwhelmed for sure.

[@WizardKittenYT]

Definitely agree!! Figuring out HOW to START the puzzles should not be the puzzles, lol.

[@healgoth]

@@WizardKittenYT “I gotta have some torque!” Version 2.0 lol

[@nightshade99]

So what # does this rank among all the Nancy Drew games?

[@WizardKittenYT]

In my objective rating, it's just below Trail of the Twister, so I think 28 out of 34. In my personal rating, I haven't quite decided yet because I want to play it again now that I understand all the puzzle logic, but it might manage to sneak out of my personal bottom five.

[@nightshade99]

@@WizardKittenYT Wow, a comeback but yet still crushingly bad

[@WizardKittenYT]

@@nightshade99 yeah, I certainly can't say that it matches the same quality of most of the series, but it was still 20 points better than MID, so there's that, lol

[@BostonLow]

While being better than _Midnight in Salem_ isn't a very high bar to clear, I think this game is a significantly improvement over MID. There are several minor things I would have changed with the plot, puzzles, and UI, but I still found this game to be quite enjoyable. I definitely agree that it is on par with some of the older ND games. Since KEY is currently the shiny new game in the series, that fact might be influencing me a bit, but I'd prefer to replay KEY right now rather than several of the older titles and I think that's a good sign.

[@WizardKittenYT]

Definitely! I'm actually excited to play this again instead of dreading it like MID!

[@justafan6535]

HAD IT SERIOUSLY SINCE 2019?!?!?!

[@WizardKittenYT]

Isn't that wild?!

[@GraemeCree]

One thing you don't talk about much here is performance. There's been talk about the game requiring a "high end" system. How high end? Everything in this video looks smooth enough. The system requirements for this game say Windows 10 or better. That's not too bad, and a lot of such games will work on 7. i3 Processor, i5 recommended. Again, that's not bad at all. Graphics (GPU): NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 TI or AMD Radeon R7 370. Err, not sure about that one. I use a laptop plugged into a port replicator to make an ersatz desktop, so this may be a problem. Video Memory: 2GB, 4GB recommended. That doesn't sound bad. RAM: 6GB, 8GB recommended. That's not bad. DirectX 11. I don't think that's much of an issue. 20GB Storage Space. Sounds insane, but that's not really too bad for a game these days. However, with the old Nancy Drew series, I have all 32 games, plus Dossier games, plus SCKR permanently installed on my Hard Drive, to be able to pull up and play with at a moment's notice, (about 36 GB for the entire kit and kaboodle). 20GB games are not the kind I'd leave installed permanently. Keyboard, mouse, and speakers. I'll have to check to see if I have all of these. So, this doesn't sound too bad, and looks fine in the video. Not AS friendly as the original ND series, in which every game would run on XP. But it doesn't *sound* too bad.

[@WizardKittenYT]

I'm lucky enough to have a high-end system, so yeah, mine did look and run quite well! I've heard that fans, especially in the FB group, have been having more difficulty running it. It seems like, for people who have invested in a gaming computer, they'll be just fine. Anyone who just has a standard laptop or Mac (because apparently it's working less well on Mac) seems to be having more issues, though not always.

[@GraemeCree]

@@WizardKittenYT I've had no trouble running it, but it defaulted to Very Low Graphics. It will work on Low but no higher than that. I have a decent system overall, but the entire problem is in not having a high end graphics card. So I can run the game, but I'd rate the Setting & Design lower than you would. The game is designed to play like a 3-D shooter without the shooting, but you don't need anything nearly that intensive for an adventure game. Speaking of Nancy stating the obvious, we re-played MID recently, and had forgotten how often Nancy just gushes when she has nothing to say. "Those pillows look super comfy!" "Austria is beautiful!" It was sort of like a poorly written text adventure that would just say "You see nothing special about the Blank", when you type "Examine Blank". And she does the same thing in this one. That chipper "This is my first case in Prague!" has become a laugh line for us, which it shouldn't be.

[@karricompton]

I agree with you that this game felt inspired by ND, but not really a part of the same body of games. Which makes me sad. I feel like I have been left behind by their myriad of changes. Nostalgia and familiarity is very important to me. I have a computer that’s plenty strong enough for the game, and I’ve started it, but I lost interest, and I have to make myself get into it again so I can finish. Thanks for the thoughtful review.

[@WizardKittenYT]

Yeah, it isn't the same and that has definitely been a bummer 😕