From Got Game Entertainment, The Lost Crown: A Ghost-hunting Adventure is one of
those games that is better for what it is than what it does. The game is quite
an impressive feat to have been created by one person, developer Jonathan Boakes. Additionally, the game serves as a nice homage to the classic days of
horror-adventure games like the Gabriel Knight series with some atmospheric
environments and a spooky ambiance. Unfortunately, the game does fall prey to
some issues, like weak dialogue and some conventional elements. However, the
game’s atmosphere and the ghost hunting elements should be fun for adventure
game fanatics.
The Lost Crown puts you in the shoes of Nigel Danvers, a treasure hunter who is
searching for loot in the mysterious, quiet town of Saxton along the English
coast. Along the way, he begins to investigate the eerie happenings in the area
and uncovers some ghost-hunting equipment to get to the bottom of the situation.
The best feature in The Lost Crown is the ghost-hunting elements. These scenes
usually involve you searching around a dark room with a night-vision camera and
an EMF meter. This can actually be quite unsettling, and are actually fairly
authentic (for those of you out there who watch Ghost Hunters on Sci-Fi), so
these sequences are pretty cool.
Unfortunately, the game does have quite a few issues to keep it from being truly
great. The dialogue is pretty bland, with most of the characters that you’ll
interact with say fairly standard and cliche things that sometimes don’t even
pertain to your objective. Couple that with the game having a pretty substantial
amount of “down time” (slow moments), and it can be a trying experience for all
but the biggest adventure game fans.
Additionally, while the puzzles are well done, they do play out quite
conventionally. Aside from the few and far between ghost-hunting scenes, the
majority of the game is fairly standard adventure genre puzzles, meaning that
the hardcore fans to which this game is ultimately geared will be a little too
familiar with the puzzle mechanics.
Graphically, the game’s aesthetics are both a high and a miss. On a conceptual
level, the game is pretty awesome due to some great art design. The whole game
unfolds in black and white, with only a few sparing uses of color here and
there. While a move like this is a gamble on a computer game, it actually works
quite well within The Lost Crown. Also the photorealistic environments are
pretty well done and lend themselves well to the plot.
Unfortunately, there are a couple of problems with the game’s look. The
character models look decidedly outdated, and aren’t rendered too terribly well.
Additionally, the animations leave a bit to be desired, as the main character
will “float walk” very robotically across the screen. The weak character models
and stiff animations are a stark contrast from the nice-looking environments and
unfortunately take you out of the game’s deep atmosphere.
The voice work leaves a lot to be desired as well. As I mentioned earlier, the
dialogue isn’t great, with cliches, and veiled warnings coming out of just about
everyone’s mouth. Also, the voice work (and there is a substantial amount of it)
feels none too professional, with some talking way too fast and monotone to some
just being downright hammy (like the lead character, for example). The subtle
ambient music works well for the game’s mechanics, however.
The Lost Crown: A Ghost-hunting Adventure certainly has its moments, but those
are sadly overshadowed by some overly traditional puzzling and dull dialogue.
Still, the game does have some truly authentic chills thrown in, which just
might be worth the cost of admission for some adventure game fans.
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Gameplay: 7.0
While the ghost-hunting scenes are pretty well done and can be genuinely
frightening, most of the game plays out the same variety of puzzles that
adventure gamers will already be familiar with.
Graphics: 6.5
The black and white aesthetic is certainly neat, but the characters and
animations take away from the rest of the game’s look.
Sound: 6.0
While the ambient music sounds good, the voice acting and dull, cliched script
are tough to sit through.
Difficulty: Medium
Concept: 7.0
The game’s theme and art design are very impressive and the what it does right
(the ghost-hunting scenes) it does extremely well.
Overall: 7.0
The Lost Crown: A Ghost-hunting Adventure is a good adventure game, but too many
conventional elements and low production values keep it from being a great one.
