Witch Hunters: Stolen Beauty (Collector's Edition)

The Good
This is a hidden object game. I have the keep case and it says in big letters on the front that this is a hidden object game but there's more to it than that.
Now lots of hidden object games have other content but Witch Hunters: Stolen Beauty played more like an adventure game hybrid than a game that just skipped from one hidden object scene to another. I tried to record the content as I played the game and I counted at least twenty 'proper' puzzles and a similar number of hidden object scenes.* In-between these there's a lot of finding bits of this to open that inventory action so there's plenty to do, in fact I found the main puzzle of this game was remembering what actions remained to be completed.

There is music and there are sound effects but there is no voice acting. The story is better than other games I have played recently and it seemed to go on and on and on, just as I thought I was about to finish the game it threw some more at me.

The hidden object puzzles all use the same format where the object to be found is named, some games use silhouettes, and where the object is hidden inside or behind something else the name is shown in a different colour. There are the usual tricks, for example a QUEEN could be a picture of royalty, a playing card, a statue or a chess piece but in all the puzzles the objects, though well disguised, were visible if I looked hard enough.

By 'proper' puzzle I mean the scene where I had to, say, manipulate objects to open a lock as in rotating dials to form a pattern. Finding the magnet that allows me to get the key that opens the toolbox thus giving me the screwdriver with which I can unfasten the grating to get the missing dial to complete the lock so that I had the dials to rotate is not something I counted as a puzzle. This is the first time I've tried to record content and I give no guarantee of any kind about my accuracy.

The Bad
The game's strategy guide is a web link on the main menu screen and, for me, this gave the standard "404 Not Found" error. Also my game is a Black Lime release of the Big Fish game and it uses the Big Fish game manager - while this is not a problem for me because I have many of their games I'd prefer to manage the installation, launching and uninstallation myself.

The Bottom Line*
There are three modes of difficulty to this game. I used the middle 'Advanced' setting and finished the game in around four and a half hours. I did use the hint option to point me towards the next location where something needed to be done quite a bit - not because there was a problem with the game, it's just that I was so caught up in the story I wanted to get to the next bit quickly. If I'd diligently searched all locations for the next action then I'd probably have taken well over five hours.

Just when I was thinking that I was getting good at hidden object games and that they were easy peasy I hit this one which was harder and much more fun than many others. Recommended.