Grim Legends 2: Song of the Dark Swan Review

I’ve reviewed a few Artifex Mundi titles recently such as Nightmare from the Deep 2, Lost Grimoires: Stolen Kingdom, Enigmatis 2: The Mists of Ravenwood and Eventide: Slavic Fable. They are for the most part simplified Point and Click adventures where there are a lot of hidden object puzzles to play with. Grim Legends 2: Song of the Dark Swan is the latest and actually follows the fairytales of the Brothers Grimm, in this case Grim Legends 2: Song of the Dark Swan is based on The Six Swans.

In Grim Legends 2: Song of the Dark Swan you are the Healer because your healing skills are known worldwide, you have been asked to go to the Kingdom of Eagles to cure a queen who has lost the ability to converse. As you arrive a baby prince is born but is then kidnapped and the speechless queen is accused of dabbling in the dark arts. If you haven’t played the first Grim Legends title it doesn’t matter as Grim Legends 2: Song of the Dark Swan is a separate story in its own right.

Graphically the hand drawn scenes found in Grim Legends 2: Song of the Dark Swan are incredibly detailed and come together really well to set a fairytale scenario. Unfortunately something negative which was found in the titles mentioned earlier can also be found here and that is the pretty terrible voice acting, it’s one thing trying to portray a fairytale but to do so with such poor acting really detracts from the adventure and story telling. I’ve always enjoyed the cut-scenes in these kind of games and Grim Legends 2: Song of the Dark Swan is another one i can add to the list, they are not the most technically detailed of scenes but they always portray a sense of urgency and scope. You do get three little helps in the form of an otter, a swallow and a forest spirit, they are able to help you and as individual characters are the best you’ll find in Grim Legends 2: Song of the Dark Swan.

Grim Legends 2: Song of the Dark Swan is a very short game, maybe 2/3 hours if you skip the mini games, there is a bonus chapter once you complete it, it doesn’t add much to the length but it’s a positive inclusion. In other hidden object games you are sometimes given an alternative to completing some aspects of the game like playing a game of Mah Jong, it’s not the case here which is disappointing.

The mini games are varied enough but the hidden object games whilst highly detailed to look at can become a tad boring because once you’ve played one you’ve played them all but then again maybe that’s part of the pull of this genre. Something that has blighted this genre throughout is that some items even though they have been clicked on do not get selected, you would hope that if you clicked on the general area where an item is then it should pick it up, this is not always the case.

Grim Legends 2: Song of the Dark Swan is not the best of it’s hidden object game genre, but the plot is better than the average Artifex Mundi game, that’s probably got more to do with where they’ve taken the story from. It is very short game where the puzzles are a little more difficult than its predecessors. Unfortunately the lack of an alternative to navigating the hidden object scenes detracts from the overall enjoyable whilst there’s nothing new that you wouldn’t have already found in similar games made by the same developer. If you have any other Artifex Mundi titles in your collection and enjoyed playing them then you are very likely to enjoy Grim Legends 2: Song of the Dark Swan.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Sony Playstation 4 code was provided to Bonus Stage for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to press@4gn.co.uk.