Buy Now...

Domini Games has added to its Royal Romances series of Hidden Object Adventure titles that deal with the conflict between the King and the creatures of a magical forest.  This latest episode is subtitled The Power of the Chosen One.  I have been looking at the Collector’s Edition version of this title which features several bonus items to enhance the playing experience.

As usual with such CE titles, you get a mixture of bonus items that grant immediate access and others than require a certain amount of progress to be made in the main game before they can be used.  Falling into the first category are the bonus offerings of wallpaper, concept art and music.  However you do have to encounter movie cut-scenes, mini game puzzles and Hidden Object scenes in the main game before replaying them as a bonus item.  You will need to complete the main game in order to play a bonus chapter.

Not surprisingly the game’s initial set-up procedure follows Domini Games usual pattern with the creation of profiles for different possible players, volume level adjustment plus selecting the viewing mode and turning on/off various features.  There is a choice of four difficulty levels allowing you to select from Casual, Advanced, Hardcore or Custom.

See also: Games

more

The game is split into various chapters that cover the activities of certain characters.  To assist you are a number of tools to assist you when playing the game.  Running across the bottom of the game’s display are tools made up of a journal, consisting of notes and task sections, a map, inventory plus short-cuts to access a Strategy Guide and hint feature when required. 

Occasionally this arrangement will be added to by a short-cut to a previous scene.  There are also pop-out controls that reveal progress with regards to finding various collectibles and your “closeness to saving the forest” at the heart of the game.  I should also mention that the collectibles pop-out will shimmer whenever a relevant item can be found within the current scene.

As you explore various scenes, aided by your mouse cursor which changes shape to indicate possible actions, you will need to be on the lookout for useful items plus gather collectibles made up of magic potions, dragon scales and dragon eggs.  A succession of tasks will need to be tackled and these tasks will sometimes require a decision to be made from a choice of options.  Any decision thus made will affect the flow of the story. 

Generally any decision making will follow a meeting with another character who will be displayed on a split screen along with the current scene.  The character’s dialogue will be delivered by a voice actor and as printed text.  When appropriate you can make a choice from a list of responses.

As you progress through the various scenes and locations, finding items, creating potions and discovering information, you will be faced by challenges that consist of mini game puzzles and Hidden Object action.  Following its normal practice, Domini Games offers players a choice when tackling these types of game play challenges.  In the case of mini game puzzles, which tend to involve the correct placement of individual elements, you are given the choice of tackling an Easy or Hard version of the puzzle.  With Hidden Object scenes, a variety of formats may be used as you look for silhouettes, words, patterns and even place them in scenes, with a fallback choice of switching to Match 3 game play to complete the task

I found this storyline slightly easier to follow than other offerings in this series although there were moments of confusion.  The game can be downloaded from Gamehouse.com where it is priced at $19.99 or Big Fish Games priced at £15.72.  System specifications call for a 2.0 GHz processor with 1024MB of RAM running Windows 7 and later.

Royal Romances - The Power of Chosen One Collector's Edition | Big Fish Games

Royal Romances - The Power of Chosen One Collector's Edition | GameHouse