Youda Legend - The Curse of the Amsterdam Diamond Review
The Curse of the Amsterdam Diamond leaves me with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I was never bored. On the other, it was very short and not challenging. There were no penalties for misclicks and no time limits. The variety of puzzles and hidden object sections were very well done. Hence, mixed feelings.
The story was irrelevant, as so often happens with these games, so that was a bit disappointing. Basically, you are a treasure hunter on the search for the hidden treasure of the Flying Dutchman. The story is completely relayed in text. The music is throwaway and no voices were added to this title. It was a pretty barebones game with little in the way of bells and whistles.
Where it really shines is with the puzzles, making this more a puzzle adventure than a pure hidden object game. All the puzzle types are recognizable to any puzzle afficianados and none are repeated, so it stays fresh throughout. The hidden object aspect of the game was well done, although at times, I found myself ignoring the list and just clicking around at anything that looked like it might be on the list. That worked more often than not, but the last few items on the list were usually a bit of a challenge and I did end up using hints with a few of the objects. Disappointingly, when I did finally find the object, it was nearly invisible to the screen, so no matter how well I looked at the image, I would have never found them.
So overall, I'm not sure how I really feel about the game. I think I would recommend it to anyone who likes puzzle aspects of adventure games. If you are looking for a challenging hidden puzzle title, this is not it. If you want a good story, you won't find it here. If you are a goal oriented player, this one gives very few goals to go after and even those are not clearly defined (like the find the diamonds on the screen goal). It's a mixed bag and it would have taken very little effort to elevate this game, by adding in time limits and penalties for misclicks and using hints (or least give the option for this type of gameplay). Lacking those basic competitive components makes Youda Legend - The Curse of the Amsterdam Diamond a don't play for most people.
Score: 6.5
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