Dark Romance: The Monster Within

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Dark Romance: The Monster Within

by Aethyna Sep 2, 2019 | 1 Votes | 92 Played | 0 Reviews

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Genres:

Hidden Object

Graphics:

2D

Labels:

Monsters , Hidden Object Adventure , Hidden Object Puzzle , Romance

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Big Fish Games Play as both newly-wedded couple, Nigel and Sybil, as they work together to defeat Nigel's "friend", Basil, who was enveloped with a shroud of bitterness, jealousy, and resentment against his friends' amazing and wealthy lives, and remove the curse Basil has placed on Sybil. Will they succeed? Play Now Similar Games Played Post a Review

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Summary Plotline Gameplay Graphics and Sound Conclusion

Summary

Play as both newly-wedded couple, Nigel and Sybil, as they work together to defeat Nigel's "friend", Basil, who was enveloped with a shroud of bitterness, jealousy, and resentment against his friends' amazing and wealthy lives, and remove the curse Basil has placed on Sybil. Have fun searching for hidden objects in various locations, solving interesting puzzles, and finding a slew of collectibles in this gorgeous hidden object game, Dark Romance: The Monster Within!

Plotline

A misguided sense of vengeance and a volcano of pent-up hate and jealousy at the lives his friends, Nigel and Henry, enjoyed, turned Basil Hallward into a very bitter man. Once considered a wealthy family, the Hallward fortune was gambled away by his father and when he died not long after, he left his only son nothing. However, Basil is not one to work hard for his fortune and his entitlement drove him to steal several magical tools, including a powerful paintbrush, which he then used to terrorize his friends.

On one of his friends, Nigel’s, wedding night, he cursed Nigel’s newly-wedded wife, Sybil, and turned her into an animal. Nigel can save Sybil only if he is willing to give up his entire inheritance to Basil, but of course, being the resourceful young man that he is, he intends to not only save Sybil from her predicament but to put an end to Basil’s hold on Henry and his wife as well.

That’s the story which will kickstart your adventure in Dark Romance: The Monster Within and boy, what a great start!

Gameplay

Now, in terms of gameplay, The Monster Within may look like your typical HOG but it most certainly isn’t. For starters, there are so many more items to find in this game!

Aside from the usual “picking up from the environment” and of course, the many hidden object scenes (these are pretty well-varied), there are 4 different sets of hidden items, namely paintbrushes, cursed paintings, magical items and notes which help further explain a certain part of the story, that you can find in the various locations around the map.

Since spotting these can be a bit difficult, the game, at least in casual mode, provides clues whenever one of these hidden objects turn up at a location, and the clues come in the form of the tiny circular icons located just above your inventory. Whenever an object for one of these three categories (except notes) appear, the icon will sparkle and you’d know to keep an eye out for these hidden items.

Like most HOGs, there are lots of interactive items at each location that require you find the tool you need and then drag and drop the item from your inventory to said area. Since I’m reviewing the game on my mobile device, I’ve got to say though – the drag and drop mechanism works great here. In fact, despite being a PC port, everything works amazingly well in this game.

As a little bonus, there are plenty of what I like to call the “little things” that you can interact with in the game but these items don’t play a role in the story at all. They just stuff you can have fun clicking just to see what would happen, such as being able to eat the cake and drink the tea on Nigel’s father’s old desk when the game first begins or turning the lamp on and off with a tap.

I should also point out that the hidden object scenes in this game is filled with variety, enough to keep things interesting without going overboard and making everything unnecessarily more complicated than needed. There is some variety to the types of scenes you’ll encounter, whether it is merely word lists or the more challenging silhouette mode. There are also several items within a scene that may require you to take some additional steps before you can find the hidden objects.

Do you tire of finding hidden objects after a while? Well, you’re in luck! In this game, you can actually “skip” a hidden object scene by playing a match-3 game instead!

For puzzles, Dark Romance: The Monster Within offers a whole lot of customization just so you can enjoy playing the puzzles without having to feel like you’re forced to use the Skip button. All puzzles in this game come in two difficulty levels, Easy and Hard, and the puzzle instructions are hidden at first but can be easily brought up when you need some guidance. There are achievements associated with solving a puzzle without reading the instruction though, so if you love collecting achievements, you might want to try to solve a puzzle before reading the tips.

However, the most interesting thing of all is probably the fact that you can and must switch between two characters, both Sybil and Nigel, in your adventure since each of them have their own side of the story to tell. I’ve seen such feature being used in point-and-click adventures but never in a HOG, so color me impressed!

Graphics and Sound

Besides the impressive gameplay, this game has some gorgeous graphics and sound too! I don’t really expect much from a mobile game but I dare say that the graphics here look a lot sharper and crisper than its PC counterpart! It’s really that good!

Conclusion

Dark Romance: The Monster Within is definitely what I’d call a “HOG done right”. Everything in the game is designed to keep you engrossed into the story and the game environment, and unlike older HOGs, you’ve got a lot more control over the difficulty of the puzzles you have to solve or HO scenes that you need to scour through for hidden objects. Plus, since the game is now available on both Android and iOS, you can play the game while on the go as well!