Bathory - The Bloody Countess

Your sister invites you to her current excavations, however, she's nowhere to find and it seems that she was kidnapped. Could it be in relation with the castle nearby, owned by the legendary Bathory, a cruel countess? The story is interesting in itself. However, the course of actions is perhaps very disturbing. I mean, I can't see why some actions have to be done. I mean, why would I need milk instead of steam to show an hidden message. You've understood: the translation isn't quite a success, hence the confusion that can reign if you're not playing in English. However, the major failure of the game is the gameplay: while it's the standard one (find items, use them, clear hidden objects scenes, solve puzzles), I was mainly thrown into a game where I only managed to understand that the town place can be moved on the side after a long time (when you're stuck and searching for a mechant... that's when I accidentally discovered the trick). Sometimes, you have also arrows on the side. And...

-Requires grinding (replaying same hidden object scenes many times) to finish the game. -Had an annoying bug (a bridge lever did not disappear from inventory when it should have, and Hints forever got stuck at related hint as result). Other than that, it's OK.

Before I bought the game, I’ve read the reviews. Plenty of negatives, but I thought to myself, it can’t be that bad… I was wrong. It can. I’ll start from positives: pretty graphic and very pleasant music. The plot could have been very interesting if somebody actually cared to elaborate and since nobody did, well, great idea ruined. On the negative side: annoying gameplay, not intuitive and frustrating to the point that I almost gave up after 10 minutes into the game. But if that was all I would probably still recommend it. The reason I cannot is a “brilliant” idea of buying items necessary for finishing the game at the merchant. In order to collect enough coins we have to repeat hidden objects scenes again and again and again and again and again…. So even if the plot intrigued you, the whole atmosphere is ruined with clicking for 50th time the same pitchfork. Arrghh… Whoever came up with this should lock himself in the basement for 14 days and rethink his life choices. ...

Game got stuck before even getting as far as the welcome screen - I could hear the audio for the intro playing normally, but the actual screen was frozen on a white background with a black loading circle. Had to hit alt+tab a few times before the screen displayed the welcome screen, but there it froze once again - no fuctioning cursor, no ability to click anything, just a frozen image of the welcome screen. Had to let it run stuck there so that Steam would actually let me leave a review, otherwise my count on the game would have probably been at less than a minute. Would love to play, if this bug could be fixed somehow. I've tried uninstalling & reinstalling the game several times, and every single time I try to open it, it just does the exact same thing.

I enjoyed playing this game. If I could have one wish, it would be for the devs to add a map. I get turned around easily :D It has a journal that keeps a good list of tasks and notes. You have an inventory and a store where you can buy more items with gold. You collect gold by playing HOPS. The HOPS repeat so you remember where items are located. You have a hint button. Sometimes I didn't know where to go next and just started revisiting places & doing HOPS until I got a new clue or found a new location. The story was fun and interesting with a good ending.

Ok..... Yea no. Not going to waste alot of time here. It's Not good. See other reviews for why. Get it if it's like a dollar. Otherwise don't.