Hello, don't mind me... I'm just sitting in the corner of the room, knees pulled up tightly to my chest, and silently rocking myself in order to overcome the confusion that I just experienced while playing Grim Tales The Stone Queen.
Was it a good game? ...I don't know? I think it was... but I'm just not sure... I'm not sure of anything anymore. Who am I? Because, I have no idea who I was in that game... Was I the same person that I was in the other Grim Tales games? Was that my nephew Brandon lying shot in a crystal sarcophagus? I think it was... but, you'd think I would have shown some sort of emotional reaction to seeing him mortally wounded...
But alas... I'm getting ahead of myself. Must focus. Let's start at the beginning. I'm driving down a long and windy road. A bird poops on my window. It's OK. Poop happens. I get that. I'm OK up to this point.
I run out of gas at the edge of the town of Stoneville and witness a person being turned to stone right before my very eyes. I'm still here... haven't lost me yet.
So, I get out of the car and examine the person... then I found out my nephew lives here and that it's a few years after the last Grim Tales game. OK. I'm the same character... right? I need to find some gas and get the hell out of dodge! OK... fine... I should probably save these miners too while I'm at it. Probably wouldn't be nice to steal their gas and just leave them as permanent pigeon toilets.
I'm still hanging in there although my confidence is beginning to waver. I search all over town, focused mainly on trying to find gas. Mind you... there's lots of aimless wandering... LOTS... way too much. It gets a little ridiculous... really?? I need to get the gas can, go all the way back to my car, realize I don't have a funnel, and then I need to go back to use the carjack on the library area that's located... IN THE HOSPITAL... which by the way has a lock with three primate pictures on it... because that's normal...and oh wait... we're not done! We need to then take the scalpel, go to the car outside the hospital, open the luggage case, use the scalpel on the bag to cut it open and then finally... you are rewarded with the funnel.
So, I go back to the car thinking I'm going to now start my car and go somewhere... but no... we can't leave yet. So why did you make me go through all that trouble to get the gas!!? Oh that's right, so I could somehow know that I'm supposed to find the loose brick with the scalpel, place it on the gas pedal, start the car, and then watch it crash into the mine... right....
But that's not really the point where Grim Tales The Stone Queen lost me.
No, it did that much earlier when I went into the hospital, found Brandon... who I thought was my nephew... but turned out to be the nephew of the old mayor. Wait.... what??? It's Brandon... that's my nephew... the one we went through so much effort to save in the last game... shouldn't I do something? Anything? Cry? Scream? Do a jig (maybe we never liked that kid in the first place)... I don't know... anything?! But nothing... just, hey, there's that kid in the crystals... sure sucks to be him.
Maybe I missed something... but the story just gets weirder from there. The next thing I know, there are trolls and goblins and crystal green palaces that make me feel like I'm Dorthy standing outside the Emerald Palace, and I'm huffing a hell of a lot of poppies, because we certainly aren't in Kansas anymore...
And who is this Stone Queen anyhow? Is she good... is she bad? Why is her pet goblin in my inventory? And why does he make me feel like I should be watching my back when he's around... I'mnot sure if he's supposed to be cute or creepy or slimy or what... but he gives me strong urges to start adding "My Precious" to the end of all his sentences.
Sigh... I just don't know what to think of Grim Tales The Stone Queen... it's all so bizarre... I've never felt this way about a game before... I have no idea what's going on, I'm wandering around aimlessly... and yet, there's this guy... a blind troll in the middle of the mine blocking my way... how much do I love him?!
Here's a few things I do know... The graphics were beautiful. The color palettes in just about every scene where rich and vibrant ranging from deep reds to brilliant emeralds to dusty purples and blues.
Standing at the entrance to the Stone Queen's palace was just exquisite. Watching the lights glimmer off the stones in the cavern and on the castle walls, seeing that faint glow of blue radiating from the crevice in the ground, watching as the shadows play off the wall and dance with the flickering light of the candles... It was definitely a far cry better than anything we've ever seen in the previous Grim Tales games.
But then, stop... listen... what do you hear? Nothing. No music. Nothing to keep the tempo or set the mood. Nothing to help me know what to feel. Should I be happy? Sad? Scared? Indifferent? I have no idea. The clues in the scene weren't enough. Maybe if there had been some somber music when we were near Brandon, I would have understood that this was a terrible sight to behold for the main character... but there was nothing... oh wait... that's not entirely true... there were sounds. Awful, awful sounds...
Various sound effects grated on my nerves and kept me inching toward the quit button. Seriously, at times there were noises that just incessantly repeated over and over again... wind chimes in a hidden object scene, the ticking of a clock in the hospital... the constant buzz of the electric humming over the broken transformer... it was all too much and without any music to soften the blow, it was almost unbearable at times. Think nails on a chalk board...over and over and over again.
The hidden object games were somewhat laughable... don't get me wrong, they were very pretty... but they were the kind of scenes where I didn't even need to look at the list. I could tell what items to pick out based on what was in the scene. Really, for the most part, I would just click and get them right. It was only until I had whittled the list down to 3 or so that I bothered to look to see what I needed to find.
Contrary to the hidden object scenes were the insane puzzles. The first puzzle was super easy... just match the objects... but after that, I would just look at them... try to figure out from the info button what I needed to do, chuckle loudly, and then promptly hit the skip button.
You want me to move the pearls where and make them do what? Or, how many drawers am I suppose to open and where? Nope... not doing that. That's just a meltdown waiting to happen.
Overall, Grim Tales The Stone Queen had me reeling from the moment I pulled into that statue-filled town. I felt like some hopeless version of Alice, because I seriously fell down a rabbit hole and wandered into some twisted form of Wonderland. Some parts were exciting and awesome, like meeting stone trolls and seeing glistening castles...
... And some parts were not so awesome, like wandering aimlessly around without a clue in the world what I was doing or what to do with the enormous amount of junk I was toting around with me in my inventory. I felt just like Alice when she wandered into the Duchess' house, and the Duchess thew a baby at her and then that baby turned into a pig... which is just what the Cheshire Cat knew would happen... excuse me... I need to go back to my corner. Maybe Dinah will bring me a cup of tea.