Shadow Wolf Mysteries: Bane of the Family
Game Review

Rating: 4.0/5.0  

Return to the mysterious De la Fer estate as you investigate another mystery involving werewolves and curses in Shadow Wolf Mysteries: Bane of the Family. A girl who is apparently the illegitimate daughter of the famous Count De la Fer has become ill, and may have inherited her father's curse. Help track down the Count and find the cure to this illness before it is too late!

This is the second installment of the hidden object adventure game series following the original Shadow Wolf Mysteries: Curse of the Full Moon by ERS Game Studios. It continues the tale of the strange De la Fer family as you investigate the case of a little girl who has succumbed to a strange illness. Like other ERS games, this one is no exception, delivering a great story with excellent art that perfectly captures the atmosphere.

The game begins with you stopping a wolf from harming the occupants of a carriage. It turns out that the passengers are a young woman and a sickly child. The woman explains that the child is the daughter of the Count De la Fer, and is quickly succumbing to a strange illness. She asks you to look for the Count and get his help in finding a cure. As you go about your task, you find yourself getting embroiled in another deadly mystery, as a fearsome wolf confronts you at every turn.

Bane of the Family takes you on an exciting ride as you slowly uncover the story and its mysteries. As you progress through the game, you will learn more about the illness that is inflicting the little girl, and why a sinister character is trying to stop you from curing her. You will get to explore various locations such as the De la Fer estate, its cellars, and nearby areas such as the docks in your travels.

This is a standard hidden object adventure game, and you will be confronted with plenty of puzzles along the way. You will pick up many objects that will be used to progress further into the game, either acting as keys to open locked doors or containers, or as parts of a puzzle. Some of these puzzles are pretty easy, requiring the simple use of one or two objects to solve them. There are other puzzles though that are more complex, taking you to a separate puzzle minigame screen where you need to analyze the environment and figure what needs to be done and how to go about it.

There are also plenty of hidden object scenes in the game. These are the standard lists of various items you need to find from a scene. Some of these items require you to manipulate the scene a little before they become available. Other than these items, the hidden object scenes are pretty standard and the items aren't too difficult to spot.

There are actually a lot of these hidden object scenes in the game, possibly too many so as to make them appear to become tedious. However, the game makes up for this by letting you play it in 3 different difficulty levels. The higher difficulty levels will have hint buttons that take longer to recharge, and will not give you sparkly animations to point you toward areas of interest. You can therefore play the game however you want it, either as a challenging puzzle, or as a relaxing interactive story.

Bane of the Family is a typical ERS game, with very high quality art and sound to complement the story and gameplay. The art has a slightly gothic painterly feel, reminiscent of the European countryside in the 18th century. There is also quite a lot of animation to make the game come alive. The movement of the various characters (and beasts) you meet are animated very well. It also doesn't hurt that the voice acting is pretty decent too.

The story is interesting, as you slowly uncover the secrets behind the curse and the reason why somebody wants to prevent it from being cured. However, there are times when the actions you take may seem illogical, such as when you have to use a cannon to open the door to a lighthouse! Other than that, this is a solid game and a great sequel to Curse of the Full Moon.

You will like Shadow Wolf Mysteries: Bane of the Family if you like mystery stories involving the supernatural, such as in the Dark Parables game series. You can get the basic version of the game, or you can get the Collector's Edition which includes exclusive extras such as bonus gameplay, screensavers and more.

Check out the other games in this series!

Related PC Games at Big Fish Games:

Shadow Wolf Mysteries: Bane of the Family Collector's Edition

Shadow Wolf Mysteries: Curse of the Full Moon

Dark Parables: Rise of the Snow Queen

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