Game: MazM: The Phantom of the Opera
Genre: Adventure, Puzzle, Simulation, Role-Playing
System: Nintendo Switch
Developers | Publishers: Growing Seeds | CFK
Price: US $14.99 | UK £11.29 | EU € 12,49
Age Rating: US T | EU 12+
Release Date: March 25, 2021
Review code used, with many thanks to CFK
This is going to be a different review from my normal fare. Once again, I embarked on a novel type of tale, but it didn’t go how I expected. Read on to find out what happened!
Story
This is a video game version of the classic The Phantom of the Opera tale. You find yourself investigating the puzzling happenings at an opera house by controlling various characters. What is going on with the mysterious Phantom? No one knows!
Gameplay
You play as various sprites and have to talk to people and collect items to advance the story. It has some lite visual novel elements as well, such as option selections based on conversations.
Music and Visuals and a Brief Warning (with minor spoiler)
I love the sprites in this game. They are well-drawn. The backgrounds are also very good. The atmospheric orchestra music with short operatic clips is perfect for this game. I have no complaints here. This game is very creepy when it needs to be. This story does have the suicide of a character early on.
And…This Is Where the Review Ends
Unfortunately, I had a major problem with selecting anything in this game. Since you must select characters to speak with them and advance the story, I struggled to advance due to these issues. Selecting characters/items on the screen is basically impossible for long stretches and using the touch screen isn’t even an option.
I sent the developer a video of the issue but haven’t heard back yet (they said this was the first time it had been reported.) The problem is so persistent and so time-consuming that I consider this title broken in its current form.
Conclusion
My initial impressions were very good. MazM: The Phantom of the Opera has cute sprites, a good atmosphere and art, and is downright creepy at parts. However, I cannot render any sort of final verdict (or much of a review) as I was unable to get far in the story.
I will update this should I hear back from the developer. I hope I do because I was very intrigued by this game until I couldn’t go any further!
Final Verdict: I’m Not Sure
