#33 Nancy Drew: Midnight in Salem

I don’t understand why people are so upset about this game! I’ve played every single ND game prior to this and still enjoyed this one. Yes, Nancy has a different voice actor. Yes, the gameplay is a little different. I liked the 3D element, it looked much more modern but still kept the core features. The graphics are majorly improved from past games. I thought the story was fun and the characters too. Loved the Salem setting. Great having the Hardy Boys there. It definitely wasn’t my favourite game, but I still enjoyed it and will play the next one.

I played this on the heels of replaying some of the older Nancy games. Right away I thought I would completely hate this game because of the jarring change in mouse controls and the change in Nancy’s voice from witty, wholesome and classic to modern and ordinary.

But as the story went on, there were things I really liked about the graphics and the game really grew on me. I started an older game right after finishing MIS and found that I really did miss the beauty of MIS and the overall darker feel. This new direction with the games has a lot of potential and I am looking forward to seeing what else they put out.

Even after getting used to it, I still really hate the rolling mouse movement style of looking at things in the room. As someone with motion sickness it literally got nauseating at times. I prefer the simple point and click of the old format for sure. I think fewer cut scenes and more puzzles would really push this new style in the right direction to give it a nod to the old while continuing to move into the new stylistically. As for Nancy herself, I wish she sounded more unique. The actress who voiced Deirdre did a great job making herself stand out. You never doubted who was talking with Deirdre. With Nancy, sometimes she sounded the same as the other people she was talking to and there was nothing distinguishing or endearing about her voice. Nothing against the voice actress, her acting was fine, but old Nancy’s voice was like a warm hug. Would be cool for new Nancy to be just as endearing. Lastly, I agree with the reviewer who talked about autonomy. Having to roam around and figure out why you’re stuck was part of the fun in the older games.

After playing MIS I don’t know that I’d go all the way back to old style. There were definitely some positive things about the more modern graphics, voice acting and sense of suspense but taking what really really worked about the old games and incorporating it back in would create something I think all the fans could really get behind.

I left a negative review initially when I first started playing because I was having issues with navigating the game and the character voices lagged quite a bit. However, once I adjusted the graphics settings it was much easier to move around. Additionally, I realized you can customize the different sound levels as well to make a more enjoyable experience. I really enjoyed the overall plot of the game (still dissappinted about Ned). The game has some ND gan favorites like cooking or doing tasks on for your enjoyment (including some Halloween arts and crafts).

The character development and the way Her Interactive modernized the relationships and everything about the narrative was great! I was super impressed with how they handled the characters and how the game progressed.



The cons to this are that I do wish there were more puzzles in it and the controls on the cemetery game did not work for me. Also I have a mac laptop and using the track pad for moving around and right-clicking did not work well.



Overall this was the most enjoyable game I've played and I have been playing ND games since they first came out! I love that we were given choices in some of the dialogue which mixed things up a bit. Much applause for this game!!!

I bought a new computer and looked forward to playing the newest game of the series that enthralled my childhood (every game repeatedly and hours on HERinteractive's message boards!). I didn't even make it out of the first room before having to call it quits because I wanted my memory of ND games to be positive, not this. Best of wishes to everyone and I hope you've enjoyed Nancy as much as I did.

This is the worst nancy drew game I have played in my life. I've been playing these games since I was a kid and I couldn't even get past the first 10 minutes of this. Please fix this format for the next game or you're going to lose a lot of customers.

My sister and I have grown up playing these games together. It was one of our best bonding experiences. We are both in our 20’s now and were ecstatic when this new game finally came out. We read all of the updates, watched all of the trailers, sent each other the pictures when they came out, and downloaded it the day it was released. I have to say this was the worst game we have ever played and that is including the original version of secret’s can kill! The instructions made no sense and there was very little guidance, the controls were confusing and very hard to navigate, the cutscenes were laggy and the dialogue was out of sync. The opening puzzle took us over 2 hours because they introduced new vision mechanics and gave us an entire room to explore, but then expected us to know to click on a tiny square in the corner of the desk. By the time we made it to the first conversation with Olivia we had lost all interest in continuing and stopped playing until we were stuck inside for quarantine with nothing else to do.
The story was slow and honestly very boring. Multiple items, hallways, and rooms were given to us and then never used in the story. The dialogue was cheesy, badly acted, and way over written. There was honestly less than a handful of lines you needed to actually progress the story.
We waited over 3 years, with push back after push back, because we were promised the developers were doing everything they could to make this game the best one they ever put out. What we ended up being given was horrible and heartbreaking to say the least. This game was is waste of time, money, and energy.

After 6 years of waiting...you could have done so much better! My download is way off: sluggish, voices not matching characters, slow motion (even tried getting tech support). I couldn't win the game in graveyard after trying and trying, so I gave up. I came here today to buy the physical copy thinking it might be better (and pay twice), but after reading these awful reviews, I decided not to. You get an F for fail!

I really loved Nancy Drew and have played it since I was 8. This game was a real serious let down, I get Her Interactive are going for a new style much more similar to Telltale Games. I can't recommend this game because I think it misses too many marks mechanically. The game is jank and I ran into many bugs that made it impossible to progress without restarting the game.

That being said I think Her Interactive can make a good Nancy Drew game in this style they just need to spend some more time working on a title and not release it half baked. It doesn't have to be cutting edge graphics just something better than what we have here.

The Good News: You finally pushed out a game after YEARS of waiting.
The Bad News: It's a complete flop and you may have lost your fan base.

This game feels like when a company gets bought out, fires everyone, and brings in new people who have no clue what they're doing. Is that what happened? Or did you outsource the whole thing? I don't know the history of what's happened recently with the company, but it's clear that the people who knew what they were doing are out the door. PLEASE bring them back. It's like watching Gordon Ramsay walk into those horrifying fridges on Kitchen Nightmares. I wish we could get the game version of him to come in and impress upon the designers how disappointing this game is.

It's so poor and slow that it barely plays, even though my computer exceeds the minimum requirements. Sure, 3D would have been a cool modernization, but that's the least of what we care about. The animation of the previous several games was beautiful, artistic! I don't need to reiterate 300 other reviews, so I copy them on the technical flaws and ridiculous dialogue.

Dear new designers, have you played any of the previous games? it doesn't feel like it. Have you read the original books? (They are yellow, ask your librarian.) Your fan base right now is largely young women, I'd estimate 25-35, and their family members and S.O.s whom they've converted. We read the books by flashlight under the covers and got lost in mystery. We started these games as children and draped blankets over huge desk monitors like a fort, and HER transported us to a different world. I grew up envisioning myself a brave heroine because of these games. And the kicker is that the games evolved in both graphics/animation and challenging puzzles. It's almost like they grew with their initial fan base in mind. You've lost your way, HER. Here's some characteristics of proper ND games (like, every one except this one).

1. Brilliant puzzles - I was continually impressed by the unique puzzles in each game. After about 15 games I thought that surely the types of puzzles would start being recycled frequently. But they just kept coming up with new ones! And they just kept getting harder! We want difficult, vexing, creative puzzles. Lots of them. Also, there is no point in puzzles which are not at some point required to progress in the game. They need to serve a function at least once.

2. Atmospheric - Getting lost in the world as if you are actually there walking around is a major aspect to these games. It is so clear that people researched the scene locations. The amount of detail in the scenery is amazing. The accents and attitudes of characters are always a nice touch. Go play Sea of Darkness, that game is a work of art unto itself. I started traveling the world because of what I saw through the eyes of Nancy Drew. Scotland, Ireland, France (next is Iceland and New Zealand)...I played ND and thought "I've got to go there in person!" It doesn't need to be in 3D. It needs to be beautiful, detailed, and we have to, you know, be able to easily navigate without getting frustrated and wanting to throw the mouse across the room.

3. Autonomy - on that note, it's key that we can wander around ourselves, not be led from place to place like a movie. Some of my greatest satisfactions came from being stuck, scrutinizing every inch of the world, and finally finding that one thing I had overlooked. The dialogue should only exist where it needs to in order for US to figure out what to do next. It doesn't need to ramble on and on forever.

4. Education - Part of getting immersed in the atmosphere comes from learning things about the setting - runes and alchemy in old England, the zodiac, the Catacombs in Paris, herbs and lore and different runes in Ireland, Greek Mythology, the French Revolution, Icelanic vocabulary, the entire Tesla game...what a great opportunity you had with SALEM! Squandered.

In conclusion, just go back to the old format. Ideally, bring back the team from Sea of Darkness, The Deadly Device, and The Silent Spy. Or honestly these games are going to die right here. I bet that most of your fan base would be willing to give HER one more chance. But not if takes another five years, and only if it's stunning. Like the transformations on Kitchen Nightmares.

ND was the reigning female heroine game before this debacle, and I have converted every male friend who thought a girl's game would be stupid. Please do better!