Well I guess you could say that hell has frozen over, because I finally completed a Nancy Drew Game I hadn’t played previously (and this was my first one in almost 20 years) and all it took was for my cable/internet provider to give me a weekend of grief. This game was released in 2005 likely to mark Nancy Drew's 75th anniversary.

Oh yeah there may be spoilers

Gameplay and Story: Based on the very first Nancy Drew book ever published (or rather the 1960s revised version of it) The Year is 1930 (yes they’re doing that, no cellphones to help us here) and we have been summoned to the Lilac Inn in Titusville by Emily Crandall a person we know via a mutual friend Helen Corning (shame we couldn’t have her as a phone a friend hell she has never appeared in the games at all, let alone the CW series). Oddly enough unlike the previous games we don’t start with a letter to someone we start with some Dateline narrator. We had been asked to check in on her. We are met by her guardian Jane Willoughby and she tells us Emily is upstairs in her room, and she’s not in a good place at the moment, her mother had passed barely a month ago, she keeps hearing random things and seeing random oddities (like a picture in her room suddenly moving) and just as she is showing us her late mother’s jewels (yeah she is entrusting Nancy with them like putting them in a safe somewhere), there’s a sudden explosion in the Kitchen and during the commotion the jewels have been stolen, she was also hoping to sell them in order to get the Kitchen fixed, oh yeah and here’s where the mystery kicks in. Emily tells Nancy that she and her mother were supposed to inherit some money from some eccentric dude Josiah Crowley, but all of a sudden he went and changed his will and everything went to Richard Topham (don’t worry fans of the book his daughters aren’t in the game, heck he doesn’t mention if he has family in this game) we also encounter a banker in this game (the book also had a little girl that fell into a river that got Nancy started anyway but she doesn’t appear in the game) and he too got screwed over by the will change. And so we find out why this happened (not to mention driving around Titusville to deliver some telegrams).

Graphics: They are kind of the status quo, they don’t even try to make it look like this was done in the 1930s (though they could have done a sepia tone intro since we had a 1930s narrator in the intro, however in era between Danger By Design and Alibi in Ashes we do see that in the past cases file but that’s for another day, if I ever get there) there's nothing glitchy about the animation, though the graphics made those pies look real delicious looking kind of wish I could have had chocolate pie.

Soundtrack: Set to the appropriate time period I must say complete with a ragtime piano, horns and Woodwind instruments, I think there might be a kazoo in there. We get a rather appropriate fast paced driving music whenever Nancy is in her car. Sometimes I feel like the background music could have been rejected for The Final Scene, like you could swap it out and it would still fit in.

Addictive: It took me awhile to get the hang of it but I had time on my hands because my internet was giving me grief I was since done a full walkthrough but haven't made it public yet. Of course there are frightening moments, like I was scared crapless breaking into Topham’s (or should I say Crowley’s) house anyplace where I know I’ll end up back in the menu screen with the wrong move will scare the crap out of me (yeah I’m in my mid 30s it can still happen) so there were a couple of times where I had a failed to stop the culprit.

Depth: So interesting fact, this game combines elements from the first four books in the series (Secret of the old Clock, Hidden Staircase, The Bungalow Mystery, and Mystery at the Lilac in….wish they did a proper game based on the latter) We get introduced to a couple of new elements that come with the franchise from here on out, and as a result we get a couple of extra tutorials in this one. Starting with this game we have to start paying for stuff (which I guess is fair because it’s set during the worst of the great depression) and we get to drive Nancy’s blue Roadster which is kind of exciting, however we have to be careful of Potholes or we’ll have to replace the tire and that costs money. Also for phone a friends Bess and George are there (though book wise they don’t show up til Shadow Ranch but I guess the games and books have their own continuity still I think we should have had Helen be a phone a friend here…speaking of which at the end of the game Nancy is writing her usual letter to Ned and book wise he doesn’t appear until The Clue in the Diary) and hey we get to hear from Nancy’s dad for once. This is one of the rare games where no additional phone numbers are added like not since Treasure in the Royal Tower. There are ways to earn money in the game (though not like how you could in future games) you can earn money by helping delivering telegrams, and if you’re lucky while you are doing the fishing activity (which is within retrieving the Trivet) you can earn something but this is Great Depression money, you earn 25 cents per delivery (oh by the way hold onto that money because you may have to pay to get a tire fixed if you’re not careful around potholes that will cost you 2 dollars plus a piece of Quartz that Josiah had will cost two dollars to have cut, heck you even have to pay a dollar fifty for a key that Jim Archer opted to not to pick up) what’s different about this game is that *Spoiler alert* the crook in this game is actually the crook in the Bungalow mystery

Difficulty: I don’t know what Arglefumph was whining about regarding the golf game, but I didn’t have a hard time with that activity….just as long as I hit the save button after I do the appropriate Par. I did have issues with one part of the game, the mind reader game which is random. But somehow we figure out how it’s done with how Topham speaks. Sewing is kind of hard too (there’s a reason why I never learned how to use a sewing machine in real life, heck in High School when I tried to do clothing the teacher realized I found the course difficult and I switched instead of graphics) Of course as usual they have the Junior and Senior detective level

Post Review Follow up: not gonna lie I had been a little antsy about playing any of the games after Blackmoor Manor (the library not acquiring the games after that one being a major factor) because I took one look at the game play and thought “Oh geez that looks hard as hell” but then again most of the gameplays I have seen were on Senior detective. However I did proclaim that if I ever did get my hands on this game then maybe it would give me the confidence to try and play the games and eventually film a gameplay. I haven’t played in the newer formats. I do wonder what a modern take of Secret of the old clock would be like (CW Nancy Drew really missed out on a grand opportunity here though one episode was The Hidden Staircase) Also I wish they did more games based on the classic series of the books (but more faithful, I checked there were like two other titles) Either way I’m glad I finally got a chance to give the game a try and I had a blast trying to make progress with it