A Review of Ransom of the Seven Ships

Note: I have kept this review free of plot spoilers, and I mention only general information about the game.

The 20th Nancy Drew game, Ransom of the Seven Ships, was released last week. I finished playing the game in the last few days. I always use online hints, tips, and spoilers to solve the harder puzzles so that I do not get frustrated. The games are difficult and time-consuming, and I do not wish to spend weeks playing them.

Each game tells a story, and I enjoy the comments made by the other characters when Nancy questions them. I enjoy searching for missing objects. I am good at some of the puzzles, especially the sliding and mathematical ones. I do not like the puzzles that involve lots of research and decoding, since those take a lot longer and are tiresome to me.

Ransom of the Seven Ships is loosely based on the Nancy Drew book, The Broken Anchor. The early Nancy Drew games are strongly based on certain Nancy Drew books and tend to have the same titles as the books. The more recent Nancy Drew games are just loosely based on books and tend not to have the same titles as the books.

Each Nancy Drew game mentions characters and settings from previous games, so all of the games are tied together. This also makes playing the games fun.

Her Interactive changes each game up a bit from the previous ones, so all of the games are a different experience. Ransom of the Seven Ships has far fewer characters than the other games, since Nancy is stranded on a deserted island. While I missed having as many interesting conversations with other characters, I loved the exploration part of the game, which I feel was about the best of any of the games. As Nancy, we get to explore on foot, on the trails, by sailboat, underwater, and by climbing.

Some of the puzzles were especially annoying in this game, and I cheated on them. I did cheat a bit more in this game than I usually do. The most annoying part of the game was when I, as Nancy, had to compete in a coconut throw with a monkey. Unfortunately, one cannot use spoilers on a task that is based on accuracy and time. It was very hard. I thought that the coconut throw was far more difficult than it needed to be. In the past, similar tasks from previous games were rigged so that when the player does it enough times that it gets slightly easier so that the player can advance. I had to have played that coconut throw at least 50 times. It was highly annoying.

The end of the game was enjoyable, and much better than one of the recent games. Even though the game annoyed me at times, I enjoyed it.