As a fan of The Phantom of the Opera, I thought I'd give Mystery Legends: The Phantom of the Opera (Collector's Edition) a try. The storyline is pretty loose. You are the daughter of the woman originally taken by the phantom, and now he wants revenge. So he captures you and locks you in the half burnt opera house. The object of the game is to find your way out, of course.
The graphics are stunning, very much on par of the Mystery Case File series, which I refer to a lot because I think they have possibly the best graphics of any hidden object/adventure games I've ever played. The ambience was also great, it gave me a real eerie feel as I played the game. The storyline is interesting but a little one dimensional. The hidden objects areas are pretty easy since you can hover your cursor over the object and get a silhouette, this saved me from having to use any of my hints. Hints are unlimited. The puzzles that I found were also pretty easy. The adventure part of the game was very logical, although finding all the objects that are laying around could sometimes be a bit hard. The opera house itself is huge, there is a map included with the game and wow, I imagine this game would take sometime to get through it. Since I tried the collector's edition, I had access to the guide. If you needed the guide, it's helpful. It's a text only guide, no pictures, but it tells you exactly where to find an object, what to do next, etc. It was very easy to understand.
Would I recommend purchasing this game? I would. However, whether you want to purchase the collectors guide, more expensive, or wait until the cheaper non collectors edition comes out is up to you. You can always play the collectors edition for one hour and see what you think. While it throws in some bonus options - such as a guide - it's something you may or may not find you need to enjoy the game. This game gets a two thumbs up!
