Vampire Moon - Mystery of the Hidden Sun
Rating: E - Everyone

A long but interesting seek-and-find game with a clever plot - an ongoing eclipse darkens Transylvania and in vampire country - you know what that means. Emily Davis is sent to investigate. Upon her arrival the professor who she is to meet doesn't show up and Emily will spend much of her time searching through Vlads's castle to find him.

The list of objects to find are on the top screen of your DS, while the find scene is on the touch screen and you move around it with the D-pad or stylus. The top screen also shows the whole picture and a rectangular frame mimics your movement and shows what part of the scene you are looking at in detail. It works quite well. The hint system is a question mark icon that fades into black as you use it and reappears after a while. The scenes are thankfully uncluttered, unlike some search-and-find where the clutter looks like a tornado visited the scene. Some objects are related to the story and these return to be applied to another object to affect an event - a door opens, chains fall away. In addition there are scrolls to find and rubies for points and emeralds for additional hints. The whole scheme works well.

The game has an up hill start. With the darkness of the eclipse, you are hunting for objects at night when everything has a blue cast. It is only after you get into the castle that you encounter the lavish scenes with color and light. Also, one of the harder puzzles comes at the beginning - not the smartest introduction to a game. The game has lots of interesting touches that make it more than a simple seek-and-find.

Fun Factor: The whole mix keeps you playing
Female Factor: Emily Davis trying to use logic when faced with the occult
Player Friendly: A little hard start but fine afterward.

Reviewed by: Editor - Nov/10