Dark Angels: Masquerade of Shadows is a hidden object adventure game on Steam that focuses on Kate Evans, a young modern day woman who becomes entangled in a world of demons and freedom fighters. It’s a fun game filled with action, fun puzzles and hidden object scenes, it also has great music and visuals. While it’s certainly not a perfect game having an outlandish plot, some irritating puzzles and audio issues, for the price tag I enjoyed playing it and was able to look past its flaws. Though it may not be the best hidden object game on the market it’s still a good gaming experience.

Kate is a young fashion designer haunted by the memories of her mother’s death though she soon finds out the beings responsible for this murder are now after her. Her mother was part of a secret organization that fights demons, one that dates back hundreds of years and has notable members like Jeanne d’Arc and, I kid you not, Marilyn Monroe. Things get even more complicated as the dark forces have built a time machine and use it to erase the organization from existence, prompting Kate and a few survivors to commandeer it and go back in time themselves.

The plot is just all over the place and while I’ve played hidden object games with weaker storylines, this one could have been better. It’s completely unrealistic that Kate went from a fashion designer worrying about clothing one moment and then becomes the savior of an entire guild of demon hunters. She has little to no training but that doesn’t stop her from wielding her weapon like a pro, granted it’s mainly due to the player controlling her. While I know she is the main character and thus has to be the hero, it sort of hurts the validity of the game that such a novice outshines women who have much more experience.

This is a point-and-click hidden object game so all you need is a mouse to play. You can interact with people and objects, collecting useful ones along the way. Items are stored in your inventory and some can be combined to make a new item though the game does this automatically for you. One note about the inventory is that you can lock it in place so it always minimizes when not in use. This is a pet peeve of mine. You only have a fast travel map when you’re time traveling though you don’t really need one in the present day since there isn’t much backtracking involved. I enjoyed the variety of hidden object puzzles; while there are your basic list of items to find there are also ones where you’re given a shadow of an item and have to find in a scene as well as other types. While there is also a nice variety of puzzles, some are rather frustrating and some are often just pointless. Putting a puzzle on the side of a truck is pretty silly.

This game is riddled with annoying item fetch-quests for problems that could be solved in a much easier way. One example would be when Kate has to find a shard of glass despite having a very sharp weapon always on hand. Another odd feature is that of dialogue choice, while I do think this can be fun it really has no effect whatsoever on the gameplay or story at all, thus proving to be pointless. Kate can also use special potions to grant her super strength, special sight and slow down time. An interesting feature but a needless add-on. Also, the only way to get these potions is to find figurines and add them to what seems to be a checker board that Kate somehow always carries around. Adding a new figure grants Kate a potion which is always conveniently the exact one she’ll need for her next problem.

On the plus side, this game has very nice graphics with attractive character models and good animation. The colors are vibrant and nothing is too dark or hard to see. This game also has its own theme song which sounds beautiful. The lyrics are touching and the melody is very soothing but very catchy. I’ve never played a hidden object game that had its own song, I actually sat through the credits a few times just to hear the full song. Sadly, the rest of the game’s audio is hit or miss. While the background music and sound effects are fine, the voice acting is the issue. It’s fully voice-acted but some actors aren’t very good and Kate herself sometimes overacts her lines. Also, there are some problems with audio quality, as some characters sound louder than others.

While it might seem like I’m picking apart Dark Angels: Masquerade of Shadows, in the end I really enjoyed playing it. It was fun and had great hidden object scenes, plus I did like Kate for the most part as a main character though they could have fleshed her out more. The good part about this game is that it’s cheap so even if it’s not the best hidden object game, for its price point it’s a really good one. The game also has Steam trading cards and achievements which are not too hard to collect. I recommend this game to fans of the genre, it’s a good game for a good price.

PopCultHQ’s Rating:

Dark Angels: Masquerade of Shadows