As is typical of Nancy Drew games, Shadow at the Water’s Edge throws in a lot of educational material to absorb if you’re so inclined. You can take a calligraphy lesson, study the Japanese. Nancy Drew®: Shadow at the Water's Edge Nancy Drew heads for Japan where she's staying at a traditional ryokan (inn) for a little R & R with Bess and George, but when reports of a vengeful ghost start scaring away the guests, Nancy's vacation takes a turn for terror!
Solve the mystery of a haunted Japanese inn in the 23rd Nancy Drew game.
Shadow at the Water's Edge is the 23rd installment in the Nancy Drew point-and-click adventure game series by Her Interactive. The game is available for play on Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X platforms. It has an ESRB rating of E10+ for moments of mild violence and disturbing imagery. Oct 19, 2010 Nancy Drew: Shadow at the Water's Edge (2010) Adventure, Mystery Video game released 19 October 2010 Teen detective Nancy Drew travels to Japan and investigates ghost sightings at a traditional inn.
Her Interactive’s long-running adventure series is still going strong with its 23rd instalment, Nancy Drew: Shadow at the Water’s Edge. The story finds Nancy is in Japan teaching English, but she soon stumbles on a mystery that proves too intriguing to ignore when the ryokan (inn) she’s staying at shows signs of being haunted.
The Ryokan Hiei has a history of ghost sightings and is struggling to keep its guests, but the family who runs it seems to be in denial that there’s anything wrong. What are they hiding? It’s up to Nancy to find out. You’ll see the world in first-person perspective through Nancy’s eyes as she pokes around the inn, collects useful items to use, and chats with the inn’s employees to weed out any information she can. Armed with a train pass, she’ll also explore the nearby city and take in the sights and sounds of Japanese culture.
Shadow at the Water’s Edge‘s gameplay and presentation are as solid as ever; exactly what fans of the series have come to expect. Graphics hold their own with other current adventure games, and dialogue is all voiced with competent voice actors.
Like previous games, this one can be played in either Senior Detective or Junior Detective difficulty modes; the latter of which offers a helpful checklist to keep players on track about what they need to do next. Nancy’s cellphone still plays a part as well: you can call Nancy’s friends Bess and George for advice, send and receive text messages, take pictures, and set an alarm to wake you up at a certain time – which you’ll need to do since some of the events in the game are time-dependent.
The exotic and beautiful Japanese setting adds a breath of fresh air to the series, allowing players plenty of opportunities to immerse themselves in Japanese culture and learn a thing or two. As is typical of Nancy Drew games, Shadow at the Water’s Edge throws in a lot of educational material to absorb if you’re so inclined. You can take a calligraphy lesson, study the Japanese hiragana and katakana alphabets, and learn about Japanese rock gardens and origami. As an English teacher, Nancy also has to grade her students’ papers by identifying whether phrases are grammatically correct.
The game can be saved at any time, which is a good thing because it is occasionally possible to run into a Game Over scenario. There’s also a Second Chance feature that lets you restart if you make a game-ending mistake, which, again is a useful feature to have since it’s not always obvious that what you’re about to do is the “wrong” choice.
In terms of complaints, I didn’t have many. Some of the brainteasers and minigames are quite challenging and there’s no way to skip them which can prove somewhat frustrating. An option to manually skip ahead to the next part of the dialogue might have been nice as well; as it stands even if you’ve finished reading the text you have to wait for the voice-over to finish, and some of the characters tend to talk quite slowly. Also, the alarm function on Nancy’s phone seems overly complicated since you can really only set the alarm to one of two times (7pm and 1am); choose any other hour and you’ll be told that Nancy’s either sleeping or teaching.
These are minor complaints in light of everything that Shadow at the Water’s Edge does right. The game is recommended for players aged 10 and over due to some scary moments, but it’s certainly accessible to adults and kids alike and is a great choice for child and parent to play together. And although Nancy is without a doubt one of the best female role models in gaming, her games definitely aren’t just for girls to enjoy.
| Developer(s) | Her Interactive |
|---|---|
| Publisher(s) | Her Interactive |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows Mac OS X |
| Release | |
| Genre(s) | Adventure |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Shadow at the Water's Edge is the 23rd installment in the Nancy Drewpoint-and-click adventure game series by Her Interactive. The game is available for play on Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X platforms. It has an ESRB rating of E10+ for moments of mild violence and disturbing imagery.[1] Players take on the first-person view of fictional amateur sleuth Nancy Drew and must solve the mystery through interrogation of suspects, solving puzzles, and discovering clues. There are two levels of gameplay, Junior and Senior detective modes, each offering a different difficulty level of puzzles and hints, however neither of these changes affect the actual plot of the game. The game is loosely based on two books, Tour of Danger (1992) and The Thirteenth Pearl (1979).[citation needed]
Plot[edit]
Nancy Drew travels as an English teacher to Kyoto, Japan with friends Bess Marvin and George Fayne as a reward for solving the preceding mystery in the game series (Nancy Drew: Trail of the Twister). Once she arrives at her Ryokan, however, she discovers that not all is as it seems. Strange events, supposedly caused by a woman who died there mysteriously, are scaring away guests. One by one, the guests leave the Ryokan Hiei, until Nancy is left only with the secretive family that own the inn. Unable to resist a mystery, Nancy works to discover who, or what, is haunting the inn.
Characters[edit]
Shadow At The Water's Edge
- Nancy Drew (Lani Minella) – Nancy is an eighteen-year-old amateur detective from the fictional town of River Heights in the United States. She is the only playable character in the game, which means the player must solve the mystery from her perspective.
- Miwako Shimizu (Mikano Fukaya) – Miwako is the receptionist at the Ryokan Hiei. She is devoted to the Ryokan and her family heritage, although, being the youngest daughter in the Shimizu family, she is not going to inherit the inn. She is a very shy, polite, and delicate person, unlike her sister Yumi. She is very upset when she hears anything about her dead mother, Kasumi. Her traditional views create tension between her and her older sister Yumi and her boyfriend Rentaro.
- Yumi Shimizu (Kira Lauren) – Yumi is the oldest daughter in the Shimizu family who runs a bento stand called Happy Bento in the inner city of Kyoto. As the eldest daughter, she is, by tradition, to inherit her family's Ryokan, although she prefers to live in the city. She has a very strained relationship with her family, due in part to her unconventional views and over-bearing personality. Miwako considers her a brat, but Yumi thinks Miwako needs to have more fun.
- Rentaro Aihara (Marc Biagi) – Longtime friend and neighbor of the Shimizu's, Rentaro is also Miwako's boyfriend and the Ryokan's handyman. He is into electronics, and bought a robotic cat, Suki, for Miwako. His goofy and quirky personality sometimes annoys the Shimizu's, but for the most part, they get along well. Rentaro is a friendly but eccentric person. He dreams of one day moving to the city with Miwako, but Miwako feels too tied to the inn to move.
- Takae Nagai (Waylayn Sharples) – Takae is Miwako and Yumi's grandmother. Having grown up and lived in the Ryokan her whole life, Takae has seen many things happen there, including the accidental death of her daughter, Kasumi. Still, she insists on following tradition, even if it's against both of her granddaughter's wishes. She believes Yumi should move back in order to take over the Ryokan.
Additional voice work was performed by Chris Maxfield, Naoko Nibu-Butler, Akika Tanaka, Adrienne Maclain, and Sana Watterson.
Release[edit]
The game was officially released on October 19, 2010,[2] though pre-orders began on September 20, 2010. Special editions of the game, which included bonus avatar outfits, games, commands for Suki, and outtakes, were sent out to those who pre-ordered the game directly from Her Interactive. Leading up to the game release, Her Interactive released a demo, a fictional blog for one of the game's characters, Yumi, and a micro-site featuring John Grey from Nancy Drew: Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon.
Reception[edit]
Lieren Teeling of Adrenaline Vault rated it 3/5 stars and wrote, 'Shadow at the Water’s Edge is a good game with a fascinating horror story to enjoy, but the need to solve large number puzzles could make the game less appealing to some people.'[3] Ryan Casey of Just Adventure rated it A− and wrote, 'It shows a lot of effort, especially with thoughtful puzzles instead of chores, but maintains the elements that have made its most successful predecessors so praiseworthy.'[2] Erin Bell of Gamezebo rated it 4/5 stars and wrote that the game is fun and educational, but some players may be frustrated by the challenging puzzles that can not be skipped.[4] Heidi Fournier of Adventure Gamers rated it 3/5 stars and wrote, 'While not the best of the series, Shadow at the Water’s Edge is still a solid Nancy Drew entry that takes decent advantage of its exotic location.'[5]
References[edit]
- ^'Nancy Drew: Shadow at the Water's Edge'. ESRB. Retrieved July 6, 2014.
- ^ abCasey, Ryan (December 22, 2010). 'Nancy Drew: Shadow at the Water's Edge'. Just Adventure. Archived from the original on December 27, 2010. Retrieved June 6, 2014.
- ^Teeling, Lieren (October 18, 2010). 'Nancy Drew: Shadow at the Water's Edge PC review'. Avault.com. Archived from the original on December 3, 2010. Retrieved June 6, 2014.
- ^Bell, Erin (October 26, 2010). 'Solve the mystery of a haunted Japanese inn in the 23rd Nancy Drew game'. Gamezebo. Retrieved June 6, 2014.
- ^Fournier, Heidi (December 13, 2010). 'Nancy Drew: Shadow at the Water's Edge review'. Adventure Gamers. Retrieved June 6, 2014.
Nancy Drew Shadow At The Water's Edge Walkthrough Portrait Wire Puzzle Junior
| Preceded by Nancy Drew: Secrets Can Kill Remastered Nancy Drew: Trail of the Twister | Nancy Drew Computer Games | Succeeded by Nancy Drew: The Captive Curse |