Jewel Quest Mysteries - Nintendo DS

With two games on one DS cartridge, Jewel Quest Mysteries is a really good deal. The first game, "The Curse of the Emerald Tear" is excellent. The second, Mysteryville, is not as good but, for a bonus game, it is enjoyable. As a stand alone game, however, it would probably disappoint."The Curse of the Emerald Tear"--In this game, you are Emma who, along with husband Rupert, is on an archeological adventure to find the mysteries of the jewel board--specifically the Emerald Tear which is said to offer healing powers. The history of the Emerald Tear ends up being quite lengthy and includes Alexander the Great, King Tutankhamen (who is given much more historical importance in this game than he had in real life) and Hannibal. The story is more of a side issue and is just something to read in between chapters. The game play has you finding a list of objects in Egyptian settings as well as jewels and coins that give you "specials" (the ability to have the game show you where objects are if you are stuck as well as getting freebies on the jewel board).The chapters consist of several search and find screens, a puzzle where you try to piece together shapes to make the board completely gold, and the jewel board. The search and find locations are easy at first as you are asked to find the same objects over and over so as to memorize their locations. That is actually a good thing because, as more locations are added as you progress in the game, the amount of time taken to find all the objects on each screen is deducted from the time allowed on the jewel board. The additional locations will slow things down because you will not have had time to memorize where things are. The puzzles are usually easy although there are a few complicated ones that will take some time and figuring. The jewel board, like the puzzle, needs to be completely gold. To turn jewel boxes gold, at least three matching jewels need to be placed in a vertical or horizontal row by moving jewels only one spot. This game can be challenging especially when there are barriers that need to be broken or if the time limit and "specials" have been drained on the search and find screens.Collecting jewels allows you to "upgrade" the game by buying more specials, extra time, and gold boxes. Saving your jewels to buy the ability to see jewels sparkle (requires 50 jewels) is recommended because it will assure you will not miss a jewel on the search and find screens. "The Curse of the Emerald Tear" is an addicting game and one that will bring you back for more (this reviewer finished it twice)."Mysteryville"--This game is quite different from "The Curse of the Emerald Tear." You are Laura Winner who is a journalist researching the town of Mysteryville. You discover that cats are disappearing which is part of an ancient prophecy of the town's destruction. You interview various suspicious residents of the town to get answers. With each visit, you need to complete two tasks to help them out. Usually they consist of finding a number of a certain object, finding a list of objects, finding what is missing between two pictures, and using a flashlight to find silhouettes of objects.A frustrating aspect of this game is that it is not very forgiving when you use your stylus to look for objects. It often thinks you are randomly touching things and will dock you 30 seconds. Using the buttons to move across the room though is painfully slow and, in the instances when a flashlight is used, the light doesn't illuminate to the edge of the room unless you are using the stylus. What I ended up doing was not taking my stylus off the screen until I was touching something on the list, but that gets tiring. Funny notes about this game: your character is very trusting, allowing herself to be drugged and put under hypnosis by strange individuals. Also, the "good agent" who helps you, Arthur Knight, looks a lot like Brad Pitt. The ending is forgettable, but at least the search and find games give an interaction with the characters which is rare in this type of genre.To sum it up, if you like search and find games, this is an exellent deal. It offers two games that are very different and so gives the player variety. "The Curse of the Emerald Tear" is more the style of game that players will want to play again, but "Mysteryville" compares scores of different players for each search and find screen, so, with multiple players, there is reason to play this game several times as well.

Jewel Quest Mysteries/Mysteryville offers two solid seek-and-find adventures, and it's a great value (basically two games for the price of one). Jewel Quest Mysteries is particularly good because it has some nice puzzles and match-3 "jewel boards" thrown into the seek-and-find mix, and the time limits can offer a bit more of a challenge than some seek-and-finds. These are casual games, obviously, so there's not really any deep game play (though there is a simple story guiding each game). These games are good for seek-and-find fans, though, or for anyone to pick-up and play in short bursts (like when you have some waiting room time or want something brainless to relax with at the end of the day). I had no problem with the graphics or seeing objects overall.Please do keep in mind that these games are primarily seek-and-finds. If you're looking for more match-3 games, similar to the original Jewel Quest, you need to be looking elsewhere.

The mystery is why the prominent words in the title are "Jewel Quest"; because that's a minor portion of that half of this duo.The Jewel Quest part is more seek/find of mass smatterings of objects with differing combinations to find. You need young eyes to see some of the objects which are mere shadows. For every minute you play 3-in-a-row, you'll play many, many minutes of the seek/find.The Mysteryville portion has a silly overall story. Minor Spoiler: in one section we meet a character, make introductions, etc. Then the light bulb blows and we are to use a flashlight to find a light bulb - but first we have to find a list of seek/find objects. Again, many of these are difficult to see.Mysteryville is a seek/find game written with a totally weak story to try to disguise it as a mystery game.The games are spoiled by having time limits. This game is not very friendly due to the combination of the obscurity of the items and the clock.It's obvious that Activision didn't think a lot of either game since they are packaged together for a low price.If you really, really like seek/find games with tons of items to find and you don't care about the story line, then this is worth a try. If you can rent it cheaply or try it before buying, then do so.

I really enjoyed this game. On Jewel Quest the levels definately got more challenging as you progressed and there was even a game similar to the bejeweled game. However, when I got to the 7th or 8th level, the bejeweled game would freeze and then I would have to repeat the last level I completed. This went on for about 3 levels. I contacted Amazon and since I was within the thirty days they refunded my money. I didn't get a chance to play Mysteryville, the second game included.

I like the Jewel Quest part of this game it is a bit challenging to find some of the objects you are looking for and I am still playing with the mystery quest the one section i have reach which is in the dark is kind of tough and it seems you run out of time quickly.

I play a ton of HOP PC games and wanted to carry some nice HOP games along my DS. I have played the PC version of these and find them very nice but once taken to a smaller scale, items are way harder to see and time limit becomes a real issue . The way the ds blow up the image does not make it any favors. I won't recommend for the DS.

Actually it's several! This is an awesome hidden objects game. I have been loving the Jewel Quest series of games for some time. Just happened to find this one here and couldn't resist. It's a little hard to see but I think that's just because I need other reading glasses. However I highly recommend this game and the others in the series. Good price & prompt delivery!

Ich bin ein riesiger Fan der Wimmelspiele und wie ich finde gibt es viel zu wenig Gute.Aber Juwel Quest ist super. Vorallem da es Wimmel und 3-Reihen-finder verbindet.Hab ich so noch nicht wieder gefunden.d.h. nach jedem WimmelspielLevel kommt das Jewel Level um das gesamte Level zu beenden.Es gibt mehrere unterschiedliche Bilder jedoch wiederholen sich auch Orte. Was nicht schlimm ist, da meist andere Gegenstände gesucht sind. Die Begriffe (wie Tiere, Gegenstände usw) sehen meist auch aus wie wir sie kennen.Die Zeitbegrenzung von 30 min reicht völlig aus pro Level. Zudem kann Zeit nachgekauft werden wenn in den jeweiligen Levels die entsprechenden Juwele gefunden werden (was nicht schwer ist, man kann auch einen Juwelenfinder kaufen). Der Hilfemodus ist super und es gibt genug Tips zum suchen,von nicht auffindbaren Begriffen. Viele Begriffe passen auch zu dem eigentlichen Thema. Die Geschichte selbst interessiert mich garnicht. Ich spiele das Spiel öfter mal durch aber jedesmal werden andere Begriffe gesucht nur selten sind es immer die gleichen. Das schöne ist das es nicht zu kurz und nicht zu lang gehalten ist, dh. Man hat lange Spielspaß aber man benötigt nicht sein halbes Leben um es durchzuspielen, wie zB bei Zelda.Das Zweite Spiel ist nicht so mein Ding. Ist irgend ne Dedektivgeschichte. Man muss Bilder oft im Halbdunkeln finden, das fand ich nervig und anstrengend. Aber für Wimmelfans muss auch das gespielt werden.Fazit: Empfehlenswert. Jewel Quest verbindet Wimmel und 3-Reihen-Finder. Hilfemodus und Zeit ausreichend da.Abwechslungsreiche Orte und Begriffe. Grafik völlig ok.und als Bonus gibt es ein Dedektiv Wimmelspiel dazu (ist aber nach ca. 2 Sth durchgespielt).Und für den Preis hat man echt langen Spielspaß.....

Das Spiel macht wahnsinnig viel Spass und ist sehr kurzweilig. Man spielt oft stundenlang und ich war enttäuscht, als ich alles geschafft hatte. Aber habe mich sofort für ein ähnliches Spiel erkundigt. Es ist wirklich gut zu verstehen was man bewältigen muß und gut für die Konzentration, da man sich einiges merken mußte. Ich würde es jedemempfehlen, der solche Spiele mag.