Mystery Legends Sleepy Hollow Review

All small towns have their secrets and stories, but none such as Sleepy Hollow, whose legends are most grim and gory. By day a quaint village full of sunshine and banter, by night a place haunted by hoof beats and spectral laughter. Explore Sleepy Hollow as never before, searching for clues into the ancient legend. But beware; each night the Horseman rides, he takes another victim. Unravel the mystery before it`s too late…

–Big Fish Games

Mystery Legends: Sleepy Hollow, the winner of the Best Hidden Object Game of 2008.

After you play this, you’re bound to ask: why aren’t there more of such games? Why can’t such simple stories be so marvelously set around a game that it results in such an outstanding hidden object game?

Story: Sleepy Hollow is a small village filled with selfish self-serving narrow-minded people who had killed a person unjustly. The dead makes a pact with the devil to return beheaded to Sleepy Hollow, looking for revenge and his lost head. The Headless Horseman’s only peace will be when his body will be united with his head – and his soul will be free.

The player’s identity is never established, but you do have an identity within the game, to be revealed in a tentative sequel.

As you can see, there is nothing too captivating with the storyline. Neither is it neatly tied together, but luckily, no explanations are forwarded either. This fairytale-ish story is actually very well narrated with stunning dark visualizations and old-world rhymes. If you notice, you’ll invariably find an underlying connection – all the 11 people killed are all the Hessian’s wrongdoers and almost all are linked to the rich Van Tassel family of the village. What this depth implies, whether it has any pointers towards the identity of the Hessian is to be seen.

Puzzles: This is, after all, a hidden objects game, so other puzzles do not catch the eye much. There are a few of match-the-pair and trial-and-error, of a small variety. But again, what can be said? This is a self-proclaimed hidden objects game. However, as much as the puzzles including the hidden items are repeated, the game somehow never feels boring.

Gameplay: The hidden object puzzles are spread over 19 or 20 well-chosen locations across the village, namely the Tailor’s, the Church, the Mansion, the Graveyard, the Corn Maze, the Funeral Home, the Swamp, the Apothecary, the Windmill, the Town Square, the Town Bridge, the Dining Room, the Attic, the Stables, the Schoolhouse, the Cabin, the Dark Woods, the Kitchen and the Boathouse. Each chapter takes hardly 15-25 minutes to complete, however many the locations per chapter may be. There are plenty of hints, and as usual, more that you can collect throughout the levels. There is an in-built hint system, by which you can view the silhouette of each object you’re supposed to find. 4 wrong clicks in a row turn the screen blood red and prohibit you for a while from clicking again. You need not even find all the objects – finding the last two items in each chapter are absolutely optional.

Ambience: Spookiness has been the dominant theme for the puzzle games of 2008. And Mystery Legends: Sleepy Hollow is no exception. The pictures are dark, at times grainy, and splashed with blood with every coming of death. Added to that is the Hessian’s rasping, murderous grave voice sounding out warnings to the villagers that appear at unsolicited hours and send a chill down your spine (especially the first time!). Any object you find is sliced in half by a blood-red sword – now how cool is that!? The music is, likewise, typical of the haunted house aura.

Bottomline: Best Hidden Object Game of 2008? I don’t know which other games participated, but Mystery Legends Sleepy Hollow definitely doesn’t feel like a winner. In the end, what captivate are the story and the narration, not the game, which can just be likened to an above average version of any other hidden objects puzzle.

Well, I’m actually hoping the promise at the end is kept and there is a sequel to the game, so that the fairy tale-meets-witchcraft story can be continued and we finally get to know the identity of the Headless Horseman!

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