Nancy Drew®: Shadow at the Water's Edge

Nancy Drew®: Shadow at the Water's Edge
N/A
Metacritic
81
Steam
70.803
xDR
Our rating is calculated based on the reviews and popularity of the game.
Price
$3.49
Release date
15 September 2011
Developers
Publishers
Steam reviews score
Total
81 (304 votes)

Confront Terrifying Secrets in a Haunted Japanese Inn!

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Nancy Drew®: Shadow at the Water's Edge system requirements

  • OS: Windows® XP/Vista/7
  • Processor: 1.5 GHZ or greater Pentium 4 or equivalent class CPU
  • Memory: 512MB of RAM
  • Graphics: 64 MB DirectX 9.0 compatible video card
  • DirectX®: 9.0
  • Hard Drive: 2 GB or more hard drive space
  • Sound: 16 bit DirectX compatible sound card

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Recommended requirements are not yet specified.
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Lil' Sebastian
Lil' Sebastian

Why travel to Japan when you can simply play Nancy Drew: Shadow at the Water's Edge?

It's got the worst progression mechanics I've ever seen, unskippable and painfully slow dialogue, a Windows 95 interface in a 2010 game, and spoooky ghosts. Can't find any of that in real Japan.

I gotta respect them sticking to their formula, but the fact that these devs have introduced zero quality of life improvements on these games since 2000 makes for the most agonizing gameplay, at least it's nostalgic though.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Some of the puzzles were REALLY challenging and long compared to the ones I have played before but fun nonetheless.

LolliZombi
LolliZombi

Nancy Drew Shadow’s at the Water’s Edge takes place in a haunted hotel when Nancy travels to Japan to teach English. Like most of the series, it is nonlinear, and because it’s later in the series a bit less limited. You have more side options and various things to do.

Pros:
-Interesting story
-Good attempts at being creepy
-A lot of fun
-Love the extra things you can do

Cons:
-A bit limited when compared to other point and clicks

You can check out my blog for a more in-depth review, link in bio

nal112
nal112

It is a good game. Mystery is interesting and the puzzles are challenging but not impossible. Getting the triggers for certain events can be hard though.

dj.grzechu1
dj.grzechu1

My first venture into Nancy Drew games and what an introduction that was!

During her visit to Japan, Nancy stays at traditional Japanese inn - ryokan - that’s supposedly haunted. Since Nancy doesn’t believe in ghosts she decided to figure out what else - or who else - could be scaring the guests away.

Although I found the solution to the mystery rather obvious - I’ve read way too much Agatha Christie in my youth to be fooled - the game skillfully patched that little flaw with memorable, well-rounded characters, lively interactions and some genuinely creepy moments. I wasn’t expecting for a Nancy Drew game to scare me, but that scene in the baths...

As it’s clearly meant for younger audience, the creators put a lot of information about Japanese culture into the game. However, they ensured to naturally work them into the plot and numerous puzzles, so instead of turning into a boring lecture, they are interesting to learn and stay in mind long after you’re done with the adventure.

What I found impressive in particular is the fine balance creators achieved in challenging the player. The game doesn’t hand-hold you, but it also never becomes so cryptic you need to look up online what to do next, a common problem in some point-and-click titles. The puzzled are tricky but fair and varied. The plot progression is requires logical thinking but always feels smooth.

Overall, „Shadow at the Water’s Edge” represent the best point-and-click games have to offer: strong writing and true challenges to overcome. I’ll be definitely checking out more Nancy Drew games.

9/10

taeronto2013
taeronto2013

Great puzzles, good storyline, enough intrigue to keep you playing. Reasonably straightforward to move forward and find cut scenes needed to progress in the plot.

Indie Fanatic
Indie Fanatic

Nancy Drew: Shadow at the Water's Edge not only had an engaging mystery but also took inspiration from many Japanese customs. The plot finds Nancy in Japan with Bess and George where the former is staying at a ryokan through a friends recommendation. Things slowly start to head south however when rumors of the place being haunted start to unfold. Nancy never being able to ignore a mystery gets to work on solving what the cause is at night. During the day Nancy works teaching english to elementary students. Throughout the game you can even check her bin to see if there's any new papers to grade, if you feel so inclined.

Compared to other games in the franchise I enjoyed this one much more, but some of this is partial as I am very curious and into learning about japanese customs and history. Even with all this praise however, the game is not without its flaws. A few of the puzzles primarily a stained glass puzzle was very tedious on top of being timed. Out of all the puzzles this was the one I had the least enjoyment completing. The other puzzles consisted of nonograms, sudoku, and renograms. The sudoku and nonograms do appear later so it would be worth your time in making sure you know how to do those.

Some of the interactions between the family running the ryukan became a bit tedious throughout the game as no one was willing to help, often leading you to find out through round about methods. I expected this a little bit but not what seemed to be every single time. Despite the tediousness of that I did enjoy the game more than other titles. Some of this came from how intuitive the next steps in the mystery became available others from how forward the tasks were so you were able to isolate what you needed to a single location more often than not. Overall it's a game that's worth a try if you find yourself liking point and click mysteries and have some time to spare.

coconutfern
coconutfern

This is one of the best Nancy Drew games ever! (And I would know because I've played over 20 of them!) The setting in Japan is really interesting and provides a wonderfully unique atmosphere to this game. There is good depth to the story (as seen by the fact that this game took me 14 hours to complete), and the conclusion of the mystery is very satisfying. There is a good mix of cozy, fun, and scary in this game. I would highly recommend it!

sarhair
sarhair

Actual scares sometimes, while I did not enjoy all of the puzzles there is plenty of information online for help. I enjoyed the story for what it was and the scares. Fun overall!

Ayyslin
Ayyslin

I surprisingly enjoyed this a lot!!

derspringer0
derspringer0

It was okay :/ I got a bit stuck at the end as for some reason the bird didn't want to turn to open the room but it eventually worked lol. I like most of the puzzles and found bento especially fun (most of the time ;)). I think the story is quite good and thought out but some parts didn't really make sense to me.

The music was a bit too spooky for my taste so I actually played the game without it so I can't really tell you if its really good or not. I really didn't like the voice acting though. They just sounded very fake and to be honest kinda annoying.

This game is definitely pretty creepy!! Its not really scary but more jumpscares but as long as you know when they are going to happen , they aren't really that scary.

EmilyELewis
EmilyELewis

One of the spookiest of the "Nancy Drew" series, this one has a compelling story that more or less make up for some very tedious puzzles. The scenery is especially beautiful, too, with the mini-games being some of the most fun in the series (I loved Pachinko and making bento boxes!).

Anonymous
Anonymous

I missed this mystery when the games were first coming out and I was excited to go back and play it! It didn't disappoint! Some really brain-bending puzzles, a solid plot, and a cool setting. Definitely one of the "scarier" ND games I've played, which I enjoyed. The voice acting for most of the Japanese characters was not great, but that's my only critique.

Ink
Ink

Really terrible game, slow game play, the music is strange and doesn't fit the game, it'll spike when there's nothing spooky around, and the voice acting is painfully bad and sounds choppy at times. If you like sudoku puzzles you'll have a blast though, so many sudoku puzzles.. 1/10, do not recommend unless you like math puzzle games,

margaretbzk
margaretbzk

I've played all of the Nancy Drew games at least 5 times each. This is definitely one of my all time favorites.

shosho
shosho

honestly i'd give it a 10, it has everything i love about ND games.. the puzzles were challenging enough, the story was well built, the characters were well portrayed and interesting and i thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it.

Anonymous
Anonymous

It's definitely a thrilling, mystery filled, and truly scary-spooky game. I would recommend this for both mystery solvers old and young.

Ravenwhiteclaw
Ravenwhiteclaw

Background: As part of the ongoing health crisis I have been replaying all of the Nancy Drew video games in order. This is the first game I did not have as a physical copy and therefore purchased it through steam. This is why I have not reviewed other Nancy Drew games.

Positive: I enjoyed the game and the puzzles. While they were challenging it was possible to learn to solve all the puzzles presented. (Even if that means practicing your nonograms with Rentaro) This game provides a very basic introduction to Japanese elements such as kanji, orgami, and traditional tea ceremonies. This game also did not have as many linearity issues that have plagued other Nancy Drew games (I'm looking at you Wolf of Icicle Creek).

Opportunities: The storyline itself was....okay. I didn't love the ending but didn't hate it. If I played Nancy Drew solely for the storyline I would be really disappointed. That being said I'm more interested in puzzles so it wasn't a deal breaker for me but I can see how that could really impact overall opinions of the game.

flipperdip
flipperdip

It was excellent! There weren't too many Nancy Drew (R) puzzles as we know and love; they were largely sudoku and nonograms (which I'm assuming are of a Japanese origin). There were super fun, light hearted breaks of Bento making and playing a plinko game in between the intensely scary scenes. It got my heart racing, but it never got too scary. Loved this!

ilyssacrescent
ilyssacrescent

Another good one from the Nancy Drew series. This one is a little creepy because it has a ghostly theme, so there are a number of jumpscares. The puzzles are fun for me because I like number puzzles. If you're a fan of Japanese culture, mystery and puzzle-solving, you're likely to like this one.

Messina_Octavian
Messina_Octavian

One of the better Nancy drew games. Good Story. Cute haunting. fun puzzles.

madisrad999
madisrad999

I love this game. So detailed, so much to explore. I love the spooky vibe.

detective1920
detective1920

i have mixed feelings about this game, i liked the atmosphere and the scary parts, but some of the puzzles were frustrating and didn't care for voice acting(as the accents were poorly done for most of the cast).

KabutoKishi
KabutoKishi

This is by far the LONGEST Nancy Drew game, but it has tons of story and conversation with characters that really builds on the story. Also, this is probably the best game of the series if you are looking for something actually spooky. Definitely worth a play, and such a cool setting!

Twili
Twili

First played this game back in 2010 when I was 11. Never finished the game so when I saw this was on Steam I knew I had to play it. I loved the puzzles and the story, I'll definitely play this again!

DespairBear1
DespairBear1

Really loved this game, I played blackmoor manor after and this is far spookier in my opinion if that's what you're looking for. Loved the japanese theme, I have been learning to speak japanese slowly and it was really cool recognizing the characters and the bento puzzle was actually addictive. Highly suggest.

Stellephante
Stellephante

Have not been able to open this game let alone play it despite my account showing 24 hours of gameplay. If you're a mac user, don't bother.

meep
meep

i love the setting and spooky mood, but it's definitely one of the harder ones in the series--i get stuck a lot and usually give up and look at the walkthrough towards the end of the game lol

muzikkarlyn
muzikkarlyn

Was a fun game. Had some creepy aspects- my only complaint was the sudoku heavy elements. I am not great at those puzzles and there was a crucial piece of the plot obtained with a complicated 5-way sudoku puzzle. I ended up having to print it out and my boyfriend solved it- lol! Otherwise I enjoyed the plot and the different places you could travel. The gambling game was stupidly fun.

EoVin
EoVin

it is great game to play on Hallowen, when you want detective type story with spooky elements. Puzzles become repetitive later on, but if you like me love japanese puzzles i would recommend, especially if you can get it on sale...

tsunami.wave2020
tsunami.wave2020

Fun and challenging!
Another solid title in the Nancy Drew game series!

1 complaint;
The game stopped working at one of the last puzzles.
I completed the puzzle correctly, and even consulted a walkthrough to make sure I had done it right.
I tried completing it several times, at different times and it still wouldn't trigger the ending sequence.

Not sure if this is a game bug or if it can be fixed, but I was really sad that the game just stopped working.
I'd like to actually finish the game! >.

Olivia
Olivia

If you’re interested in a scarier Nancy Drew game then this one’s for you! Nancy takes a holiday to Japan and what do you know? She stumbles across a mystery at a haunted Japanese inn.

Shadow at the Water’s Edge is excellent at providing a creepy experience. The atmosphere, music and spooky moments are brilliant. It’s interesting to witness the relationships between the characters and how losing Kasumi has affected their lives. I enjoy the bento boxes puzzle and making avatars for the characters.

If I could change one thing about the game it would be the sodoku, renogram and nonogram puzzles. These just aren’t my thing, but I’m sure some people enjoy them. I also agree with other reviewers who have said that Japanese characters are best being voiced by real Japanese voice actors.

I thoroughly enjoy the game and recommend it to anyone who’s interested.

Mitch Red
Mitch Red

spook game. good game. classic game. yes

sketchysoymilk
sketchysoymilk

This one isn't my favorite. The ending was very expected to me and the storyline wasn't that exciting. Plus, Nancy usually knows how to ask questions while being sensitive to certain issues, and maybe lets an insensitive question drop once or twice. In this one, all she does is ask intruding questions, and I don't think that's like the Nancy I know.

Gingerblossom18
Gingerblossom18

Okay its a beautiful game, BUT painfully long math puzzles, and rentaro talks so much lol, this game took me like 4 days to finish. It was exciting at times but mostly boring BUT its way worth playing, predictable story line, fun mini games, sneaking around the desk is the best part with suki. Yes play this game but you don't expect too much.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Amazing music. Perfect, creepy, melancholy story. Plenty of puzzles and interesting location! One of the best ND games.

mvanslambrook
mvanslambrook

This is easily one of the BEST Nancy Drew games! The story-line is rich and the scenery is beautiful. I adore the "spookier" ND games, and this one definitely tops them all. The puzzles aren't too challenging and there aren't an excessive amount of them. The one puzzle that I found to be awfully challenging was the picture frame puzzle (I ended up having to find a tutorial online). Keep in mind that this is one of the longest ND games, but I enjoyed every second. HIGHLY recommend!

Matt
Matt

This game was just frustating, just trying to get any leads or information out of people was like trying to ring water out of a dry towel. The bento box was just infuriating, good story with some plot twists involved. Multiple locations and overall quite fun.

SavvyQ
SavvyQ

This is a very solid Nancy Drew game as far as game play goes, even if the story is a bit strange. The map was huge, which is always a plus. The puzzles were tricky but not painful. There were a few good scares as well. The downside of this particular game (compared to other ND games) is that the motive of the "bad guy" and the story don't really match. The game has you on a wild goose chase, being incredibly inappropriately nosy into the personal lives of the characters, all for information that has nothing to do with... anything. Another minor complaint I have is that in the game, characters are able to send you pictures, but you can't send them pictures. That aside, this really was one of the better ND games I've played. Good characters, backstory, location, and puzzles. Would recommend!

Ketsu
Ketsu

Nothing like a little bit of that Japanese horror to wake up our traveling sleuth! I loved the scares in this! I was a little mad that I never got to go to the expo or wtv (I felt like that was teased for the whole game!), but overall, it was a really great game to play, with just the right amount of eerie horror for our less faint-of-heart players!

hitchhiker24601
hitchhiker24601

This was a fun and challenging game; brought me back to when I used to play Nancy Drew games as a kid

Farryn
Farryn

I've been really disappointed with the direction this series has headed in since after "Curse of Blackmoor Manor", which I consider to be the last good Nancy Drew game. Shadow at the Water's Edge seemed to have an intriguing setting (Kyoto, Japan) but it's not enough to save it from mediocrity.

Your time in this game isn't really spent doing detective work, but wandering around being nosy, asking strangely personal questions to the employees of the ryokan where Nancy is staying even while there doesn't even seem to be any mystery worth investigating at that point. The girl from "Ringu" shows up but it seems so disconnected from everything else in the game. I just felt no sense of intrigue as I played pointless games of Pachinko and Sudoku to try and advance the plot.

Typically in a Nancy Drew game it's at least interesting chatting with the suspects, but I was never interested in finding out more about these characters, and worse, their dialogue is often quite obnoxious.

As an aside, I have to mention how intensely I cringed each time Nancy pronounced the word ryokan. For some reason she says the word over and over, and pronounces it "ree-oh-kan" each time. I don't understand why Nancy's voice actor so adamantly mispronounces most Japanese words in the game while she's talking to Japanese characters who are pronouncing the same words correctly in the same discussion.

Moving on... I have played each Nancy Drew game on Senior difficulty and have been able to complete them, but the puzzles in this game are so infuriating that I had to begin again on the lower difficulty, and then just gave up because I didn't want to re-do everything again. I am specifically thinking of a puzzle where you have to untangle strings on the back of a portrait in order to see what is hidden inside the frame. The puzzle doesn't even earn its difficulty with an interesting plot reason for it. It's completely illogical that Nancy would need to untangle strings in order to pull the hidden item out of the broken frame; the arbitrariness of the puzzle combined with its impossibility led to this being the first Nancy Drew game I have decided to walk away from without completing it.

I should also warn anyone who is playing on Mac not to buy the game, because it won't work despite what it says on steam. I had to use a PC emulator in order to run it.

foreverpioneer
foreverpioneer

Been playing Nancy Drew games for years! Definitely one of my favourites.

Camp Phlog Gnaw
Camp Phlog Gnaw

As an advent Nancy Drew player, I love playing games with difficult challenges and hard to find clues. This game is perfect if you're looking for that as well. This took me a surprising amount of time to finish and I sheepishly admit I had to look up some hints to solving some puzzles.. The game design is gorgeous, the music is hauntingly beautiful, and there are some cute, easy puzzles that are fun to play between the difficult ones. I highly recommend this game to anyone who is a fan of Nancy Drew.

MayukiPink
MayukiPink

I love this game! I got a hard copy when it first came out and it has gotten me into Caligraphy, Rock Gardens, and learning everything I can about Japan. This was before my sister who was adopted from Japan came into the family so it's been fun trying to help her learn more about her homeland since she was too young to remember it, even if I'm more interested than she is.

bombhilton
bombhilton

This was a really fun game and it had some nice jumps and spooky parts. (sometimes they are not as scary as the trailers make out) And I liked that the events and ending changed depending on how you play. The only thin that I REALLY struggled with were the locations. There is a TON of travel on the subway systems and I could not keep all of the locations straight. So maybe take some notes on that. But otherwise.

Ann Marie
Ann Marie

mega sick top buzzer for sure.

BobTheVampire
BobTheVampire

This is such a spooky Nancy Drew! This one scared the bleep out of me when it first came out :D

Den
Den

If only it was possible to skip its boringly long cutscenes, dialogues, and bloody infuriating bento, sudoku, nonogram, and renogram puzzles.

Anonymous
Anonymous

it was a fun game and challenging puzzles. My wife and i play together as another means to spend time with each other and overall it was good. spooky parts and a good story. There were some repetitive puzzles but i believe it was to prepare you for the quest. This was also the third ND game and we saw a lot of good changes to the gameplay.

Anonymous
Anonymous

This game is VERY scary, and i really got freaked out by the ghost in the mirror. The plot was good, But way too scary. I would try a less freaky plot. -1,000,000,000,000,000, stars

Anonymous
Anonymous

The game is pretty much as racist as it gets. HeR Interactive is located in Bellevue, Washington (a place I happened to attend high school and can attest to the very large population of Asian people, including a hefty number of Japanese people), and despite their "thorough" research about Japanese culture, they apparently couldn't find more than one Asian person to voice their Japanese characters. It'd be one thing if it was just another white voice actor in cartoon Blackface like their characters in Legend of the Crystal Skull (still really messed up), but they went the extra mile and put on some pretty despicable accent. Game is tedious and buggy but honestly it's hard to appreciate because the whole thing is just so darn racist.

halk4t
halk4t

It took me so long to finish this game, and I almost gave up because it felt too complicated. What saved me was using a walkthrough. You don't have to do things in a particular order, so it isn't always obvious what you're supposed to do next, and there are some truly difficult puzzles in this game. Pros: a renewed interest in Sudoku; an interesting story that, while sometimes borders on annoying does remain suspenseful throughout; realistic characters; fun side games and puzzles to play; and the locations expand as you go. Cons: considering how expansive the setting is, it is pretty uninteresting; as I said, it's not very organized so it's easy to get lost; some of the puzzles take an incredibly long time because they are so complex; there is a ton of stuff to do and some of it ends up feeling pointless (like grading the homework assignments). Also, the mechanical cat was too much for me (maybe I'm just not whimsical enough). Not a huge fan of ghost stories so that was not a big selling point for me, but at least there was some point to it, though it may be a tad over-dramatic.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Amazing game . It has good story and good scares but the puzzle have to be more simpler to solve

Anonymous
Anonymous

This game is one of the best Nancy Drew games ever, second only to Blackmoor Manor! I love the spookiness of the game, it keeps you on edge and the characters are all so love able so its hard to imagine who the culprit might be. I also like how there's many endings. 9/10 great game!

Cygnus
Cygnus

It's absolutely striken with racist accents

De Wonderspons
De Wonderspons

Do not buy

Warning: Game is unplayable if you have number dyslexia, there are a lot of number puzzles required to continue with the story.

* Story is weak
* Voice acting is insensitive and racist
* Most puzzles are number based For example: (Picross, Sudoku etc.)
* There is one puzzle that would be 100% impossible

Story
I played this game together with 5 people, solving the mystery together, having fun etc. But even with 6(!) people, we STILL had to look up how to do certain things because it just didn't make any sense to do them without being told to.

Voice acting
The voice acting in this game is very insensitive because it is very clearly non Japanese people, doing exaggerated, over the top Japanese accents (Apart from a tiny amount of the characters who are voiced by real Japanese people.)

Puzzles
As I mentioned before, if you have number dyslexia, this game will be near impossible to play. There are at least 2 Sudoku puzzles, a normal one, and 1 comprised out of 5 regular ones, 2 Picross (Nanogram) puzzles, and 1 Renogram. I am not great with numbers, and with 4 others it still took us a lot of time to complete these mandatory puzzles.

Impossible puzzle for people with colorblindness
There is also 1 puzzle which is 100% impossible for people who are colorblind in one way or another. It is a huge grid with small colored balls where you have to find a certain combination, there is not other way of completing that puzzle.

supernormalassassin
supernormalassassin

This game had barely any storyline and was not challenging or fun. I spent most of the time doing sudoku, nonograms, and renograms if I wasn't wasting time at the pachinko parlor. This game had so much potential and a cool backstory, just wish there was follow-through. You barely saw the "haunting" and what you did get wasn't even scary. Don't even get me started on the terrible voice acting. I usually enjoy these games, but they really dropped the ball on this one.

farrellmorgen49
farrellmorgen49

Throughout my years growing up and during my childhood, I really enjoyed playing the Nancy Drew computer games because of how much the games, including this specific one Nancy Drew: Shadow at the Water's Edge, made me feel like I was actually solving any sort of mystery/crime, etc. by being a sleuth to figure out the mystery. One thing that I also really enjoy about the games is that they're interactive in the sense that there's other characters within the game that you can interact with and ask questions regarding whatever the mystery is to solve it. I also think this game is very interesting in terms of what the mystery is about and the nature of what it's about too. I don't really have anything negative to say about the computer game because overall, I think these games, including this one, are very well done and extremely fun to play, so I don't really have anything negative to say about it regarding just the Nancy Drew computer games generally speaking.

HereticalQueen
HereticalQueen

Generally, I recommend this to other players as it is a good challenge and excellent addition to the ND franchise. However, I do have some nitpicks that made it less enjoyable for me. Some of the puzzles are rather obtuse and at times, even with a task list, it is hard to know what to do. Some of the dialogue options can get you kicked out of the ryokan and end in a second-chance (a reset from before your mistake) and it's hard to know how much you can poke and prod at the characters. The dialogue itself is awkward and the fake Japanese accents (excepting Miwako, who is the only Japanese character voiced by someone fluent in Japanese, a native speaker) are atrocious.

The other obvious thing is that no one goes on vacation to teach English; if you graduate from college, you may end up doing the JET program, but as far as I know ND is forever eighteen here, so that makes no sense to me. The scares are... eh. It's a game for 10 and up, so I was expecting that, but don't go in anticipating Amnesia-level frights. The graphics aren't going to be on the same level as a triple A or triple I game, but they hold up fairly well. Oh, and Nancy has no empathy or sensitivity when questioning total strangers about their personal affairs, especially in one of the most reserved and polite cultures of the world, so be prepared for some cringing on that front. She also can't properly pronounce anything, despite Miwako's VA, a native Japanese speaker, properly pronouncing words and names on a constant basis.

The plot itself didn't really interest me much. It's not so much of a mystery, but more of an awkward American hotel guest poking into the past of her hosts by nosing through their things with her Japanese to English phrase book. That said, this is a classic for the scares and the atmosphere. It is a solid game, but I just don't like this one much. Still, as I said, you should play it and see what you think.

kamora_kitsune
kamora_kitsune

It's a good game if you like doing puzzles especially Sudoku and similar puzzles involving numbers.

casualkoru
casualkoru

ND mystery games are always a blast for puzzle and story lovers.

sky somerset
sky somerset

Love Nancy Drew, i had this game as a kid and revisiting it was great!

Doc Holiday
Doc Holiday

My wife forced me to play this with her, and i actually loved it, Easily couldve sunk anotherr 20 hours into its sidequests.

Yung Perry
Yung Perry

Pros: Spooky vibes and a good location to solve a mystery!
If you like sinking countless hours into Sudoku, Nonograms, and general math puzzles. You'll love this game!

Cons:
Extremely time consuming puzzles that may or may not progress the story line. You don't know until you complete them and that point you feel like maybe completing one more might progress it. Next thing you know you've wasted a few hours doing sudoku, renograms and nonograms. Although I enjoyed doing the puzzles at first, I was getting a bit impatient and wanted more mystery solving.

Music isn't environment or scenario based (aside from a very few locations). There's times where I'm about to grade some students' homework and the music makes it seem like I'm about to give them all F's or I'm about to be murdered by a demon. Had a strong urge to disable the music because of how out of place it felt.

Storyline was eh, knew where it was going.

Some of the accents felt forced and were kind of offensive but you can get used to the dialogue over time.

Nyxephi
Nyxephi

This game is just fun and interesting and just addicting

james splinkley
james splinkley

pretty good, not heavy on the filler but still has a great runtime. writing on yumi;s window in the endgame is never explained and makes no sense considering this game establishes that ghosts can't do that and the supposed ghost activity is only at the ryokan anyhow,

im the pachinko master motherfuckers

ConvolutedCake
ConvolutedCake

One of the best Nancy Drew games! Perfect balance of plot and puzzles! It wasn't too tricky and I loved the suspense!

Balmy
Balmy

This one is my favorite Nancy Drew game, both when I was a kid and as an adult replaying it. Of course, like a lot of the Nancy Drew games for the most part, it is dated, but it is easy to navigate and the puzzles are fun. The story line is interesting and there is a legit jump scare in the game which is pretty dope. The game also runs in a non-linear fashion, so you don't have to do everything in one specific way, and there are tons of small things you can do (and you may even earn a badge at the end if you do those small activities frequently enough which is cute!) My experience on this game is in Senior detective mode, so this review is from that perspective. All in all it's a pretty solid puzzle game.

Anonymous
Anonymous

I wish you could fast forward or just read the dialogue, but other than that this game is great. It's challenging, but doable without the hints, and has a good storyplot.

CESTEFFES
CESTEFFES

Awesome game! I could play this for hours with just the mini games and storyline

ajsaba18
ajsaba18

Great creepy atmosphere. Excellent mystery.

gasket111
gasket111

Loved being immersed in a Japanese setting. The Japanese puzzles were fun and I learned a lot about different puzzles I wasn't familiar with before.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Nancy Drew: Shadow at the Water's Edge is a mystery sleuthing game that tells the story of Nancy's time in Japan staying at a ryokan with a reputation for being haunted. Nancy decides to investigate the mystery to figure out what is going on and who is causing all the mysterious turmoil about the place.

This was... not an enjoyable experience. For one thing, it felt really insensitive, like replace all of the ls in a word with the r sound to give them an accent kind of insensitive. I'm not Japanese, so I can't comment on the authenticity of the game, but it definitely used the popular cultural elements to its advantage, unfortunately, it didn't really seem to benefit the game, or highlight the reason those elements would be enjoyable to play with in a game, so every time a task came up where you had to do something that was culturally significant, it felt tedious and underused rather than enjoyable and charming like I hoped it would be.

On another note, the game itself was just a slog to get through. Half of the talking points that you had with certain characters were insignificant, but when something significant did happen and you wanted to talk to the characters about it, nothing would come up. Also, many of the collectible objects couldn't be picked up until after you met a specific qualification, so you would be hunting around in the same five places trying to figure out how to finish the puzzle before you realized that you needed to take a nap until 1 am. And half the time you weren't sure if what you were doing was going to help you progress forward with the plot (like Rentaro's puzzles). And most of the tasks were tedious and boring to get through, like making the bento, but I did enjoy many of Takae's tasks because they were at least interesting to learn about. I will also say, the repetition in this game is infuriating and I believe that it would benefit from a skip button on the dialogue.

None of that is to say that there weren't any enjoyable elements, the ending really picked up steam and was pretty interesting, as well as portions in the middle. My favorite part of the game was when you got to grade papers as a teacher, which made me laugh every time, but it's sad to say as this is supposed to be an adventure game. And I will concede that some of the puzzles were genuinely difficult and time consuming, but that also meant that they could get boring pretty quickly if they puzzles weren't your type of thing. I also wouldn't worry about it being too scary, unless you get scared by creepy sound effects, though I will warn that there are a couple of jumpscares throughout the game.

So overall, I really don't recommend you buy this if you are expecting a fun mystery romp through Japan, but I suppose if you really like number puzzles like sudoku and renograms then you'll probably find a good challenge in those. And if you do end up playing it, I hope that you enjoy it more than I did.

Billion Dollar Baby
Billion Dollar Baby

Made me feel dumb and also scared the shit out of me

aigerim
aigerim

I liked that it was quite scary. The ending was quite interesting, I could not figure the case out till the very end. The puzzles were quite good, not very easy. I also thoroughly enjoyed Japanese culture lessons and games. Also the music is scary, had to turn the volume down to the minimum, and sometimes played with sound off.

Anonymous
Anonymous

I have mixed feelings about this game. On the one hand, I really enjoyed the story and I liked how the developers incorporated Japanese elements into the puzzles, including just using Japanese logic puzzles. And I very much appreciated that you only need to figure out the train routes once. After that, traveling between locations is very quick (one of my issues with other Nancy Drew games is how long it takes to travel between locations on a map).

On the other hand, I also felt let down by the puzzles for some reason (maybe there weren't enough?), I wasn't a fan of the voice acting for the Japanese characters (especially the one for Yumi), and I thought the culprit was very obvious.

Overall, I recommend this game.

Also, this is probably the scariest Nancy Drew game so far. If you're not into horror movies or jump scares, this game probably isn't for you. The music really added to the creepiness.

Ravenshy
Ravenshy

My favourite Nancy Drew game to date but I'm still new to the series! I absolutely loved this game and the atmosphere it created. Unlike most Nancy drew games I didn't get lost too often, sometimes it takes time to learn the layout of the location but with the rooms having numbers and the game taking place over several locations it helped to become familiar with my surroundings. (Even travelling on the train was fun once you got the hang of it!). The story was interesting and the mini games like making the bento boxes was amazing! even once the mini games were completed I would go back and play then a few more times. Unfortunately the culprit was a little predictable towards the end but this didn't ruin the experience in the slightest. Definitely worth getting!

jooapple
jooapple

Pros: SO many fun light puzzles/mini-games, interesting characters, relatively complex story, Dave Gregory phone background

aprevatte
aprevatte

a fun game to play with someone you love! :-)

Anonymous
Anonymous

Learning about Japanese culture through the game has been really fun, and it's fairly challenging as well.

sickgoogle
sickgoogle

Long story short not my favorite, but still worth a play. The ghost was by far the scariest in all the Nancy Drew games and the setting was refreshing. I did not like all of the random games we played. Looking back on the game play what I remember the most is that giant Soduku puzzle that was non optional. I like Nancy Drew games for their unique puzzles and mysteries not to play random games that I could play on an app on my phone. That being said the plot was still interesting although I think I'll only remember two of the characters one because she sent so many weird pictures and the other because he annoyed me so much.

TLDR
It was good but there are way better Nancy Drew games imo especially with how much hype this installment gets.

m_wi289
m_wi289

One of the best Nancy Drew games. I loved the storyline and minigames.

lexiwin3
lexiwin3

This game is the bomb diggity. Its super fun and its a game. Big fun. Much game. Fun fun yah yah.

Defunkled
Defunkled

9/10 - Great setting, good puzzles (except near the end), and spooky jump scares. One of our faves!

JackFr0st300
JackFr0st300

Unable to save plays good but then again no ability to save sucks so no I wont recommend this game other than that if your really bored and are good at puzzles all in one go please do by this game. if not don't waste your money.

spvcedipper
spvcedipper

this game is so frickin live ive played it so many times, definitely one of the best nd games out there

widthofacircle95
widthofacircle95

Good game - lots of puzzles which can take a while. Maybe not great for people who have trouble with sudoku etc. Also the voice acting is a bit much, but apart from that its a great installment in the series.

Anonymous
Anonymous

I generally like the older ND games better than the new ones and this one was fun! The puzzles made you use your brain but didnt make you crazy trying to figure out, the characters were enjoyable, a little bit spooky. All the good parts of any solid ND game. The accents were a bit cringey as I've seen other reviews state but nothing to the point of ruining the game IMO. Definitely recommend!

tilkomandi67
tilkomandi67

I love this game, I love the story, the characters and most of the puzzles. Don't get me wrong, it can get really difficult and the bentaro puzzle takes a while to master but once you get it, you get it. The story, I found was really in depth and complex but put together, the characters and voice actors were perfect and I really liked them. If you like Nancy Drew games I would recommend this one, just expect it to take a little bit longer that some other Nancy Drew games butdon't give up, it will be worth it in the end.

Noob
Noob

Always impressed by the inclusion of culture in the ND series, and this game in particular is a great example. You can make bento, learn to write Japanese kanji, and spend ungodly amounts of time solving nonograms, sudoku and renograms as your mental state progressively deteriorates to a total of 0.5 decomposing brain cells only to realise that none of the accursed puzzles would amount to any real reward in the first place. 10/10 would recommend.

RangerKittyPaws
RangerKittyPaws

Fun game. Simplistic, but loved the puzzles and the vibe.

erikamustdie
erikamustdie

I liked the game but among the ND games, it wasnt my favorite which was really disappointing because the visuals looked so good in the trailers. The puzzles were tedious and it felt like it took forever to get any information out of the main characters. Every time you ask a question that could help solve the case, they'd shut it down saying things like "You wouldn't understand" and "I shouldn't bother you with this" It also took awhile to get into the case and make actual progress but thats probably because the characters were so tight lipped the entire time.

gemndiamonds
gemndiamonds

At the time of purchase, I have not yet completed the game, however I think I've experienced enough to give a good review, seeing as I've played for 20 hours now. I purchased this game because I remember my mother playing it when I was a young child, and I'm so glad I did. The characters feel real, the story makes sense, and I've only needed a guide once!

One criticism of the actual gameplay I have involves the envelopes. I did not know the white rectangles in the folder in Nancy's room were usable envelopes until the guide said so, nor did I understand that I had to mail the finished Mega Sudoku with them by putting them in and dropping them off at the front desk.

Some criticisms of the production I have involve the models, rigging, and voice acting. The Japanese accent sounds forced, honestly. It could easily just be me, but until I get to the credits, I don't know how to check to see if the voice actors and actresses for the Japanese characters are native speakers. If not, I'd appreciate an alternative version or optional update with more respect to the language.
The model and rigging quality is pretty expected considering the release date of this game, but it would also be wonderful to see an update. The characters and their movements are awfully stiff. I do understand how difficult and expensive it is to do this, though. This would also be nice to see in an alt. version or optional update.

Thank you for reading my review of Nancy Drew: Shadow at the Water's Edge!
27/06/22 17:30 MST

Seedy Vampire
Seedy Vampire

Even with some truly atrocious voice acting, (c'mon, HeR, it really couldn't have been that hard to make sure every Japanese character was voiced by a Japanese actor, do better) this is still one of my favorite Nancy Drew games. The visuals are beautiful and the environments are quite accurate to both traditional and modern Japan, though I wish we had gotten to see a little more of both. The music is fantastic and helps to set up the atmosphere perfectly in each moment. It has some of my favorite minigames in the series with the bento minigame, sudoku, nonogram, and renogram puzzles, though the pachinko minigame does get to feel like a bit of a chore pretty quickly. The writing in this game is also excellent, at least in terms of character dialogue. (Though Nancy seriously needs to stop pestering a family in mourning for details about the death of their loved one! Good heavens, Nancy, you can't just ask someone how their mother died.) It's surprisingly scary for a game aimed at players around 10 and older, but personally I doubt that it would be anything the average kid that age couldn't handle.

Overall, another fantastic entry in the Nancy Drew series. Highly recommended.