In Redemption Cemetery: Children’s Plight you must rush to save three children who have been captured by an evil warlock. Only by rescuing the young ones can you help to lay three ghosts to rest, ghosts who hold the amulets that are the key to defeating the warlock and winning your freedom from this cursed cemetery.
After playing
Redemption Cemetery: Grave Testimony, I became curious about the earlier
Redemption Cemetery games. Grave Testimony was so awesome I had to know what its predecessors were like. So, I went ahead and picked up the first in the series,
Redemption Cemetery: Children’s Plight. Let me tell you, I do not regret the decision.
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Redemption Cemetery: Children’s Plight was every bit as gorgeous as Grave Testimony. Haunting music, beautiful and chilling scenery, and ghastly ghosts kept me blissfully creeped out. I was a little worried initially that this predecessor of Grave Testimony would seem rough around the edges because it was the first in the series. Not so, my friends, not so. Once again I have been given the spook I so desperately crave. I mean, look at this guy:
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Best. Intro. Ever. Anyway, in
Redemption Cemetery: Children’s Plight, you are once again (for the first time) attempting to set three spirits to rest, but this time (the first time) you have to save kidnapped children to earn the amulets that will set you free. While, for the most part, I was every bit as delighted with this as I was with the first (third) installment I played, there were some areas I noticed that lacked a bit of the polish I had come to expect.
The vocal talent was one. Most of the voice actors were amazing, but a few (most notably the ladies and children involved) were trying a bit too hard for the "scared stupid" effect. I also noticed that in this first installment, live actors were not used. Instead, images of the characters had moving mouths that reminded me strongly of the mouth movements from Wallace and Grommet movies (the Curse of the Ware Rabbit would fit right in).
So while I loved the character design, I wish they could have figured out a better way of making them talk (which I guess they did by moving on to live actors). When it comes down to it, though, I loved the characters more than I disliked their mouths. Look at that little kid; scared, and yet so cute.
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Another area that clearly improved from
Redemption Cemetery: Children’s Plight to Grave Testimony is the hidden object games.
In Grave Testimony, hardly any of the hidden object games relied on the collection of mass amounts of useless trash. Most of the hidden objects unlocked or opened the next object, logically leaving you with the last item, which you keep.
Redemption Cemetery: Children’s Plight, however, only had the normal trash collection. I can’t be too upset with them, though, because they’re just sticking with what works for the genre. Besides, I know it gets better and the artistry used in the hidden object areas is still as rich and beautifully haunting as the rest of the game. It’s a pile of junk, but man is it a good looking pile of junk.
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I found the puzzles to be fun and relatively easy to think through. There was a skip button, but I rarely had to use it. More frustrating was figuring out where I was supposed to be. The area of game play wasn’t unusually large or difficult to navigate, but there were a lot of hidden doors and areas you might not realize you had access to.
I spent a good amount of time wandering around knowing full well I had missed an area but being unable to find where. It was an annoyance I was willing to deal with, however, because overall the game was such fun.
Because who doesn’t love a good ghost story? And once again, this is what the Redemption Cemetery series has provided.
Redemption Cemetery: Children’s Plight is spooky without being overdone, dramatic without being cheesy, and engaging without being obnoxious. It may seem like a simple recipe, but a lot of games just can’t pull that off.
I know it isn’t perfect, and honestly between the two I’d rather play Grave Testimony, but for the first in a series, it is exactly what it needs to be: intriguing.
I have every intention of digging up the second in this series,
Curse of the Raven, because I enjoy these games, and I know the middle child won’t let me down. Would I rather be tangling with mobster ghosts? Maybe. Do I have every intention of saving this kid so I can defeat the warlock? You can bet on it.
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