Review: Finding Joy in Hidden Through Time 2: Myths & Magic
Hidden Through Time 2: Myths and Magic might be an introduction for a lot of players into the hidden object or find the object kind of games, and it is a great entry point. A lot of us have played or seen various games like this in magazines or books like iSpy and Where’s Waldo. While you might not think a full video game could be based around this idea, Hidden Through Time 2 does a fantastic job of creating unique and cute scenarios with just enough variation and interactivity to keep players entertained for a pretty good amount of time.
Gameplay is as simple as any other hidden object game: find the object. This is all there really is to the game: find the objects, go to the next level, find more objects, go to the next level again and again. Hidden Through Time 2: Myths and Magic does however add a couple of interesting mechanics to keep things interesting. One of them is a day and night cycle leaving certain objects discoverable either during the day or night. The developers use the little scenarios and interactions of characters to determine where the objects might be in that cycle, adding depth and a bit of realism to each level. For example, if you were looking for a bowl of cooked meat at night, you might look for somebody grilling food during the daytime. There are tons of little interactions like these that keep players interested in what is actually happening instead of just scouring every single pixel for each object. I wish this was used a bit more creativity and that these interactions were more used, but it is fine enough for the simplicity of the game.
The next best part of this game is the aesthetic. This game is so adorable and so whimsical that it is legitimately entertaining to just look at the scene without searching for the objects. Watching characters interact, looking into different buildings with cute groups of people reading books or having a conversation is delightful. Along with the super cute characters and animals and locations, the audio and music is perfectly relaxing to listen to for hours.
Hours, an interesting word to use when playing a hidden object game. Playing through this will definitely take you sometime, easily a few hours. But I don’t know who would really want to do this for that long. Maybe picking it up and playing it for 15 or 20 minutes every once in a while could be fun, but I don’t see how the game is super engaging for more than an hour at a time. I could be totally wrong, and there could be a huge audience that loves these types of games for really long periods of time, but long sessions do not work for me.
Lastly, the game has a great creator mode. Being able to use in-game assets and more to make your own hidden object levels is where I think the game could really shine. Making levels and sharing them with your friends, or just hopping online to download a new scene set up by your favorite creators can add a lot of longevity. While it may be very time consuming to make entire scenarios because of all the customizations that are possible, it is relatively easy and straightforward.
For being a very, very simple premise and repetitive process, Hidden Through Time 2: Myths & Magic does offer a lot of fun and loads of cuteness. I do wish there was a lot more interactivity in the game and the day and night cycle isn’t as deep as I think it could be. However, for the low price and hours of cozy entertainment, this game is easy to recommend if you really like these types of games/activities.
