Mystery Tales: Master of Puppets > iPad, iPhone, Android, Mac & PC Game

Overall rating

5 / 5

21 of 25 found this review helpful

What is all the whining about?

PostedApril 20, 2021

Mellykin

fromSan Diego USA

Skill Level:Expert

Favorite Genre(s):Hidden Object, Puzzle

Fun Factor

4 / 5

Visual/Sound Quality

5 / 5

Level of Challenge

4 / 5

Storyline

4 / 5

Almost everyone seems so totally down on this game, and I can't figure out why. Before playing it, I went back through all the other Mystery Tales first. This one, although perhaps not stellar, was definitely on a par with all the others, was enjoyable and fun to play, and there were some neat puzzles in there that I really liked (no spoilers!). I didn't enjoy the narration in the beginning, but I ignored it and it went away after about a quarter of the way through. The plot was mildly confusing at first, but by the end, everything had been tied together, and it all made sense. I would definitely recommend this game, and will be more than happy to play it again when I get a yen to go through the whole series.
Everyone: Stay safe from Covid-19! Show less

+17points

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Overall rating

5 / 5

2 of 2 found this review helpful

Why the poor rating?

PostedMarch 12, 2022

nwgoodstuff

fromOlympic Peninsula, WA

Skill Level:Expert

Favorite Genre(s):Adventure, Hidden Object

Fun Factor

5 / 5

Visual/Sound Quality

5 / 5

Level of Challenge

4 / 5

Storyline

4 / 5

I saw the lousy rating but since it's on sale for $2.99 I thought I'd at least demo it. I loved it! Beautiful graphics, fun puzzles. I never really care about a story line, but this one was easy to understand; pretty clear cut. As far as being not having a choice whether to play as male or female... who cares? It's not my life story, it's a freaking game! Maybe developers should make animals the ...Show more

I recommend this game!

+2points

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Overall rating

5 / 5

1 of 1 found this review helpful

Beautiful Graphics!

PostedMay 14, 2022

fernley_jennifer

fromReno, NV

Skill Level:Expert

Favorite Genre(s):Adventure, Hidden Object

Fun Factor

5 / 5

Visual/Sound Quality

5 / 5

Level of Challenge

4 / 5

Storyline

4 / 5

Total Playtime 4 hours 28 minutes
This was a lot of fun and I absolutely loved how beautiful the graphics were. The gameplay was pretty straightforward and the mini games ranged from easy to medium difficulty. I liked how some of the hidden object scenes were set up because it felt refreshing and unique. Overall a very enjoyable game.

I recommend this game!

+1point

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Overall rating

4 / 5

17 of 34 found this review helpful

Nice game

PostedMarch 26, 2021

Sadie2000

fromOhio

Skill Level:Intermediate

Fun Factor

4 / 5

Visual/Sound Quality

4 / 5

Level of Challenge

4 / 5

Storyline

4 / 5

I found this game enjoyable. I would recommend it.

I recommend this game!

0points

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Overall rating

3 / 5

5 of 7 found this review helpful

Cannot play bonus chapter

PostedApril 17, 2021

bluegayle

Fun Factor

4 / 5

Visual/Sound Quality

4 / 5

Level of Challenge

4 / 5

Storyline

4 / 5

Really enjoyed the main game but when it came to
playing the bonus chapter it glitches out.
Cannot finish because of it.
Problem is not finding a saw handle on the
chessboard.

I recommend this game!

+3points

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Overall rating

2 / 5

33 of 41 found this review helpful

MYSTERY TALES 15 IS ANOTHER MONOTONOUS ADVENTURE IN THIS DRAGGED OUT SERIES.

PostedMarch 26, 2021

skullfun

fromThis installment of Mystery Tales was mediocre in contrast to other games in this series. Hopefully Domini will raise the bar for future editions of this series!

Key Contributor
This "Key Contributor" plays, rates, and reviews a lot of games. We think you'll trust their thoughts and opinions about games.
Key Contributor

Skill Level:Expert

Favorite Genre(s):Adventure, Hidden Object, Puzzle

Current Favorite:

Wanderlust: The Bermuda Secret Collector's Edition

(112)

Fun Factor

3 / 5

Visual/Sound Quality

3 / 5

Level of Challenge

1 / 5

Storyline

1 / 5

Domini Games‘ Mystery Tales series has now come to its fifteenth game. All hidden object series have their fair share of highs and lows and in the case of Mystery Tales, a lot of middle-of-the-roads. Although the storyline in Mystery Tales: Puppet Master is not dreadfully boring, it pales in comparison to previous editions in this long-running series. One thing that phased me was that the characters in this game are not layered enough for the player to feel passionate about them nor do they possess distinct personalities that take them above what is expected and I didn't mind playing the role of a male character. The developer's could have at least offered players a choice of playing female or male.

A so-so storyline can often. be elevated by stellar, engaging gameplay. However, Mystery Tales: Puppet Master gameplay is also so predictable and mundane. The hidden object scenes and the puzzles are far from original, even the option to switch to more difficult puzzles seems futile given that these puzzles have been used in a hundred other games before. The adventure gameplay is equally uninspired, it is packed with cookie-cutter tasks which after awhile become incredibly annoying. Sure, his ability to travel between the land of the dead and the land of the living is cool and all, but his constant odd voice remarks are useless, distracting, and don’t serve the game any good nor does the antiquated Camera Paranormal detecting device.

Despite all these rough patches, at least Mystery Tales: Puppet Master looks great. While the series’ signature blueish-green filter still washes over most scenes, most scenes are creatively designed with beautiful detailing. The audio components of the game are also solid. The voice actors did what they can to bring these thinly-developed characters to life and the eerie music injects some much-needed suspense into the game.

I chose the CE version but I should have used a free game coupon and used it on this SE version.

Mystery Tales: Puppet Master Collector’s Edition is around Six-hours long with an additional 50 minutes for the bonus chapter. The bonus section includes the usual bling: a strategy guide, wallpapers, concept art, soundtracks, videos, replayable hidden object scenes, replayable puzzles, achievements, collectibles, and morphing objects.

I am a big fan of this series and I hope Domini raises the bar if there is another edition in the works. Cheers!

Also in this Series:
Mystery Tales: The Lost Hope
Mystery Tales: The Twilight World
Mystery Tales: Alaskan Wild
Mystery Tales: Her Own Eyes
Mystery Tales: Eye of the Fire
Mystery Tales: The Hangman Returns
Mystery Tales: The House of Others
Mystery Tales: Dangerous Desires
Mystery Tales: The Other Side
Mystery Tales: The Reel Horror
Mystery Tales: Dealer's Choices
Mystery Tales: Art and Souls
Mystery Tales: Till Death
Mystery Tales: Master of Puppets Show less

+25points

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Overall rating

2 / 5

12 of 17 found this review helpful

Confusing frustrating and all around irritating

PostedMarch 29, 2021

Wolfy1000

Fun Factor

1 / 5

Visual/Sound Quality

4 / 5

Level of Challenge

5 / 5

Storyline

2 / 5

The title of the review pretty much sums up my thoughts on the game, I should have skipped this one.

I don't recommend this game.

+7points

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Overall rating

2 / 5

6 of 9 found this review helpful

Trial: Sluggish Story Back & Forth

PostedApril 4, 2021

Yurnmesis

Key Contributor
This "Key Contributor" plays, rates, and reviews a lot of games. We think you'll trust their thoughts and opinions about games.
Key Contributor

Fun Factor

3 / 5

Visual/Sound Quality

3 / 5

Level of Challenge

2 / 5

Storyline

2 / 5

Graphics are good, Characters (expect for ghost) are well crafted and voice overs are good.

But...so many mini games, I figure that is how this presentation will advance .UGH! Hidden Object Games are nicely done with some variety.

Story is very slow and with so many put together objects it just became rather boring. The tasks are back and forth and for such silly little things it just ...Show more

Graphics are good, Characters (expect for ghost) are well crafted and voice overs are good.

But...so many mini games, I figure that is how this presentation will advance .UGH! Hidden Object Games are nicely done with some variety.

Story is very slow and with so many put together objects it just became rather boring. The tasks are back and forth and for such silly little things it just became annoying. The constant interruption of mini games broke any sense of continuity. Lots of fiddling around with little action or interaction.

The special paranormal camera view was poorly done, maybe supposed to less clear but it was just bad development.

The "ghost" seemed to appear from another era? Creepy dolls...just not my idea of a good time .I finished the trial but not interested in knowing what else happens. This one just didn't seem up to par with others from this developer.

Take the trial run for yourself and see what you think. Show less

I don't recommend this game.

+3points

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Overall rating

2 / 5

1 of 2 found this review helpful

Almost a fun, hidden object game

PostedApril 12, 2021

Bloobus

fromYuma, AZ

Skill Level:Intermediate

Favorite Genre(s):Adventure, Hidden Object

Fun Factor

2 / 5

Visual/Sound Quality

2 / 5

Level of Challenge

2 / 5

Storyline

1 / 5

Overly complicated plot, hard to get involved with and care about the characters. Graphics and animation so-so. Agree with Roaming from Texas, you should be able to select which gender you are playig as.

I don't recommend this game.

0points

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Overall rating

1 / 5

105 of 123 found this review helpful

WHY CAN'T THE DEVELOPERS FIX THE BROKEN? WE WANT HOPA GAMES TO BE LIKE THEY WERE WHEN THEY FIRST CAME OUT (Just with better graphics)

PostedMarch 26, 2021

pennmom36

fromProve me wrong!

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This "Top Reviewer" is one of our most frequent game reviewers. We think you'll trust what they have to say and find their reviews helpful and informative.
Top Reviewer

Skill Level:Expert

Fun Factor

1 / 5

Visual/Sound Quality

1 / 5

Level of Challenge

1 / 5

Storyline

1 / 5

Completed Game approximately 5.5 Hours
(including completion of all puzzles & CE Bonus Chapter)
25 Main Game Scene Locations +10 CE Bonus Chapter
Difficulty Range: Beginner

Note to Developer:
It must be discouraging to work hard week after week as you try to keep up with the demand of spewing out one HOPA after another, and I know HOPA fans like myself appreciate that. We've all read articles explaining how the HOPA genre is dying a slow death, that it isn't a popular genre and there isn't a craze like there was 10-15 years ago when HOPA fans couldn't gobble up the games fast enough as they tried to get their gaming "fix" This simply isn't true!

Somewhere along the lines, the HOPA genre began evolving as developers began adding new features like jump maps. Then along came the Custom Setting feature which, in my opinion, was the beginning of the HOPA demise. Right around the time the custom settings came along, the developers started cutting corners to make the game easier to mass-produce. The games were no longer unique, they were "Cut & Paste" versions. The same format was used on every game at this point, each scene would have 3 active areas of interest, the Mini-Games and Hidden Object scenes would always be in the same place in the same scenes of EVERY game. If we were able to play 2 different games side by side simultaneously, game A would have the same goals as game B and they would both queue mini-games and HO scenes at the same time and in the same place in both games because the format was copied. Sure, the story is slightly different and the scenes would have different graphics (sometimes) but for all intended purposes, it's the same game! The result is a player who is extremely bored because they aren't aware that game B is the same as game A, and the one before that, etc.

The HOPA genre evolved, HOPA fans have NOT! If the craze was gone, and fans were no longer interested in the genre, then why do we ALL choose to REPLAY our older games over and over and reminisce about how the older games were so much better? If you ask any true HOPA fan what their favorite game is, I guarantee they will pick a title from 2012-2015!

The first developer who gets up off their cozy chairs to retro a decent HOPA game will reap the rewards...we loved being able to roam more than 2 lousy scenes at a time, it makes us have to think about where to go and what to do, heck we had to roam scenes as we tried to remember where we saw this place once we found the inventory item that went there! We still like the creepy, mysterious mansions with the boarded-up windows, the cobblestone walkways with so much detail, the abandoned creepy towns where something went horribly wrong but we don't know just what...yet. We loved the almost impossible to spot Morphing Objects and Collectibles of the past. Nowadays, we don't have to remember a code we saw written on a wall 6 scenes prior, a stickie note gets plastered right next to the safe or computer so all we have to do is enter those numbers, games are so dumbed-up, so easily solved that we're just going through the motions, the genre has been out for over a decade, I'm pretty sure the percentage of Beginner players is pretty low yet you continue to gear ALL games towards beginner players, does this make sense or is it because you don't want to actually have to create a new format? Pour your heart and soul into a retro-type HOPA, try to prove me wrong!

On To The Review (rant over lol)
What if past events were so painful that they caused you to have a nervous breakdown? What if those memories were all a figment of your imagination, what if your mind reconstructed those events falsely to make life easier moving forward. Would your mind continue to play tricks on you, would you be able to trust anything that happens or anything you see? Would other people believe you when you tell them that you are being literally haunted by those past events?

Gadgets/Helper:
At the beginning of this series, (when the detective was a woman) she used to have those infamous Mystery Tales Glasses which allowed her to not only see ghostly caches but interact and use those items in the real world. In every game, those glasses would break driving HOPA gamers nutz. After years of enduring the broken glasses gadget, fans were treated to a new form of technology...a paranormal Cell Phone which allowed us to speak with the dead! (I believe this was the point where my female detective character turned into an Uncle detective?) Of course, as most cell phones do, it broke as well...yea, new technology is on its way! Nope...we just have to fix and upgrade our old one! A few episodes later our paranormal mobile device took a weird twist as Morty the Paranormal Cat on his 10th life arrived. Morty had the ability to travel between the land of the living and the land of the dead, so he was technically still a paranormal gadget Morty had bi-colored eyes, a sarcastic attitude, and couldn't have been more adorable! In Master of Puppets, we have switched gears once again! Now we have an old-fashioned Camera that is used on purple paranormal blobs to unlock past events and show us what happened (via movie cutscene) to cause that particular paranormal activity. The Camera is used 6 times during the main game but not in the Bonus Chapter.

Audio/Video Quality:
First of all, the Mystery Tales Detective used to be a Female Detective, then She became an Uncle Detective, now I don't seem to be anyone's Uncle but all of a sudden, I get a voice and I don't like what I'm hearing! My character has the weirdest twang and makes really stupid remarks about obvious stuff that was totally unnecessary. Don't get me wrong, I love a southern accent, but this sounds like a Russian actor pretending to be from Louisana? So please, just stop talking! As for the graphics, Master of Puppets looks like you'd expect from this over-enthusiastic developer, with the usual over-abundance of purple and blue hues??!!
Collectibles & Morphing Objects (CE Version Only):
The collectibles are always the same in Domini games, they just have different names! There are 15 Keepsake Collectibles and 15 Morphing Souvenirs. There are 72 Zoom Zone Coins that are used to purchase 15 unappealing Dollhouse Decorations. You can opt to show or hide the collectible's tab, which alerts you whenever there is a collectible in a scene.

Hidden Object Scenes:
There are 13 Hidden Object Scenes +5 in the CE Bonus Chapter and an alternate Match 3 Game available, which btw, doesn't allow you to make consecutive matches quickly. (you have to wait for all tiles to stop falling before you can make the next match) They are mostly Interactive List Finds but there were other variations, such as Finding Cutlery and Dishes, Placing cutouts correctly on the scene, Silhouetted Shapes, and Keywords in Sentence Finds. If only Domini would add a skip button feature to their boring HO scenes!
Mini-Games:
There are 17 Mini-Games +8 in the CE Bonus Chapter. You can choose to play them in an Easy or Hard difficulty mode and you can choose which mode to have them start out in the Custom Setting (you can still switch between modes for each individual game) I can honestly say that I didn't enjoy any of these mini-games because they were either boring, or they had features of "moving one affects others" which I loathe. Many of the puzzles had instructions that were really confusing and just didn't make sense, I had to figure them out by trial and error?!

Bonus Chapter (CE Version Only)
Miranda Grey's father has been taken to the Ellington Manor, after showing signs of a nervous breakdown. Miranda hasn't been able to contact her father and believes he's in grave danger so once again, she contacts the Paranormal Detective to ask for help. This is an above-average-length chapter spanning over a whopping 10 scene locations! There are 8 additional Mini-Games and 5 Hidden Object Scenes, and you will continue your search for the final 4 Morphing Souvenir's, 4 Keepsakes, and 10 Zoom Zone Coins (of varying amounts) which allows you to purchase the final Dollhouse Decorations.

Collector's Edition Extra's: (CE version only)
15 Wallpapers, 15 Concept Art Pictures, 5 Music Soundtracks, 31 Movie Video Cutscenes, 40 Achievements (the same achievements offered in all of their games and notice how you earn them in the order shown AND you earn them when you didn't really earn them because they are given to you at specific set-points, not by randomly earning them. In other words, you won't earn the 5th achievement first because that's not when the game is programmed to award them...seems rather disappointing now doesn't it?), 18 Replayable Mini-Games, 18 Replayable Hidden Object Scenes, 15 Morphing Souvenir's, 15 Keepsakes, a gazillion Missing Notes, 72 Coins (of varying amounts) 15 Dollhouse Items (purchase with Coins found) 4 Main Chapters +Bonus Chapter, and a Built-In Strategy Guide. Please join me at my new forum, thewoodsforum.boards.net Show less

I don't recommend this game.

+87points

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