Nancy Drew: Last Train To Blue Moon Canyon

It’s also hard to believe that Her Interactive has just published their 13^th Nancy Drew software title; it doesn’t seem that long ago since the first game was released. The first Nancy Drew was an excellently designed game, and the fact that it was targeted toward older kids and young teens, an often neglected demographic, made it even more welcome. All of the Nancy Drew games that have been published since have been quality products, with some better than others, but on the whole the company has maintained the original quality, with some small changes and improvements over the years.

Well, Nancy Drew finally gets to receive help from her friends up close and personal, instead of only over the phone – The Hardy Boys are here! Actually, it’s the Hardy boys’ adventure, as they have just invited Nancy along for the ride, but they’re graciously allowing her to do most of the detective work, all the same.

Lori Girard, a rich society girl with too much time on her hands, has assembled a party on a mysterious old train, a la The Orient Express, western style. The original owner of the train was an eccentric miner, who disappeared after supposedly discovering a gold mine. Before he vanished, though, he left several hints and clues as to the whereabouts of this mine on the train, and around towns he visited. Lori thought it would be neat to have several “experts” help her solve the mystery, so she has invited Joe and Frank Hardy in their roles as amateur sleuths; Tino Balducci, a police detective; Charleena Purcell, a romance writer who’s also an expert on American history; and John Grey, a ghost-buster who has a TV show. The Hardy boys have invited Nancy Drew as their guest, with Lori’s permission.

On the first evening, Lori introduces herself at the dinner table.  Suddenly, the train enters a dark tunnel, the lights go out in the dining car and when the lights come back on, she’s vanished. Everyone disperses, discussing this mysterious event. Nancy and the Hardy boys decide to work together as a team to solve both Lori’s disappearance, and the original mystery of the location of the gold mine.

Joe and Frank Hardy have decided to concentrate on the research side of the mystery, leaving all the legwork to Nancy. She embarks on her investigation enthusiastically, questioning the other guests and searching the train for clues. Before long, she’s collected lots of clues and information, and it’s only a matter of time before she solves the mystery once again.

As in previous Nancy Drew Mystery games, this game is a point-and-click adventure game played in the first-person mode. Nancy will collect clues and save them in her inventory, gather information for her journal, and take pictures and phone various people on her smart phone. The puzzles are a mixture of inventory-based and manipulative conundrums, with a greater emphasis on mechanical-type puzzles this time around, it seems. The Nancy Drew games are very similar to each other, but the difficulty levels of the games does tend to vary from game to game, and this latest title is one of the more difficult to solve, with many of the puzzles requiring a good bit of thought, as in the previous Secret of the Scarlet Hand and the Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake. A lot of the puzzles depend on number and letter anagrams found in cryptic clues, that are not overtly obvious to the connection between the symbols. There are also manipulative puzzles, such as several pipe arrangement ones. And, there are a few that seem to be of a trial-and-error type, a type not usually found in Nancy Drew.  However, they are not too difficult or hard to solve.

As in the last several Nancy Drew games, there are also mini-games that can be played over again after serving their purpose to advance the game, but they’re not as much fun as others have been. The first one is a simple arcade game that is easy to play, and the next two are extremely simple games that require no skill or thought whatsoever, although they look cool while playing. The fourth mini-game, though, is a good one and is a logical puzzle that requires players to jump marbles over other marbles, until there are no more moves left. Many of the puzzles in the game are fun to play while solving, but can’t be played again, unfortunately.  One such game has Frank Hardy working as a short-order cook, assembling hamburgers to order as per instructions on the orders. This is an engaging activity, and would have been fun to continue playing.

There are also various facts to learn about mining, semi-precious stones, and other historical mentions.  However, there’s not as much of this type of educational information as is often presented in the Nancy Drew games.  It would have been neat to learn more about the history of doll making, for example, or to learn more about the history of mining in the U.S.

Graphically, the game is exactly like the other games, with the characters drawn in 3D against rich and detailed backgrounds. Frank and Joe Hardy look just like what readers would imagine them to look like, at least to this reader. The train is cool, and moves and sounds like a real train.

As stated before, this game is a bit more difficult than some of the Nancy Drew games, and the whole tone of the game seems to be for the older set in the target age range of 10-16 year olds. The dialogue is probably some of the best written in these games yet, and is very entertaining.  The humorous remarks from the Hardy boys fit the conversational style of teens and young adults nicely and really make the game fun. The puzzles are integrated into the puzzle logically, and serve to make the game interesting. Having the story take place on a train is also a great idea.

One important technical note: There is a common problem that crashes the game while playing the Taffey Sorting puzzle, about halfway through the game. The game web site states that this is often a problem with the specifications not being high enough, or with drivers that need updating, but that wasn’t the case with my system, which met all the requirements and I just had the graphic’s driver updated. There is a patch for this activity, but it didn’t work for me.  I ended up using another temporary patch that bypasses this puzzle entirely, which worked and let me continue the game. Be sure and save the game when the train arrives at Copper Gorge, in case this happens. The patches can be downloaded from the Her Interactive web site.

Nancy Drew: The Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon is a good adventure game for pre-teens and teens, and also most adults. Our family is thoroughly enjoying it, and we rank this 13^th Nancy Drew entry as one of our favorites.  The Hardy boys are cool characters, and sure to appeal to everyone.  

Gameplay: 8
This game is a lot of fun to play! The story is very interesting, with great dialogue and engaging puzzles.  However, the mini-game puzzles could have been better, and there isn’t as much educational information presented as in previous games. Still, we rank this Nancy Drew as one of the better ones in terms of all-around presentation.

Graphics: 8
As always, the graphics are pleasing and detailed.

Sound: 7
The sound and music is pretty average.

Difficulty: Medium/Hard
All of the Nancy Drew games have two difficulty levels, a Junior and Senior Detective. In the Junior level, players will have a task list to help keep everything clear. This is one of the more difficult games in the series on the whole.

Concept: 8
While this game doesn’t deviate from the series, it does have an interesting, well-researched story. The inclusion of the Hardy boys is great, too.

Overall: 8
A very good game overall. It could have used more interesting mini-games for replayability, and also more educational trivia, but the game itself is a hoot to play and will involve the whole family in the mystery.  Much better than the last game, The Secret of the Old Clock.