We were terribly excited to learn that one of the top games of the last year, Azada, finally had a sequel. But is it as good as the original? Does it have the same great mix of mystery, story, and minigames? Would it keep us amused nearly as long? All good questions, and sadly, the answer to most of them is: Not so much.

To be clear, compared to the vast number of games out there, this is an excellent game. There is a fun (though somewhat hard to follow) story about books and ghosts and uncles and magic which carries the player through an old library, and most importantly, through a number of old and familiar books. And through these books, we get an interesting mix of subgames and old-school adventure-style gameplay. If you enjoyed classic games like Myst and 7th Guest, this is sort of a casualized version of those classics. And all of that is to the good – it’s certainly a breath of fresh air in the endless march of time management, match-3, and hidden object games out there. The fact that it is from Big Fish, the hidden object game mill itself is even more refreshing: it is good to see that excellent development team working on something that doesn’t require me to look for hidden pineapples and eggplants in the wallpaper again.

But as great as all of this is, if you are anything like us, after an hour or so this game will start to get on your nerves. The biggest failing of the game is that it simply requires too much searching of somewhat muddied landscapes for active objects. I don’t mind a mystery or an adventure, but when the adventure is basically scanning the desktop with the mouse until it shows me I can click on something, I get annoyed. I would much rather have the things that I can or cannot activate or interact with be more clear, so I can actually use my noggin to sort out the mystery, not just figure out where the buttons are.

And even these “put X with Y to make Z happen” puzzles were a bit esoteric. In one case, I had to give a bird a twig to get a branch, which is fine, but there was no clue to me that the bird needed the twig, so I found this out by mere happenstance. The problem is, this happenstance is expensive, since the game punishes you for trying to put random objects with other objects. I would mention more instances like that, but I don’t want to spoil any of the mysteries for you, but be aware, things don’t always make the most sense. To be fair, most of the time the clues are pretty good, and you can figure it out with a little thought, but it’s still something that annoyed me enough to make me write it down.

The game, like all Big Fish games, is highly polished. The graphics are solid, if a bit murky at times for finding objects. The sound is first rate, and the music is definitely good enough to leave on throughout the game. If we have any other major complaint, it is that the game was just too short. We plowed through the whole thing in about four hours. Granted, we enjoyed those four hours, but it still seems a bit short for us. And since most of the subgames were one-off puzzles, instead of truly replayable subgames, there wasn’t much need or use in going back and playing again. When you are done with this game, you’re pretty much done.

So, is it worth the buy? Actually, yes. This game is probably a great indicator of where the downloadable genre is going: Fast, polished, simple games that you play for a few hours and then throw away. Think of it like a sitcom, or an episode of Heroes. You’re not looking for the long term replayable value, you’re looking for something to blow a few hours and then forget about. For that, this is a great little game. Expect to see a lot more like it.

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