When a plague ravages the countryside, your character decides to hunt down a rumor of a city of scientists that should have a cure for the disease. As you explore the now abandoned city, in
Apothecarium - The Renaissance of Evil Premium Edition, you learn that it is much like Rapture from
Bioshock. Apothecarium was supposed to be a closed community of scientists looking to further their fields of study without pesky things like government or moral intrusion. Naturally, something went wrong and someone went too far. The result is a desolate city with a ton of mysteries scattered throughout ...and ghosts.
While most locations in the game have a hidden object screen somewhere, Apothecarium leans much more on the adventure side when it comes to the challenges it will throw at the player. You will see a wide variety of puzzles, but there are very few obstacles that feel truly new, and if the puzzle isn’t a matter of following a series of logical steps, it is all about observation and keeping an eye out for strange symbols.
Of course, the hidden object screens play into the game as well. Each one will lead you to an inventory item that you will need in one of the other puzzles. What I like about Apothecarium is that it continues to use a mechanic that the developers introduced in Sister’s Secrecy, you can play a match-three game to find objects that aren’t all that apparent.
This means that you won’t ever find yourself stuck on a hidden object screen. If you can’t find the objects you are looking for, switch to the game and match tiles in order to get the ones that have magnifying glasses on them to the bottom row. With each spyglass that hits the bottom, a new hidden object is found.
