Bathory - The Bloody Countess

I enjoyed playing this game.
If I could have one wish, it would be for the devs to add a map. I get turned around easily :D
It has a journal that keeps a good list of tasks and notes.
You have an inventory and a store where you can buy more items with gold.
You collect gold by playing HOPS. The HOPS repeat so you remember where items are located.
You have a hint button.

Sometimes I didn't know where to go next and just started revisiting places & doing HOPS until I got a new clue or found a new location.

The story was fun and interesting with a good ending.

Ok..... Yea no. Not going to waste alot of time here. It's Not good. See other reviews for why. Get it if it's like a dollar. Otherwise don't.

Before I bought the game, I’ve read the reviews. Plenty of negatives, but I thought to myself, it can’t be that bad… I was wrong. It can. I’ll start from positives: pretty graphic and very pleasant music. The plot could have been very interesting if somebody actually cared to elaborate and since nobody did, well, great idea ruined.
On the negative side: annoying gameplay, not intuitive and frustrating to the point that I almost gave up after 10 minutes into the game. But if that was all I would probably still recommend it. The reason I cannot is a “brilliant” idea of buying items necessary for finishing the game at the merchant. In order to collect enough coins we have to repeat hidden objects scenes again and again and again and again and again…. So even if the plot intrigued you, the whole atmosphere is ruined with clicking for 50th time the same pitchfork. Arrghh… Whoever came up with this should lock himself in the basement for 14 days and rethink his life choices.
I do not recommend the game.

Your sister invites you to her current excavations, however, she's nowhere to find and it seems that she was kidnapped. Could it be in relation with the castle nearby, owned by the legendary Bathory, a cruel countess?

The story is interesting in itself. However, the course of actions is perhaps very disturbing. I mean, I can't see why some actions have to be done. I mean, why would I need milk instead of steam to show an hidden message. You've understood: the translation isn't quite a success, hence the confusion that can reign if you're not playing in English.

However, the major failure of the game is the gameplay: while it's the standard one (find items, use them, clear hidden objects scenes, solve puzzles), I was mainly thrown into a game where I only managed to understand that the town place can be moved on the side after a long time (when you're stuck and searching for a mechant... that's when I accidentally discovered the trick). Sometimes, you have also arrows on the side. And if you want to go back? Well, you have a return arrow next to your inventory (functionning also for the puzzles or hidden objects scenes). As I've already said for Ghost Encounters: Deadwood, it's not possible to have that kind of gameplay now as people are used to see arrows on the middle of their screens. And it was also a pain in the ass to make the inventory appears. But like I've said, the actions to take are sometimes hard to guess. As I was already pissed with the gameplay, I was finishing a scene and clicked on a pen that was near the arrow for backing out. Guess what? I'm not sure my pen was counted or not, but I got a message saying that if I go back, I'll loose the progress in the scene. Do I want to get out? Nope but I was still booted out. I don't know if it's because I assume that Yes = exit and No = stay and that I've misread the question or if it's a translation problem but it was really frustrating.

And the frustration was already at a high level as I was stuck, realized that the translation was badly done and that clicking on the right object wasn't always counting (I remember the glasses on the sister's desk: I was clicking on them but it has only counted when I clicked on the left glass - not even the right was working).

And that ammount of frustration couldn't be lowered with the nice idea of buying hints or objects at the famous mechant with money you can find by completing hidden objects scenes with a gold coin on them. It is a nice idea. But I prefer to hunt for hints that play hidden objects scenes and get frustrated by the clicking, the translation and the arrow back.

I loved the graphics, in a cartoon style. I really liked the mystery behind, the flashy colors when needed and the soundtrack was ok.

But Bathory: The Bloody Countess is a bloody mess. Even Deadwood was less frustrating but there... I'm under the impression that the game was made for just having a Bathory tale, without any consideration for the player. Bad gameplay killed the game. It could have been an ok one but there.... Avoid it (unless you're into trading cards but in that case, buy it at a low price or in a bundle).

Game got stuck before even getting as far as the welcome screen - I could hear the audio for the intro playing normally, but the actual screen was frozen on a white background with a black loading circle. Had to hit alt+tab a few times before the screen displayed the welcome screen, but there it froze once again - no fuctioning cursor, no ability to click anything, just a frozen image of the welcome screen. Had to let it run stuck there so that Steam would actually let me leave a review, otherwise my count on the game would have probably been at less than a minute.

Would love to play, if this bug could be fixed somehow. I've tried uninstalling & reinstalling the game several times, and every single time I try to open it, it just does the exact same thing.

-Requires grinding (replaying same hidden object scenes many times) to finish the game.
-Had an annoying bug (a bridge lever did not disappear from inventory when it should have, and Hints forever got stuck at related hint as result).

Other than that, it's OK.