Lots of ghosts and good puzzles. However I did not see a shadow at the edge of water as stated in the title. There were several shadows and several bodies of water but the shadows were not directly next to the water edges, although they were pretty close at times.

If you like Nancy Drew games, this is definitely one of the better ones. The atmosphere was entertainingly spooky, and because the characters were interesting, the mystery was compelling and fun to solve. I'm always here for Nancy unapologetically digging through other people's personal lives. Classic Nancy.

Another solid P&C adventure game in this series. I'm playing them in order, so the only thing I can easily compare this to is the first title ("Secrets Can Kill").

I would say that there are some improvements and some diminishments in this second installment:

+ The game is longer and more complex.
+ There are more interesting side puzzles and easter eggs.
+ The dialog is more involved and stitched together more like a story.
+ The voice acting was actually very witty in places. Rentaro's little neurotic rants were actually very funny and charming.
+ It was actually a fairly spooky P&C game! Borring from Asian horror tropes helped, and they were well delivered for a few jumps!

- The voice acting was also pretty painful in places. Savannah's accent is downright cringe-worthy.
- Nancy's inability to reuse objects automatically is pretty silly and annoying. She literally has to drag a key to the same locked door every single time she wants to open it, and drag a phrase book to text every single time she wants to translate it. The number of times I heard "It's locked" or "I need to translate that" will probably put it in my dreams.
- It feels more like a computer game, in that the puzzles don't quite match the fiction. In the first game, the puzzles felt more coincidental and natural -- stuff you could just happen to notice, that were put there by a character in the game in a semi-plausible way. In this one, the puzzles seem a bit more abstract and improbable. Not a huge downside, but it was noticeable.

All in all, it makes me optimistic about the series, even if it was still rough in a few places.

Not only was this almost impossible to get to work on a mac (I had to go into steam and enter a code I found online from another user for the beta version in order to get it to work), but I just solved one of the hardest puzzles in the game and it's not doing anything. I rechecked it about a hundred times and it's correct. This happened with a hard copy of another nancy drew game that i have and it's infuriating. I tried contacting herinteractive about it for the last game and I never got a response.

This is one of my favorite Nancy Drew games that I can remember playing. It's terrifying and interesting and I loved it.

Plot: Super scary stuff happens around the hotel you're staying in. I am a big baby and actually screamed at a few points. There's also some complex family drama going on that needs to be sorted out. It's very well done like most Nancy Drew games are.

Minigames: Okay, I could make bento boxes for literally days. Years, maybe. Adorable animal-shaped sandwiches in a puzzle game. Yes please. And nonograms. I did not know nonograms existed but now I am obsessed. (There is also Sudoku and another number game that is horribly difficult and I didn't last very long.) At one point, you have to write your name with a calligraphy brush. Having taken a Japanese class, let me tell you, this is already hard as heck. Trying to do it with a mouse is even worse. Survive that minigame, though, and the rest is awesome.

Puzzles: There were a few puzzles I needed to google the answers for because the game set them up strangely. Like walk aruond the garden a hundred times and you never see a thing, but after you know about the puzzle, click in a verrrrry specific spot and suddenly you can find new stuff. Also plenty of codes to break, timed puzzles with death looming, etc.

Exploring/Snooping: You get to shoo people from their places and investigate! It's great. This one (similar to the Waverly Academy game) has a time mechanic where you must wake up in the middle of the night to snoop around while everyone is sleeping. You get to visit different areas of Japan, play pachinko, etc. This game gives you a lot of freedom to run around and do things, and I enjoyed that.

Characters: One thing I liked about this game from the others is that several of the characters completely shut you down when you are snooping. In some of them, they open up so easily "oh hey you completed a minor puzzle for me. Awesome. Let me tell you my entire life story." This one made you work for it. There's also a cute romantic subplot with two characters off-screen, and the handyman at the hotel is adorable and fun.

All around, this is one of the better Nancy Drew games. Definitely give it a play if you like the series. :)

I have played a LOT of Nancy Drew games and this one was by far the hardest one. I never use the walkthrough with any game. This one, I needed the walkthrough. I played on the Junior level so I can only imagine how impossible the Senior level is. The puzzles are so challenging. I had to watch a youtube video on how to do the bento boxes because the instructions were confusing. The other puzzles consist of Sudoku and nonograms. If you have never had to do a nonogram, look it up before you buy this game. You have to do a humongous one at the end. With that being said, if you think all of the Nancy Drew games are way too easy then this is definitely the game for you!

WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING TO YOU NANCY

fun game, as i can't travel it was fun to learn things from the japanese cultcure (sorry for spelling)

i got killed by a robotic cat and that was the best part of the game