Jewel Quest Mysteries: Curse of the Emerald Tear (DS) review "As things stand, there absolutely no reason to recommend this over any of the other Jewel Quest entries already out there. By picking up an older version, you are spared from inclusions that lessen the overall effect and get the experience the game as it should have been kept."

Jewel Quest: Mysteries -- Curse of the Emerald Tear is probably best described as overstretched. While most of the game keeps the same format as previous entries in the Jewel Quest series, it also decides that now’s a good time to try and mix things up a little. Not a bad sentiment in a lot of ways; the mainstay of the previous title has always been to provide a board full of pre-placed gems and get you to match blocks of the same colour. Doing so turned a section of the grid gold and your goal was to paint the entire stage. It was a simple idea, but one that could get progressively harder as you try and get to those pesky corner blocks, or the single holes that continue to evade your grasp. This mode is still included.

One new mode gives you set pieces to fit on an open grid that turn a set section of the blank tiles gold, kind of like a static Klax. The idea here is to fit them together as best you can and then use special beams to try and manipulate the remaining uncoloured sections to your whim. Though it’s not as involving as the original puzzles Jewel Quest has made it’s name from, it’s an appreciated change of pace. It should really have been left at these; there’s a plot about long-time series protagonist, Rupert, and his on-again-off-again girl, Emma, searching for a magical emerald. There’s even a cackling villain hiding in the shadows manipulating the pair’s efforts.

Then there’s the hidden items mini-game. For some reason, there’s a lot of hidden object mini games out there somewhere and I still find myself surprised there’s any market for them.

Simply put, these games give you a screen full of clutter then ask you to find specific items hidden out there in the junk. Why it’s been included in a game that’s made its name on being a story-based puzzler is a mystery, as is the inclusion of completely separate search-for-the-item game being bundled into the package. Mysterville is a game about a journalist, as they almost always are, trying to unravel a mystery about disappearing people. You solve this by digging through junk and finding umbrellas and bananas. I don’t know why.

Perhaps it’s unfair to penalize Jewel Quest: Mysteries -- Curse of the Emerald Tear for trying to offer more than previous entries into the franchise and, had it been left at the inclusion of Mysterville, I’d probably be coming away with mainly positive things to say, seeing as this could be taken or left as the player pleases. But by shoehorning this uncomfortable element into a game it doesn’t fit just so it can claim to be branching out does nothing but dilute the quality of what should have been an otherwise enjoyable experience. As things stand, there absolutely no reason to recommend this over any of the other Jewel Quest entries already out there. By picking up an older version, you are spared from inclusions that lessen the overall effect and get the experience the game as it should have been kept.

Staff review by Gary Hartley (May 31, 2010) Gary Hartley arbitrarily arrives, leaves a review for a game no one has heard of, then retreats to his 17th century castle in rural England to feed whatever lives in the moat and complain about you.