For whatever reason, just recently I’ve seen a small run of games trying to mix together visual novel-ish beats and elements with another genre. In the case of Nora: In Search of Hidden Ingredients, the paired genre of choice is hidden object puzzles, and in theory if either of them were really compelling they could help to raise the bar for the other, making for a better experience. But what if neither of these elements is terribly interesting or compelling?

In terms of the theme, the story is relatable, but also not terribly unique. After neglecting her family, specifically her grandmother, over a period of years while chasing prestige at the Magical Academy, Nora is in a bit of a tailspin. With her grandmother’s death, and her frustrations at school, she decides to take the opportunity to live at the old house she has inherited, but it turns out that in order for her to do so she’ll need to put in some work. Challenged by a spirit who protects the house, to work out and find her grandmother’s most prized possession, she’ll need to diligently search through the house to find it and undoubtedly learn something touching in the process.

The problem is that this sort of story isn’t all that uncommon, and the after school special sort of vibe to it teaching people to cherish their loved ones is a bit too blunt to be effective. Where the experience really falls apart though, is that the hidden object element of the game is simply too simple, dull, and limited. While people may think of hidden object games as basic casual affairs, there are actually quite a number of them that do their jobs really well. Layering a wide variety of objects densely into the same area, having sub-areas to discover, or coming up with ways to connect multiple clues to build up the level of challenge and interest are all tricks that help the better examples out there shine. 

Unfortunately, there’s nothing like that here. The rooms are sparsely populated, quite simplistic in their art style, and there’s just nothing demonstrating a degree of care or effort in making any of it interesting. While you may need to zoom to find some items, since they can scale to be pretty small, anyone who has played more than one of these games in the past will absolutely blow through it all in an embarrassingly short amount of time. That leaves the somewhat trite and predictable story’s outcome to save the day and it also isn’t up to the task. Given the criminally high asking price for the experience delivered, I assume this game will be perpetually on a “deep sale” to look like it’s a deal. Don’t take the bait, this is one of the most threadbare hidden object games I’ve seen in the eShop.