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7.8 excellent
It's only natural that we poke fun at believers of Nostradamus, a guy who barely predicted his own death, let alone any actual occurence. I've never understood the fascination some people have with the 942 vague quatrains of his Les Propheties. To me the collection has about as much credence as a yard sale paperback about pyramid power.
Cassandra, on the other hand, does believe in Nostradamus' predictions, because she is his student and it's unwise to suggest that your teacher is a charlatan. (I remember when I visited Beijing on holiday I met a girl who worked for her university professor during school breaks, scamming wealthy tourists in Tiananmen Square with supposed student artwork. She said to me, "My professor says that all foreigners are bad but I think he might be wrong.") Cassandra's Journey 2: The Fifth Sun of Nostradamus, from Joybits, takes place immediately after the end of the preceding game. You play as the slightly evil-looking psychic, Cassandra, just having found your magic ring with the help of your new friend Violet. However Violet's brother, Michael, is missing. An attempt to find him reveals an evil spirit endangering the world, and soon your hidden object hunt has begun.
The Fifth Sun of Nostradamus is a hidden object adventure game. That means you have an inventory of items which are used to solve puzzles. Puzzles are self-contained within single scenes; there's no walking back and forth between rooms or exploring locations. In each level, you have a goal or goals to accomplish, a list of hidden objects to find, and your inventory of tools. All three are accessible by tabs at the bottom of the screen. Finding hidden objects works as expected - click on them within the scene and they'll be removed from your list. And possibly replaced with another object to find if there are still more yet to be presented. Some objects are printed in blue type - these require some sort of interaction within the scene or your inventory. You may have to open a drawer, fix a salad, etc.
As a pyschic, Cassandra possesses not insignificant magical powers! A vial of blue hint juice is always present at the left of the screen. This juice slowly replenishes over time but can be helped along by finding objects and accomplishing goals. Varying amounts of it are used in five different spells, each of which can help you find hidden objects. The least expensive spell shows you a magical outline around the portion of the screen containing an object. That uses up half a vial of hint juice. The most expensive spell, which costs 90% of a vial, shows you the exact location of an object. Other spells make the mouse pointer a compass to zero in on objects, show outlines of objects, and show them as they actually look in the scene.
Random clicking is frowned upon by seers, apparently. Do too much of it and your hint juice will drain. Or the mouse pointer will spiral away for a few seconds. I really thought we had moved on to more enlightened times but it seems the persecution of random clickers is back and stronger than ever.
Frequently objects in the game's various scenes must be moved to reveal objects behind them. Usually this takes the form of opening a door or sliding something out of the way.
The Fifth Sun of Nostradamus is full of minigames, and they're liable to pop up when you least expect them. Most are simple puzzle games, like match-3 clones, jigsaw puzzles, sliding piece puzzles, etc. The card tricks from the previous game make an appearance, along with various solitaire variants. Most are surprising well done and it's obvious that Joybits spent more time on these diversions than most casual game developers do with the minigames in their titles.
The graphics are crisp and clear, very high resolution, and despite the game's corny story everything remains enjoyable. You can revisit any minigames or card tricks you like from the main menu. I did notice a few bugs, however. When using inventory objects, you click on them, they become attached to the mouse pointer, and then you drag them to where you'd like to use them and click again. At least that's the way it seems gameplay is supposed to work. In practice, the inventory item remains quite offset from the mouse pointer. You can still click where you're supposed to and solve puzzles - just use the mouse pointer and not the inventory object floating in space. And the game crashed on me when I ran out of cards while playing the fairway solitaire minigame. So it might be worth waiting a week or so before purchasing in case any updates appear...
If you can get past a corny story and slightly evil-looking main character (why is that always a problem for me?) then Cassandra's Journey 2: The Fifth Sun of Nostradamus is worth a spin.
Download Cassandra's Journey 2: The Fifth Sun of Nostradamus