The Secret Order 6: Bloodline
THRILLING STORY SET IN A MYSTERIOUS JUNGLE! Since the dawn of time, humanity has searched for panaceum – a miracle medicine that can cure every known disease and even overcome death. 39 VIBRANT LOCATIONS TO EXPLORE! Sarah Pennington travels to a research facility in the heart of South America, invited by her mother – a microbiologist – and immediately gets drawn into the whirlwind of dangerous adventures. 40 CAPTIVATING PUZZLES AND SCENES WITH HIDDEN OBJECTS! Sarah’s mother gets kidnapped by an old enemy, the Dragon Clan, which conducts secret experiments in the jungle and won’t hesitate to do anything to get the miraculous plant that grants control over life and death. FASCINATING LABORATORY MINIGAMES! Will Sarah save her mother and find the mysterious plant? Features 39 extraordinary locations! Thrilling story in a mysterious jungle! 40 intricate puzzles and HO scenes! Fascinating laboratory minigames! Stop the Dragon Clan's deadly experiments!
Steam User 5
Unlike other parts of the series, instead of time-travel, The Secret Order 6: Bloodline focuses on the mysterious "Flower of Life", a plant capable of curing any illness, located somewhere deep in the Amazon basin. This does not change the usual setup however, it's still the same hidden object game, with the familiar scenes, puzzles and minigames.
While the game is enjoyable, it's sad to see where the series has come to after the great 2nd part, barely doing anything with the time-travel concept and display laughable (but not really in a good way) things, like the name of our mom's colleague, Alberto Zweistein (really?) or our heroine's residence - Sunward (the name of the developer) City.
We learn about the Flower of Life as we visit our mother, who is a member of a research team trying to locate it. Due to this, we witness her kidnapping by our enemy, the Dragon Clan. Besides saving our mother, we must secure the flower as well, since their leader intends to reverse its power and create a liquid that would make everyone his servant.
The amount of hidden object scenes is surprisingly low (and even these can be skipped by playing a pair-matching game instead), though we are compensated by various puzzles and minigames (just like in other parts of the series) which include easy varieties of jigsaw puzzles, knot-, mirror-, liquid- and fuse/power switch (values should be assigned to the exact numbers on the wires) minigames... there's one complex ring puzzle, which is unusually hard, especially compared to the general difficulty of the game.
The usual item-using adventure segment has highlights such as removing a giant shell by deploying an inflatable boat and blocking the cave of a murena so we can grab something or taking the deep sea fish to illuminate a dark area underwater. There are many interactive items which we have to combine with other objects, before we can use them.
Not long into the story we get a little monkey helper and in a quite unusal manner it goes into our inventory instead of getting an own icon in the taskbar, so it functions as an item and disappears after the opening scenes... we also get a jaguar cub later on - the same way into our inventory (+ a little otter in the bonus chapter).
There's a unique artifact - a magical cube that can reveal hidden places, but can only be used at certain locations, when it's 'charged' (the game prompts us to use it), after being activated by a special, single-use dagger and by matching symbols we can make these hidden places visible.
We have a diary, but for the most part the tasks ahead of us are quite straightforward, so I didn't use it.
There are many kinds of collectibles, but at least they are fairly easy to spot: miniature statues of crows, chameleons, jaguars, posters (with plot-related things on them), crocodiles and various morphing objects (they are 'clickable' in both forms, we don't have to wait). Some of them are in the bonus chapter.
The bonus chapter picks up exactly from where the main game ended - the forest is on fire and we have to stop it from spreading and take the magical cube back to a temple which is protected by a gigantic talking serpent - adding an extra 40 minutes of gameplay to the ~4-5 hour long main game... BUT there is a single crazy ring puzzle, which may take a while to solve (at least 10 minutes if we do everything correctly for the first time, not counting the thinking - we have to sort out and arrange all the purple balls in the smallest circle on the right first and rotate the red and blue ones afterwards). To the developers' credit, it can be skipped and it doesn't count towards the achievements (unlike the collectibles), being in the bonus chapter.
steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3524944659
The game also offers a few things that fall under the 'so bad, it's good' category: our heroine, who is quite an adventurer, is unable to remove the spiderweb with her bare hands with no poisonous spiders around, or the scene where a guy rushes out from a cave screaming right in front of the main antagonist (who's apparently totally unfazed by this), and just casually jumps into a chasm...
While the South-American jungle locations seem visually pleasing, the graphics aren't really as good as in the previous parts and the sci-fi elements with the cyber dog felt out of place.
Most of the soundtrack is enchanting along with the ambient sounds, even if there are some previously heard, reused action music here and there. Placing items back into our inventory makes a weird, slightly annoying, crackling sound.
The Secret Order 6: Bloodline is another quality entry in the Secret Order series, yet it's barely connected to the previous parts. It's an enjoyable HOG nevertheless.
PROS
+ fair variety of minigames, few hidden object scenes
+ some good item uses and combinations
+ plenty of collectibles, even in the bonus chapter
+ great music...
CONS
- ...some of them have been heard before
- not really connected to the rest of the series
- tedious ring puzzle
RATING
6.5/10
Steam User 0
Not too hard but is a fun challenging, game to relax to.
Steam User 1
Pretty good little game, it isn't my favorite secret order game, but it is far from the worse. I really enjoyed the use of mirror puzzles, as someone who loves them. So, I did enjoy that aspect of the game. I felt the HO scenes were a bit lacking. The puzzles were a little repetitive at times, but not as bad as some games.
It is rather a solid B- game. Nothing special, but nothing really bad.
Steam User 2
A very nice Artifex Mundi hidden object game.
Steam User 0
Dòng Máu Thám Hiểm Chảy Trong Máu Nữ Chính
Steam User 0
W