It is a widely believed opinion that games reviewing is an easy business – free games, right? Tell that to my eyes which are currently recovering from four hours of staring at the PSP mini ‘The Mystery of the Crystal Portal’.

The premise is a simple one – you take on the role Nicole Rankwist in a mash up of ‘Where’s Wally?’ and a ‘Professor Layton’ point and click style adventure.

Your father has disappeared in his search for the Crystal Portal, so with his journal in hand you set off to look for him and the aforementioned Crystal Portal.  As stories go it won’t win any awards, but it is passable and ties the levels together with reasonable competency.

The entire game mechanic involves finding hidden objects within a scene.  Every area starts off with you searching for a ‘key item’.  There are no clues as to what this might be, so it’s a case of hovering the cursor over everything until you hit the jackpot.  This can be mildly irritating at first, but you soon get into the swing of things.

Once found, the key item reveals its own little sub-menu with a set list of objects you need to find to progress.  This is where the game goes a bit bonkers, as there seems to be no correlation between the objects. Why you need to combine a frog with a statue to unlock a key completely escapes me.  I admit to being a fairly obtuse person, but I spent half the time pondering over the randomness of it all.

In an attempt to spice things up, the game will often have several key items in a scene, each with a list of objects they require.  Some objects won’t appear until you perform a certain action which can be maddening if you spend ten minutes foraging for something that currently isn’t displayed on the screen.

Speaking of displays, the game’s HUD is as pointless as it is annoying, and doesn’t work well on the small PSP screen.  There are icons in all four corners of the screen which give you such amazing pieces of advice such as ‘press select to enter journal’ and ‘pressing square gives you a hint’.  Not only are they a permanent feature, but at times they actually overlay objects you are looking for.  You have not known rage until this happens to you.  PSP smash!  It would have been so much better if you were allowed to deactivate it with a button press.

On the surface the game visuals look basic, but look a little deeper and you’ll find a charming game bursting with little details – and let’s be honest, you don’t buy a mini for its graphical prowess.  The same praise can’t be given for the games music and sound effects which are repetitive and bland.

Fans of collectibles will be mildly satiated with the scattering of awards you can get for fulfilling certain criteria – but in all honesty they are not worth replaying the game for.

Pros

• Three to four hours long
• A stiff challenge
• Fans of the genre will be in heaven

Cons

• Three to four hours may be too long for some
• Tests your patience more than your brain
• Priced slightly higher than it should be

Whilst The Mystery of the Crystal Portal is a sizeable game, it is also a one trick pony that shows all it has to offer within half an hour.  Fans of ‘hidden object’ games will find enjoyment amongst the frustration – however, the £3.99 price tag might be high enough to put everyone else off.

Score: 5/10