@@kenzzeei104 anything better than an anonymous post on reddit from someone claiming to be a former employee listing unsubstantiated accusations in dotpoint?
Honestly they need to go back to the point-and-click style. This entire game was just a complete miss. A solid body of evidence as to why something that looks new and shiny and “a new innovative way of gaming” isn’t always the best...
@@nikkireining Herinteractive is basically trying out new interfaces and new ways to play the game...like in the icicle creek game where they tried out the new interface but they lack features, and after the crystal skull game, their interface is now complete. My point is if they are gonna make another game, they would further improve on it.
One of the most disappointing things about this game, for me at least, was the missed opportunity for it to be really interesting and educational! I've always loved how much information is packed into the Nancy Drew games (it's what I wrote my college essay on!) Being a history nerd from Massachusetts, I kept waiting for MID to have real information about Salem's past because it's such an interesting place! They could have leaned into the Hathorne thing way more - the author Nathaniel Hawthorne was a descendant of Judge Hathorne, and he hated the reputation the Hathorne name carried in Massachusetts so much that he added the W. Instead, the game leaned heavily on fun facts about Salem, like how there's a witch on their police department badges. It was a missed opportunity, and added another level of disappointment to an already disappointing game :(
i think there was a book somewhere that mentioned that fact about hathorne, but the fact that you couldn't even find it speaks for itself. this game was so counter-intuitive.
Prior games had a level of detail that immersed you in the game by providing so many interesting tidbits of information. With this one, the player was just along for the ride. Yawn.
Somehow that frowny face at the end of that feels absolutely right as a long time fans reaction to this game. :( P.S. I loved learning about Nikola Tesla in deadly device incredible facts and history a lot of people today don’t even know about.
The fact that you could get rid of all the petty problems like spelling or grammar issues and still probably end up with almost an hour is exactly why this game frustrates me so much.
Yeah I know right Seriously it’s a lot of spelling and grammar issues that’s what most people mess up on but some people don’t take the time in fix the problems when they see it right in front of their face
@@xnibbybooksavage Unfortunately so if it's A cheap way too make lots of Money People will definitely do that even if it screws Everyone else around Them which sucks and should definitely be Illegal if that's not already Illegal Someone needs to make that Illegal
I don't think the spelling and grammatical issues are in any way "petty". We as a society have devalued English to the point where no one is able to write a complete, legible sentence anymore. The ND games have always been educational and in keeping with that sentiment and history, they should strive for excellence in spelling and grammar as well as game logic, design, puzzle complexity, and so on.
17:24 Did the judge just say there's only _one person_ currently living in _all of Salem, Massachusetts_ who's ever set an illegal fire? I find that highly dubious
36:57 - My exact response. I’m a paralegal and when she said it was a confidentiality issue, but continued to tell Nancy anyway because she’s the “daughter of a lawyer,” I was like “Umm...doesn’t work that way, Alicia...”
You know what word comes to mind after watching this, LAZY. That is what this game is. Yes it is a disappointment and there was a huge loss of potential but I think a lot of problems came down to the studio being lazy. Its work to develop good puzzles and storylines and the little there is in here is pretty basic. But even small things you mentioned multiple times in this video show laziness. Spelling errors that could have been fixed with a simple read-through and run through a grammar checker. The cutscenes not matching properly and having the camera re-adjust all the time, it would have just taken a bit of extra time to make sure stuff lines up better. As someone who has an education in designs and animation, this stuff is simple to do if a little time and effort are put in. It's sad to watch a series I once loved fall so far. I just hope that if they do decide to make another game they return to the roots of the games. I honestly wouldn't mind if they remade this game with a fresh storyline but with better graphics and puzzles. But for now, the future of Nancy Drew is still unknown.
Without the text box saying “Nancy” when she talks I’d wouldn’t know it was supposed to be an ND game. Such a shame, I live near Salem I was so excited for this game.
Becuase when you enter in a room in this game , for optimization purposes the game loads a different scene outside while the game map is unrendered , so bassically that character probabily was just an unused asset
also ned genuinely seems like he’s about to break up with nancy earlier when he says they really need to talk, there is some girl in the background earlier with him that is never addressed again, and ned seems jealous of the hardy boys and this is all just ignored
An hour and 16 min? Amazing & earned! "I love puzzles" "Then youd probably hate this game" I'm cackling. Judge D's hands are so scary WTF. *Edit* ALL OF THEIR HANDS ARE SCARY AHHHHHH
I don't understand how someone reviewed this game and said "yup looks good ready to hit the shelves!" Actually come to think of it, I don't understand how someone looked at the plot of this game and said "yeah that's perfect it doesn't need any changes"
@@colinvanblaricom6573 they worked with multiple other companies for this game though. Looking through the credits was really enlightening and disheartening. There really is no excuse.
@@colinvanblaricom6573 Even though I'm not much of A Fan of Stay Tuned for Danger because I usually don't like Soap Operas it's definitely 1000 times better than Midnight In Salem Ransom of The Seven Ships and The Shattered Medallion and Dwayne Powers was TERRIFYING in The Ending especially when You lose and He comes to strangle Nancy He looks like Satan when He tries to Kill Nancy
One of the unfortunate issues with MID was both the community and the developers. The developers weren't being honest about their progress and fans naturally got a little stir crazy. It wasn't a problem initially until HER started realizing fans were dropping due to the wait. As such, HER more or less had to rush out an incomplete product so they could sell something and still earn back their money. HER's biggest issue was not being honest, and the community's biggest issue wasn't giving them more time to produce the game. However, of the two, HER is more to blame since they knew this was an issue and kept quiet so they didn't have to halt releasing the game to earn back some money.
I really hope the her interactive team watches this video. they really need to see how extremely negligent they've been in not only making this game, but in keeping their fans happy. also, you didn't point out the fact that they released a patch for the game where you can play with a controller and they never put the patch up on their website. only people who purchased the game on steam have had access to the patch and I've asked them about it multiple times. it's infuriating.
They didn't know it was bad. At least not initially anyway. HER spent an obscene about of time using MID as promotional materials for the ND games post release. Almost all of their videos had MID in as a teaser, used MID music, or just in general kept it relevant. They've stopped pushing it so far now, but even today, it's a literal hard to believe they fully grasp the idea. Their number 1 game for Cosplay costumes is MID, MID is ranked as number 1 on their Scary Nancy list, it's number 2 for learn and play, number 1 for cooking. Heck the revised listing for Cooking that includes their top 9 picks still has MID at number 2 for learn and play and 1 for cooking. So even though the promotion has vanished, MID is still taking up a big part of their internal promotion on their website. It's strange that they haven't fixed this yet as you'd think they'd want to promote other games for new players rather than just MID all the time.
This video is soooo good, but my favorite moment is "peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are traditionally served cold." 😂 Like was the writer raised on warm PB&J sandwiches and just thought it was the norm?
They probably were. Warm PB&J isn’t that uncommon. I used to eat them toasted as a kid all the time. It’s really tasty. The peanut butter gets kinda melty and it’s smoother. Goes great with a glass of cold milk. A far superior version of the classic sandwich. I want one now...dang it.
An hour and sixteen minutes! I mean I've got a lot of qualms with the game myself but wasn't expecting it to be this long... Still here for every minute of it though.
#639. Alicia is a private attorney, not a city attorney or prosecutor. She should not have an office at the courthouse. Most private attorneys have their own practice or work at a firm, which would place her in a separate building either way. Guessing they didn't do that so that they'd have one less space to design.
While I don't necessarily hate the game, I feel like it was a bit of a miss. Both in gameplay and graphics... I mean... made with Unity? Big mistake already. But hey good job on the video! This has always been my favorite series! and despite everything, i hope you'll have the opportunity to make many more of these videos!
@@RadioactiveMoth that actually makes sense bc i play games all the time and i constantly see terrible games made with unity, and i guess it's clouded my judgement. I was probably being too harsh
A bit of a miss? This game was a garbage fire. I can see why it took them so long to make it, they were busy tossing out everything that makes a good ND game. Of course I want to see another game, but they need to hear from the fans that they screwed up...
@@augustcelineiii946 I wouldn't call it a garbage fire.. sure it's nowhere near as good as any of the other games, and it might just be the pagan in me talking, but I really enjoyed the storyline at least. It was interesting learning about Salem, for me at least. :D but I agree with you - they really need to listen to the fans and change accordingly, though for some reason I doubt they will..
I'm sorry but you missed a huge problem, on the first and second day when the protesters are there, the woman standing across the road from the courthouse (purple clothes, glasses or something) has dialogue. It sounds like it's been recorded on a fax machine. If you've heard it, you certainly would have included it, maybe twice.
I was about ten minutes in and thought "wow we're still at the beginning of the game how long is this video?" and absolutely lost it when I saw it's over and hour.
I can appreciate that her Interactive tried something new and they really went all out. But they still have some major things they have to fix before they can achieve the animation style they're going for. But again, I appreciate the hard work they put into this game.
Only 10 seconds? Mine took 30 min to get past the initial loading screen. I got maybe a quarter through the game but it was sooo slow. I ended up just uninstalling it from my computer. Such a waste :( the older ones run fine though.
you have to adjust the settings for your computer. the game is built for a really high speed computer, which is so dumb, we shouldnt have to adjust to run it but whatever. 1 of 100000 things wrong with the game.
I had to get my IT husband to fix my computer settings just to run the game. I couldn't even figure out how to get to the game to work without him (and i'm pretty good at computers myself).
Who downvotes this?? Great job, Michael. I hope HER actually takes this seriously. I’m really surprised HER still had the ND rights. Like, who is letting this empty shell company still have claim to ND?
I had such high hopes for this game, and it’s so disappointing. I understand the reason to change Nancy’s voice, but I don’t get that vibe that she’s the same person. I feel like Nancy should’ve had a bit more of a deeper, proper voice to match Lani’s while still sounding younger. She gives me more of Bess vibes. Also for 5 years, the graphics aren’t very good. I don’t get why HER decided to change the entire interface. It would’ve been better if they kept the point and click gameplay like in Sea of Darkness since it was the last game. I honestly don’t even get why it took them 5 years to do this. A lot of companies seem to always want to change things even though they have a good thing going, and they always mess it up for themselves. Hopefully HER remasters this game and make with the point and click gameplay. This whole plot line reminds me of a bad fan fiction. So disappointed, especially since it had a ton of potential 🙁
after the MANY years it took to make, you’d think they’d catch the simple mistakes like commas instead of periods, etc. It just shows how little effort they put in.
I'm not even halfway through this but I'm so glad you made this. I love Nancy Drew games so, so much and this one disappointed me. I do hope they'll try to make more but fix the problems this one had.
Nancy's yelling at the judge is really mean for her, but it was one of the my favorite moments of the game, he kinda deserved everything Nancy said to him. I don't hate this game, I even somewhat enjoyed it when I got used to horrible graphics, but I thought it had problems with it's plot. BUT I DIDN'T REALIZE HOW MANY!
Oh man It's nearly midnight in my hemishpere (I live in Russia) and I'm going to bed, but I still wanna see at least a few minutes of a video from "the Nancy Drew dude"
Woohoo! The day after I defend my graduate exams, a new "Everything Wrong with Nancy Drew" video is online! 😃Thank you so much for preparing this, Michael-- loved every second of it (especially #403 😁)! (Also, I so agree that "Uh, only when I am on fire" was pretty insensitive of Nancy. But I had to smile when I first heard it because it's a nod to Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake, my very first ND game! 😃)
This game was so incredibly frustrating. The lip-syncing was SO bad for me and I didn’t know I could click to skip text. I’ve been putting off buying this game until just recently and I kind of wish I wouldn’t have
Honestly, one of my problems with the game is that it's a lot of story, and barely any game play. The dialogue is cool, because it explains a lot, and I LOVE the storyline! I think it's cool how they used the real Parris name, and then changed the girls' last name to Parry. I thought those little details were really cool! Buuuut with the lack of game play, honestly I would've just rather watched a tv show, if that makes sense.
This is glorious. Thank you so much for this outstanding content, it really brightened my day! Even with all of these issues, I still hope that HER will make more games and that they'll get better with this new engine. The horrendous lip-syncing is what really put me off which is even more of a shame since the voice actors did a fabulous job imo.
Gosh, it took this video to remind me just how much I hate Teegan. I really loathe her. I think it might have to do with the fact that I'm an older sister, too, and I can't imagine throwing my little sister or brothers as completely under the bus, AS MANY TIMES as Teegan does to Mei. What a despicable human being.
I hope if they make a new game, they use their older game play, I'd rather play with that, than these creepily weird moving characters. They kind of remind me of puppets without being able to see their strings. Also, I really hope the mystery is more...how do I say this. . . If an actual mystery, where things are followed up on and not just put there to follow just to be ignored...
Here's a hilarious rubber stamp review, about how great the game is, written by someone who hadn't played it, but just wanted it to be great because Nancy was a feminist icon. Here's one particularly ironic quote. "...don't expect Her Interactive to start releasing games rapid-fire to make up for the five-year dry spell. The studio committed itself to producing a quality game in Midnight in Salem and doesn't plan to to deliver a slapdash follow-up." Got that? If they're not careful, the next game WON'T be as polished as this one was. That means the Everything Wrong With Review of Game 34 will probably last four hours, and list 3000 flaws. www.cnet.com/news/first-nancy-drew-game-in-five-years-midnight-in-salem-teaches-us-to-be-badass-sleuths-all-over-again/
Honestly, I hate 'Nancy Drew, feminist' stuff. The books don't treat her that way and the games (at least, definitely not the early ones) don't treat her that way, either. She's just... Nancy. Sure, she's ridiculously lucky, skilled, and lacking in parental oversight for a 17-year-old, but she wasn't just 'the Hardy Boys, for girls.' She was her own compelling character. Worse still, branding her as 'Nancy Drew, feminist' makes it seem like it's _not_ natural for a girl to be in her role.
I just went through and re-watched all of this "Everything Wrong With..." series, and I have to say, I love that your sentence for this game pretty much did come true. We waited about 4 years for the next game! XD
Also, why wasn’t the trailer part of Mei saying “You just couldn’t leave it alone, could you?” In the game??? Was that to make it look like she was the villain?? Or was that a message to the fans of HER?
Letting your ads play all the way through. Small way I know to support your work! ☺️ love this series and was wondering the other day when the midnight in Salem one was going to come out! Thanks for the awesome work!
The detail.....uh many thanks Michael!!! Also did anyone else get headaches and basically motion sickness from THE STUPID CONTROLS? I got so dizzy looking around
It screwed with my lefty flip, so the controls were on the primary button about half the time, and on the secondary button sometimes for NO APPARENT REASON.
Ally Carabello Considering how they treat critics on their facebook page I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to either make youtube take it down or pretended it was somehow a compliment.
silversleeper good point, it’s truly disheartening honestly if HER admitted the game wasn’t up to standards and it was their mistake if actually respect them more then completely ignoring the serious issues in this game.
@@Jcat_Nguy23 They frequently delete negative comments, to the point some people have started to screenshot their posts so that comment threads don't get lost because they know it will be taken down. And these aren't terrible troll posts insulting the employees of HER as people or degrading the entire series as horrible, they are legitimate criticisms about the game and the way in which the release was handled. If they don't delete it they conspicuously ignore it, even when posed direct, honest questions. Only positive posts or comments receive any acknowledgement. It's extremely frustrating because the critics are loyal, avid fans who are simply disappointed and only want the best for the series they love.
I appreciate that you added any grammatical errors you could find 😂 I kinda want the old team to make a game without the name Nancy & see how it compares
While the game was a bit of a miss for me, I've got to commend it for having a great tense atmosphere. Even though the ghost didnt appear as much as it couldve, I was legit terrified the whole game that it would pop up!
Your meme of Mel is the highlight of the video...and the entirety of MID. Thank you for it! This game was such a letdown and I LOVE your video detailing why!
Hey, remember when everyone thought “Creature of Kapu Cave” was the worst Nancy Drew game? It was funny back then. It’s not funny no more...Honestly, I’d rather play that game than this one. At least Kapu Cave has some beautiful tropical scenery.
Extra things I think should be added to this giant list of yours: 1. NANCY'S VOICE-- girl sounds like the TikTok robot lady and her acting is awful. 2. Right clicking-- having to hold down the right click to move around visually was so clunky and completely unnecessary. Never added anything to the experience and was extremely inconvenient when they made you do it a few times in order to actually progress through the story. 3. Driving-- I swear it was only ever there to help mask the loading times and make the game take longer. Why not just walk everywhere if you only get to drive to ONE LOCATION? 4. Nancy could have easily prevented the book theft by taking the book with her as she was leaving or literally locking it back up so someone couldn't steal it 5. You can't EVER enter Teegan or Mei's rooms the entire game. Why the heck not?! She doesn't care about that stuff in any of the other games. Why even make them clickable at that point?
I laughed so hard when I saw how long the video was! You never disappoint Michael 😂♥️ this game was absolutely terrible but I’m looking forward to the Seven Keys (hopefully there’s redemption). And if it’s bad (🤞) can’t wait to see you rip it apart lol
all jokes aside...there were two MAJOR things impeding the overall enjoyment of the game : firstly, all the loose ends. like how you could inspect places and things or learn info that was in no way relevant later on. made it feel pointless. and secondly, in this game, Nancy comes off as rather stupid...which is a big disillusionment compared to the Nancy we all know and love. for example the learning about something and then acting all clueless about it just a moment later (I realize this is a development issue, not a storyline one but still... major oversee), over explaining some pretty basic detective stuff acting like its some deep knowledge only she can grasp...and something I haven't seen anyone mention but was the biggest issue for me...is that the person who delivers the most important, case-turning breakthrough, without which the case literally would have not been able to go on, is Deirdre...NOT Nancy. even tho she knew about ergot and its side effects...like seriously?! btw great job on the video and don't kill me if I have an extra hyphen or something :)
I was so excited to see another ND game. This might sound dumb but as soon as I heard Nancy’s voice actress, I didn’t want to watch the play through any further. I understand that changes are made to introduce something new but it just felt like a completely different game, didn’t feel like the classic ND mystery games at all. I think their approach was interesting but if they combined the new gameplay with some features of the old game play it would’ve been okay. And the fact that this video is an hour long compared to the other videos speaks volumes.
26:03 Is it really disturbing for you that they drink tea in coffee mugs? xD On subject: thank you for this video, it's what I needed instead of checking out the game.
Thank you very much for the time and effort to compile this. You pointed out a lot that I knew was wrong and several things I couldn't put my finger on. There's obviously several instances where you can continue without actually finishing a task. The jacket disappearing for you is one. I talked to Olivia and she requested that I give it back to her but still gave no explanation as to why it was there. Supposedly she didn't leave it there. Who did? It was an awful game and very much a disappointment after so many really great ND games over the years.
11 minutes into the video and there are already over 100 "sins". Oh dear. I think one that bothers me the most is the mystery woman that's on Ned's end of the phone line. The game never tells us who this is, why she's there, or literally anything. She's just there for more extremely unnecessary Ned and Nancy drama. It tries to give the player the idea that "OMG is Ned cheating on Nancy?!", something that Ned from the previous games would literally never do. Someone at HER must really hate Ned Nickerson, because it seems like almost every other new game has tried to put some kind of wedge between him and Nancy. To be fair on #20: all those instances of ghosts were largely proven to be staged or hallucinations in the case of Thornton Hall. So technically, Nancy has never seen a REAL ghost (unless you count the Charlotte sightings that happened outside of Thornton Hall.)
Everything wrong with Midnight in Salem. *1 hour and 16 minutes*
*Grabs popcorn.*
Ag Jr legit I made cinnamon roles.
Cheetos
chips and dip for me.
yep same hahaha 🤣 this was better than the game itself haha
Also ;) Way too many spekulatous ginger snap dutch cookies lol
You just entered my room THROUGH THE WALL. I WANT an explanation.
xDDDD
I love the way she says that
I feel like it was even better the second time :D
@@heidig.1565 That was really Hilarious
@@heidig.1565 Mel is Smoking Hot
"234. Lauren serves tea in coffee mugs."
*stops mid-sip while drinking tea from a coffee mug*
That was one of the very few comments I disagreed with. I feel like it's quite normal to make tea in coffee mugs. My family does it all the time. 😂
@@augustcelineiii946 its logical! Theyre built to stand the heat and keep drinks warm
@@sylviapuppysticker8664 they also tend to hold more liquid than a traditional teacup!
I eat soup out of large coffee mugs as well as drink tea. -.-
like does he think that people who drink tea drink it exclusively from teacups
We waited 4.5 years to play a game that's literally unplayable
Not to sound self indulgent but this might be my best comment on a ND video
Tbf HI was apparently severely understaffed. AFAIK
Woah a whole hour. Enough said. Still hope that this won't be the last.
I rather have it died gracefully then live on a horrible shell
Rachel Fourie lani got let go because she was leaking game info and inside info to fans
@@kenzzeei104 anything better than an anonymous post on reddit from someone claiming to be a former employee listing unsubstantiated accusations in dotpoint?
Lauren Christie they were verified to be an ex employee by moderators
It better not be! Nancy still hasn't said yes or no to the Detective agency idea! I want answers!
Honestly they need to go back to the point-and-click style. This entire game was just a complete miss. A solid body of evidence as to why something that looks new and shiny and “a new innovative way of gaming” isn’t always the best...
ken mill yeah point and click was way better and it takes Her less time to animate so we would get more games
ken mill I liked the game a lot, but I agree that I want point and click back 😂😂
and my god the graphics! they certainly dont look 'new and shiny'. This looks like an early 2000s computer game
@@nikkireining Herinteractive is basically trying out new interfaces and new ways to play the game...like in the icicle creek game where they tried out the new interface but they lack features, and after the crystal skull game, their interface is now complete. My point is if they are gonna make another game, they would further improve on it.
Sea of Darkness’s art style and character design was so good, why change it to THIS???
One of the most disappointing things about this game, for me at least, was the missed opportunity for it to be really interesting and educational! I've always loved how much information is packed into the Nancy Drew games (it's what I wrote my college essay on!) Being a history nerd from Massachusetts, I kept waiting for MID to have real information about Salem's past because it's such an interesting place! They could have leaned into the Hathorne thing way more - the author Nathaniel Hawthorne was a descendant of Judge Hathorne, and he hated the reputation the Hathorne name carried in Massachusetts so much that he added the W. Instead, the game leaned heavily on fun facts about Salem, like how there's a witch on their police department badges. It was a missed opportunity, and added another level of disappointment to an already disappointing game :(
Grace Acton I wish we were able to explore the hawthorn house more as well
i think there was a book somewhere that mentioned that fact about hathorne, but the fact that you couldn't even find it speaks for itself. this game was so counter-intuitive.
yeesss! this is what i was most excited about! i was so pumped for some legit history. such a big disappointment
Prior games had a level of detail that immersed you in the game by providing so many interesting tidbits of information. With this one, the player was just along for the ride. Yawn.
Somehow that frowny face at the end of that feels absolutely right as a long time fans reaction to this game. :(
P.S. I loved learning about Nikola Tesla in deadly device incredible facts and history a lot of people today don’t even know about.
The fact that you could get rid of all the petty problems like spelling or grammar issues and still probably end up with almost an hour is exactly why this game frustrates me so much.
Yeah I know right Seriously it’s a lot of spelling and grammar issues that’s what most people mess up on but some people don’t take the time in fix the problems when they see it right in front of their face
@@xnibbybooksavage Unfortunately so if it's A cheap way too make lots of Money People will definitely do that even if it screws Everyone else around Them which sucks and should definitely be Illegal if that's not already Illegal Someone needs to make that Illegal
I don't think the spelling and grammatical issues are in any way "petty". We as a society have devalued English to the point where no one is able to write a complete, legible sentence anymore. The ND games have always been educational and in keeping with that sentiment and history, they should strive for excellence in spelling and grammar as well as game logic, design, puzzle complexity, and so on.
@@user-dd5eh5lu3oPlus, it’s a sign of poor proofreading which is really unprofessional.
17:24 Did the judge just say there's only _one person_ currently living in _all of Salem, Massachusetts_ who's ever set an illegal fire? I find that highly dubious
36:57 - My exact response. I’m a paralegal and when she said it was a confidentiality issue, but continued to tell Nancy anyway because she’s the “daughter of a lawyer,” I was like “Umm...doesn’t work that way, Alicia...”
Her Interactive should've hired Michael to proof read the subtitles. He was "president of the english club" after all.
You know what word comes to mind after watching this, LAZY. That is what this game is. Yes it is a disappointment and there was a huge loss of potential but I think a lot of problems came down to the studio being lazy. Its work to develop good puzzles and storylines and the little there is in here is pretty basic. But even small things you mentioned multiple times in this video show laziness. Spelling errors that could have been fixed with a simple read-through and run through a grammar checker. The cutscenes not matching properly and having the camera re-adjust all the time, it would have just taken a bit of extra time to make sure stuff lines up better. As someone who has an education in designs and animation, this stuff is simple to do if a little time and effort are put in. It's sad to watch a series I once loved fall so far. I just hope that if they do decide to make another game they return to the roots of the games. I honestly wouldn't mind if they remade this game with a fresh storyline but with better graphics and puzzles. But for now, the future of Nancy Drew is still unknown.
I am horrified that anyone who has complete third grade needs a grammar checker or spell checker to know the difference between "its" and "it's".
Everything Wrong with Nancy Drew: Midnight in Salem: Everything
#1 Nancy's voice. Nancy does not sound like a tom boyish teenager who loves solving mysteries. She sounds like River Height's lead cheerleader.
Actually, George is the tomboy, Bess is the boy crazy cheerleader, Nancy is the nerd that is too pretty to be called a nerd.
That is actually a good voice for Nancy. Previous games she sounded like an old lady.
I dont share that opinion
I hate her new voice too, she sounds like barbie which is nothing like I imagine nancy to be
My problem is, her VA also voices Ingrid from Fire Emblem: Three Houses, so I can't unhear Nancy as Ingrid.
Dear lord the longest everything wrong with was like 25 minutes before this!
Without the text box saying “Nancy” when she talks I’d wouldn’t know it was supposed to be an ND game. Such a shame, I live near Salem I was so excited for this game.
I am starting to get really invested in the subplot about the flashing white square
This video is a great start. When’s part 2 coming?? lmao
I lost it at "Henrik van der Hune would beg to differ."
there's also a protester character model that is in a t pose when you look out one of the windows of the town hall
Haha yeah I noticed that while playing!
Becuase when you enter in a room in this game , for optimization purposes the game loads a different scene outside while the game map is unrendered , so bassically that character probabily was just an unused asset
Most anticipated game, most disappointing game.
also ned genuinely seems like he’s about to break up with nancy earlier when he says they really need to talk, there is some girl in the background earlier with him that is never addressed again, and ned seems jealous of the hardy boys and this is all just ignored
"It was four and a half years between this game and the previous one, and I am still bitter about it" ME
thank god this video exists, I was just quietly seething in my home about how awful this game was and now I can loudly seethe with others lol
An hour and 16 min? Amazing & earned! "I love puzzles" "Then youd probably hate this game" I'm cackling. Judge D's hands are so scary WTF. *Edit* ALL OF THEIR HANDS ARE SCARY AHHHHHH
I don't understand how someone reviewed this game and said "yup looks good ready to hit the shelves!" Actually come to think of it, I don't understand how someone looked at the plot of this game and said "yeah that's perfect it doesn't need any changes"
Keep in mind Her Interactive is a very small company. Stay Tuned for Danger had even more errors than this game and was released
@@colinvanblaricom6573 they worked with multiple other companies for this game though. Looking through the credits was really enlightening and disheartening. There really is no excuse.
@@colinvanblaricom6573 Even though I'm not much of A Fan of Stay Tuned for Danger because I usually don't like Soap Operas it's definitely 1000 times better than Midnight In Salem Ransom of The Seven Ships and The Shattered Medallion and Dwayne Powers was TERRIFYING in The Ending especially when You lose and He comes to strangle Nancy He looks like Satan when He tries to Kill Nancy
@@qwitchyy It definitely looks like that They didn't it looks like They just threw everything together and didn't care about The Results
One of the unfortunate issues with MID was both the community and the developers. The developers weren't being honest about their progress and fans naturally got a little stir crazy. It wasn't a problem initially until HER started realizing fans were dropping due to the wait. As such, HER more or less had to rush out an incomplete product so they could sell something and still earn back their money. HER's biggest issue was not being honest, and the community's biggest issue wasn't giving them more time to produce the game. However, of the two, HER is more to blame since they knew this was an issue and kept quiet so they didn't have to halt releasing the game to earn back some money.
This video is an hour and sixteen minutes, which means that you could probably watch the whole thing while you wait for the title screen to load
OOp. It's an hour long. Watch carefully, HeR
I really hope the her interactive team watches this video. they really need to see how extremely negligent they've been in not only making this game, but in keeping their fans happy. also, you didn't point out the fact that they released a patch for the game where you can play with a controller and they never put the patch up on their website. only people who purchased the game on steam have had access to the patch and I've asked them about it multiple times. it's infuriating.
They know it's bad, though.
@@Popebug Yes and apparently They don't care at least They didn't when Midnight In Salem was taking Forever to be made and released
They didn't know it was bad. At least not initially anyway. HER spent an obscene about of time using MID as promotional materials for the ND games post release. Almost all of their videos had MID in as a teaser, used MID music, or just in general kept it relevant. They've stopped pushing it so far now, but even today, it's a literal hard to believe they fully grasp the idea. Their number 1 game for Cosplay costumes is MID, MID is ranked as number 1 on their Scary Nancy list, it's number 2 for learn and play, number 1 for cooking. Heck the revised listing for Cooking that includes their top 9 picks still has MID at number 2 for learn and play and 1 for cooking. So even though the promotion has vanished, MID is still taking up a big part of their internal promotion on their website. It's strange that they haven't fixed this yet as you'd think they'd want to promote other games for new players rather than just MID all the time.
This video is soooo good, but my favorite moment is "peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are traditionally served cold." 😂 Like was the writer raised on warm PB&J sandwiches and just thought it was the norm?
They probably were. Warm PB&J isn’t that uncommon. I used to eat them toasted as a kid all the time. It’s really tasty. The peanut butter gets kinda melty and it’s smoother. Goes great with a glass of cold milk. A far superior version of the classic sandwich. I want one now...dang it.
All 10 HeR Interactive employees disliked this video
1:08:16 They also reused that fire joke WORD FOR WORD from Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake. I guess they couldn't come up with some original dialogue lol
An hour and sixteen minutes! I mean I've got a lot of qualms with the game myself but wasn't expecting it to be this long... Still here for every minute of it though.
#639. Alicia is a private attorney, not a city attorney or prosecutor. She should not have an office at the courthouse. Most private attorneys have their own practice or work at a firm, which would place her in a separate building either way. Guessing they didn't do that so that they'd have one less space to design.
This game is messier than Nancy & Ned's relationship in the 80's, Murder on the Set, and every single trilogy of the Girl Detective series combined.
While I don't necessarily hate the game, I feel like it was a bit of a miss. Both in gameplay and graphics... I mean... made with Unity? Big mistake already. But hey good job on the video! This has always been my favorite series! and despite everything, i hope you'll have the opportunity to make many more of these videos!
Unity is actually a great game engine, it's just that since it's free and easy to use, there's a lot of low quality games giving it a bad name.
@@RadioactiveMoth that actually makes sense bc i play games all the time and i constantly see terrible games made with unity, and i guess it's clouded my judgement. I was probably being too harsh
A bit of a miss? This game was a garbage fire. I can see why it took them so long to make it, they were busy tossing out everything that makes a good ND game. Of course I want to see another game, but they need to hear from the fans that they screwed up...
@@augustcelineiii946 I wouldn't call it a garbage fire.. sure it's nowhere near as good as any of the other games, and it might just be the pagan in me talking, but I really enjoyed the storyline at least. It was interesting learning about Salem, for me at least. :D but I agree with you - they really need to listen to the fans and change accordingly, though for some reason I doubt they will..
Unity is a very great game engine , it has most of the modern tehnology, RTX , photorealism , read before posting negative feedback to a great product
I'm sorry but you missed a huge problem, on the first and second day when the protesters are there, the woman standing across the road from the courthouse (purple clothes, glasses or something) has dialogue. It sounds like it's been recorded on a fax machine. If you've heard it, you certainly would have included it, maybe twice.
She won a fan contest and used her own devices to record
@@sarabeth641 Doesn't mean OP's comment wasn't true
I was about ten minutes in and thought "wow we're still at the beginning of the game how long is this video?" and absolutely lost it when I saw it's over and hour.
Hahahaha it's soooo bad! This game angers me so much.
@@JClover2 I don't blame You
I love how your sass and overall annoyance continue to build as the vid progresses. XD
I can appreciate that her Interactive tried something new and they really went all out. But they still have some major things they have to fix before they can achieve the animation style they're going for. But again, I appreciate the hard work they put into this game.
Only 10 seconds? Mine took 30 min to get past the initial loading screen. I got maybe a quarter through the game but it was sooo slow. I ended up just uninstalling it from my computer. Such a waste :( the older ones run fine though.
I rounded down.
Mined took 2 mins to load
@@arglefumph Hahahahaha
you have to adjust the settings for your computer. the game is built for a really high speed computer, which is so dumb, we shouldnt have to adjust to run it but whatever. 1 of 100000 things wrong with the game.
I had to get my IT husband to fix my computer settings just to run the game. I couldn't even figure out how to get to the game to work without him (and i'm pretty good at computers myself).
Who downvotes this??
Great job, Michael. I hope HER actually takes this seriously.
I’m really surprised HER still had the ND rights. Like, who is letting this empty shell company still have claim to ND?
I had such high hopes for this game, and it’s so disappointing. I understand the reason to change Nancy’s voice, but I don’t get that vibe that she’s the same person. I feel like Nancy should’ve had a bit more of a deeper, proper voice to match Lani’s while still sounding younger. She gives me more of Bess vibes. Also for 5 years, the graphics aren’t very good. I don’t get why HER decided to change the entire interface. It would’ve been better if they kept the point and click gameplay like in Sea of Darkness since it was the last game. I honestly don’t even get why it took them 5 years to do this. A lot of companies seem to always want to change things even though they have a good thing going, and they always mess it up for themselves. Hopefully HER remasters this game and make with the point and click gameplay. This whole plot line reminds me of a bad fan fiction. So disappointed, especially since it had a ton of potential 🙁
after the MANY years it took to make, you’d think they’d catch the simple mistakes like commas instead of periods, etc. It just shows how little effort they put in.
I like the voice of Nancy that Lani Minella did for the first 32 games
35, you're forgetting two versions of Secrets Can Kill, and the dossier games.
Oh yeah, sorry.
I'm not even halfway through this but I'm so glad you made this. I love Nancy Drew games so, so much and this one disappointed me. I do hope they'll try to make more but fix the problems this one had.
I've been waiting for this video for so long! LOL When I was playing through the game I was like "oop what is Michael going to say about this.
So I expected this to be a 30 minute video like normal but no, a full freaking hour😂👏🏻. Still stayed for the whole thing tho❤️❤️
No one:
Literally no one:
Arglefumph: A white square flashes in the lower/left corner of the screen.
Nancy's yelling at the judge is really mean for her, but it was one of the my favorite moments of the game, he kinda deserved everything Nancy said to him.
I don't hate this game, I even somewhat enjoyed it when I got used to horrible graphics, but I thought it had problems with it's plot. BUT I DIDN'T REALIZE HOW MANY!
#583, "Terribly rude joke to make to a burn victim"...OMG! I never noticed that before. Thats freakin HILARIOUS!!! LOL. I lost it.
I SAW THAT THIS VIDEO WAS AN HOUR AND I KID YOU NOT I CANNOT STOP LAUGHING
Oh man
It's nearly midnight in my hemishpere (I live in Russia) and I'm going to bed, but I still wanna see at least a few minutes of a video from "the Nancy Drew dude"
If Mei has a photographic memory... why are the instructions for the tunnels on her phone and not like... Jason's or something?
Woohoo! The day after I defend my graduate exams, a new "Everything Wrong with Nancy Drew" video is online! 😃Thank you so much for preparing this, Michael-- loved every second of it (especially #403 😁)!
(Also, I so agree that "Uh, only when I am on fire" was pretty insensitive of Nancy. But I had to smile when I first heard it because it's a nod to Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake, my very first ND game! 😃)
Someone send this to HeR interactive and then send a different game "everything wrong with" for time comparisom
Can we appreciate how, while all others in this series were around 20 or so minutes long, this one is well over an *HOUR*?
For sin 91, they stand like that because they’re asserting dominance with a T-pose
This game was so incredibly frustrating. The lip-syncing was SO bad for me and I didn’t know I could click to skip text. I’ve been putting off buying this game until just recently and I kind of wish I wouldn’t have
Midnight in Salem is basically The Last Jedi of Nancy Drew games.
The fact that there was so many problems it took an hour to get through it should tell it all
Honestly, one of my problems with the game is that it's a lot of story, and barely any game play. The dialogue is cool, because it explains a lot, and I LOVE the storyline! I think it's cool how they used the real Parris name, and then changed the girls' last name to Parry. I thought those little details were really cool! Buuuut with the lack of game play, honestly I would've just rather watched a tv show, if that makes sense.
This is glorious. Thank you so much for this outstanding content, it really brightened my day! Even with all of these issues, I still hope that HER will make more games and that they'll get better with this new engine. The horrendous lip-syncing is what really put me off which is even more of a shame since the voice actors did a fabulous job imo.
Gosh, it took this video to remind me just how much I hate Teegan. I really loathe her. I think it might have to do with the fact that I'm an older sister, too, and I can't imagine throwing my little sister or brothers as completely under the bus, AS MANY TIMES as Teegan does to Mei. What a despicable human being.
I hope if they make a new game, they use their older game play, I'd rather play with that, than these creepily weird moving characters. They kind of remind me of puppets without being able to see their strings. Also, I really hope the mystery is more...how do I say this. . . If an actual mystery, where things are followed up on and not just put there to follow just to be ignored...
Teegan is a horrible character in this game. She contradicts herself all the time and lies to Nancy
I love how Teegan Perry is one whole point all on her own
Ooooo I just got angry all over again. This game sucked
Here's a hilarious rubber stamp review, about how great the game is, written by someone who hadn't played it, but just wanted it to be great because Nancy was a feminist icon. Here's one particularly ironic quote.
"...don't expect Her Interactive to start releasing games rapid-fire to make up for the five-year dry spell. The studio committed itself to producing a quality game in Midnight in Salem and doesn't plan to to deliver a slapdash follow-up."
Got that? If they're not careful, the next game WON'T be as polished as this one was. That means the Everything Wrong With Review of Game 34 will probably last four hours, and list 3000 flaws.
www.cnet.com/news/first-nancy-drew-game-in-five-years-midnight-in-salem-teaches-us-to-be-badass-sleuths-all-over-again/
Honestly, I hate 'Nancy Drew, feminist' stuff. The books don't treat her that way and the games (at least, definitely not the early ones) don't treat her that way, either. She's just... Nancy. Sure, she's ridiculously lucky, skilled, and lacking in parental oversight for a 17-year-old, but she wasn't just 'the Hardy Boys, for girls.' She was her own compelling character. Worse still, branding her as 'Nancy Drew, feminist' makes it seem like it's _not_ natural for a girl to be in her role.
This is fantastic!! Sad how HER had 4.5 years to perfect this game and it has more errors than any previous game!
This game is a disgrace to the Nancy Drew series. HER should be embarrassed and ashamed of themselves.
Deirde doesn't shift because she's a bad driver. They were cruising in red in 2nd the whole time. The car hates her.
I always assumed it was an automatic?
I just went through and re-watched all of this "Everything Wrong With..." series, and I have to say, I love that your sentence for this game pretty much did come true. We waited about 4 years for the next game! XD
Also, why wasn’t the trailer part of Mei saying “You just couldn’t leave it alone, could you?” In the game??? Was that to make it look like she was the villain?? Or was that a message to the fans of HER?
Letting your ads play all the way through. Small way I know to support your work! ☺️
love this series and was wondering the other day when the midnight in Salem one was going to come out! Thanks for the awesome work!
The detail.....uh many thanks Michael!!! Also did anyone else get headaches and basically motion sickness from THE STUPID CONTROLS? I got so dizzy looking around
It screwed with my lefty flip, so the controls were on the primary button about half the time, and on the secondary button sometimes for NO APPARENT REASON.
Do you think HER watches this and is even semi embarrassed?
Ally Carabello Considering how they treat critics on their facebook page I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to either make youtube take it down or pretended it was somehow a compliment.
silversleeper good point, it’s truly disheartening honestly if HER admitted the game wasn’t up to standards and it was their mistake if actually respect them more then completely ignoring the serious issues in this game.
From what I have seen, they apparently have no shame...
@@silversleeper1193 How do they treat critics on facebook? Sorry I'm out of the loop
@@Jcat_Nguy23 They frequently delete negative comments, to the point some people have started to screenshot their posts so that comment threads don't get lost because they know it will be taken down. And these aren't terrible troll posts insulting the employees of HER as people or degrading the entire series as horrible, they are legitimate criticisms about the game and the way in which the release was handled. If they don't delete it they conspicuously ignore it, even when posed direct, honest questions. Only positive posts or comments receive any acknowledgement. It's extremely frustrating because the critics are loyal, avid fans who are simply disappointed and only want the best for the series they love.
I appreciate that you added any grammatical errors you could find 😂 I kinda want the old team to make a game without the name Nancy & see how it compares
Oof. I saw the thumbnail and was like “this is going to be a long one.” (I love you and your content Arglefumph!)
While the game was a bit of a miss for me, I've got to commend it for having a great tense atmosphere. Even though the ghost didnt appear as much as it couldve, I was legit terrified the whole game that it would pop up!
#403 “nobody gets hurt in a museum!”
“Henrik Van Der Hune would beg to differ”
MAN I LOST IT🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
22:42 you clip throuh dierdre's face for a second and you can see inside of her face
dxstroya 😂😂😂 It’s true! Set the playback speed to 0.25. It’s hilarious
That is terrifying.
Omg😳
That is incredibly terrifying
@@arglefumph Yes that definitely is
i need some quarentine snacks for this onw
Your meme of Mel is the highlight of the video...and the entirety of MID. Thank you for it! This game was such a letdown and I LOVE your video detailing why!
Hey, remember when everyone thought “Creature of Kapu Cave” was the worst Nancy Drew game? It was funny back then. It’s not funny no more...Honestly, I’d rather play that game than this one. At least Kapu Cave has some beautiful tropical scenery.
What is A major letdown is The Game's Graphics They are The True Horror in this Game
Extra things I think should be added to this giant list of yours:
1. NANCY'S VOICE-- girl sounds like the TikTok robot lady and her acting is awful.
2. Right clicking-- having to hold down the right click to move around visually was so clunky and completely unnecessary. Never added anything to the experience and was extremely inconvenient when they made you do it a few times in order to actually progress through the story.
3. Driving-- I swear it was only ever there to help mask the loading times and make the game take longer. Why not just walk everywhere if you only get to drive to ONE LOCATION?
4. Nancy could have easily prevented the book theft by taking the book with her as she was leaving or literally locking it back up so someone couldn't steal it
5. You can't EVER enter Teegan or Mei's rooms the entire game. Why the heck not?! She doesn't care about that stuff in any of the other games. Why even make them clickable at that point?
639. Mirror reflection in burnt house is NOT even a reflection, in motion, it looks more like a flat painting! Logic and physics outta house
I laughed so hard when I saw how long the video was! You never disappoint Michael 😂♥️ this game was absolutely terrible but I’m looking forward to the Seven Keys (hopefully there’s redemption). And if it’s bad (🤞) can’t wait to see you rip it apart lol
all jokes aside...there were two MAJOR things impeding the overall enjoyment of the game :
firstly, all the loose ends. like how you could inspect places and things or learn info that was in no way relevant later on. made it feel pointless.
and secondly, in this game, Nancy comes off as rather stupid...which is a big disillusionment compared to the Nancy we all know and love. for example the learning about something and then acting all clueless about it just a moment later (I realize this is a development issue, not a storyline one but still... major oversee), over explaining some pretty basic detective stuff acting like its some deep knowledge only she can grasp...and something I haven't seen anyone mention but was the biggest issue for me...is that the person who delivers the most important, case-turning breakthrough, without which the case literally would have not been able to go on, is Deirdre...NOT Nancy. even tho she knew about ergot and its side effects...like seriously?!
btw great job on the video and don't kill me if I have an extra hyphen or something :)
Yes! I have been waiting for this video! Thanks, Michael!
I was so excited to see another ND game. This might sound dumb but as soon as I heard Nancy’s voice actress, I didn’t want to watch the play through any further. I understand that changes are made to introduce something new but it just felt like a completely different game, didn’t feel like the classic ND mystery games at all. I think their approach was interesting but if they combined the new gameplay with some features of the old game play it would’ve been okay. And the fact that this video is an hour long compared to the other videos speaks volumes.
The drowning scene had me rolling. That is EMBARASSINGLY bad!
An hour and 16 minutes! You can speed play the game in less time than that 😂
At least... If you know the skip cutscene button exists.
I thought this was just going to be him playing the game.
26:03 Is it really disturbing for you that they drink tea in coffee mugs? xD
On subject: thank you for this video, it's what I needed instead of checking out the game.
Thank you very much for the time and effort to compile this. You pointed out a lot that I knew was wrong and several things I couldn't put my finger on. There's obviously several instances where you can continue without actually finishing a task. The jacket disappearing for you is one. I talked to Olivia and she requested that I give it back to her but still gave no explanation as to why it was there. Supposedly she didn't leave it there. Who did? It was an awful game and very much a disappointment after so many really great ND games over the years.
38:04 is the best meme to be part of this, thank you
11 minutes into the video and there are already over 100 "sins". Oh dear.
I think one that bothers me the most is the mystery woman that's on Ned's end of the phone line. The game never tells us who this is, why she's there, or literally anything. She's just there for more extremely unnecessary Ned and Nancy drama. It tries to give the player the idea that "OMG is Ned cheating on Nancy?!", something that Ned from the previous games would literally never do. Someone at HER must really hate Ned Nickerson, because it seems like almost every other new game has tried to put some kind of wedge between him and Nancy.
To be fair on #20: all those instances of ghosts were largely proven to be staged or hallucinations in the case of Thornton Hall. So technically, Nancy has never seen a REAL ghost (unless you count the Charlotte sightings that happened outside of Thornton Hall.)
also when it rains when they are looking for the secret tunnel, the candles are magically still lit throughout the storm.