Let's Play Mystery Legends: The Phantom of the Opera, Part 3
If you’re interested, there’s also a video walkthrough (sans commentary) online of this as well-I’ve been using it to refresh my memory on where things are. The first part begins here. And my third part begins here!
Part 3: How do you play “Für Elise” on this thing?
Erik goes away after getting his rose, leaving nothing behind but a shattered mirror-which, in this case, gives us access to the next level:
Huh, little cluttered for a secret passageway. There’s a second symbol card on the shelf at left, an insect jar (TRBEO #8) at right, and some intriguing papers:
Interesting twist on the background behind Buquet’s fate. There’s been a tendency (one which I will admit to using myself in fanfic) to make Buquet into an Asshole Victim, in order to gloss over the fact that Erik, well, pretty much kills him in cold blood. Casting him as a whistle-blower trying to do the right thing causes a more uncompromising look at Erik’s dark side-which, let’s face it, we can use every now and again.
Of course, given that Buquet left documentation of his intentions lying around for any man, woman, or phantom to find, his death might be more a case of natural selection.
“Well, curiosity and crippling Genre Blindness-but mostly curiosity!”
Right away there’s a nice contrast between the elegance (albeit ruined elegance) of the public rooms in the first couple areas, and the darker and more utilitarian backstage halls. It increases the sense of dread, especially given creaks, footsteps, and other noises that continue throughout the game. Again, top notch work from the designers.
The crook in the pharaoh’s hand will need dislodging later, but right now the important things are the third canopic jar and a closer look at the floorboards:
Whoo, someone needs to call the Orkin man. Luckily I have this handy-dandy insect jar with me, which is still totally random but now full of ants.
To the right is a prop room, which has the third chess piece and a jack-in-the-box with no crank but not much else right now, so let’s go straight ahead.
There’s a third symbol card in the box, which will go in the door at left-but we still need one more. Meanwhile, there’s an HOG on the right:
After you do a few of these, you realize that the sizes of the objects are pretty much irrelevant to everything else in the environment, not to mention the environment itself. Which is a plus when you’re looking for, say, a needle, because it’s bound to be bigger than it would actually be if it were just lying on a table or shelf somewhere. However, it’s irritating when the object you’re looking for is smaller than you think it should be. I mean, you’ve all seen canopic jars, right? They’re usually a good size vessel, maybe about a foot or so in height…nope, it’s actually a little bitty thing about half the size of the jester doll just below it. Psyche!
Having our fourth and final jar, let’s explore down the hall a little further.
No points for guessing what we’ll need for Hamlet over there. Hang a right.
Hmm, a sarcophagus that needs lowering-and hey, a crank for the jack-in-the-box! Let’s grab that and backtrack to the prop room.
Well, I knew I had these nail clippers for some reason. Let’s give you a manicure, darling. My stars, bears are such IN-teresting people…
Easy enough now. Let’s see…
All around the opera house,
The Phantom chased the diva,
The diva thought she’d gotten away-
POP goes the Phantom! (And he gives off the cutest teeny-tiny evil laugh, too.)
Symbol card-yoink! Now on to the orchestra door:
Argh, this puzzle drove me nuts. Even with the strategy guide, it took me a while to figure out that a) the symbol in the square on each card corresponded with the note you had to play, b) the symbols around that symbol indicated the location of the specific key you had to press, and c) the notes on top were not on a standard musical staff, but corresponded to the key at the bottom (to be fair, I probably could have figured that one out if I’d, you know, counted the lines on the staff). After that it’s just a simple process of looking at the note, selecting the appropriate symbol card, looking at every single one of the possible keys until finding the one with the right configuration of symbols around it, and then doing that all over again seven more times.
This is going to be a pain, isn’t it?
Let’s see….C…A…dammit, where was that C key, I just hit it! Ah, there…B…come on, one of these has to be the B key, oh there it is on the edge…
Damn you skip timer, I don’t need your pity! I shall conquer this, I shall! E….D…I know you’re here somewhere F, ah-ha!…now just find the B key again, and…
Done! Finally, door’s open! Honestly, a musical instrument where it takes you fifteen seconds to play a single note? Bet the orchestra loved that. What kind of sick, deranged lunatic-
…Oh hi, Erik, I was just talking about you.
No, I don’t have your rose yet. Have you checked this pile of junk in the middle of the room?
I think I need the hip flask after that last puzzle. But no, we get the Horus statue instead-“A beautiful stage prop” Evelina observes.
Okay, no rose, just a statue-oh, and a music stand which we’ll pick up for TRBEO #9. Let’s go back to the sarcophagus room and see if we can figure that out. Luckily we still have the screwdriver from the cottage, so we can pry open the gear box.
Taffy? Who’s been eating on the job? Erik, you know anything about this?
”Our love can never die!”
….Don’t make me hurt you.
Well, I don’t know how it got there, but I know how it’s getting out. Jar o’ Ants, do your thing!
Now we have the objective of “returning the props to the stage.” Let’s see, we have five little dumbwaiter thingies, five Egyptian statue thingies, and this tidbit from the book in the library:
Nice little bit of shown work-those are the gods and totems associated with the four canopic jars and yes, they were Horus’ sons. The sibling rivalry thing seems to have been made up for the purposes of the puzzle, though.
It doesn’t happen very often, but I like it when ancient Egyptian motifs show up in PotO. It fits with the European exploration of the tombs which was going on at the time, and in addition to the obvious death/burial/rebirth connotations there’s the close association the Egyptians had between image and reality. To create or destroy the representation of something was to do the same to the thing itself, a notion that I think Erik would find very appealing (remember the puppet show in the ballroom?).
Jars go up, box comes down, and voila!
….And by “voila!” I of course mean “we still need to find something to open the sarcophagus.” Good thing there’s a HOG now triggered in the prop room.
I think part of the fun of these games for me is not only finding the objects on the list, but also the little bits of PotO symbology that are scattered throughout. Nearly every hidden object scene has a mask or a noose or an angel or something which ties into the story and setting. Probably my favorite (which I’m not convinced isn’t a coincidence but still gave me a good laugh) was one of the items on my list the very first time I had to search the manager’s desk scene: a safety pin.
We find the sun disc, which Evelina notes is warm at the edges and therefore must slot into something. Um, 1) logic fail and 2) this part is pretty linear, so it’s not like we needed a hint to begin with. I know you’re catering to the casuals, but please give us some credit.
(ETA: Having listened again on the playthrough linked above, ink_space and biskuits are right: she actually says the disc is worn on the edges, not warm, which makes a lot more sense. So no logic fail on the game's part--just hearing fail on mine. My point that the hint is entirely unnecessary still stands, though.)
Anyway, back to the sarcophagus, put disc on top, and voila!
And by “voila!” I of course mean “Ewwww.” Can’t we let the corpse keep the rose, instead of, you know, giving it to the other corpse? Evelina’s pretty squicked too:
…Although I’m not sure why she automatically assumes it’s Joseph Buquet. I mean, all men are as ugly as that when they die and all…
Huh, guess it was poor Joseph after all. (Poor poor Joseph, whatcha gonna do? Phantom’s killing you, hey, whatcha gonna do…?) The idea that the Phantom not only killed him but stashed the corpse in one of the stage props is wonderfully morbid-it sounds like something Englund!Erik would have done.
I love how badass Erik looks here. Although I do wonder what Buquet finds so fascinating that he’s oblivious to imminent demise behind him…
Huh, go figure.
In part four, I start to question our heroine's powers of deduction, and notice some glaring omissions in the Opera's inventory.
~LCD
Part 3: How do you play “Für Elise” on this thing?
Erik goes away after getting his rose, leaving nothing behind but a shattered mirror-which, in this case, gives us access to the next level:
Huh, little cluttered for a secret passageway. There’s a second symbol card on the shelf at left, an insect jar (TRBEO #8) at right, and some intriguing papers:
Interesting twist on the background behind Buquet’s fate. There’s been a tendency (one which I will admit to using myself in fanfic) to make Buquet into an Asshole Victim, in order to gloss over the fact that Erik, well, pretty much kills him in cold blood. Casting him as a whistle-blower trying to do the right thing causes a more uncompromising look at Erik’s dark side-which, let’s face it, we can use every now and again.
Of course, given that Buquet left documentation of his intentions lying around for any man, woman, or phantom to find, his death might be more a case of natural selection.
“Well, curiosity and crippling Genre Blindness-but mostly curiosity!”
Right away there’s a nice contrast between the elegance (albeit ruined elegance) of the public rooms in the first couple areas, and the darker and more utilitarian backstage halls. It increases the sense of dread, especially given creaks, footsteps, and other noises that continue throughout the game. Again, top notch work from the designers.
The crook in the pharaoh’s hand will need dislodging later, but right now the important things are the third canopic jar and a closer look at the floorboards:
Whoo, someone needs to call the Orkin man. Luckily I have this handy-dandy insect jar with me, which is still totally random but now full of ants.
To the right is a prop room, which has the third chess piece and a jack-in-the-box with no crank but not much else right now, so let’s go straight ahead.
There’s a third symbol card in the box, which will go in the door at left-but we still need one more. Meanwhile, there’s an HOG on the right:
After you do a few of these, you realize that the sizes of the objects are pretty much irrelevant to everything else in the environment, not to mention the environment itself. Which is a plus when you’re looking for, say, a needle, because it’s bound to be bigger than it would actually be if it were just lying on a table or shelf somewhere. However, it’s irritating when the object you’re looking for is smaller than you think it should be. I mean, you’ve all seen canopic jars, right? They’re usually a good size vessel, maybe about a foot or so in height…nope, it’s actually a little bitty thing about half the size of the jester doll just below it. Psyche!
Having our fourth and final jar, let’s explore down the hall a little further.
No points for guessing what we’ll need for Hamlet over there. Hang a right.
Hmm, a sarcophagus that needs lowering-and hey, a crank for the jack-in-the-box! Let’s grab that and backtrack to the prop room.
Well, I knew I had these nail clippers for some reason. Let’s give you a manicure, darling. My stars, bears are such IN-teresting people…
Easy enough now. Let’s see…
All around the opera house,
The Phantom chased the diva,
The diva thought she’d gotten away-
POP goes the Phantom! (And he gives off the cutest teeny-tiny evil laugh, too.)
Symbol card-yoink! Now on to the orchestra door:
Argh, this puzzle drove me nuts. Even with the strategy guide, it took me a while to figure out that a) the symbol in the square on each card corresponded with the note you had to play, b) the symbols around that symbol indicated the location of the specific key you had to press, and c) the notes on top were not on a standard musical staff, but corresponded to the key at the bottom (to be fair, I probably could have figured that one out if I’d, you know, counted the lines on the staff). After that it’s just a simple process of looking at the note, selecting the appropriate symbol card, looking at every single one of the possible keys until finding the one with the right configuration of symbols around it, and then doing that all over again seven more times.
This is going to be a pain, isn’t it?
Let’s see….C…A…dammit, where was that C key, I just hit it! Ah, there…B…come on, one of these has to be the B key, oh there it is on the edge…
Damn you skip timer, I don’t need your pity! I shall conquer this, I shall! E….D…I know you’re here somewhere F, ah-ha!…now just find the B key again, and…
Done! Finally, door’s open! Honestly, a musical instrument where it takes you fifteen seconds to play a single note? Bet the orchestra loved that. What kind of sick, deranged lunatic-
…Oh hi, Erik, I was just talking about you.
No, I don’t have your rose yet. Have you checked this pile of junk in the middle of the room?
I think I need the hip flask after that last puzzle. But no, we get the Horus statue instead-“A beautiful stage prop” Evelina observes.
Okay, no rose, just a statue-oh, and a music stand which we’ll pick up for TRBEO #9. Let’s go back to the sarcophagus room and see if we can figure that out. Luckily we still have the screwdriver from the cottage, so we can pry open the gear box.
Taffy? Who’s been eating on the job? Erik, you know anything about this?
”Our love can never die!”
….Don’t make me hurt you.
Well, I don’t know how it got there, but I know how it’s getting out. Jar o’ Ants, do your thing!
Now we have the objective of “returning the props to the stage.” Let’s see, we have five little dumbwaiter thingies, five Egyptian statue thingies, and this tidbit from the book in the library:
Nice little bit of shown work-those are the gods and totems associated with the four canopic jars and yes, they were Horus’ sons. The sibling rivalry thing seems to have been made up for the purposes of the puzzle, though.
It doesn’t happen very often, but I like it when ancient Egyptian motifs show up in PotO. It fits with the European exploration of the tombs which was going on at the time, and in addition to the obvious death/burial/rebirth connotations there’s the close association the Egyptians had between image and reality. To create or destroy the representation of something was to do the same to the thing itself, a notion that I think Erik would find very appealing (remember the puppet show in the ballroom?).
Jars go up, box comes down, and voila!
….And by “voila!” I of course mean “we still need to find something to open the sarcophagus.” Good thing there’s a HOG now triggered in the prop room.
I think part of the fun of these games for me is not only finding the objects on the list, but also the little bits of PotO symbology that are scattered throughout. Nearly every hidden object scene has a mask or a noose or an angel or something which ties into the story and setting. Probably my favorite (which I’m not convinced isn’t a coincidence but still gave me a good laugh) was one of the items on my list the very first time I had to search the manager’s desk scene: a safety pin.
We find the sun disc, which Evelina notes is warm at the edges and therefore must slot into something. Um, 1) logic fail and 2) this part is pretty linear, so it’s not like we needed a hint to begin with. I know you’re catering to the casuals, but please give us some credit.
(ETA: Having listened again on the playthrough linked above, ink_space and biskuits are right: she actually says the disc is worn on the edges, not warm, which makes a lot more sense. So no logic fail on the game's part--just hearing fail on mine. My point that the hint is entirely unnecessary still stands, though.)
Anyway, back to the sarcophagus, put disc on top, and voila!
And by “voila!” I of course mean “Ewwww.” Can’t we let the corpse keep the rose, instead of, you know, giving it to the other corpse? Evelina’s pretty squicked too:
…Although I’m not sure why she automatically assumes it’s Joseph Buquet. I mean, all men are as ugly as that when they die and all…
Huh, guess it was poor Joseph after all. (Poor poor Joseph, whatcha gonna do? Phantom’s killing you, hey, whatcha gonna do…?) The idea that the Phantom not only killed him but stashed the corpse in one of the stage props is wonderfully morbid-it sounds like something Englund!Erik would have done.
I love how badass Erik looks here. Although I do wonder what Buquet finds so fascinating that he’s oblivious to imminent demise behind him…
Click to viewHuh, go figure.
In part four, I start to question our heroine's powers of deduction, and notice some glaring omissions in the Opera's inventory.
~LCD