Let's Play Mystery Legends: The Phantom of the Opera, Part 4
I’ll be splitting the next two “levels” of the game in half, mostly to make them more manageable for me.
Part 4: Oh, and be sure to drink your Ovaltine
The key to the elevator is in with the shattered remains of the mirror. I’m about 90% certain that poster in the back looks like a Leroux cover I saw somewhere, but for the life of me I can’t place it. Any thoughts?
Ha-ha, access granted! Now to get a look inside.
So apparently among other things, Christine took part in a circus and a Wild West show. And we thought Coney Island was bad…but still not as bad as our heroine's commentary:
*headdesk* Evelina, Evelina…look, I know your parents weren’t always the brightest bulbs on the chandelier, but even they would be shaking their heads right now. Yes, those playbills feature your mother. There’s also the picture of her in the hallway, and the creepy damn puppet show that indicates someone has it in for your daddy, and the fact that Phantom seems to have you confused with someone who looks a lot like you (or rather, did about twenty-some years ago). This isn’t rocket science.
There’s also a note to the stage manager:
Daroga? Either the Persian was doing a little side work to supplement his retired policeman’s pension, or we just found this game’s Completely Nonsensical Leroux Reference.
To get the elevator working, we need to complete another puzzle:
Another “tangled path” puzzle, with the same basic premise: light the switches in order. Unlike the foyer puzzle, however, this one doesn’t reset if you make a mistake-which can be frustrating when you’re down to your last two or three breakers and you flip the wrong one. Not that, you know, I’d know from experience or anything.
With power to the elevator restored, it can now be used to move between levels. Are you sure? This thing doesn’t look safe to me; isn’t there a staircase somewhere? Okay…
Huh, not bad for something that’s been out of use for a couple decades.
We’re in the actor’s section of the backstage area now, with another appropriate atmosphere shift-somewhat nicer furnishings and an abundance of old costumes (including, of course, lots and lots of masks). The important things right now, however, are the telescope in the sandbox, the star poster in back and the mirror, which seems to be smudged:
Oooh, a secret message! How delightfully mysterious! Let’s see, maybe there’s something in this hidden object game to help out with that:
Yeah, I very nearly didn’t get this one-good thing I checked my files before picking up the last two objects.
The powder puff goes into the inventory and will, Evelina notes, be useful in the act of picking up powder. Again with the obviousness, but okay, I see where this is going: get some powder, apply it to the mirror, and voila, secret message revealed.
Moving aside some fabric finally yields something really useful-a dagger! Now that’s more like it! (Of course, odds are pretty good it will be used for something apart from the obvious and very direct need of self-defense.) The note pinned to the costumes on right ties in with the stage manager’s note in the elevator, assigning colors to the characters mentioned (basically black=villain, blue=hero, white=heroine, pink=matron and red=seductress). Hero, heroine, and villain are pretty obvious in this story, and the matron could be Mama Valerius (or Madame Giry, if you want to go musical-verse), but who would the seductress be? Sorelli? Carlotta? Meg? (Dear God, I hope not her. Last thing she needs is more tarting up.) Am I over-thinking this whole thing? (Answer: Probably.)
Hey, there’s a dressing room at left. I bet they have powder in there….
Oh hey, guess who’s hiding behind the dressing room mirror. I am going to have a heart attack and die of not surprise.
Keep your mask on, dude, you’ll get your rose eventually. Right now I’m looking for some face powder. Let’s see, there’s a second dagger-I guess these are the next puzzle pieces I have to collect, then. Death motifs, unsurprisingly, figure heavily in a lot of these. Hmm…there’s the fourth chess piece for the manager’s office, a gramophone with no record or bell, and…
That’s it? Seriously? This is the ladies’ dressing room of a God-damned theater, and there is no freakin’ face powder lying around? What kind of Mickey Mouse operation are you running here, Erik? Okay sure, I know you don’t really have a whole lot of use for make-up* but the rest of us don’t want to go out on stage with our noses all shiny and our eyeliner running. What do you have to say for yourself?
”Know that I am built of death from head to foot!”
*squee* I love that line.
Fine, no friggin’ make-up in the friggin’ dressing room. Guess I’ve got to look elsewhere.
Pick up a third dagger from the apothecary table and the hook from the rigging. Still no powder. Can’t I just use dust or something? There’s plenty of that lying around…no? Okay, going up the stairs then.
See, told you! Totally Paris out there. I’m pretty sure the large building is Sacre-Coeur, but I can’t place the tower just to the left of it. Looks like Big Ben to me… (Hey, if Sarah Palin can see Russia from her house…)
It is noted that the statue’s bow and arrow could come in handy, but needs to be thawed out first. (I like the way you think, Evelina, but I’d still stick with these daggers if I were you. Accuracy over range.) The note at its feet is from Raoul to Christine, and has held up surprisingly well despite a couple decades of being exposed to the elements. Hidden object game at right:
Again, the silhouette hints become extremely useful, because otherwise you might be looking for something entirely different. The “tin can” is not a cylindrical food-type can as you might expect, but the square tin in the top left corner. The “paintbrush” is for house painting, not art, and the “shell” refers to a bullet casing and not a seaside souvenir.
Get the fourth dagger, after which we set the telescope on the tripod and have a look inside:
Use the telescope to find the star constellation from the poster by the mirror-basically an astronomical “Where’s Waldo?”. Once aligned, the lens floods with light and-
Ah, so just ordinary dust won’t do-we need ultra special super-sparkly dust! Why we needed a telescope to locate the ultra special super-sparkly dust is beyond me, but there you go. Pick some up with the powder puff and reveal the secret message!
….That’s it? I mean sure, it’s useful and all for finding the skull for the Hamlet statue back on the previous level, but I was hoping for something more intriguing and plot-relevant, especially since we had to go to all the trouble of finding mega-shiny star powder in order to read it. I feel kind of like Ralphie after he used his decoder ring for the first time.
And on that somewhat anti-climactic note, we’ll break for now. But get ready to crank your Nightwish CDs, cause there’s some gloriously goth-y stuff in the next installment!
~LCD
*Totally irrelevant to the subject at hand, but I always got a giggle out of that one scene in the Charles Dance PotO where he hears Christine sing for the very first time, and takes a moment to self-consciously apply a bit of powder to the maybe two square inches of exposed skin on his face. Tee hee.
Part 4: Oh, and be sure to drink your Ovaltine
The key to the elevator is in with the shattered remains of the mirror. I’m about 90% certain that poster in the back looks like a Leroux cover I saw somewhere, but for the life of me I can’t place it. Any thoughts?
Ha-ha, access granted! Now to get a look inside.
So apparently among other things, Christine took part in a circus and a Wild West show. And we thought Coney Island was bad…but still not as bad as our heroine's commentary:
*headdesk* Evelina, Evelina…look, I know your parents weren’t always the brightest bulbs on the chandelier, but even they would be shaking their heads right now. Yes, those playbills feature your mother. There’s also the picture of her in the hallway, and the creepy damn puppet show that indicates someone has it in for your daddy, and the fact that Phantom seems to have you confused with someone who looks a lot like you (or rather, did about twenty-some years ago). This isn’t rocket science.
There’s also a note to the stage manager:
Daroga? Either the Persian was doing a little side work to supplement his retired policeman’s pension, or we just found this game’s Completely Nonsensical Leroux Reference.
To get the elevator working, we need to complete another puzzle:
Another “tangled path” puzzle, with the same basic premise: light the switches in order. Unlike the foyer puzzle, however, this one doesn’t reset if you make a mistake-which can be frustrating when you’re down to your last two or three breakers and you flip the wrong one. Not that, you know, I’d know from experience or anything.
With power to the elevator restored, it can now be used to move between levels. Are you sure? This thing doesn’t look safe to me; isn’t there a staircase somewhere? Okay…
Huh, not bad for something that’s been out of use for a couple decades.
We’re in the actor’s section of the backstage area now, with another appropriate atmosphere shift-somewhat nicer furnishings and an abundance of old costumes (including, of course, lots and lots of masks). The important things right now, however, are the telescope in the sandbox, the star poster in back and the mirror, which seems to be smudged:
Oooh, a secret message! How delightfully mysterious! Let’s see, maybe there’s something in this hidden object game to help out with that:
Yeah, I very nearly didn’t get this one-good thing I checked my files before picking up the last two objects.
The powder puff goes into the inventory and will, Evelina notes, be useful in the act of picking up powder. Again with the obviousness, but okay, I see where this is going: get some powder, apply it to the mirror, and voila, secret message revealed.
Moving aside some fabric finally yields something really useful-a dagger! Now that’s more like it! (Of course, odds are pretty good it will be used for something apart from the obvious and very direct need of self-defense.) The note pinned to the costumes on right ties in with the stage manager’s note in the elevator, assigning colors to the characters mentioned (basically black=villain, blue=hero, white=heroine, pink=matron and red=seductress). Hero, heroine, and villain are pretty obvious in this story, and the matron could be Mama Valerius (or Madame Giry, if you want to go musical-verse), but who would the seductress be? Sorelli? Carlotta? Meg? (Dear God, I hope not her. Last thing she needs is more tarting up.) Am I over-thinking this whole thing? (Answer: Probably.)
Hey, there’s a dressing room at left. I bet they have powder in there….
Oh hey, guess who’s hiding behind the dressing room mirror. I am going to have a heart attack and die of not surprise.
Keep your mask on, dude, you’ll get your rose eventually. Right now I’m looking for some face powder. Let’s see, there’s a second dagger-I guess these are the next puzzle pieces I have to collect, then. Death motifs, unsurprisingly, figure heavily in a lot of these. Hmm…there’s the fourth chess piece for the manager’s office, a gramophone with no record or bell, and…
That’s it? Seriously? This is the ladies’ dressing room of a God-damned theater, and there is no freakin’ face powder lying around? What kind of Mickey Mouse operation are you running here, Erik? Okay sure, I know you don’t really have a whole lot of use for make-up* but the rest of us don’t want to go out on stage with our noses all shiny and our eyeliner running. What do you have to say for yourself?
”Know that I am built of death from head to foot!”
*squee* I love that line.
Fine, no friggin’ make-up in the friggin’ dressing room. Guess I’ve got to look elsewhere.
Pick up a third dagger from the apothecary table and the hook from the rigging. Still no powder. Can’t I just use dust or something? There’s plenty of that lying around…no? Okay, going up the stairs then.
See, told you! Totally Paris out there. I’m pretty sure the large building is Sacre-Coeur, but I can’t place the tower just to the left of it. Looks like Big Ben to me… (Hey, if Sarah Palin can see Russia from her house…)
It is noted that the statue’s bow and arrow could come in handy, but needs to be thawed out first. (I like the way you think, Evelina, but I’d still stick with these daggers if I were you. Accuracy over range.) The note at its feet is from Raoul to Christine, and has held up surprisingly well despite a couple decades of being exposed to the elements. Hidden object game at right:
Again, the silhouette hints become extremely useful, because otherwise you might be looking for something entirely different. The “tin can” is not a cylindrical food-type can as you might expect, but the square tin in the top left corner. The “paintbrush” is for house painting, not art, and the “shell” refers to a bullet casing and not a seaside souvenir.
Get the fourth dagger, after which we set the telescope on the tripod and have a look inside:
Use the telescope to find the star constellation from the poster by the mirror-basically an astronomical “Where’s Waldo?”. Once aligned, the lens floods with light and-
Ah, so just ordinary dust won’t do-we need ultra special super-sparkly dust! Why we needed a telescope to locate the ultra special super-sparkly dust is beyond me, but there you go. Pick some up with the powder puff and reveal the secret message!
….That’s it? I mean sure, it’s useful and all for finding the skull for the Hamlet statue back on the previous level, but I was hoping for something more intriguing and plot-relevant, especially since we had to go to all the trouble of finding mega-shiny star powder in order to read it. I feel kind of like Ralphie after he used his decoder ring for the first time.
And on that somewhat anti-climactic note, we’ll break for now. But get ready to crank your Nightwish CDs, cause there’s some gloriously goth-y stuff in the next installment!
~LCD
*Totally irrelevant to the subject at hand, but I always got a giggle out of that one scene in the Charles Dance PotO where he hears Christine sing for the very first time, and takes a moment to self-consciously apply a bit of powder to the maybe two square inches of exposed skin on his face. Tee hee.