The initial title in the HeR Interactive Nancy Drew series, Nancy Drew: Secrets Can Kill, follows Nancy as she vacations to Florida to visit her aunt Eloise. Like all of her other vacations, Nancy quickly finds herself in the middle of an investigation. She must find the culprit responsible for the death of a student at a local high school. Nancy must explore the town, looking for clues and questioning other students to crack the case.
Initially released in 1998, Secrets Can Kill was remastered in 2010. The remaster is somewhat contentious because not only was the art style updated to match the current art style of the series, but several plot points and the ending were changed as well. While I am intrigued by the original version, it is not easily accessible to play, and the remaster is available for digital download.
Image Credit: Steam
As far as Nancy Drew games go, this is one of the simplest in regard to the setting. The areas to explore are not as expansive as future titles, with only the school and local diner as options on the in-game map. The game does try to challenge you with long hallways and various rooms throughout the school as you pickup clues and seek out suspects.
Image Credit: Adventure Games
The puzzles are also fairly straightforward compared to future game titles in the series. As Nancy, you encounter a safe with Greek letters, a slider puzzle and various hidden message puzzles. The murder victim somehow knew they might get murdered, so they conveniently hid messages pointing to their possible assailant throughout the school. Because of that, the hidden messages are a recurring theme in the game. This starts to get repetitive and only requires remembering or writing down highlighted letters or symbols that you see in the messages, so not a major challenge, but still a fun concept for an early game.
Image Credit: Steam
Like all Nancy Drew games, some of the most enjoyable parts are meeting the interesting crop of characters throughout the story. Nancy titles are driven not only by finding clues, but also by asking many thorough and pointed questions. In Secrets Can Kill, Nancy meets several people who all immediately have a chip on their shoulder:
- Hal Tanaka – studious foreign exchange student
- Hector “Hulk” Sanchez – Pasco del Mar star athlete
- Connie Watson – hall monitor extraordinaire
- Daryl Gray – rich pretty-boy and chatterbox diner employee
- Detective Beech – undercover detective who commissioned Nancy
Image Credit: HeR Interactive
Despite the simple setting and few puzzles in the game, Secrets Can Kill does feature interesting twists and traps. No teen detective game is complete without a sudden brush with death (or two), and this title certainly offers a more high-stakes murder premise than others. The boiler room segment and the ending twist was certainly unexpected. Not to mention, a fantastic soundtrack, which is consistent for every Nancy Drew game title (shoutout to composer Kevin Manthei).
Image Credit: sckrwt, Blogspot
I recommend giving Nancy Drew: Secrets Can Kill Remastered a play-through. Although it does not quite make my list of favorite Nancy Drew titles due to its simple setting and characters, older gameplay, and lack of puzzles, it still does deserve the respect of the two hours it takes to play it to appreciate the series’ early beginnings.
With a $20 price tag to download for PC, and often offered at a discount, it’s worth picking up to add to your Nancy dossier.
VERDICT: Recommended
Reviewed on PC
Reviewed on PC
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