Faircroft’s Antiques: The Heir of Glen Kinnoch review for Nintendo Switch, PC

As I?ve written before, I have a weird love for hidden object games. I don?t know what it is, but even when they?re terrible, I still can?t get enough of hunting around for nonsensical objects.

On the scale of “great” to “terrible, Faircroft’s Antiques: The Heir of Glen Kinnoch definitely falls at the upper end. To be sure, when we?re talking about hidden object games, we?re not exactly talking about a massive distance between the two extremes, but still: as the genre goes, it?s clear that this is a (relative) standout.

In part, this is because the game shows that there can be more to the genre than “find all these random items.” The Heir of Glen Kinnoch has that, sure, but it also occasionally changes course and asks you to find lots of the same object (say, a dozen chipmunks), while elsewhere it gives you riddles about each item you?re seeking. I know that doesn?t seem like much, but within the genre, that kind of counts for innovation.

It also helps that there are some puzzles here, and that they?re not awful. Again, that?s a very low bar, and The Heir of Glen Kinnoch?s puzzles are mostly very simple jigsaw puzzles (coupled with a few that simply ask you to match cards), but given how abysmal the puzzles tend to be in other hidden object games, I?ll take simple and functional every time.

Lastly, I?ll add that The Heir of Glen Kinnoch looks very nice. Again, we?re only talking about static screens, but given how ugly some hidden object games can be, it?s nice to find one that actually puts some effort into how it looks.

To be sure, none of this makes Faircroft’s Antiques: The Heir of Glen Kinnoch an essential buy, nor does it mean you need to load up on the other games in the series, Faircroft’s Antiques: Treasures of Treffenburg and Faircroft’s Antiques: Home for Christmas — though both of them have the same mixture of nice visuals and interesting (by the genre?s standards) puzzles. But if, like me, you have a soft spot for a pretty innocuous genre, then this game should be right up your alley.

Ocean Media provided us with a Faircroft’s Antiques: The Heir of Glen Kinnoch Switch code for review purposes.