Nancy Drew (video game)/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Tropes in the books include

  • Non Sequitur Scene: In The Mystery of the Brass-Bound Trunk, Nancy gets struck by lightning. It has nothing to do with the rest of the story, it's over in less than a page, and nobody ever mentions it again (and isn't getting struck by lightning something you'd want to brag about?
  • Broken Base: Fans of the original '30s/60s version usually hate upon the late 80s version, for the way it modernized the character.
  • Canon Sue: Nancy Drew was originally supposed to be a role model, after all. She can be taking lessons in trick riding and replace the circus star chapters later, for just one example.
  • Values Dissonance

Tropes in the games include

  • Awesome Music: After going about three games without using the catchy opening tune, it returns with an all-new level of awesomeness.
    • While we're at it, why don't we mention just about every single score for the games? Kevin Manthei is a genius.
    • Special mention needs to go to Shadow at the Water's Edge. While the majority of the music is appropriately ominous, go into the city and you hear this cute little J-Pop number. It especially appreciated as something of a breather since most of the rest of Shadow is absolutely terrifying.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Mel in Warnings at Waverly Academy and Dave in Secret of Shadow Ranch.
    • Nick from The Final Scene verges on Memetic Badass within the fandom: "Fight the power!"
  • Fan-Preferred Couple: Nancy and... take your pick between one of the Hardy boys, or one of the various single male suspects in any of the games, even if it's the culprit, or if it would be totally unlikely in the game or in real life. The most popular of these, though, is Nancy and Dave from Secret of Shadow Ranch. Poor Ned...
  • Funny Moments: One of the bloopers after the end credits for Trail of the Twister features the dance club from Phantom of Venice. The one dancing? Pa. Doing the exact same dancing moves.
  • Jerkass: Most seemingly jerkass characters turn out to be Jerks With Hearts of Gold, but not so Simone Mueller of "The Final Scene", who uses the kidnapping of Nancy's friend Maya as publicity fodder.
  • Jump the Shark: Many fans see a declining quality in the recent games' endings, and selective few claim this happened with Ransom of the Seven Ships.
    • It's Easy, So It Sucks: The main complaint about the recent endings is that, unlike the earlier endings which required you to think at lightning speed to catch or stay one step ahead of the culprit, they now focus less on the action and more on the puzzles. They're slowly getting better with this, but the worst offender of this was Legend of the Crystal Skull which made the ending a little too easy to win.
  • Memetic Mutation: Thanks to the tweenage fans with video cameras.
  • Narm: In Curse of Blackmoor Manor, one of the puzzles you must complete involves moving a giant statue across the alchemy lab (don't ask) to capture all four wind clouds which keep trying to push the statue into pits of doom and you must start over. This would be a little more frustrating...were it not for the hilarious Big No the statue cries out.
    • Also, in one of the Game Over scenarios for Creature of Kapu Cave, if you make too much noise and wake up the grumpy professor, he growls " You young lady would appear to be in very. Deep. Trou-ble. " Try not cracking up.
    • In one of The Final Scene's Game Over scenarios, Nancy getting electrocuted produces some ear-shatteringly hilarious results.
  • Periphery Demographic: If you started playing these games in your early teens and still play them well into your college years, you are not the only one.
    • What if you're a boy? The original slogan "For girls who aren't afraid of a mouse," made it sound like a girl's club? (Although Herinteractive has stated that a good chunk of their audience is male.)
    • Heck, these are practically one of the few point and click adventure games that are still being made today.
  • Scrappy Mechanic: While the games are getting better at them, the annoyance of constantly returning to an overworld or map to get from house to house varies.
    • "Isis! Forward! Left! Down! Forward! Paw!" "... ... ... ... * whimper* " * Scuffle, scuffle, scuffle, scuffle, scuffle.*
  • Tear Jerker: The historical backstories of the games tend to take a turn into the ridiculously depressing:
    • In Secret of Shadow Ranch, outlaw Dirk and sheriff's daughter Frances are in love. The sheriff finds out, Dirk gets hanged, Frances leaves Arizona forever without knowing about Dirk's final letters to her, and the sheriff dies alone, full of regret for driving away his beloved daughter. In fact, the paper his final diary entry was written on has stains left behind by the sheriff's tears.
    • In Danger by Design, Noisette Tornade, out of love for Paris and its art, employs the help of her German lover to steal and hide several pieces of beautiful stained glass so they won't be destroyed during World War II. When her countrymen discover her liaison with the German, they immediately accuse her of treason, and though she is acquitted and eventually becomes Director of Public Works in Paris, the suspicion against her never subsides and her lover leaves her forever.
    • Treasure in the Royal Tower centers around the good intentions of Marie Antoinette. Guess how that one worked out.
    • In The Haunted Carousel, the side plot involves the late Daryl Trent's attempt to bring happiness to his repressed daughter Joy Trent, using a homemade robot called Miles the Magnificent Memory Machine." Through the game, Miles helps to purge Joy's anger against her late mother. This culminates in the discovery of the carousel horse Joy's mother bought for her as a child, along with the last remaining photo of her mother and a letter from Daryl telling Joy how much her parents loved her.
  • That One Puzzle: The Fox and Geese game in White Wolf of Icicle Creek.
    • And the Wire Portrait puzzle in Shadow at the Water's Edge.
  • The Untwist: In Trail of the Twister, Scott, the suspect with the most obvious evidence and the rudest personality is the culprit.
    • Which may actually rate as a twist ending if you've played several of the other games first, as it's far more often the nicest suspect who turns out to be the culprit!
  • Values Dissonance: In Shadow at the Water's Edge, Miwako's ranting about Yumi being selfish for moving out of the Ryokan and wanting to have her own career instead of taking on the one expected of her only makes sense if you understand the general Japanese attitude about independence versus doing what's expected of you.
    • Oddly enough, it was just Miwako and her grandmother, Takae, who frowned on Yumi being her own person; their (deceased) mother, Kasumi, actually didn't mind if her daughters did what they wanted, as revealed in the letter to the girls found at the end of the game. Then again, Takae did describe Kasumi as being just as free-spirited as Yumi, showing that not every Japanese person holds the same attitude about a particular issue as the traditional attitude would command them to.
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