This is such a fun topic! I agree with most of your list, and I got so happy when you called out the Labyrinth sets because I spent soo much time on my first play through trying to understand how they could possibly work! But for me Castle Malloy is #1. The entire last third of the game is so absurd and just ruins it for me. Even if it was just Fiona with no jet pack involved I’d have a hard time, but the JET PACK?! I can’t! 🤣
I disagree only with the Captive Curse because I always thought about the monster as a legend that started years ago and people just wanted to go along with it. Kinda like the stories about Loch Ness and Big Foot. People claim they see them all the time but do they really though? And all the disappearances were more of the tragic accidents but people wanted to believe in the evil monster
My other big complaint for Haunting of Castle Malloy was how did no one ever notice Fiona? She didn’t spend ALL her time whizzing about on the jet pack. How was she surviving? How was she finding new clothes? Seriously, she’s an elderly woman by the time the game takes place, how did no one stop and wonder where Fiona Malloy disappeared to all these years and whether or not the banshee was actually real? Fiona’s social skills were bad, but clearly not THAT bad. How did no one notice her for literal decades?
Yeah, it is definitely a stretch of reality! I always got the impression that she basically never left the bog and her hut. She only flew the jetpack around the Castle Malloy grounds. It seems like Donal was the only person who lived there after the explosion and maybe not even him! So it's plausible...but you're right, a big suspension of reality! LOL
Ah!!! I got an ad for the first time on your videos!!! Hooray!! So happy you will get a tiny reward for your efforts!! Tip for any fellow detectives who want to support - don’t skip the ads for Caitlyn’s videos (I don’t know all the ins and outs but I know it helps more than skipping the ads)!!
Oh goodness! I can’t imagine how long it took you to get everything in place! I’m so glad you managed to do it all by the time this video released! You have worked so hard and been so consistent and generous with what you’ve shared and I’m so glad your hard work is paying off! I’m so happy to be a tiny part of this group!!
I may have mentioned it on another video but I absolutely love that Haunting of Castle Malloy is just like “no that isn’t a banshee…those are obviously not real. It’s just your run of the mill feral old lady with a jet pack”
Oh GHT.... I absolutely love this game and the explanation of the ghost is something. I seem to scrub from my mind every single time I play it or hear about it 😆
I honestly just assume that Charlotte is real and the gas leak is just something the characters try to use to rationalize everything rather than admit that ghosts are real. I mean... one of the biggest things that bug me is that they mentioned that some of the charlotte sightings are someone in a costume, but every single time nancy sees charlotte, she's transparent. When you find the old projector footage with charlotte's ghost on it, I originally thought it was a clue to show how the hauntings happened rather than another haunting itself. But projections are never mentioned as being used to fake a haunting.
Woohoo! I love this topic. So fun! Absolutely some much-needed shade for Castle Malloy & Labyrinth of Lies. For Labyrinth of Lies, they put a lot a lot of creativity into the sets, and it's a shame they landed so poorly! But rather than being something of a marvel, they just break immersion for players. You're always thinking "this is ridiculous, this isn't real." They could have 100% gotten away with this if they made the setting a theme park, akin to Disneyland. Disneyland has live shows & vaults/exhibits of their original art. So the characters could still be actors and the museum could still have a place there (though it may be tweaked to better suit a theme park). For my personal list I may remove TRT, because the idea that the castle was moved with all of its secrets intact never really broke immersion for me. It was like a "that's weird, but oh well" moment for me. When I visited Wisconsin as a kiddo, there were a couple buildings my parents pointed out to me as ones that originated in Europe and were transported over. Normally they are rebuilt brick by brick, but I could suspend my disbelief and be like, maybe they took the tower part as a chunk so they wouldn't ruin the artwork in the room. I would add in The Silent Spy (probably around the middle to high end of unrealistic). And that is because the one thing every single character insists (that Nancy's life is in danger), I do not believe. Every character tells Nancy to leave or she will die, but every bit of danger is undercut in the game and painfully breaks immersion for me. Nancy's room had shots fired into it, yet she can waltz back in right after the "attack?" (They should have moved Nancy to another room, even if the attack was faked. Since it's a hotel they could have it look almost the same as her current room, in case that is a budget constraint) Moira is kidnapped but is allowed to return home and she adds no additional security measures and doesn't say a word of what happened? Ewan's headquarters get infiltrated and he gets bound, but as soon as he's free it's "business as usual"? Nancy & Zoe get thrown in a garbage compactor where they could die, and all Zoe can do is joke and tease Nancy and they have a little bicker session. And the ending where the culprit is just absent the whole time completely removes suspense as well. You don't even get to see them when you "confront" them. Absolutely nothing in this game feels dangerous, in spite of all the characters insisting it is.
Yay amazing video! I totally agree with everything. Labyrinth of lies drove me nuts while playing it cause I remember I actually spent time going around the sets and trying to figure out in my head how they would realistically work. I couldn't of course. That whole game is a waste of potential. Keep up the great work :)
So I think swapping out Ghost of Thornton Hall out with Tomb of the Lost Queen would make this list pretty perfect. Personally, I felt like Ghost of Thornton Halls explanation was supposed to leave you wanting more. I think they heavily were implying that the haunting (at least some of them) were real. In fact, I think there is a theory that they were based on the haunting with Charlottes room door open - how would Nancy know what to hallucinate since she has never been inside? So I guess that’s why that game doesn’t feel unrealistic to me. Somehow it’s easier to accept actual hauntings lol Also, I got a mid roll ad and I could not be more happy about that 💜 I’m so excited you are at 1000+ subs!!
Aw yay!! That's so exciting!! And yeah, I can totally see that 👍 I sort of just wish that they didn't try to explain it all or explain it in the MHM sort of way where some of the hauntings are explained but some still aren't. It just felt like it was trying too hard imo 🤔 though you are absolutely right that they at least flesh out the explanation!
Why am I not surprised to see another yet again awesome video?? Honestly, you never disappoint with new content! AND CONGRATS FOR 1K SUBSCRIBERS!!!!!!!!!! 2 things really surprised me in this video - TRT made the list ; and MID didn't! I was literally thinking before I clicked on this video - Ahh, I am sure MID will be #1 😂😂 But, I do agree with LIE being #1, the game is so ''obscured''. The theatre sets in the game are extremely beautiful, probably the best designed in the series, but you are correct, THEY'RE SO UNREALISTIC - the lava, the electrocuted water, the complex puzzles in the sets etc etc etc! Great video though! :)
Ahhh! Thank you so much!! Yeah, I was honestly surprised at myself too 😂 when I looked at MID though, it was pretty grounded in reality. They explain basically every haunting, there is a lot of physical evidence for the hauntings, and the puzzles are decently realistic. A surprise, for sure!!
Completely agree with #1! I always have so much fun replaying Labyrinth of Lies at the beginning, but then once I get down to the ridiculous set, I just lose interest. Being in theater my whole life, I just can't handle the absurdity.
Alibi in Ashes: Nancy, a local celebrity, is arrested on the basis of totally circumstantial evidence, and then given free run of the police station. That is so absurd and so pervasive, that I really had a hard time getting past it the entire game.
😄😄😂🤣 I've never played or watched a playthrough of _White Wolf at Icicle Creek,_ so imagine my surprise/confusion when I heard (@ 0:05:51): "This game is mostly realistic but things start to get a bit out of hand when ISIS shows up..."
I think part of the charm of Ghost of Thornton hall is precisely that the game left it for us to decide on whether it was the Carbon monoxide poisoning or if Charlotte was real. And I’m choosing to believe she was real!
Cool concept for a video!! Totally agree with this list. Usually I don't pay too much attention to how realistic a game is, but shattered medallion and labyrinth of lies were sooo unrealistic is was super distracting. They made absolutely no sense. Pretty sure I've only played those games once. I try to pretend that Sonny Joon never showed up so I can keep imaging him and his backstory in my mind. I always thought the reason behind the "hauntings" in GHT were such a neat idea, one of those explanations that was laid out in front of us so we could have figured it, without it neither being too obvious or totally random. I never thought that anyone was dressing up as Charlotte though? I noticed last time I played the game that we don't see "Charlotte" until after we learn about her masked ball, so I assumed Nancy was just hallucinating what she thought Charlotte looked like. I agree that Nancy shouldn't have been affected outside the house though. I also never realized how ridiculous the plot to treasure in the royal tower was until you spelled it out lol. Congrats on the adds btw! I made sure not to skip them :)
Aww, thank you so much, that's so kind!! Loved reading all your thoughts and I totally agree! Later in GTH we get confirmation that both Harper and Jessalyn were dressing up as Charlotte and that is supposed to explain "some" of the hauntings, but yes, I do actually enjoy the carbon monoxide reason too!! And totally agree LIE and MED are just plain distracting!!
I don’t think that the Captive Curse’s monster belief is that out there. Think of Bigfoot, mothman, or any cryptid or boogieman. Small towns can be kooky and people can believe strange things! Some people think the Loch Ness Monster is a dinosaur that’s managed to survive all this time in that lake, lol!
Totally fair! I guess I gave TMB and SPY slack because of their consistency. They kind of set us up for: "Okay, crazy Egyptian mystery" and "Okay, wild spy plot," but they always go for it. Totally see those games as contenders though!
@Schuylerville agreed! Or Nancy's sudden Olympian strength when she jumps on the pillars! Where did that come from? Why couldn't she use that strength when trying to carry the stone rings in SSH or when trying to open the trap door in FIN?
Reading through the comments, it seems like I’m the only who thinks Warnings at Waverly Academy is so unbelievable! It’s one of my favorite games so I give it a pass on a lot of things but I can’t get over the Rachel story line. There’s just NO WAY that would’ve worked in real life.
Haha, true! That's a great point! The rest of the game feels pretty grounded and I think the characters themselves are so realistic that it perhaps balances everything out!
Honestly I'd argue that the bad explanations for Charlotte's appearances in Thornton Hall were kind of the point. The logical solutions aren't strong enough to outweigh the possibility of a real ghost. The explanations are supposed to be weak to make a skeptic of the skeptic. At least thats how I read it.
True! I almost just wish there was some sort of caveat statement to help with that. I feel like that's one way that SAW explained the hauntings better!
Yes, absolutely. As a theater person myself, I also found the amount of puzzle locks and details (such as the fire) absurd. They may have been cool puzzles, but they had NO PLACE in their setting and felt like time wasters for sure... and oh yeah - The cage?! Why did they build a fully functional automated cage with a sliding spider-themed bypass system? Okay, I'd better stop here. I could go on much longer 😅. Thanks for another cool ND video!
I can buy the jetpack itself, but not the idea that it's still running decades later without fuel or maintenance. But I'd maintain that ALL the games have some major unrealistic element in them, so choosing a Top 10 seems arbitrary. If you don't think so, then do the opposite video: Do The MOST realistic games, and I'll see what I can find wrong with them. There are some absurdities that span multiple games, like "Nancy Goes on a Vacation Without Taking Any Money With Her". But I missed the fact that Sonny just took over the show out of the blue. I thought he got the job through normal channels, but I'd have to play it again, to be sure.
Holy smokes, I thought I commented on this, but I guess I didn't! This was well done!! New Zealand and Hawaii deserved better. And while yes Labyrinth of Lies has its flaws, I shall go ahead and out myself as not a big theater fan by saying that I still find it fun as I think of it as more of an amusement ride rather than a theater, lol. 😜😂😂
You know there's some unbelievable stuff on this list if the existence of sentient talking parrots can't crack the top 10! 😂 When I first read the video title, I was thinking more along the lines of the most unrealistic plots, like Nancy helping the Italian police in VEN, or being invited to an archaeological dig in TMB, or being recruited by an actual spy agency in SPY. I guess unbelievable plot setups are actually kind of rare when compared to the amount of times the more realistic plots can go a little bit off the rails.
All good points! The reasons that VEN, TMB, and SPY were spared was basically for that exact reason too! The unrealistic element is the basis of the plot from the beginning, so the entire thing has this "guess this is just our adventure" kind of feel! Like a movie! But yes, sentient talking parrots...very strange 😂
This is indeed a subject I’ve never thought about for a video. That said, I’m so used to reading crime fiction, that I suspend disbelief all the time. So most wacky things in the ND world don’t bother me. However, I do agree with most of your points. I do think the culprit disguise aspect is very believable, especially since he is an actor. Lol.
Yeah, most of what I read requires suspending disbelief too! And true, it's not the disguise that bothers me, it's the "several long years" part, haha!
@@WizardKittenYT Nancy's gone from logging into computers with ancient interfaces to having a smartphone. Clearly, time has passed, even if the River Heights crew hasn't aged. Personally, I think Nancy and her friends, the Hardys and their chums and the Bobbsey Twins, along with any other long-running Stratemeyer Syndicate characters I'm overlooking, were all attacked by vampires at various points in the first few decades of the 20th century. That's why they never age, can survive trash compactors and falling elevators, don't seem to have a biological need to eat and in Nancy's case at least, don't have reflections. Dwayne though, ages normally like most one-off characters. He says it's been years, since it has been (we even know for fact that STFD took place in 1999 thanks to Mattie's recent award, while Nancy's tech upgrades by the time of RAN indicate that it was considerably later).
It’d be neat if you ranked the most realistic games! This made me think of several games that greatly contrast from this game based on how realistic/possible they are.
To me the most unrealistic games are the ones where Nancy only needs one day to solve the mystery we all know a real detective doesn't need a day solving a mystery IRL takes more then just a day it takes several days maybe even weeks to a month sometimes a year or more because the trail has gone cold
I know this video is old. In the slient spy. Don't we see a doll house in kid Nancy's room? That looks the same as the Liliac inn and her car? Nancy is either dreaming or is a nostalgic memory of her playing detective with her old doll house. I think the monster in the captive curse is a centuries old cover-up. That people used to get away with murder. The whole theme of monsters are born from the hearts of men. Renate keeps on bringing up. However, this is my reasoning for how the games make sense. I could be way off the mark.
I adore Ghost of Thornton hall BECAUSE it left a vague explanation about Charlotte..was it really carbon monoxide poisoning..or was it truly Charlotte's ghost..we will never know. It's the only Nancy Drew game in which we are left to think about...was the ghost actually real. The only potentially supernatural game. I personally believe it was Charlotte.
I think it was Charlotte too! I compare it to MHM which I personally believe did it better because we know exactly what hauntings were done by Abby and which were not. It's not clear which ones in GTH were!
So what your saying is that the shattered medallion is crazy, doesn't make much sence, and obsessed with aliens? That just sounds like sonny joon IS the game.😂
I disagree on GTH. I think between the CO2 poisoning, stress of Jesslyn's disappearance, the local ghost stories about Charlotte haunting the estate, and the trauma of Charlotte's loss and the fire--not to mention the use of the tape recording of Charlotte on the night of her death in the costume she "haunts" in--all make it plausible that this distressed family and Nancy would think that they saw her ghost in a consistent manner. For the family, and superstitious locals who may have known Charlotte, it's psychosomatic to a certain degree; they have the photographic evidence to remember exactly what Charlotte looked like when she died and therefore would've looked like as a ghost (assuming as most do that ghosts haunt in what they wore as they died). For Nancy it's the video technology, plus whatever influence the gas poisoning had on her thereafter. Maybe it's just me, but I never had a problem with this explanation. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yeah, I can see that! Sometimes it's the timing that doesn't always work out for me I suppose! Personally, I just like the explanation that the ghost is real, LOL
@@WizardKittenYT I do too! I think being a bit more ambiguous would've lent itself better to the Southern Gothic genre. They could've had a line in Nancy's letter saying that just one incident or encounter wasn't explained as being staged by Harper and Jesslyn for example. Alas!
Are you saying it's unrealistic for a struggling little Greek museum to have an underground lava pit? Persist in this nonsense and I shall have to unsubscribe, Kitten! I will ALWAYS point out how in Old Clock that the psychic guy says "You go, girl!" . In 1938. Okay Also, elderly hermit with a jetpack? No. Just no. Stop it, HER.
Thank you for keeping our precious fandom alive. You should do a rating video about character design and outfits.
Ooh, that's a fun idea!! Thanks for the suggestion!
Love the shade against the theaters in Labyrinth of Lies, lol!
LOL, thank you 😁 those theaters really grind my gears!!!
@@WizardKittenYT Isis is ADORABLE
@@WizardKittenYT I still agree with Patrick at The End of The Shattered Medallion. I don't understand any of this.
@@WizardKittenYT Labyrinth of Lies is pretty unrealistic but I still think that Hit A really good Game
@@WizardKittenYT The Machine in Last Train to Bluemoon Canyon is pretty unrealistic for being made at The time it was supposed to be
This is such a fun topic! I agree with most of your list, and I got so happy when you called out the Labyrinth sets because I spent soo much time on my first play through trying to understand how they could possibly work!
But for me Castle Malloy is #1. The entire last third of the game is so absurd and just ruins it for me. Even if it was just Fiona with no jet pack involved I’d have a hard time, but the JET PACK?! I can’t! 🤣
LOL, totally fair!! That jetpack really is something else 😂 but the rest is pretty bonkers too!
I disagree only with the Captive Curse because I always thought about the monster as a legend that started years ago and people just wanted to go along with it. Kinda like the stories about Loch Ness and Big Foot. People claim they see them all the time but do they really though?
And all the disappearances were more of the tragic accidents but people wanted to believe in the evil monster
My other big complaint for Haunting of Castle Malloy was how did no one ever notice Fiona? She didn’t spend ALL her time whizzing about on the jet pack. How was she surviving? How was she finding new clothes? Seriously, she’s an elderly woman by the time the game takes place, how did no one stop and wonder where Fiona Malloy disappeared to all these years and whether or not the banshee was actually real? Fiona’s social skills were bad, but clearly not THAT bad. How did no one notice her for literal decades?
Yeah, it is definitely a stretch of reality! I always got the impression that she basically never left the bog and her hut. She only flew the jetpack around the Castle Malloy grounds. It seems like Donal was the only person who lived there after the explosion and maybe not even him! So it's plausible...but you're right, a big suspension of reality! LOL
Ah!!! I got an ad for the first time on your videos!!! Hooray!! So happy you will get a tiny reward for your efforts!! Tip for any fellow detectives who want to support - don’t skip the ads for Caitlyn’s videos (I don’t know all the ins and outs but I know it helps more than skipping the ads)!!
Aw yay!!! It worked!! I spent a lot of time this week trying to get everything set up, I'm so glad it's working!! Thank you!
Oh goodness! I can’t imagine how long it took you to get everything in place! I’m so glad you managed to do it all by the time this video released! You have worked so hard and been so consistent and generous with what you’ve shared and I’m so glad your hard work is paying off! I’m so happy to be a tiny part of this group!!
@@musicalblonde9187 thank you so much!! That means the world to hear! 🤗🤗🤗
I have RUclips red so I never see ads. 😬
@@karricompton That is so awesome, Karri! I totally get that!!
I may have mentioned it on another video but I absolutely love that Haunting of Castle Malloy is just like “no that isn’t a banshee…those are obviously not real. It’s just your run of the mill feral old lady with a jet pack”
Oh GHT.... I absolutely love this game and the explanation of the ghost is something. I seem to scrub from my mind every single time I play it or hear about it 😆
Lol!! I feel the same way! I think a MHM style explanation would have worked way better for it!
I honestly just assume that Charlotte is real and the gas leak is just something the characters try to use to rationalize everything rather than admit that ghosts are real. I mean... one of the biggest things that bug me is that they mentioned that some of the charlotte sightings are someone in a costume, but every single time nancy sees charlotte, she's transparent. When you find the old projector footage with charlotte's ghost on it, I originally thought it was a clue to show how the hauntings happened rather than another haunting itself. But projections are never mentioned as being used to fake a haunting.
@@maplepainttube8158 exactly! That’s a great idea, I should just stick with that line of thinking!
Woohoo! I love this topic. So fun! Absolutely some much-needed shade for Castle Malloy & Labyrinth of Lies. For Labyrinth of Lies, they put a lot a lot of creativity into the sets, and it's a shame they landed so poorly! But rather than being something of a marvel, they just break immersion for players. You're always thinking "this is ridiculous, this isn't real." They could have 100% gotten away with this if they made the setting a theme park, akin to Disneyland. Disneyland has live shows & vaults/exhibits of their original art. So the characters could still be actors and the museum could still have a place there (though it may be tweaked to better suit a theme park).
For my personal list I may remove TRT, because the idea that the castle was moved with all of its secrets intact never really broke immersion for me. It was like a "that's weird, but oh well" moment for me. When I visited Wisconsin as a kiddo, there were a couple buildings my parents pointed out to me as ones that originated in Europe and were transported over. Normally they are rebuilt brick by brick, but I could suspend my disbelief and be like, maybe they took the tower part as a chunk so they wouldn't ruin the artwork in the room.
I would add in The Silent Spy (probably around the middle to high end of unrealistic). And that is because the one thing every single character insists (that Nancy's life is in danger), I do not believe. Every character tells Nancy to leave or she will die, but every bit of danger is undercut in the game and painfully breaks immersion for me. Nancy's room had shots fired into it, yet she can waltz back in right after the "attack?" (They should have moved Nancy to another room, even if the attack was faked. Since it's a hotel they could have it look almost the same as her current room, in case that is a budget constraint) Moira is kidnapped but is allowed to return home and she adds no additional security measures and doesn't say a word of what happened? Ewan's headquarters get infiltrated and he gets bound, but as soon as he's free it's "business as usual"? Nancy & Zoe get thrown in a garbage compactor where they could die, and all Zoe can do is joke and tease Nancy and they have a little bicker session. And the ending where the culprit is just absent the whole time completely removes suspense as well. You don't even get to see them when you "confront" them. Absolutely nothing in this game feels dangerous, in spite of all the characters insisting it is.
Very fair points about SPY! It is so frustrating how the spy "danger" is just totally fabricated!
Yay amazing video! I totally agree with everything. Labyrinth of lies drove me nuts while playing it cause I remember I actually spent time going around the sets and trying to figure out in my head how they would realistically work. I couldn't of course. That whole game is a waste of potential. Keep up the great work :)
I couldn't agree more!! So glad you enjoyed the video!
So I think swapping out Ghost of Thornton Hall out with Tomb of the Lost Queen would make this list pretty perfect. Personally, I felt like Ghost of Thornton Halls explanation was supposed to leave you wanting more. I think they heavily were implying that the haunting (at least some of them) were real. In fact, I think there is a theory that they were based on the haunting with Charlottes room door open - how would Nancy know what to hallucinate since she has never been inside? So I guess that’s why that game doesn’t feel unrealistic to me. Somehow it’s easier to accept actual hauntings lol
Also, I got a mid roll ad and I could not be more happy about that 💜 I’m so excited you are at 1000+ subs!!
Aw yay!! That's so exciting!! And yeah, I can totally see that 👍 I sort of just wish that they didn't try to explain it all or explain it in the MHM sort of way where some of the hauntings are explained but some still aren't. It just felt like it was trying too hard imo 🤔 though you are absolutely right that they at least flesh out the explanation!
Why am I not surprised to see another yet again awesome video?? Honestly, you never disappoint with new content! AND CONGRATS FOR 1K SUBSCRIBERS!!!!!!!!!!
2 things really surprised me in this video - TRT made the list ; and MID didn't!
I was literally thinking before I clicked on this video - Ahh, I am sure MID will be #1 😂😂
But, I do agree with LIE being #1, the game is so ''obscured''. The theatre sets in the game are extremely beautiful, probably the best designed in the series, but you are correct, THEY'RE SO UNREALISTIC - the lava, the electrocuted water, the complex puzzles in the sets etc etc etc!
Great video though! :)
Ahhh! Thank you so much!! Yeah, I was honestly surprised at myself too 😂 when I looked at MID though, it was pretty grounded in reality. They explain basically every haunting, there is a lot of physical evidence for the hauntings, and the puzzles are decently realistic. A surprise, for sure!!
Completely agree with #1! I always have so much fun replaying Labyrinth of Lies at the beginning, but then once I get down to the ridiculous set, I just lose interest. Being in theater my whole life, I just can't handle the absurdity.
Glad it's not just me!!!
Alibi in Ashes: Nancy, a local celebrity, is arrested on the basis of totally circumstantial evidence, and then given free run of the police station. That is so absurd and so pervasive, that I really had a hard time getting past it the entire game.
Fair enough! I guess the total lack of supernatural elements and the police procedural elements make it feel more realistic to me as a whole!
😄😄😂🤣 I've never played or watched a playthrough of _White Wolf at Icicle Creek,_ so imagine my surprise/confusion when I heard (@ 0:05:51):
"This game is mostly realistic but things start to get a bit out of hand when ISIS shows up..."
LOL!! Yeah, without context, that would be rather surprising! 😂😂
I think part of the charm of Ghost of Thornton hall is precisely that the game left it for us to decide on whether it was the Carbon monoxide poisoning or if Charlotte was real. And I’m choosing to believe she was real!
Cool concept for a video!! Totally agree with this list. Usually I don't pay too much attention to how realistic a game is, but shattered medallion and labyrinth of lies were sooo unrealistic is was super distracting. They made absolutely no sense. Pretty sure I've only played those games once. I try to pretend that Sonny Joon never showed up so I can keep imaging him and his backstory in my mind.
I always thought the reason behind the "hauntings" in GHT were such a neat idea, one of those explanations that was laid out in front of us so we could have figured it, without it neither being too obvious or totally random. I never thought that anyone was dressing up as Charlotte though? I noticed last time I played the game that we don't see "Charlotte" until after we learn about her masked ball, so I assumed Nancy was just hallucinating what she thought Charlotte looked like. I agree that Nancy shouldn't have been affected outside the house though.
I also never realized how ridiculous the plot to treasure in the royal tower was until you spelled it out lol.
Congrats on the adds btw! I made sure not to skip them :)
Aww, thank you so much, that's so kind!! Loved reading all your thoughts and I totally agree! Later in GTH we get confirmation that both Harper and Jessalyn were dressing up as Charlotte and that is supposed to explain "some" of the hauntings, but yes, I do actually enjoy the carbon monoxide reason too!! And totally agree LIE and MED are just plain distracting!!
I don’t think that the Captive Curse’s monster belief is that out there. Think of Bigfoot, mothman, or any cryptid or boogieman. Small towns can be kooky and people can believe strange things! Some people think the Loch Ness Monster is a dinosaur that’s managed to survive all this time in that lake, lol!
Well done. However I would switch TRT out for Tomb Of the Lost Queen. Just my opinion
I agree! Even The Silent Spy felt really unrealistic to me at times
Totally fair! I guess I gave TMB and SPY slack because of their consistency. They kind of set us up for: "Okay, crazy Egyptian mystery" and "Okay, wild spy plot," but they always go for it. Totally see those games as contenders though!
@@WizardKittenYT I will admit though, I'm one of those crazy TRT fans that think the game is perfection.
@@alisonw.peters4614 oh I love TRT!! I could totally see considering it perfection! 😁
@Schuylerville agreed! Or Nancy's sudden Olympian strength when she jumps on the pillars! Where did that come from? Why couldn't she use that strength when trying to carry the stone rings in SSH or when trying to open the trap door in FIN?
You always deliver such great Nancy Drew content!
Aww, thank you so much!! 🤗
Reading through the comments, it seems like I’m the only who thinks Warnings at Waverly Academy is so unbelievable! It’s one of my favorite games so I give it a pass on a lot of things but I can’t get over the Rachel story line. There’s just NO WAY that would’ve worked in real life.
Haha, true! That's a great point! The rest of the game feels pretty grounded and I think the characters themselves are so realistic that it perhaps balances everything out!
Honestly I'd argue that the bad explanations for Charlotte's appearances in Thornton Hall were kind of the point. The logical solutions aren't strong enough to outweigh the possibility of a real ghost. The explanations are supposed to be weak to make a skeptic of the skeptic. At least thats how I read it.
True! I almost just wish there was some sort of caveat statement to help with that. I feel like that's one way that SAW explained the hauntings better!
So glad you called out labyrinth of lies. That is all. 😂
LOL, yes! *applause*
Yes, absolutely. As a theater person myself, I also found the amount of puzzle locks and details (such as the fire) absurd. They may have been cool puzzles, but they had NO PLACE in their setting and felt like time wasters for sure... and oh yeah - The cage?! Why did they build a fully functional automated cage with a sliding spider-themed bypass system? Okay, I'd better stop here. I could go on much longer 😅. Thanks for another cool ND video!
I can buy the jetpack itself, but not the idea that it's still running decades later without fuel or maintenance.
But I'd maintain that ALL the games have some major unrealistic element in them, so choosing a Top 10 seems arbitrary. If you don't think so, then do the opposite video: Do The MOST realistic games, and I'll see what I can find wrong with them. There are some absurdities that span multiple games, like "Nancy Goes on a Vacation Without Taking Any Money With Her".
But I missed the fact that Sonny just took over the show out of the blue. I thought he got the job through normal channels, but I'd have to play it again, to be sure.
Haha, a good point!
Holy smokes, I thought I commented on this, but I guess I didn't! This was well done!! New Zealand and Hawaii deserved better. And while yes Labyrinth of Lies has its flaws, I shall go ahead and out myself as not a big theater fan by saying that I still find it fun as I think of it as more of an amusement ride rather than a theater, lol. 😜😂😂
Hahaha! Fair enough!! Definitely agree that the tropical locations deserved better!
You know there's some unbelievable stuff on this list if the existence of sentient talking parrots can't crack the top 10! 😂
When I first read the video title, I was thinking more along the lines of the most unrealistic plots, like Nancy helping the Italian police in VEN, or being invited to an archaeological dig in TMB, or being recruited by an actual spy agency in SPY. I guess unbelievable plot setups are actually kind of rare when compared to the amount of times the more realistic plots can go a little bit off the rails.
All good points! The reasons that VEN, TMB, and SPY were spared was basically for that exact reason too! The unrealistic element is the basis of the plot from the beginning, so the entire thing has this "guess this is just our adventure" kind of feel! Like a movie! But yes, sentient talking parrots...very strange 😂
The sentient parrot isn't pervasive, just a fun nothing. The stories would be almost unchanged if you took it out.
This is indeed a subject I’ve never thought about for a video. That said, I’m so used to reading crime fiction, that I suspend disbelief all the time. So most wacky things in the ND world don’t bother me. However, I do agree with most of your points. I do think the culprit disguise aspect is very believable, especially since he is an actor. Lol.
Yeah, most of what I read requires suspending disbelief too! And true, it's not the disguise that bothers me, it's the "several long years" part, haha!
@@WizardKittenYT Nancy's gone from logging into computers with ancient interfaces to having a smartphone. Clearly, time has passed, even if the River Heights crew hasn't aged. Personally, I think Nancy and her friends, the Hardys and their chums and the Bobbsey Twins, along with any other long-running Stratemeyer Syndicate characters I'm overlooking, were all attacked by vampires at various points in the first few decades of the 20th century. That's why they never age, can survive trash compactors and falling elevators, don't seem to have a biological need to eat and in Nancy's case at least, don't have reflections. Dwayne though, ages normally like most one-off characters. He says it's been years, since it has been (we even know for fact that STFD took place in 1999 thanks to Mattie's recent award, while Nancy's tech upgrades by the time of RAN indicate that it was considerably later).
@@seannolan9857 I enjoy the vampire theory!
I couldn’t even get through Labryinth because I was so annoyed with the sets 😂
It’d be neat if you ranked the most realistic games! This made me think of several games that greatly contrast from this game based on how realistic/possible they are.
For sure!! That idea is on my to do list for analysis videos! 😁
"Okay, TRT stans, don't come for me"
Me: *quietly sets pitchfork down* 😆😜
LOL, I respectfully see and honor your pitchfork XD
You should do a top 10 list of the best endings in the Nancy Drew series!
I actually have! It's in the ND analysis playlist!
@@WizardKittenYT oh thank you! I didn’t realize I’m gonna check it out!
To me the most unrealistic games are the ones where Nancy only needs one day to solve the mystery we all know a real detective doesn't need a day solving a mystery IRL takes more then just a day it takes several days maybe even weeks to a month sometimes a year or more because the trail has gone cold
I know this video is old. In the slient spy. Don't we see a doll house in kid Nancy's room? That looks the same as the Liliac inn and her car? Nancy is either dreaming or is a nostalgic memory of her playing detective with her old doll house. I think the monster in the captive curse is a centuries old cover-up. That people used to get away with murder. The whole theme of monsters are born from the hearts of men. Renate keeps on bringing up. However, this is my reasoning for how the games make sense. I could be way off the mark.
Love both those theories!
I adore Ghost of Thornton hall BECAUSE it left a vague explanation about Charlotte..was it really carbon monoxide poisoning..or was it truly Charlotte's ghost..we will never know. It's the only Nancy Drew game in which we are left to think about...was the ghost actually real. The only potentially supernatural game. I personally believe it was Charlotte.
I think it was Charlotte too! I compare it to MHM which I personally believe did it better because we know exactly what hauntings were done by Abby and which were not. It's not clear which ones in GTH were!
So what your saying is that the shattered medallion is crazy, doesn't make much sence, and obsessed with aliens? That just sounds like sonny joon IS the game.😂
Pretty much 😅
I disagree on GTH. I think between the CO2 poisoning, stress of Jesslyn's disappearance, the local ghost stories about Charlotte haunting the estate, and the trauma of Charlotte's loss and the fire--not to mention the use of the tape recording of Charlotte on the night of her death in the costume she "haunts" in--all make it plausible that this distressed family and Nancy would think that they saw her ghost in a consistent manner. For the family, and superstitious locals who may have known Charlotte, it's psychosomatic to a certain degree; they have the photographic evidence to remember exactly what Charlotte looked like when she died and therefore would've looked like as a ghost (assuming as most do that ghosts haunt in what they wore as they died). For Nancy it's the video technology, plus whatever influence the gas poisoning had on her thereafter. Maybe it's just me, but I never had a problem with this explanation. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yeah, I can see that! Sometimes it's the timing that doesn't always work out for me I suppose! Personally, I just like the explanation that the ghost is real, LOL
@@WizardKittenYT I do too! I think being a bit more ambiguous would've lent itself better to the Southern Gothic genre. They could've had a line in Nancy's letter saying that just one incident or encounter wasn't explained as being staged by Harper and Jesslyn for example. Alas!
I think we can all agree that secret of the old clock was probably the worst game out of them all
Are you saying it's unrealistic for a struggling little Greek museum to have an underground lava pit? Persist in this nonsense and I shall have to unsubscribe, Kitten!
I will ALWAYS point out how in Old Clock that the psychic guy says "You go, girl!" . In 1938. Okay
Also, elderly hermit with a jetpack? No. Just no. Stop it, HER.