The inventory is easily accessible by a right click, and you can also find here all the clues you have collected along the way and see all the dialogues you`ve had so far in the game. Even if you can`t see the name "Sherlock Holmes" in the title, it`s not far from it, as Van Helsing`s adventure would have puzzled even the great detective at times.

One problem adventure games have always had to deal with was the dreaded "pixel hunt" that basically meant that gamers had to spend a lot of time moving the mouse slowly over every scene just to find interactable items. I`m glad to see this is quickly becoming a thing of the past, every game having a different system to solve this issue. Dracula: Origin does this in a way that lets players choose if they want to be helped or not.

One press of the space bar will highlight all interactable items on screen, as well as showing you all the locations that you can travel to, from there. You can use this only when you`re stuck, or you can keep one finger on the space bar at all times and remove all challenge from the game. Yes, this actually makes the game much easier and could be considered cheating, even if it is a built in feature.

At first, even without the spacebar, I thought the game was too easy, but the difficulty of the puzzles increases as the game progresses. Finding the necessary items won`t be a problem (considering the space bar), but combining them, will. Once every while you`ll just have to try combining every item with all the others and see if you can come up with something useful. Unlike the quests, this part was a little confusing, but you can rest assured that all the items are in your inventory, just waiting to be combined. Whenever you want to leave a scene, without collecting all the items or doing everything you have to, the game won`t let you and Van Helsing will comment on how he has to look around more. His comments are quite funny actually, especially when picking up an item, he`ll always say something along the lines: "This looks useful, I`m taking it".

The locations visited are full of life and very detailed, as your travels take you to London, Egypt, Vienna and Transilvania, but especially the final level seems rushed, with a small number of locations to explore. This was the first thing that left me a little disappointed after finishing the game. Another issue I had with the game was the story. I appreciate good graphics and logical puzzles in a quest game (although the piano puzzle had me searching on google for piano keys), but the story is the most important part for me and Dracula: Origin seems to be lacking in this department.

You find out almost nothing about Van Helsing or Mina, and even Dracula remains quite a mistery during the game, even with the occasional letters that tell life from his point of view. The ending of the game was shallow and unsatisfactory as the final confrontation was about 10 seconds long, with no dialogue or tension build up. Another problem I had, that reminded me of Darkness Within, was the presence of (absolutely required) steps in order to solve a puzzle. I don`t understand why the game has to acknowledge my progress with an "Aha" from Van Helsing to let me solve a quest, when I already knew what I had to do. You`ll know what I`m talking about quickly enough, when you start dusting the graves for clues .

The graphics are certainly a strong point, like most adventure games, but I was (yet again) disappointed by the voice acting and dialogues. There is no emotion in any of the dialogues in the game and all the dialogues seem mediocre. And while I appreciated the gothic atmosphere of the game, I felt the dialogues were a little farfetched, everyone trying to sound "more gothic" than the other. The music is excellent though, changing as the locations change and even if it does seem out of place at times, it is mysterious and gloomy enough to keep you hooked into the game.