Review: Faircroft’s Antiques: Treasures of Treffenburg Collector’s Edition (Nintendo Switch)

This hidden object adventure set in the world of art is surprisingly refreshing. Faircroft’s Antiques: Treasures of Treffenburg Collector’s Edition differentiates itself through its plot. While many games in this genre gravitate towards darker tales of tragedy, Treasures of Treffenburg is uniquely upbeat.

You take on the role of Mia Faircroft, a conservator who’s visiting the town of Treffenburg to document the fabled antique collection of the late Lady Harcourt. While it may not sound overly interesting on paper, it develops into a nice story thanks largely to the cast of characters. This town is full of good-looking people who are all too happy to help Mia learn about their town’s history. Despite lacking voice work, they manage to leave an impression and aid in the pleasant plot development.

While the story is charming, the gameplay has both the flow and variety needed to make it stick. Each chapter has six or seven locales in town that you visit in any order you like. You can even leave should you find yourself temporarily stuck. I recommend using the hints rarely, if ever, as they basically play the game for you. The hidden object gameplay and puzzles mix things up so that you won’t get bored.

Sometimes items will simply be listed for you to find. Other times, silhouettes will make you scour the screen. Occasionally you’re only given clues for the items to find, and these are my favorite. While rarely cryptic, it’s a tweak I don’t recall seeing much. The puzzles offer a mix of jigsaw and mahjong and more. They manage to fit into the flow of the story rather than feeling tacked on.

The Austrian locations you visit are attractive and vivid. The main drawback is that you return to them too often. This isn’t uncommon for the genre, but often having repeated items to find on top of this comes off more like thoughtless padding. It’s Treasures of Treffenburg’s main disappointment, as no matter how cool an area is to look at, you’ll remember where many of the objects are. At least it’s nice when Mia catches up with the townsfolk in each locale.

Across its 20 chapters, Faircroft’s Antiques: Treasures of Treffenburg Collector’s Edition tells an out-of-the-ordinary story that’s encouraging and well-made. It’s a hearty adventure for this genre also, one I clocked over 10 hours in. Even with some padding, that’s a fair amount of content for the price, longer than comparable games on the Switch. In a sea of hidden object games, this one emerges near the top. I hope the sequel, Faircroft’s Antiques: The Heir of Glen Kinnoch Collector’s Edition, is even better.