There are some things that kids just shouldn't have to put up with. Being transported to some weird dimension full of goblins, dwarves, swamplings, stupid wizards and sleeping giants is definitely one of them.
With a Nobel prize for attempted humour and puzzles so fiendish you'll certainly need help from the wise owl, Simon the Sorcerer is guaranteed to provide a distraction from the drudgery of modern life.
Choose between subtitled and full "talkie" version of the game.
Minimum system requirements: Windows XP or Windows Vista, 1 GHz Processor (1.4 GHz recommended), 512MB RAM (1 GB recommended), 3D graphics card compatible with DirectX 7 (compatible with DirectX 9 recommended), Mouse, Keyboard.
First off, be warned that it's an oldschool point-n-click adventure.
You are going to search for items, you're going to miss some, and you're going to get stuck until that fateful day when you either stumble upon one item or item combination, give up and look at a FAQ, or ask a fellow gog'er.
Point-n-click adventures can be a pain and very frustrating when you're stuck,... full review but no other genre can be as rewarding and fulfilling when you finally "get it".
As far as games in the genre go, this is actually pretty easy and manageable though. Most of the puzzles make sense, in a way. Pressing F10 will cheat and show you all items or persons you can interact with on the current screen, and there is a hint system with an owl you can ask for advice, quite userfriendly.
Gameplay consists of using your mouse pointer to steer your sorcerer-to-be around a wonderful world full of unique characters, engage in hilarious conversations, combine items you find lying around, use them one way or another, and hopefully achieve your goal of returning to your home unharmed.
You will kiss pigs, help timid barbarians, talk to tree stumps, cunningly disguise yourself, and bring all manners of misfortune upon those who stand in your way. You even get to use the ring(TM). You can instantly travel to certain landmarks using your magic map, and even loading and saving your game is done using an in-game item, the postcard. It's a very immersive experience, despite the main character breaking the fourth wall once or twice during conversations.
The amount of voice acting crammed into that tiny download is astonishing. Every conversation is fully voiced - and the writing is hilarious. Artwork and use of color make this game a timeless classic. Music's great too, of couse the tracks aren't fully orchestrated, but certainly fitting and enjoyable throughout. Many, if not most screens are animated, be it ducks swimming in a pond, squirrels running up a tree when they see you, butterflies fluttering around, flickering Fire illuminating a cave, etc. You will explore creepy caves and hideouts, a cozy village, luscious forests, and snow-covered peaks, among others.
The game itself will engross you in a colorful world that makes sense in a twisted way.
If you liked Monkey Island or Discworld you'll love this one. It's plenty of fun, hours long, easy to use but hard to master, and best of all, it's only six bucks. You would do yourself a disservice to not give this a playthrough.
While not as popular as some of the old LucasArts or Sierra graphical adventures, the original Simon The Sorcerer is a superb game, one with lots of humor and challenging puzzles.... full review
Put bluntly: If you enjoy the LucasArts classics, you should also enjoy this game... I'd imagine it's why support for it was built into the ScummVM emulation application (SCUMM was an engine specific to LucasArts games).
Simon can be thought of the magical equivalent of Guybrush Threepwood in the Monkey Island series... he's a sorcerer wannabe that is on a mission to rescue a more powerful, ally sorcerer. I don't remember the details of the story, but it's a good one - not great, but solid. The locations are excellent, and there's a lot of them.
Much of the humor is derived from science fiction - with characters such as Golem making an appearance.
It's great to see Simon on GoG... this will be my first purchase here. I'd urge anyone who enjoys graphic adventure games to pick this one up - you will not be disappointed.
Simon the Sorcerer is one of those games that I imagine people who still remember the games of the early nineties get nostalgic about. It's a fun game, to be sure, and you'll soon get over the low graphics and learn to appreciate the fun that is Simon the Sorcerer.
WARNING: INTENTIONAL SMALL SPOILERS AHEAD... full review
VISUALS; 5/5: Yes, I know, that's a high score for a game in which every character is a 2D sprite, but I think it's worth it. The forests and fields and backgrounds are all beautifully drawn, Simon gets a convincing animation for nearly every action he performs, and the dancing demons you get to see in the end credits look great. Every character and object looks like it is supposed to, and there are absolutely no instances of Featureless Blob Syndrome, an ailment common to other adventure games of the StS era which have vital plot items disguised as meaningless pixels on the screen.
SOUNDS; 4/5: The music, comprised of simple midi tunes, is suprisingly compelling and memorable, although I wouldn't go so far as to call it spectactular; it is a midi tune, after all. No, the place where this game's sound REALLY shines is in the voice acting. You will learn to love to hear Simon talk, and his constant barrage of tongue-in-cheek jokes will leave you smiling even as you make him walk into situations which are guaranteed to make him suffer.
WRITING/STORY 4/5: Adventure games revolve around the writing, more often than not, and the writing in StS is great. Where else are you going to see a troll forming a picket line over a bridge, alcoholic dwarves, or demons with cockney accents? I won't spoil anything this time, but suffice to say that it's funny. The only problem with the writing is that it doesn't always blend well with the actual puzzles you have to work through; for instance, you lose your spellbook to goblins at the beginning of the game, and have to go through a sidequest to get it back from the goblins, but no one ever tells you "Hey, dude, you lost your spellbook. Shouldn't you go find it?" And, for that matter, once you actually HAVE the spellbook, you never use it.
GAMEPLAY; 4/5: As with a lot of adventure games, you may feel rather aimless and misdirected as you play through StS; since your goal is to reach an ultimate objective by gathering up a bunch of random items and using them on random people or objects, you tend to do a lot of wandering around, and at least some of the puzzle solutions seem kind of arbitrary, like the hidden room under the woodcutter's cabin that you can only reach by fiddling around with his fireplace. It is fun, though, and you have the benefits of the F10 key (which highlights all the things on the screen that you can interact with) and the wise old owl (who will give you hints about some of the puzzles).
VALUE FOR PRICE/OVERALL; 4/5: This is a fun game, for all the reasons listed above, but Simon the Sorcerer ultimately falls into the same pit that most adventure games fall into: you can only play it once, and it's fairly short. You can finish the whole thing in about four hours, and once you have done that there's no more suprises in the game for you, unless you want to go back and choose different dialogue choices at the conversations that have scripted endings.
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