Deponia

Bought during a sale, in order to try a few more recent point & click adventures, after some time away from the genre, so great value for the price. It reminds me a bit of the Monkey Island series for the humor, the kind of graphics, and also for the kind of puzzles (that made it miss the 5th star) of combining elements of inventory together or with the environment - sometimes almost logical (in its crazy way) sometimes a bit too goofy (finishing the game required a bit of internet cheating). Played in English, the voices are rather pleasant and easy to understand. The feature to show "hotspots" on each room/location is pleasant in order not to have to do pixel-object hunting. A lot of walking to do, and no clickable map to speed it up, fortunately double-clicking on exits allows to skip some of it, which saved the game from becoming tedious (and thus from getting only 3 stars). I got the 2 next ones, wanting to know what happens next, and will play them soon.

If you've never played Point and Click games, I suggest not starting with Deponia as the puzzles are much more elaborated and complex. The graphics, sound, and voice acting are very good though, even though the pacing of the story is terrible and the ending will annoy you. Be sure to buy Deponia 2 as well if you're planning to buy Deponia 1.

The art is nice, the story is enjoyable, and the gameplay is solid. I also liked the music. The voice acting is pretty solid but there are a few uneven performances in the English voice cast. The puzzles are mostly good. There are a few obtuse ones, though. I beat the game in about 6 hours my first time though. This isn’t including about an hour of 'lost' time due to a game breaking bug on the mine maze level that required me to reload a save. There are achievements that encourage multiple playthroughs and you will get about half of them the first time though if you don’t skip any puzzles. I have to take a star off for the bugs and polish issues, though. Even 7 years after its release there are some game breaking bugs they simply have not fixed and probably never will be, so save often. There are also spots where animation could have been better, both in game and in cut scenes. Some of the cut scenes have ‘Conspicuous CG’ (check out that on TV Tropes) and there are times where you will interact with something/someone and your hand will reach for nothing or the character will turn 180 degrees for no reason and then flip back again. There are areas where the camera panning is a little wonky. There were also a few scenes where the subtitles reverted to the original German or had other strangeness. Overall, a very solid and enjoyable graphical adventure game.

It has the feeling of Monkey Island 3, and actualy could pass the puzzles until now as they only used adventure-game logic. My problem is, despite not having much difference to the graphic and workings of Monkey Island 3, this just luves to crash, that's why I can't give full 5 stars.

The graphics and the overall tone of the game is quite cartoonish are very pleasing, on the same verve of the Curse of Monkey Island. The puzzles are interesting and sometimes very challenging (you can skip them, by the way), the story is enjoyable but nothing spepcial. The are some glithces from time to time, but they don't affect the playability at all. I personally hated the guy singing during the intermissions, I guess it's part of a joke but I don't get it. It's just annoying. Overall, a well made game, still not at the same level as other classics from Lucas Arts etc. If you loved The Curse of Monkey Island, though, you're going to like this one for sure.