Dracula Trilogy

It's a French made point-and-click adventure. Don't let that discourage you. Dracula 1 and 2 follow the same story, and aren't particularly challenging, with the most difficult puzzle being your ability to spot interactable objects through the old graphics. 1 and 2 are forgetabble adventures. Dracula 3 is best Dracula game in the series, however, even better that 4 and 5. The graphics are interesting and add creepieness by having the characters move even though the game is point-and-click. The sounds/music are eerie. The story is immersive. And most important of all: the puzzles are challenging, ranging from medium all the way to pull-out-hair frustrating. Dracula 3 is a must play.

Dracula 3 is one of the best detective games you can find. It really awesome how it melds history and fantasy to really make you feel like what you're playing is plausible--until the conclusion, I suppose :-P It reminds me a bit of the second two Gabriel Knight games which were similarly elaborate in their lore. The puzzles are a good and hard. There are only two I didnt' care for, the portion of the final puzzle involving the torches, which got me stuck enough that I finally had to look it up. and the question and answer portion at the very end of the game which was a bit of a let down to the buildup. The rest are great and all of them feel like part of the plot. Nothing feels like a puzzle for a puzzle's sake, except possibly the one about organizing the kennings, but that was obviously optional. But even better than the puzzles is the way you are taken through the plot by methodical detective work. I never felt like I was doing busywork everything was just what I wanted to look into at the time. It's really hard to do that in a game of this length which usually fowls things up with pointless fetch quests and unrelated subplots. The other two games in this set, Dracula 1 and 2 have absolutely nothing to do with 3 in terms of plot or gameplay. They are sequels to Bram Stoker's novel and in Dracula 3 Bram Stoker's novel is just a book that exists in the world, not something that really happened. Also, Dracula 1 and 2 aren't very good. There are worse games certainly, but you won't have missed anything if you skip them, and I recommend you do. Also, it's worth noting that if you have newer windows you'll have to download some extra files to get dracula working. You can find them online.

Both the first and second titles are fun little flawed gems if you temper your standards. Don't be expecting a thrilling plot and edge of your seat suspense. Instead, cheesy, at times melodramatic little romps. Gameplay is solid but does show its age, some puzzles aren't as logical as they should be & there can be some pixel hunting but it is what it is and with a bit of tinkering you can figure out anything that doesn't appear to make sense so don't let the detractors deter you in those regards. Neither game takes too long to complete, YMMV but expect a couple of hours or more from each so maybe wait for a sale if that seems a bit short for your liking. I can't properly review the third title because I can't get it to run in any playable state but don't be too bothered if you have the same issue, it really should've been bundled with 4 & 5 being that it's piggy-backing on the existence of the first two and is completely unrelated.

The first and second are good games, the first one mainly is great, the third one I couldn't run on my computer. For a good price you get two working games and one that you have to figure out yourself, they have good puzzles and the stories are good, in the 2nd one the puzzles are a bit tricky and convoluted and in the 1st one the puzzles in the castle can be hard to find visually although overall it is all good.

Dracula 1 and 2 are decent little adventure games with good atmosphere, but they suffer from pixel hunting and getting lost. The third game I haven't put enough time into to give a thorough review, however it seems more focused on dialogue and reading than the first two.