Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist

As a fan of Westerns, comedy, and Sierra games, this game should've been a sure-fire hit with me. There's a lot I like about it—good atmosphere, decent story, memorable characters, solid programming, unique responses for everything you can click on, and plenty of laughs (puns, references, absurdity, innuendo, and irony). Granted, there's some adult and potty humor that may not be for everyone, and a few of the characters (eg, Hopalong Singh, the Chinese cook) straddle the line between satirical and offensive. What brings the game down is the puzzle presentation. The puzzles themselves are fine—the usual fare of inventory manipulation, doing things in sequence or at the right time, and a couple (optional) arcade sequences. However, the game is very light on in-game hints (which is surprising, given the sheer amount of flavor text) and requires the player to refer to the instruction manual (included in the GOG purchase) for multiple puzzle solutions early on. A little copy protection is one thing, but this breaks the immersion and sets false expectations about the medicine recipes in the manual being at the core of the gameplay. In fact, the game almost completely ignores the hero's laboratory in the second half, wasting some of the potential of the "frontier pharmacist" premise in the process. There's also an overabundance of timed challenges (usually with no sense of how much time you actually have) and items that are easily missed if you don't click on exactly the right spot. The entire game takes place in the same town, with practically every area accessible from the get-go, so the puzzle solution possibilities are simultaneously too broad (with so many screens to explore) and too narrow (with so many screens you've already explored thoroughly). The GOG purchase includes the original floppy and enhanced CD versions; the latter has voice acting (some of Sierra's best) instead of text boxes. If you want text AND speech, there's an imperfect workaround using ScummVM.

Nice graphics, nice music, voice did not work, great atmoshpere and that's very important. But the game does not work for me. There is a lot of pixel hunting, in case you don't know: you have to move the cursor over a tiny spot on the screen to discover something. This is even true for exits, I had to click one pixel to find an exit. Also: the cursor does not change when the mouse hovers over an object or over an exit. Plus the objects blend in to the rest on screen. I'm not going to say "Hey, good one Sierra! I am so glad you give me the chance to find this out! We are good friends huh? I love what you did there!" No, Sierra: you just annoy me on this one. Plus timed puzzles where you don't know what to do? Come on. I don't mind trying and spending a lot of time solving a puzzle. It gives such a rush when it is finally solved. But no rush comes when I m spending my time pixel hunting and trying to exit to another screen. Plus, there is no fast way to go from walking to talking or other actions. You have to right click and cycle through all or use the interface at the top. No. I am not playing a game to get annoyed. A pity, really. The game itself is a gold one.

A collection of ideas stitched together into an adventure game which manages to be highly restrictive but also very unclear in direction. It has some good ideas like the premise, opening song, pharmacy mini-game and arcade sequences, but also some awful ideas like invisible timers, instant death scenes and few hints on how to progress. Some of these are forgivable because of the age of the game and its technical limitations, but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating or any more enjoyable to play. There also isn’t a lot of content - there’s no depth to the setting or characters, the humour was passably funny and some scenes were literally pointless, which is a shame as the graphics were colourful, the music catchy and the concept different.

While not Sierra's finest, this is a really good adventure game, it's highlight being the writing and Al Lowe's humour. Even if i am not American, i have found myself smiling multiple times. I enjoyed the setting and story and how this unfolded. The music is good, and the voice overs are of high quality. The main issues for me have to do with gameplay/puzzle design, but as this is a Sierra title i was expecting these. Pixel hunting, unmarked exits (cursor doesn't change to an exit sign, difficult to find some) are there. Also some times, the in-game hints are not enough and some of the puzzles solutions are frustrating while you could solved them in various ways, the designers won't let you, instead they want you to do it their way. -Spoilers- I.e. at some point you need to open some beer bottles, and you can't do this unless you find a specific key from a church door. Or at another point you need some coal, and while you can find at least two stoves around, you need to take the coal from a specific small area. The first two acts are enjoyable, you basically need to make some prescriptions to solves various issues (you need the manual for this). The two last acts though, have alot of timed sequences, that become a pain as you move on, as you have to save and restore often. Overall a good game, but not without the (typical) flaws of the sierra golden era.

I am a retired pharmacist. I bought Freddy when it came out ( back in the Windows 95 days ). Fell in love with it. The story is fun and Al Lowe's gags are top-notch. I really believe Al had to have had a pharmacist help him with some of the gags as they're spot on for those of us in the profession. I'm so glad I can play it again.