The Legend of Kyrandia: Malcolm's Revenge (Book Three)

I absolutely adored the first Legend of Kyrandia, and the second was very good, too, but this was a disaster. The visuals are still great, aside from some very dated rendered objects, but the places you go are very interesting to look at, and those scenes at the ends of the earth are phenomenally surreal. The music wasn't quite as good, and it has that irritating Red Book Audio thing where the track fades out and starts up again after a short silence, and it wasn't even of a high enough quality that it needed to be Red Book Audio, but it's forgivable. The characters weren't bad, either, even if the consciences are both really annoying, and Malcolm's humor was pretty hit-or-miss. Actually, most of the humor was pretty hit-or-miss, and there was an overabundance of it; too much humor can be annoying if not enough of it is good, and this game certainly straddles that line. What really drags this down is the gameplay. Sure, the others had some obtuse puzzles, but the vast majority of the ones in Malcolm's revenge are straight-up moon logic. Also, they often just won't work, because the game is a little different each time, so you can't really even learn what works and what doesn't by experimentation. If this wasn't enough, you are often required to have certain items, which is normal, but the items you receive from certain piles are also random, so you have to go back and forth, hoping to get what you actually need, and that's only if you already know that that will be! Worst of all, you'll often be randomly yanked out of the middle of the road, wherever you are, to perform some repetitive task, sometimes almost a dozen times in a row before you can continue, and this happens repeatedly; it's like playing with a 5-year-old running the game. If this had some bad enemy-dodging sequences and Lure of the Temptress's abysmal pathfinding AI, it would be drowning in every abominable Point-and-Click Adventure sin I know.

The idea was a great one: Turn the villain from the first game into the victim. The second game was such a step up from the first that I was really looking forward to giving this third one a go. Unfortunately just about everything about Malcom's Revenge makes it a pain to play. Gone are the gorgeous graphics from the first two games, and along with them went any idea of fun. So much about this game is misjudged, it's incredible. There's a terrible "canned laughter" that plays randomly after every line of dialogue, as if some producer said, "sitcoms have laughter, our game should, too!". It feels like you're playing an episode of David Lynch's RABBITS. Surreal, but not what you're after. (Thankfully you can turn this off, but it gives you an idea of what the developers of this game were going for...) Starting the game you have little or no idea what to do, and almost no clues about how to go about it. And the game continues in the same vein, all the way until the end. What interesting story there could have been is barely remarked upon during the ordeal (yes, ordeal) of playing it, until the very last scene. Anyone who claims this game is fun can only be remembering playing it as a child. It will give you no joy today :(

Malcolm's Revenge is arguably one of the most unique point and click games I have ever played and has a lot of great ideas that work very well. Unfortunately the things it does wrong more then frustrate the things it does right to the point of ruining the experience in general. If you need to finish the trilogy, it's worth playing, but it's not a game you want to play without help, and definitely not the finale the original game deserves.

After all these years Malcolm’s revenge is still my favourite game in the series. I recently had the chance to play them all and it’s still the one that I find the most fun. Might be nostalgia talking (as it’s the first Kyrandia game I played as a kid) but I really like playing as Malcolm and seeing his good/bad conscious influence his decisions. I also really love the music and graphics. I know the pre-rendered backgrounds aren’t for everyone, but I remember being so impressed by the intro nearly thirty years ago and I feel like it still stands up. Classic game and classic series (it’s the only non-LucasArts adventure games I really got into). Highly recommend it if you’ve never played the Kyrandia trilogy before!

The Kyrandia series was a wonderful series. Though it clearly was an attempt at Westwood to capture the incredible success of Sierra; these games managed to stand their on their own for their unique ways they did puzzles slightly different than what you saw in Sierra games. In Book 3, we have Malcolm - who has come into some power - seeking his revenge. It's a fun game where you control Malcolm as he makes his way through Kyrandia unleashing havoc.