Overall most helpful review

Posted on: March 27, 2024

Spaniel

Games: 216 Reviews: 5

Fear the stairs

Return of the Phantom is a Microprose point and click adventure released in 1993 - for context, this is the same year as Day of the Tentacle, Gabriel Knight and Space Quest V. Return of the Phantom is nowhere near as good as any of those games, but an interesting curio for any adventure game connoisseurs. Firstly, the bad: it's short, the puzzles pose almost no challenge (except for a truly miserable maze sequence later on in the game), and there's quite a limited range of locations to explore - the majority of them devoid of meaningful interactivity. Possibly the game's greatest flaw is the movement speed of the character, combined with the amount of dead space you have to traverse. This sounds like a nitpick, but as the main way you progress the story is by shuttling between different locations it can feel truly torturous. For example: to access the dressing rooms, you have to ascend 3 flights of stairs, watching your character waddle with comical slowness up each one. You will grow to fear these stairs more than any phantom. So what's good about it? It looks nice, with atmospheric painted backdrops and smooth rotoscoped animations. Although ROTP doesn't add much new, The Phantom of the Opera is fundamentally a good story. The music is nice. You get to meet Degas. It doesn't outstay its welcome. I had some issues with stuttering gameplay and sound, I'm sure that's fixable but it didn't bother me enough to try.

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Posted on: September 11, 2020

Wolfram_von_Thal

Games: Reviews: 50

Unique game, great atmosphere

I really enjoyed playing this adventure some years ago and it pleasantly surprised me. It mixes the Gaston Leroux' "Phantom of the Opera" with an original storyline and manages to create a quite unique experience. Compared to other adventures you are in one place for the whole game: The theatre in Paris. But this theatre has many rooms and secrets and the concentration of this location allows the game to create a very believable, realistic impression of the place. Together with the congenial soundtrack the atmosphere is very strong and tense (the soundtrack sounds perfect with MT-32 emulation) while the puzzles are solvable and logical. The only caveat I have is the labyrinth at the end of the game: I'd suggest to use a walkthrough for this part as it's very frustrating. This shouldn't hold you back from giving this game a try though, especially if you like atmosphere-heavy games with a constant feeling of mystery.

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Posted on: December 21, 2021

Alhoon9

Verified owner

Games: Reviews: 1

Take care with the dungeon part

There is no (that I have seen, and I have been there a lot), clear way to know the correct path, but it must, nonetheless, be followed to perfection or one will not progress through. [Thanks to the author here https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/565128-return-of-the-phantom/faqs/45977 ] Novice: E N E N N E E E E N W W N E E E E E N Challenge: E N E N N E E E E W W N N W N W N E E S E E E E N The letters are for North , Easte , South and West. Would have loved for the game to have different endings at the finale based on your dialogue choices, but oh well, very well done, but I wonder if there was to be more and the team had to cut a few things, as I see potential for more left and right, or what appears to be small details that might come into use later on, but they never do (like Charles' sniffling). Thank you and, just so you know, if anyone reads this from the team, the roof of the Opera has golden statues, only the roof proper is that color, and many more small details, but is was very nice nonetheless, love the mask!

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Posted on: January 24, 2023

JankyToe

Verified owner

Games: 351 Reviews: 2

A solid experience...to a point.

I really enjoyed this up until a certain infamous point in the latter half of the game but, before that, I'd like to mention the positives. The cheesy fully-voiced dialogue and meticulously detailed environment were splendid, coupled with puzzles, and general progression, that didn't require obtuse solutions quite common to the genre. The story, whilst simple, nonetheless kept me hooked. And then there's the dreaded catacombs--a maze featuring no less than 50 near-identical rooms, a fact I came to realise through sheer determination/masochism, a pen, and a spare notebook. There's no gimmick here, no useful item to help guide you, the game's momentum comes to a screeching halt as you navigate the place through trial-and-error. If you are interested in giving Return of the Phantom a shot, I highly recommend using a walkthrough to make short work the maze so that you may enjoy everything else the game has to offer.

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Posted on: March 14, 2022

neumi5694

Verified owner

Games: 3339 Reviews: 138

Nice classic adventure

I didn't know this game before, bought it spontaneously. It has a nice pace, plays just like most others adventures of it's era. So far I haven't enountered any fance riddles. I still prefer LEC games or games like Simon, but if you played them all already, go and grab it. But do yourself a favor and enter the sound options. You can get there by exiting to DOS and then launch install.exe. It's set to Soundblaster in the default settings, you should use "Sound Blaster Pro" instead, if you don't have a Roland emulator. The music with of SB Pro sounds way better than the original Soundblaster.

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