The Whispered World: Special Edition

The Good: great graphics and music a pet that learns forms that are used in puzzles press space to show all hotspots The Bad: story is interesting but the outcome is easily guessed the main character is not just sad but sometimes annoyingly so The Ugly: most puzzles are fine, but some are really stupid lots of running aroung with a slow character and slow scrolling background

Deadalic Entertainment are one of the best, if not the best point 'n click adventure developers of recent times. They have created many excellent games, but I wouldn't place The Whispered World alongside them. The story is nothing to write home about and the voice acting is rather mediocre. The soundtrack and imagery on the other hand are well made and fit perfectly to this fantasy tale. Unfortunately the game is plagued with several illogical puzzles and nonsensical item combinations. Even though in the first half of the game, most of the riddles make sense, as the game progresses they are becoming more and more absurd (some even to the point of trolling and pestering the player, such as the color substances puzzle in the alchemy lab trickining you into thinking that you can create light blue color for the royal insignia).

...or at least the main character did. "That's so crazy... I don't even know why I try. Do I really want to live in a world where actions like that are rewarded?" The devs have no respect for their players' or their players' time. With solutions like that, and worse, my answer to the main character's question is a resounding "No." Please do yourself a favor and do not buy this game. If you're dying to know what the frankly boring story is, look up a video playthrough instead. The pacing is atrocious, too. Everything takes a backseat to the nonsensical puzzles, including world building or making any narrative progress. If you do play this game despite my warning, prepare for some brute force puzzle solutions, with the density only growing as the game progresses and I guess the devs ran out of reasonable cause and effect ideas. There's also solutions that constitute severe and fully intentional pet abuse when I thought said pet was supposed to be beloved to the main character. I was left flabberghasted both at the writing and at the puzzle.

While the stylish backgroungs are very pictorial, the character designs and animation are poor and too cartoonish. The dialogues are bloated and prolix, while focused too much on comedy. For a game where you mostly read, that kills the gameplay. I can't judge the puzzles, because I couldn't get past the tutorial. There's nothing interesting about the world. Also, let me be clear that I'm only playing this because it was for free. I'm really used to my point and click games being pixelated, although I like the smooth standard animation of Broken Sword or the 3D designs of Syberia. But this game are none of those, and with that seemingly high price, honestly I'd never buy it.

can save anytime over multiple slots, there's a sometimes misplaced hotspot indicator (only with space, has to be held) and a few puzzles are skippable. separate volumes, subtitles, and while I bounced off it many years ago, this time I finished it, though with extensive walkthrough checks to get it over with faster. the rest is even more disappointing. 1024x768 is the max resolution in the 'special edition' of a 2014 game. really slow movement (can leave locations instantly but can't double-click to move faster, cheat engine's speedhack feature to the rescue). illogical puzzles (or just plain tedious, like blowing out 15 million candles or navigating the village after). incredibly annoying characters and voiceovers (not just the protagonist). the mouse has to be held instead of a click to interact. using an item on something works with a click, why not everything else? and most of the game, including the inventory and many items, are so dark and brown that it's hard to make stuff out even with the hotspot indicator, even if it happens to indicate the correct location. so it basically fails at pointing and clicking and mostly on adventuring as well.