When Simon the Sorcerer I was put up for sale, I bought it at once and played it all the way through in four to five hours. It had much of the charm of the old LucasArts games going for it, and the puzzles were fun to solve. Two days later, when Simon the Sorcerer II came out, I couldn't believe my luck! Two classic adventure games in the span of two days? I was practically leaping for joy!
I played through this one in roughly the same amount of time as the first game, though it felt slightly longer. The graphics were much better than the first one, an improvement not unlike what LucasArts did from one Monkey Island game to the next (though the 3D one was a step back, in my opinion). The interface was also a step up from the previous game, and the game felt much more intuitive.
However, there are a few major problems I have with this installment. First of all, the original voice for Simon is gone. He's replaced by this actor that I absolutely hated. He sounds nothing like the British teenager from the first one, and in fact, doesn't even sound like a real teenager. In fact, every time I heard his voice, it killed the immersion for me, so eventually I turned off the spoken dialogue and switched to subtitles.
The audio also killed much of what I liked from the first game. In the first Simon the Sorcerer, the whole thing sounds like one of those old, adventurous cartoon movies I loved when I was a little boy, which really takes me back. Here, in place of that wonderful soundtrack and feel, they create generic tunes that bore you to death.
I could go on and on about how they kill the immersion and uniqueness that Simon I had going for it, but I'll just sum it up by saying that it's a slightly-above-sub-par game. The basics are all there, but it absolutely kills the buzz I had going after the first game. After seeing the screenshots and trailers for subsequent sequels, it only gets worse from here.I think I'll just play Simon the Sorcerer I and pretend they never made a sequel (or sequels).