Return to Zork

I recently played and finished this game. It is great fun if you enjoy puzzles and exploring the magical and wacky world of Zork. To me, the best points of the game are: - Lots of humor and witty lines - Clever puzzles (lots of them) - Fascinating magical world that makes you want to discover new people and places - Interesting and funny characters - Quite lengthy The story is good, although nothing special. I especially liked how it slowly unravels. The game is hard, so I would mainly recommend it to experienced adventure gamers, or those that enjoy puzzles. However, I found that the puzzles are not nearly as bad as most reviews here make them out to be. For one, the game gives you many clues. You have to carefully listen to and read everything, ask people about every photo you've taken and items you have. Explore everything carefully. I only had to look up a walkthrough a couple of times. Also, don't do anything which you think might lead to a dead end (like killing or destroying things for no reason, or locking yourself out of a place without getting all items there first). One review of the game in this site says that you have to steal items and that the game punishes you for doing this. This is not true. I finished without stealing or being punished by the Guardian a single time. Also, contrary to what another review says, you CAN backtrack to the beginning of the game, but you have to wait until much later in the game to be able to do this.

Developer William Volk said it himself: "People hated Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2 — panned it. So, we decided to wreak revenge on the entire industry by making Return to Zork completely unfair." This is essentially the problem with RtZ. There are some good elements buried under all the very real malice, but it's questionable if it's even worth it. It's possible to lock yourself out of victory from the very first screen for instance, and it's likely that you will do so without outside knowledge. I owned this in the 90s and didn't like it then either. On the other hand, the Encyclopedia Frobozzica this game comes with it is a great encapsulation of Zork's lore and is easily worth the $6 on its own.

a little advice to those who bought this, SAVE OFTEN. A Magical zany adventure game of a calibre not seen today, and really brings to life the world of Zork to life. its Funny, lighthearted, magical and challanging. That should be reason enough to get this game. However there's a unique selling point i don't think anyone else has mentioned. There are so many intereactions catered for either with the inventory, NPCs and the enviroment it really does blur the line between the text adventures and and your graphics adventure. Also this game is Hard. don't think you can play through this in one go without saving (or cheating). Despite this though the game is worth persevering with once you understand the nature of the game.

I played the Zork text games years ago, though never got very far. I remember in 1993 when my dad purchased Return to Zork, I was excited. This game kept me entertained for hours. The premise is that you are a winner of Rupert's sweepstakes and you are given a grand vacation to the land of Zork. Little do you know that trouble is brewing in the land. The West Shanbar has disappeared, the Road to the South is impassible, and there's some kind of evil being controlling all of the vultures and using them for evil...oh my! Return to Zork is a point and click adventure game filled with real actors and many puzzles. There's also a lot of cheeky humor which really gives the game its charm (Boos Myller, anyone?). You assume the role of the player (whom you never actually see) and go from area to area collecting items, talking to inhabitants and solving puzzles. Your ultimate goal is to discover the ultimate evil and find out how to stop it. While there is technically no real combat in this game, there are many ways to die. There are clues to help you along with the game, but I will warn you: Some puzzles are VERY difficult and some really don't make sense. Make sure to save often as well, because it is possible in this old school gem to do something that will cause you to lose the game. You'll usually know that's happened when you've seen the dreaded message, "The path to victory is now blocked." Zork's charming inhabitants will have you amused for hours, though the sound quality in this game is terrible, and was terrible for its time. There is both a disk version and CD version with slight differences in dialogue (and more video action from the CD version). I am not sure which version is on GoG, though I imagine it's the CD version. The game is event driven, so there's no time limit to figure things out. The graphics were decent back in the day. Overall, I had a lot of fun with this game when I was a kid. I still play it even today. Want some rye? 'Course ya do!