The Lion's Song

The Lion's Song is a truly special experience about identity, change and hope. Each episode takes place in a pivotal moment the protagonists' lives where the choices they (you) make change not only their future but the lives of those around them in ways you might not expect. The puzzles are simple and let the narrative take center stage. It took me about 5 hours to complete a single playthrough of all episodes, but replays are greatly encouraged to explore alternate outcomes and find secrets.

To be honest, I've been fallen for the other reviews. The style is interesting, I can't deny that. And at first I liked it. But soon I regret I bought this game and started to play it. The game is so linear and predictable. You never have choices there is always only one option. Okay you can test some dialog options ... but only 1 of four choices is the correct one and you always can go through all until it goes on. So in this case it's more like a movie but the story is not interesting enough to follow it. For an adventure it's dull. If you like to solve puzzles or follow an interesting story, it's nothing for you. If you like to click through several options and if you are into retro graphics you might like it.

I've just ended chapter 2 of 4, and I can assure this is not a conventional point & click game. This is not focused on puzzles, but on story and character development. Art is great, for a pixel fan, even with its sepia constant filter. It serves very well for the ambientation. As I have said, I have just played the first two chapters, but they have just inspired this, my first review on GOG. If you like narrative, try the game. Play fair, choose your own choices, see what happens. Enjoy the success, and the bitter misses. Don't try to be a perfectionist, just play by heart. Some advices. If you like good 2d pixel art, this is good. If you like a good narrative, a good script worth following on, this is good. If you are a looking for a Monkey Island or Myst point and click adventure style, this is not good. It is a different type of beast.

Episode 1: A charming but very short interactive story about a musician trying to write a composition. It’s an interesting game design for telling the story and the sepia art style fits the tone and setting, but there aren’t many interactions and the choices in the story don’t really affect the outcome. Episode 2: A painter struggling to find his muse which is mirrored by the player struggling to find the correct answers. The story wasn’t that interesting as you don’t find out much about the subjects, even with their various layers visually represented, as the low resolution graphics don’t give much art to work with. Episode 3: An entertaining and somewhat quirky story with a good balance between mathematics and equal rights. The way it overlaps with the previous episodes is cleverly done, even if it is superficial, adding more atmosphere to the ambience. The graphics are also better with more screen used and more audio cues, although still keeping within the original style. Episode 4: A poignant ending to the series which adds depth to the preceding episodes, but doesn’t do anything with the new character introduced. Good use of music and it is a good way of bring closure to the different stories together, but not having a 4th story was disappointing.