That's one of the problem with old games. Some are very enjoyabe for people who played it back then. Nostalgia effect, nobody's immune. I just played Zork GI for the first time, and it's the only Zork I ever played. And I had a great time ! It's an adventure game, with many inventory puzzles, funny characters and dialogues, creative puzzles. It doesn't take itself seriously, with a lot of witty, funny, unexpected situations. A few references are for people who played the original text-based games, but it's rather transparent. The graphism, well. The rendered 3D parts aren't always "pretty". It's from 1997, and that same year Riven was realy beautiful. But it's full of details, a lot of attention was put in the creation of each area. And it's one of the very few games where the FMV works very well. Cheesy, yes, but it's the spirit ! And the acting is not awful. You have a 360° view of each "spot", so it doesn't feel like a maze (more smooth than the fixed veiws of Myst/Riven/etc). There is not too much pixel hunting - almost everything is in pain sight. The difficulty can be high, with a big environement, large inventory, a lot of backtracking. The UI is simple and easy to use - not always obvious with games from this era. The game used to be broken on modern PC, but it's now fully playable thanks to a community patch. If you like adventure games, there is no reason to skip this one !
To begin with, I have to say the graphism is good - maybe not the most extraordinary style, but it's well executed. So is the music. The lenght is reasonable, 20 h maybe. The characters are well made, all of them - not only the three you control. A lot of memorable characters with back stories, the universe feels habited. And there are nice dialogues, enough funny descriptions too make this a nice P&C game. I'm more sceptic about the puzzles, that are very directive. Sometimes you just have to go and exhaust al conversation topic of character A, then character B then back to A and you're done. And some times you just have to take all the items on the screen, combine them togeter and voila. The puzzle part doesn't ask you to be smart or anything, it's a real weak spot of the game. Then, the references will please you - or not. A bit of Star Wars, some LOTR, a whole scene stolen fron Fate of Atlantis, another one from Monkey Island (twice), a character from the Diskworld, Oh, Lechuck. Oh, a bit of WOW. the game is FULL of those stuff. I found it funny at the begining, but tedious after a while. Somtimes it's trying to be funny by connivance, sometimse it's just stealing the funny parts of older games. Your mileage might vary, but be aware of that, you will like it or hate it. All that didn't prevented me from enjoying the game, but it's far from a perfect game - you might shake your head a few time.
The game is solid. The puzzles were rather easy, but never felt like old recycled tricks. It's simple because each area has one goal and never more than 4 screens so you're never lost. The world is charming and coherent, and that's what makes the game very solid and enjoyable. The visual has character, it's definitly not bland. There are enough cute/funny comments from the character, and dialogues, all nicely written. The story is simple, but I rather like a simple charming story than a complicated cliché one. It's children friendly but never feel dumb or second-rate. This game has soul, and should definitly be on any Adventure Game lover play list.
The game is pretty, maybe to nice and shiny for some. But that's very pleasant, modern. In the "Metroidvania" genre, it's heavier on the fights - tons and tons of ennemies on each screen, a few sub-boss, very few bosses. The plateforming is simple, but present - traps, double jump, etc. And it's efficient, a lot of secrets to find here and there. The "skills" used to unlock new areas are scarce and come late in the game - new areas unlock with the story, not so much your abilities. That's a bit sad, and finally the game fells rather linear for the genre - fight your way to the next area. Fight is not very tactical - you get a lot of skills but can cut your way though with only a few, you get more powerful with XP so it's just a matter of grinding 10 minutes and coming back. It's more a beat-them-all most of the time., but aways fun. The story is about a war, an amnesiac soldier and so on - very standart JRPG stuff. And talking animals. Well, it's children friendly, as long as you don't expect anything else, it's correct. The UI is not perfect, but nothing awful either. In the end, even if I talked about some flaws to be honest, I actually had a lot of fun with this pretty, easy and very enjoyable game. And that's what matters.
