A Golden Wake attempts to tell a different kind of story than the usual adventure genre fare. It is set in a realistic historical setting and the protagonist has a dramatic arc, a choice that ups the ante for the emotional payoffs of the story. In that sense, the game is a welcome novelty, however the execution falls short. The gameplay is the standard procedural fare of solving puzzles, with some minigames that rely on deduction. The puzzles are very easy and the minigames unfortunately toothless, so there is no incentive to examine their logic in detail. This adds up to a visual novel with busywork, making the demands on the writing even more urgent to keep up player involvement. In my opinion, apart from the novelty of the realistic setting, nothing in the writing rises beyond the perfunctory, there are no surprises and no distinctive character moments. If this was a film, it would be a cookie cutter drama of the late 30s. The only interesting bit is the acknowledgment in game of the fetch quest nature of the protagonist's actions, but this too does not really come up to anything.
When released this was praised for its lavish production values, and the CD-Rom version here does not disappoint. The strength of the game is the vibrant fairy-tale world it portrays, but as most here note, the puzzles are more guesswork than anything else, and the maze in the middle of the game is a lot of busywork. Back in the day I bounced hard on the maze and abandoned the game. Going forward with the help of the strategy guide provided (which is nicely written), I am tempted to think that I did not miss much. I suggest a quick playthrough (around 4 hours) using the strategy guide, however I should note that the maze was a bit different in the game I played.
