This game is quite short, but very well-made. It's almost perfectly linear, but not really something you think about while playing, as most of the puzzles and tasks are quite intuitive. The only slightly tricky bit is one of the final tasks, which introduces a different mechanic from anywhere, but without any explanation that this time things are different from previous, similar instances. That said, it's still a very entertaining short game, with a very nice story. Very charming, and I highly recommend this for people nostalgic for point-and-click games, or for those wanting to introduce younger (or older) players to the genre. Two thumbs up for me.
I really enjoyed this game, the visual novel sections are cute at first, or at least first playthrough (mostly), while the nonograms are quite fun, though very grainy due to the small size (I belive the biggest was 15x20 or 20x20, but these bigger ones are VERY rare, most are within 15x15, or even 10x15). I would absolutely pick this game up on sale. The different cases are all quite interesting, and figuring out the back story for your sidekick is also engaging. The cases are also a nice length. They're convenient for a single session or two of playing, while mostly not feeling like they're dragging on. That said, there are three main issues in my opinion: - The inability to go back and replay any failed section without playing through an entire case to get to that one section. - When replaying a case, not being able to skip a TON of dialogue and visuals and transitions in order to get to the actual nonograms you want to solve to get to the ONE section you failed (usually the hacking for me, one time, in the 3rd case, by literally less than a second.) On repeat playthrougs, it should be made possible to skip the dialogue in an easy, one button way. The story isn't complicated enough to make a complete repeat necessary. - Tiny QoL change, being able to leave the Load Game menu. The way it sits now, you have to either load into a save file, be forced through a TON of dialogue to be able to quit to the main menu, or quit the game entirely, and restart from desktop. This is just plain stupid.
I've been playing it very little, as every time I save and try to reload, the load file crashes the program. The changing of audio and video settings don't save and don't update either, and with the very long, UNSKIPPABLE cut scenes in this game, it's not exactly encouraging. The little I have played of it seems way less fun than the original game, though I'll try again, and hopefully the save function will work this time, as I hope to play all the games based on the fun of the first two. That said, I may skip this one, if saving doesn't work. Don't want to have to sit through all those damn cut scenes again and again...
I remember playing this game as a kid and LOVING it, so when I found it on here I was SO excited to replay NOX. Sadly, on Windows 10, all I get is the Westwood Studios intro and sometimes part of the game intro video. Then everything freezes, and if I tab out and back in, I see the start menu, with all keys and mouse frozen, except being able to tab back out and shut down the window. IF you can get the game to work, I'm sure you'll love it if you love this type of game, but be careful, as apparently it doesn't work for everyone, and sadly I'm one of those who can't play it. If it worked, I'd give it 5 stars, but when I can't even play, I just give it 2 for the memories...
OK, first off, this is an amazing concept for a game, it's a LOT of fun to play, and really interesting in terms of storry telling. That said, DO NOT BUY THIS GAME. There are SO many tiny things that are optimied to nothing but piss you off with its garbage UI and general design. The game LOOKS great, but PLAYING it is a frustration beyond belief. I love this game, and I HATE that I love it because it's so damn flawed that I OUGHT to hate it. The BIGGEST frutrations are the timing and auto-save functions that are total garbage and don't work at ALL. Basically, the auto-save saves pretty much all the time, making it functionally USELESS, except as a way to tell you 'you F'ed up (usually due to a shitty UI), and now YOU'RE the F'ed person, too bad for YOU, because I'M not here to be useful AT ALL'. That's literally all the auto-save is for. When it works. At random times it stops auto-saving for random amounts of time, sometime months, and if you didn't save manually, too bad, say goodbye to ALL progress. And there are NO SETTINGS to change this garbage behaviour! You can't manually set it to save every X days, like in NORMAL games of this kind. Add to that the games penchant for intentionally screwing you over with 'RNG' 'events' that just HAPPEN to all occur at once, while you're in a specific rush driven by the PLOT, rather than being actually RNG. And with no way to load an auto-save from a few days previous, you're hozed, too effing bad for YOU. This game is designed to aggravate you, not be enjoyable, fun, or entertaining. At this point, I'm hate-playing, just wanting to beat this piece of crap. Yes, it's that much fun, if you enjoy torturing yourself with a wholely flawed game with a craptastic UI that will do the exact opposite of what a normal human would want and expect it to do 70% of the time. The look of this game is A+, the gameplay is A+, but with a D- UI and mechanics, and a big fat F for the auto-save, I can't recommend this at all. Stay away!
