This game is very well written, brillantly complex with is leveling and attention to detail, but upon booting up the first Avernum game, I could not get past the annoying movement system. I felt that moving around was the most challenging part of the game and seeing its a game you can spend 60 plus hours on, I was not about to invest myself into this choas. I DID however get the newer version of the first game and found it easier to get past and am enjoying it very much. I realize only the first 3 games have reboots/remasters so I have a fear of when I reach Avernum 4 it may end up being a huge drop off in quality of life aspects that the newer ones spoil me with, but I really couldn't do it. I tried and am a big fan of older games, but when it takes me 10-15 seconds to manage to get my character to go through a door, its too much. My suggestion is to look at YouTube to compare the different versions, because the creator of this game is a very witty and wonderful person, but some pros and cons to each version should be accounted for before purchasing.
Coming from someone who enjoyed Papers Please, that type of puzzle game captivated me and so I thought a game with similar mechanics would be a perfect fit. I found this game to be interesting at first, you are the Grim Reaper and you go through files each day reading brief descriptions of people and then are tasked to fill a quota for each day (today 2 people must die, today three people must die, but those with law enforcement background should be spared, etc.). It was fun until I felt my choices had little impact. I found myself following the rules of each day exactly, but did not feel rewarded. The dialoge I started skipping over, because the "story" was not interesting. The puzzles were not hard as well. Perhaps as I went into this game expecting difficulty, I was let down. I stopped playing with probably 5 days of ingame challenges left as this game just was not doing it for me.
I recently played the first game of this series and praised it as it actually was FULL of hidden object puzzles. This game has taken a step backwards. I beat the game as I am absoluelty bored during COVID-19, but this game makes me not want to play the third. There are probably 1/4th of the hidden object puzzles/screens compared to the first game. It is a good point and click adventure if you want a small amount of hidden object puzzles mixed with regular puzzles. I played this game on expert and it was still painfully easy. Only problem you will run into is sometimes you have to backtrack and the game doesn't really give you a hint as to where. Like a hidden object area you will solve, then 20 minutes later the game wants you to click that area again and do another hidden object solving, but you have no indication that you should backtrack.
I enjoy the type of game find it/search it games where you have a list of objects to find, on a screen of a mixed up mess. I tried the Nightmares of the Deep series, which I believe is also by this company/maker of this game. Those games while fun- I felt it was not enough of those item find mini games, it was plagued with puzzles and back tracking. This game has very similar mechanics, but WAY more actual content of hidden objects. The story is not the greatest and honestly I could care less if there was a story, but the hidden objects of this game had me beating this game within one sitting.
