It's fun and stupid. Did I mention it's fun?
Strategy wise, I've enjoyed the game for longer than I expected (50+hours). It's pretty deep and well put together. Frostpunk is definitely fun and addictive, reminds me of some sensations I got from playing Faster Than Light. However I find the story overly dramatic. A strategy game doesn't really need a great story imo but it's always a plus, and when it's this dramatic or this much put in your face, you need strong characters to carry the story in order to make it special. Or maybe humour and a bit of a lighter touch. In the same way, the drawnings are gloomy but beautiful. Finally and as of early 2021 I find the game and its extras to be a little bit expensive.
This is a true piece of art and history, as it is full of both. Visually, the game is a constant marvel. The atmosphere is amazing. The plot is good, I love the characters and while I’m not usually fond of thrillers I did enjoy the story. It is heavily (and smartly) related to the events which led to start WW1. I also find the voice acting to be of very high quality, especially for a game this old. As a european and french native speaker, I am able to enjoy this even more, though you’d need to speak 6 different languages to get the completely full experience I guess, haha. (English, french, german, russian, serbian and arabic are spoken by the passengers, and some dialogues aren’t translated.) There is a lot happening on the train so you cannot actually follow every conversation unless you want to use the rewind quite a bit. This adds up to The Last Express’ depth and replayability. Now, I should note the gameplay is limited and some of the puzzles can be a bit silly, as it is the case in most old Point&Click adventure games. Quite ''tirées par les cheveux'', as we say in french. More importantly, there are bugs that could block your progression (idk if this is due to the gog version or not.) It happened to me once but my second game was fine. Since those last points are obviously annoying this is why I withdraw 1 star to a nonetheless more than worth, enthralling experience.
The 7th Guest was ahead of its time. It was one of the first FMV to display an actual 3D environment you are set to explore. Does it make it a good game, though? In my opinion: it only does if you like its atmosphere and puzzles. The game has a nice variety of them and a great soundtrack. As one of the first game on CD, in a time where FMV was thought to be the future of video games, The 7th Guest sure was an impressive experience. As of today, I personally didn't get much fun out of it. The really bad acting/text kills it for me, with the exception of the witty, teasing narrator. While each new scene is supposed to be a reward after you've resolved a puzzle, they really are all but cringy, and I couldn't get into the story because of it. Most FMV have bad or medium acting but at least in some other classics such as Night Trap or Phantasmagoria you can get a good laugh out of it. Also it lacks pandas.
