3 out of 5 for me! I only beat this game recently, but remember it well from my younger years, seeing it run on display computers at a local computer store. The graphics are the highlight, they used real actors, hand painted backgrounds and in the manual it is mentioned that the artwork had to be redone twice because it was challenging. They used staff and relatives mostly :) The game is actually very short. There are exotic locations: Hong Kong, Chengdu, Tibet, Istanbul, Orient Express and Paris. However Orient Express there is only a dialogue sequence and an action sequence and in Paris you arrive to see the ending, that's it. So really there are just 4 locations. Each location has a few rooms to explore, but the puzzles are quite basic. Once you know the puzzles and discuss options, the actual game is really short, I would say you can finish it in less than half an hour. I feel they realised this so they added this concept of story branches to add depth or replayability but I don't think it works well. You get this big warning about a plot branch and the manual tells you that this shows that you could have done things another way but it doesn't tell you if what you did was bad or could be done better and it doesn't tell you if you are going down a dead end, having missed an item or something like that. Reading the documentation is important to get hints for the game and it will make everything much easier. The two action sequences are annoying. They can be skipped, BUT only at the beginning. Once you try to play a sequence, you are stuck and cannot choose to skip it. You either beat it or load a save game. Save often and multiple save files! Most choices are through dialogues, sometimes you need to be polite, sometimes aggressive, there is no pattern. Some moves will cost you time and that will reduce the final amount of money you win. The romance aspect is sort of nice but also very cheesy. Good graphics but not much of a game...
