There is one game mode in Chaos Reborn, the base PvP Chaos mode, which is genuinely great. It's a highly complex turn-based arena where two players face each other controlling a mage unit who has a random card set of summons with very interesting mechanics and effects. The goal is to protect your mage and kill the other mage. While there are a lot of deep systems, it's very RNG heavy and this means the outcome of a match is always hard to predict. It's obviously not for everybody, but it's remarkably good at what it aimed to be. Unfortunately, this mode was pretty much left as is since launch with little support, while the devs seem to have focused almost entirely on catering to misguided negative reviews that complain about the excess of RNG and the lack of a single-player campaign. Instead of focusing on improving the good game they had on launch, the devs made a no-RNG mode, which just sucks and is unfun, and created a half baked single-player mode that would have never been enough to bring over people who wanted a single-player campaign. Neither mode offers anything of value to the people who actually liked the game and neither was able to convert the negative reviews into positive. So what I'm saying is this game was mismanaged. And as a result the niche community they could have built around the PvP RNG heavy strategy/tactics game they made dwindled while they tried to appeal to people who don't like the game. Last time I played, finding a match against a human seemed impossible. You can play against bots and still have a decent time. If you happen to have friends or family who like this style of game, I believe there's a hotseat multiplayer option that will suit you well. It's just a hugely wasted opportunity and a huge disappointment considering what they had on launch was and still is the best part of the game and all the post launch support the game got only served to further distance it from that vision.
The Blackwell games stand out as some of the best Point & Click Adventure games I've played, period. I encourage fans of the genre to dive in and enjoy these games without too much information. Chances you'll regret doing this are quite slim. These games are a shinning example of how great writing can make a huge difference in videogame narrative. Gameplay wise, there is nothing new here, but this shouldn't stop anyone from enjoying the adventures of Rosangela Blackwell, one of the most charismatic characters you'll encounter in interactive fiction, and her ghostly companion Joey Malone.
The remake gets everything wrong. Here's five reasons why they ruined a classic with this remake: 1 - They changed the User Interface but didn't change the gameplay, so now you don't have the verbs on screen anymore, but you still have to select a verb to perform an action. The result is that you have to bring up a menu with the verbs every time you are going to do something in the game. The timing based puzzles involving items, like the Scrog mug puzzle, become a terrible chore to play. 2 - While the voice-acting is pretty good, and the backgrounds look great, the character models are horribly designed, and the worst of them all is Guybrush. His scared/disgusted facial expression, which never changes through the game, lacks any reasonable explanation. Had they based these models on the original box art instead, this game would look so much better. Like this, it's just awful. 3 - Animation is very poor through and through. Characters don't move their lips when they talk, walking movement looks ugly, everything is made with total lack of care, polish and attention to detail. In every way, the animations in the original are superior to the ones in the remake. 4 - Broken walk-able areas all over the game just reinforce the notion that the developers weren't even trying to make a good remake. This is especially evident in the ship segment, where you can walk off the side of the boat because the developers where unable or unwilling to properly draw the walk-able area. 5 - The game has bugs. For example, if you change the resolution from default and then close the game, the next time you boot it up it will remember that resolution, but the click boxes will be in the size of the default resolution, rendering the game unplayable. I've solved this by changing the resolution back to default and then back to the one I wanted. I'm using Win7 64-bit. PS: The iOS version allows you to play the original version with the remake's voice-acting, but the PC version does not.
