I gave this game a try, I really did. I read reviews that warned me that the opening was a bit slow, but after my character got stuck in a wall while travelling through a junkyard, on the way to talk to a character who might help me get into some tunnels, which will help me get a job and the old man I'm traveling with wants to... ugh, who cares. Fetch quest after fetch quest in a monotone landscape... Bleh. The dull, plodding pace of the battles don't help (are they ever slow, with each attack taking almost 30 seconds to execute), nor does the fear of being trapped in another wall or a game-ending bug. I figured I'd quit before I invest any more time into this stinker.
I've just finished my first playthrough of the game. What a ride! The game is hardly perfect, but despite some things that made me go "Um...," I found myself grinning from ear to ear through watching the intro, seeing all of the winks and nods to the earlier entries in the series, and seeing the old characters from Chandler Avenue in amazing, full-screen resolution! The good: A technological marvel. The environments are gorgeous, the video is great (and I think the acting was quite good this time out), and the interface is well designed. The "I hope they re-think this for the next game:" The story is... overly ambitious, let's say. There were many "information dump" moments when I would have liked somebody to slow down and give me a summary. The multitude of characters will come at you fast and furious, with barely enough time to think "Wait, who is he again?" The ambitious "multiple paths" structure doesn't help, with sometimes jarring transitions between cutscenes. It also seemed like, due to the path I ended up on, certain characters and story elements ended up as loose ends, never to be revisited or tied up. So yes, I would have liked some tighter, more effective storytelling, and maybe some better puzzles, but I was still very happy to play this game, and I hope that there might even be more entries in the re-booted series...
I have to disagree with some of the other "best game ever!" reviews. Yes, the pixel art is nice, and yes, some of the puzzles are clever. There are also some nice twists and turns as the story unfolds. However, I never really got fully immersed in the story. I felt it was lacking something. The occasional plot-hole and "wait...what?" moment didn't help things. I also got stuck on a couple of puzzles: for one, I may have missed a possible action (though I could swear I had tried it before consulting a walkthrough), but for the other, it involved a little pixel-hunting. So yes, not bad at all, and hopefully it'll get you thinking about the nature of identity and memory (though despite the in-game references, Memento it is not). But still, I finished the game feeling a little hollow.
The strong point of this series is definitely the story-telling and characters. I really enjoy all of the zippy dialogue between the characters and watching as the story unfolds. The puzzles can be quite interesting, too. There are some rough edges (voice acting/voice pops, odd puzzles, disappointing moments), but generally these are easily overlooked as the game is quite engaging. After all, they are indie games, so there are bound to be a few "indicators" of its origins. But I highly recommend this series (especially since it's frequently on sale now), and I hope Wadjet Eye Games comes out with another installment in the series. In the meantime, I look forward to checking out some of Wadjet's other games...
