The first with "modern" graphics, this one is packed with clever silliness everywhere you look. My criticism of some series in the adventure genre (Syberia comes to mind) is that the only things you can interact with are those necessary to the plot plus a few like perpetually locked doors. This is the opposite---you can choose to breeze straight through, but you can also honor the brilliance of the writers by interacting with everything or taking the long route through conversations and laugh yourself silly. Great puzzles, many requiring some thought, a little like a funnier version of The Longest Journey. If I could give it a 6, I would.
This classic adventure game has been remastered so the animations are more up-to-date and the UI is less cumbersome. And it has onboard hints so if the pace is a bit slow for you, you can get some guidance. Probably one of the best series and best first installments ever created.
Seriously, can someone please get out there and crowd fund the planned 4th episode of this series??? Again, a top/god tier point and click. Great puzzles, a best-ever sidekick matched only by Crow in the original The Longest Journey, a fun look at 4 important historical episodes as you time jump to figure out who has framed you for betraying all things Journeyman (ie, time travel). There's even a Monty Python and the Holy Grail reference, and it's almost worth it to get killed or otherwise transitioned out of the game to see what happened to your character (eg, in Chichen Itza, if you leave the pyramid you're exploring, you get hailed as a god by the native Mezzo-Americans since you're wearing a time travel suit. Word of advice:get Arthur (sidekick) as your first mission. This game is from a generation that, like Zork:Nemesis, is mainly running around exploring and solving problems, but they managed to include an action sequence in Chichen Itza where you have to jump between moving parts of a bridge over a deep gorge. It's fun, it's funny, it rewards thorough exploration. Just a must-have if you like this genre.
I played these out of order, so jumped into this one with no idea about the events of the earlier two games. It didn't really matter. No matter how many great graphic adventure games come out, this will always be in my top tier. Really, it's up there with The Longest Journey (the original game). Where Buried in Time takes you to a number of historical settings, this one takes you to the (probably) mythical realms of Atlantis, El Dorado and Shangri-la. Where, in Buried in Time, you had to stay out of sight in your time travel suit, the one in Legacy allows you to take "photos" of different NPCs and then morph to them at will. This adds a really interesting tier to the puzzle solving, as some NPCs will only give certain information to you when you appear as certain other NPCs. And Arthur, your companion AI. OMG, he sets the bar for robotic sidekicks, or sidekicks in general. I literally could not get through the Syberia series because this is who I was expecting the robotic sidekick to be. This and Buried in Time have excellent replay value not because there are different ways to get through the game but because the worlds (and Arthur's constant wisecracks) are so vividly imagined, you will want to experience them again and again.
I was so sad when I read that this was the first of a planned 3-part series that then didn't fly because Inquisitor didn't sell well enough. This one is a true successor to the text adventures of Infocom. It has all the wacky humor, and the modern elements it plays with are integrated brilliantly. For instance, there's a medication labeled "ProZork" (mood stabilizer) and a "spell checker" which---yes---is used when you're attempting to create a magic spell from scratch. Please, somebody try to get the rest of the planned series crowd-funded!
I was so excited when I received this as a gift but was ultimately disappointed. It feels a whole lot like, when Activision bought out Infocom, they had another game they were half-hearted about and so decided to try to superimpose it on a "Zork" background. The game play has its moments, but this just does not feel like the Great Underground Empire. There's a witch and some trees you can talk to, but there are also a modern farm, a comedy club, and what's essentially a Holiday Inn. In frustration, I ordered the hint book, which turned out to be inaccurate. If you are such a fan you have to own ever Zork game ever made, take advantage of a sale price. If you want a game that "feels" like the old Infocom adventures, give this a miss and get Nemesis and Grand Inquisitor.
I was hesitant to buy this after the disaster that was Return to Zork. But, though dark in places, this is the real deal. It hits all the notes older gamers like me remember from the Zork and Enchanter series (and, really, all the best of the old Infocom text adventures) plus the graphics and music are beautiful and the story itself is immersive, creative, and truly excellent. This is the graphic adventure I wanted back when Infocom was putting all its energy and disc space into writing vivid text adventures. You won't be disappointed.
I'm giving this 4 stars because *for its time* it was ahead of the curve. I had just replayed Broken Sword and read through the comments by Charles Cecil on Revolution's humble beginnings (really reminds me a little of Roosterteeth, especially watching their show RWBY take shape---very small crew in the beginning with classy but simplified art work) and saw that this was their first game. Plusses: well, the big one for 1992 would have been that it even had artwork. As a gamer who remembers Zork, I remember Infocom saying it would not bother with graphics till it felt it could do them well and they'd rather devote resources to good plots and puzzles and vibrant writing. Some of the descriptive writing in LotT is up there with the original infocom text games, and it was fun to take a little walk down memory lane and see an early adventure when graphics were new (hey, this excelled the original Leisure Suit Larry game!) Where it fell apart for me was in those graphics, and I'm not sure if this was originally a problem or the problems arose as a result of the game getting ported to the Scumm engine or whatever further tinkering GOG did to format the game for newer machines. As people spawned and constantly bumped into each other, it could take a certain amount of patience just to walk across the screen to talk to a character you'd just used "talk to" on. This was especially challening with the mechanic of asking your companion to do something---because of the odd pathing, it was possible to give a correct command and still come up with both your character and your companion standing still with "?" speech bubbles over their heads. So, yeah, even if it violates your code of honor, use the included walkthrough. Interesting to see how Revolution went from "ahead of the curve" with this to "Broken Sword," which even in 2016 sets the bar for story, puzzles, unique animation, and great characters. Off to play Beneath a Steel Sky now!
