For 7 only: There was controversy over the change in looks from prior games. I found the graphics fitting to the more Disney-like fairy-tale story and leads. Initially odd, I quickly came to enjoy them and doubt the prior style would've served the story and characters as well. The story was good, tho cheesy at times, and the alternating protaganist stories were fun. Some criticize the removal of dead-ends; not me: they're one of my most hated aspects of other Sierra games. The amount of time wasted in earlier games when I missed something and had to load a save from way back and repeat a bunch of stuff, sometimes a few times, frustrated me and led to checking walkthroughs periodically to ensure I wasn't missing anything. I realize some like the extra challenge, and to each their own-it'd be ideal to give the option, like the KQ1 remake-but for me, I want to just play and enjoy a game and get through it and move on to the next. I don't want to spend a few extra hours because I have to replay half the game. It's not fun, just an annoying waste of precious time. Which leads to the main issue: despite having no dead-ends (thrice I thought there were), it still wastes ample time needlessly. The prior games had a speed slider that stayed put; here it's not only hidden (the + key), it's extremely erratic. Sometimes it's a fast/slow toggle, others you have to hold it. And it's CONSTANTLY slowing back down. I had to speed it back up several times a minute. Animations and "cutscenes" are also slow and dragged out. This is all made worse by the significant back-and-forth built into the story. It made me again resort to hints/walkthroughs, which diminishes the game and which I also had to do more than I'd like due to many of the "puzzles" being rather obtuse, because otherwise it takes far too long. Finally, the save/restore system is simpler and mostly better, but makes it too easy to accidentally restore to a point much earlier and lose progress. stupid char limit...
