It reads like a funny story with visuals. Pretty good visuals. Nothing challenging, no hard moral choices or whatever - just a relaxing reading. Don't even need a mouse for that, just a keyboard and occasionally a touchpad. Still, it is first and foremost funny, with cultural references, relaxing and entertaining.
This game has vibes of "I have no mouth and I must scream" and a bit of "Atlantis 2". Graphics is something in between of the two. Compelling, intriguing and touching story. Some puzzles, pretty good ones and not too complex. Crappy movement system (hold RMB to move in that direction and try not to bump into loose pixels). Nice cut-scenes. All levels are done in different styles, and it feels good. It is weaved into a single slowly unfolding story, though the ending could be more impressive. The plot is linear, so it is enough to play the game once to mark it completed - no story forks, no multiple endings (that's not a drawback, in my opinion).
We all know this is an old open-world RPG masterpiece. It stands out among the others for me because there are a lot of books - real books, some of them over 20 pages - which are actually interesting to read. They cover different topics - history, religion, magic, alchemy, adventure books, life stories, etc... First time I walked into a temple library I hanged there for more than an hour (real-time) just reading books. They really help to build a picture of the world of the game. Levelling system is a bit unusual - there is no XP, but there are numerous skills which you should use or train to improve (or read books on that skills), and the character level increases with skill levels increase. The only annoying thing about it is that you should train endurance first to get better HP later on. Graphics aged well - you can adjust configuration files for better resolution, better lighting, and there are HD mods from the community too. Combat and the game overall is not fast-paced - you can pause, check inventory, switch wearable items, drink some potions. But it can be a bit frustrating, because in the beginning of the game you walk really slow, so travelling somewhere feels like... well, actual travelling. There are tons of side quests (and not just kill-em-all - sneaking, solving riddles and talking your way too), so sometimes main line gets lost and you just live there pursuing your own goals. Even furnituring your home, if you wish. I should also mention lighting. Sure, you can set gamma level to see everything even in darkest dungeons, if you wish. But with normal lighting level the game gets a rather interesting aspect of using candles, torches and other light sources.
First things first - this game aged extremely well. Graphics scaled to FullHD looks as good as it should be for a 2D drawn animation. There is an interesting timeline based save system - to load, you just rewind the clock to the point you need in the past. And... even though you have to do this often, it is not as irritating as it could be. Regarding immersion - you travel in a train with the other people. They walk around, talk between themselves, read newspapers (you can read them too!). And they talk in different languages, some of which your character understands - you (usually) get subtitles for French, German and Russian, though sometimes I wouldn't mind seeing subtitles for English as well. As for Turkish and Serbian - sorry, I guess our American player character doesn't know them. Not a big deal, though perhaps listening to what do harem ladies chat about could be interesting. However... one hardly can be everywhere all the time, so it is likely to miss some of the conversations (don't worry, the important ones are difficult to miss). Also, you can't initiate a conversation with anyone anytime - but that's easily explained by politeness. You only can start talking when you really have something to say, not just chat randomly about the weather. So it looks like a pretty reasonable limitation. There are only a few puzzles, so most of the action is about walking around, listening, reading, watching and talking, trying to understand what's going on. Sometimes sneaking, stealing and hiding. Even some boxing and crowbar fencing!
The game is pretty well-done - smooth storyline, good graphics and animations as for 1993 (way better than I expected while looking at screenshots). The sound is good too. The game is short enough to complete it in one evening without getting bored. Additionally, it explains a lot about inner workings of theater scenery, history of the Opera, etc - if you like clicking on all the items you can see on the screen and read about them.
It is more of a narrative story than a puzzle quest. Actually, there are almost no puzzles in this game, barring the story itself. It is way simpler compared to the first three Atlantis games. Also, comparing to them - graphics got better, with free-look feature and a number of cut-scenes. I've got a feeling, that there were more graphic artists working on this game than level designers. Music got a bit different - I personally missed that "Main Atlantis theme", which was common for all first three games. A good point is that there is no pixel-hunting in this game: everything clickable is marked.
This game, the second in Atlantis series, is way better than it's predecessor, "Atlantis: the Lost Tales". It is a real quest, where you don't need to hurry (except one location) and can take your time to think and relax. The story starts as three separate, loosely coupled plots, based on different mythologies, and the final chapter binds the story to the predecessor game. Most puzzles are interesting, solvable and logical, though there were some places where I had to seek hints. My personal favourite is math with Maya numbers. Music is nice and relaxing. Graphics is... well, was really beautiful in 2000, but even nowadays looks pretty if you are not too picky and take breaks to avoid eye strain. And I'd certainly give it a few bonus points for Maya priestess!
The story is kind of interesting, the graphics is kind of nice (as for 1997 - really nice 3D!). But the gameplay is sometimes frustrating. I had to use a walkthrough guide for about a half of the game, and it wasn't like: "Oh, right, how could I not understand that!" but instead more like: "Oh, and how was I supposed to understand that?..". This refers not to puzzles, but rather to gameplay, like finding a mouse in a badly lit passage. There are a number of scenes, where you have to act quickly (or die), and that, for me, is also frustrating an a quest genre of game - because you don't expect that all of a sudden! On a good side, there are autosaves upon every scene, so if the character dies (and he usually does that almost in each and every new scene, and does that a number of times), you just restart a couple of minutes back, and that's done fast and automatically. There are funny moments and characters, especially in the 2-nd half of the game. Women are 3D and good-looking. Puzzles are mostly logical and not too complex.
I didn't expect to stick with this game for so long, but evening by evening it took more than 150 hours. Why so? It is relaxing. I really enjoy the music, so sometimes I just put it on pause while doing some chores, and the music plays... So every time I was tired after a working day and not in a mood to play something rushing and competitive - I used to launch Port Royale. The graphics is pretty, unless you zoom in too close - it gets pixelated, but still looks nice. You start as a trader (or a pirate, if you wish), and at first it looks like buy/voyage/sell, whack-a-pirate game. But then you start encountering some characters in taverns, that tell you pieces of your story. And gradually this trading game turns out to become a story of family vendetta between you and a notorious pirate, Axesmith. And this story is going to follow you as you gain levels, wealth and fame. There are a number of repetitive quests, but also there are some rare and unique ones, which I only encountered once or twice per game. Like, looking for a witch or solving tavern riddles. Battles are not that complicated after you get used to them - though, at the beginning, steering more than 3 ships at once can be challenging, later you get used to handle up to 10. It is a bit difficult if they are at a different corners of the battlefield, but manageable. Different kinds of gunshots have different range, contrary to what some other reviewers say - so if you load grapeshots for a close combat and the enemy ship gets further away, you'll probably have to reload to a long-range shots, or do some manoeuvring to cut the distance. Regarding drawbacks - the game is not historically accurate in regards to which towns belong to which nations in a particular starting year. It does not really affect gameplay, but I have to mention it. PS There is a funny but annoying bug - the game doesn't see save files created in 2024, so now I have to set the system time to 2023 to be able to play.
