Return to Zork

Normally I complete a game before reviewing it, but Return to Zork was too much a test of my patience. There appears only a loose connection to original Zork Trilogy. I found the storytelling very vague and I didn't enjoy having to piece it all together from the little bits of knowledge scattered around. Not far into the adventure I got a bit stuck so I decided to check a walkthrough rather than spend my precious time scrutinizing everything to try and find the way forward. When I found out what the way forward actually was, I realized that I was not going to have the time and patience get through the game without reliance on a walkthrough. Even if I could work out some sort of objective, the game is full of strange problems and solutions that seem to require the player's utter commitment. I tried my best to enjoy the game by piecing together the plot and determining what my purpose is and I carefully checked the walkthrough to make sure I didn't misstep and screw up the whole game(there's an item at the start of the game that you have to "take correctly", otherwise I don't think you can't win the game i.e you're screwed from the start and don't even know it). But I decided that I'd given all I could when a bug messed up the game. I was in a forest, one of the game's mazes, and I'd just saved the game, only to realized that something had gone wrong and I couldn't make the mouse pointer change to an arrow so that I could move forward or change my facing. The game's puzzles are bad enough, but combined with bugs, it's unbearable. I wanted to play it, because of it's connection to the Zork Trilogy, which I'm still very fond of, but I don't think this game particularly does a service to those games. I will say that I like some of the script and it's humor and the acting(with live actors) is pretty good as is the background music. Not good enough to sustain me through all the game's troubles though.

Yes, there was a puzzle at the game's beginning that I messed up, then when I hit the dead end, I despaired, restarted the game and proceeded correctly. After finishing the game, I went back and experimented, and discovered a way to recover from my misstep midway thru the game; I did not have to restart the game after all. Some puzzles I NEVER would have figured out on my own. Even with the Official Guide in front of me this game was a challenge. There's one Mayor's filing cabinet folder that's only in the floppy but not the CD version of RTZ. I wasn't interested in the story behind the puzzles. To me, the fun is merely clicking through the game like an interactive movie.

You'll read many complains about this game, mostly about the acting, the weird puzzles and some annoying parts. And these are all true. So why 5 stars? Simply RTZ ha the best interface for a graphic adventure game and a superb atmosphere that will always keep this game in a warm place for me. At it's times was stunning tecnically, today we can laugh at it. Music is still great and acting can still put a smile on our face. The obscure/crazy puzzles will be a huge obstacle, especially as you can get into a deadend even making a mistake in the very first steps, but never the less I had way more fun in this one than in the more "complete" and polished Zork Grand Inquisitor. So, while is so full of problems, the nice price on GOG should be a fair reason to give it a serious try. And regret that such clever interface wasn't used in other games. In Frobz We trust.

I played this game when it was first released. Thank you, GOG, for making it available on modern devices!