So this is a surprisingly hard review to make, largely because there aren't many negative things to say about this game. It's a little old, sure, and with that can come technical problems and dated visuals, but that's something one has to expect. The awkward animations are actually a little charming, seeing how far the technologies have come since then. What is surprising though is how well the backgrounds and settings hold up. Although, yes, they tend to be a little colourless and depressing, they're gorgeously drawn and come in a crisp, high resolution. I'm kind of a stickler when it comes to 2D texture working, especially with these kinds of 3D/2D adventure games, and this one did not fail to satisfy me.

The character's are voice acted well enough; some of the lines suffer from being read from a script rather than spoken naturally, but the overall quality is just fine. Not a single character is offensive, even the ones that follow pretty blatant stereotypes. The ruffian, the evil minion, the sassy protagonist. I rather enjoyed them and the personalities they carried. Like the voice acting, the story isn't anything ground breaking or shocking. It telegraphs coming twists pretty blatantly and yet it never feels like it detracts from the game. All of this just sort of exists around the real meat of it.

That being, of course, the puzzles. This is a very genuine point & click adventure / puzzle game and I adore it for it. The puzzles are great! A few of them do follow a bizarre sort of adventure-game logic, but they never go without subtle (or overt) hinting, and when you're stuck you can always get past it just by looking around, talking to people and inspecting your inventory. My main driving force in this game was always just to solve the puzzle and get to the next one. Really, this is where the game shines, and I don't regret a moment spent playing it.

I do wish there's more I could say about it, really. I've spent hours and hours in it already and I feel like it deserves this big fat review. There just isn't much more to it, and that is in no way a detractor. If you're out for a point & click puzzler, you could do a lot worse than this. :]

So this is a surprisingly hard review to make, largely because there aren't many negative things to say about this game. It's a little old, sure, and with that can come technical problems and dated visuals, but that's something one has to expect. The awkward animations are actually a little charming, seeing how far the technologies have come since then. What is surprising though is how well the backgrounds and settings hold up. Although, yes, they tend to be a little colourless and depressing, they're gorgeously drawn and come in a crisp, high resolution. I'm kind of a stickler when it comes to 2D texture working, especially with these kinds of 3D/2D adventure games, and this one did not fail to satisfy me. The character's are voice acted well enough; some of the lines suffer from being read from a script rather than spoken naturally, but the overall quality is just fine. Not a single character is offensive, even the ones that follow pretty blatant stereotypes. The ruffian, the evil minion, the sassy protagonist. I rather enjoyed them and the personalities they carried. Like the voice acting, the story isn't anything ground breaking or shocking. It telegraphs coming twists pretty blatantly and yet it never feels like it detracts from the game. All of this just sort of exists around the real meat of it. That being, of course, the puzzles. This is a very genuine point & click adventure / puzzle game and I adore it for it. The puzzles are great! A few of them do follow a bizarre sort of adventure-game logic, but they never go without subtle (or overt) hinting, and when you're stuck you can always get past it just by looking around, talking to people and inspecting your inventory. My main driving force in this game was always just to solve the puzzle and get to the next one. Really, this is where the game shines, and I don't regret a moment spent playing it. I do wish there's more I could say about it, really. I've spent hours and hours in it already and I feel like it deserves this big fat review. There just isn't much more to it, and that is in no way a detractor. If you're out for a point & click puzzler, you could do a lot worse than this. :]