print(“Hello, World!”)
A first post, I guess. I’ve only joined a few days ago, but I have been going through my backlog for a week or so and decided I might as well post some short reviews. Hopefully, they will inspire someone who has these games in their backlog to play (or not play) them. I’m currently in my point-n-click phase, so all the games in this post belong to this genre.
(Haven’t figured out how to embed interactive game previews, can anyone point me in the right direction?)
Goetia (6/10)
A game with a very promising and peculiar premise that was let down by a subpar ending and unnecessarily strenuous puzzles. You start out as a ghost of a young girl who is suddenly brought back to the world of the living. You’re trying to figure out what happened while you were gone, and learning about your family’s history along the way. I really liked the plot up to a point when I realised that some of the most interesting questions will never be answered or elaborated on. My suspicions were confirmed when I got to a rather anticlimactic ending that seemed very forced and left me quite dissatisfied. If only the developer(s) put a little more effort into sketching the world around the protagonist, it could have been a great game. Solving puzzles quickly became a chore, as quite a few were ridiculously difficult and required extensive effort. Overall, it was not a terrible game (as long as you manage to get through the puzzles, I couldn’t be bothered and used a walkthrough), but I probably wouldn’t play it if I knew how it will end.
Broken Age (it’s complicated/10; alternatively, Act 1 (11/10), Act 2 (3/10))
If you decide to play this game, my advice would be to completely skip Act 2 and just use your imagination to complete this story. Act 1 was such a gorgeous, marvelous gem full of surprises, and Act 2 completely ruined everything. All the character development building up in Act 1 was abandoned, the plot made little sense, and there was never a real ending provided, IMO. This could have become the best modern point-n-click adventure, and it’s such a shame that it was so mercilessly ruined by Act 2. But I highly recommend playing Act 1 and Act 1 only; it’s a beautiful, innocent fairy-tale, and we all could use a little wonder in our lives.
The Book of Unwritten Tales series (8/10 overall)
This post is getting a bit too long for my liking, so I decided to review all 3 games as a series. The first game starts out very slow and looks quite boring in the beginning, but as it slowly develops the things start to look much more interesting. It’s your typical humorous adventure game where forces of good battle forces of evil. This game isn’t anything revolutionary by any means, but I loved its quirky humour, inventive dialogues, and goofy characters. The second game, Critter Chronicles, is more of a half-game really since all it does is tell the backstory of how 2 characters met. I actually liked it the least out of 3, but would still recommend it if you want to get a better feel of the game’s world. I’m finally on my last game of the series (which I won on SG, and playing which was the original goal, yay), and even though I haven’t finished it yet, I don’t think the ending can disappoint me, and it’s my favourite game in the series so far. Gorgeous locations, funniest dialogues you can imagine, and lots of references. Ratings for all 3 games in the respective order: 8/10, 7/10, 9.5/10.
An Honourable(?) Mention
2064: Read Only Memories
I usually don’t review games which I haven’t played for at least an hour or two because I believe in giving every game a chance to redeem itself. However, I simply couldn’t get into or care about this game enough to even give it this much of my time. I think the developers wanted to create a social commentary medium rather than just a game, in which case they succeeded. The characters felt very generic and flat to me, the plot was uninspiring, jokes weren’t funny, and I found it very hard to get emotionally invested in pretty much anything when it comes to this game. Plus I was already aware of all the issues this game highlighted, so its purpose was lost on me. Overall, I just can’t recommend this game to anyone except people who are interested in this “social justice” kind of games.
(Edited for grammar.)
Welcome to Backlog Assassins!
And I very much agree with you on Broken Age. I have my own guesses on what happened, why act 2 was so bad (in particular in comparison to act 1). They probably listened to input from the fans about Act 1, and tried to please them, not really realizing that the input they got would not work for the game they started making. Act 1 was criticized by some very vocal people for not being in the style of an old Lucas Arts game (with moonlogic puzzles and all that stuff), and so they tried to change course mid-development, which just ended up making a mess out of the whole thing. Pretty much everyone I’ve talked to about Broken Age have praised act 1 and hated act 2.
Does the vocal minority always have to ruin everything? sigh Yet another addition to the “Why I’m disappointed in humanity” list.
/sadface
I’d heard before that Act 1 was amazing, and Act 2 felt like a rushed mess in comparison, but you’re the first to recommend skipping it altogether, and I may just heed that advice.
Also, try not to be too disappointed in humanity. After all, you can’t summon Solaire without it. :3
Some of the games you reviewed are in my “I want to play that, too”-List. But it is constantly growing ;)
What do you mean with “embed interactive preview”. Do you mean youtube-videos? You can post HTML-Code, not only Markdown.
For example
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yQYjtBQNZ2A" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
That was probably poor wording on my part. I meant these things. But I didn’t know about the youtube videos either, thanks!
Hm, there’s probably a better way to do it than how I do it, but in the “thumbnail list” of your games, simply “inspect” the page elements and copy the part for the game you’re interested in and paste it into your post
Put <ul class="games"> before any row of games you want to show, and close it with < /ul>. If you don’t do this, things will look a bit wonky.
Gotcha, thanks!
Broken Age is on my list (somewhere) to be played. So it’s nice to see other ppl say something about it.
Although now I feel uneasy about it. Especially about Act 2. I will still play it though. At some point. Thank you anyway for the warning. Hopefully my expectations are now so low that the game might still surprise me :D
Really nice ice breaker of a post. I have a feeling many a game will fall before your onslaught. I personally think headers look classier then stat thumbnails when paired with regular old text, but that’s just me. Fancier posts are in demand. :)
Finally heard about Goetia from someone. I think I got it from that Square Enix surprise box, but haven’t gotten around to it yet. Time to hedge my bets on puzzles and general P&C approach to hold me. Other than that, only thing I can talk about is the first Book of Unwritten Tales. I think I’m right there with your assessment, although I’d say they handled references to other fantasy works rather well. That entire MMO machine part was hilarious to me.
Thanks! :) The MMO machine was my favourite part of the first game as well, haha.
As to Goetia, I actually was quite impressed by the lore and plot of the game. But it made me feel like the developers either ran out of time/money or got bored halfway through and went “Ah screw it, let’s just finish this”. The ending also doesn’t seem to fit the rest of the game. Maybe it’s just me, though. Hopefully you’ll enjoy it more than I did.
Yeah, I imagine that’s more likely then we think. What would you compare it to the most?
I don’t think I’ve played anything like it, unfortunately. I suspect Whispering Willows might be somewhat similar, based on its setting. In terms of the ending, though, The Whispered World comes to mind. You excitedly watch the story build up, and then the ending is just… meh.
Interesting. Thanks, I’ll have to get around to it someday.
Welcome to BLAEO ^^
The only game I’ve played out of your list is 2064 and I shared the same feelings as you did, in particular when it comes to the characters and the plot.
I think I’ve played a few more hours than you but I just couldn’t take it anymore after the game failed to make me invested in the characters, and a “supposedly important” plot point was revealed in a completely flat manner.
I’ve found that there’s a rule that works well with games that are heavily story-based: if a game doesn’t address the “Why should I care?” question in the beginning, it’s probably going to be poorly written. In 2064’s case, you’re told that some guy was kidnapped, with insufficient background information provided (why was he kidnapped, who kidnapped him, etc. They even failed to make it seem mysterious, it felt more like a routine “yeah, another one got kidnapped” to me). I tried playing some more, but couldn’t bring myself to care about the fate of a random guy I know nothing about, so I didn’t see the point of spending any more time on that game. Thanks for reading!
The only thing that spoils Broken Age for me was robot puzzle at the end, In the rest I love this game, even 2nd act.
Welcome! This is a really neat-looking first post. I somewhat agree with your review about Broken Age, although I wouldn’t say the Act 2 ruined the game for me. Act 1 was clearly better though, Act 2 didn’t really feel as solid and the puzzles weren’t as enjoyable. The graphics were sweet and the voice actors did a great job, though.
Enjoy your next games, whether you’re going to continue with pointing & clicking, or something else. :)
Thanks :) I disliked the ending most of all, it was so underwhelming. That is what ultimately ruined Act 2 for me.
Hmm yeah, the ending wasn’t that impressive. During my playthrough I was stuck so many times with the puzzles that the story never really grabbed my full attention, so that’s probably why I didn’t care much about the ending.
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I haven’t played Goetia yet (I traded for it a few months ago) but your summary of it matches the impression I got of it– that it was going to be more difficult than it was worth. Really good puzzles or stories can make me want to solve really difficult puzzles, but if it doesn’t bring enough to the table for me to want to press on, it becomes a walkthrough simulator.
It’s funny what you say about Broken Age. I’ve never played it, but I remember when it came out in two parts that many of its Kickstarter backers were very put off, and I get the impression that Part II was rushed or was otherwise very unsatisfying. I’m not sure if I’d have the discipline deliberately to play only half a game, but this one would be a candidate. :)
I enjoyed the first Book of Unwritten Tales, though about 80% of the way through I was ready for it to wrap up. I have the Critter Chronicles for some reason even though I didn’t really like the part of Book One that featured Critter. Book 2 looks really good, though, so I still have it on my wishlist.
Thanks for posting, and welcome once again!
Thanks! :)
That’s the impression I got as well. It seemed like they didn’t think Act 2 through, and quickly fixed something up just to wrap up the story and please the fans.
This is interesting because I kinda have the same feeling towards TBOUT 2. I like the game, but it stretches out for so long compared to what I’m used to I kinda wish it was over already. :P
P.S. I’m usually the person to explore every nook and cranny of a game, but trust me, you won’t miss out on much if you skip Act 2 completely. In fact, you might do yourself a favour by just reading a summary of the game after finishing Act 1. Saves a lot of your time and disappointment.