How:
Got it on GOG after playing the first Atlantis game.
Pros:
- Gorgeous visuals, decent voice-overs
- Really gives a sense of adventure
- Lots of zany characters
- Great music
Cons:
- Tons of obscure puzzles
- Unclear and confusing exploration
- Lots of pixel hunting
- Frustrating action scenes
- Boring and confusing new age story
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| Quetzalcoatl was a joy to see. |
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| Lo Pan with long nails and everything! |
How:
Read about it since Amiga times, got on GOG.
Pros:
- No explicit actions: just one click for everything, which works surprisingly well
- Great pixel art graphics and smooth animations
- Good voice-overs overall
- Fast movement, can skip dialogues
- Autosave
Cons:
- Can get into an unwinnable state without knowing
- The game structure and puzzles feel like a King's Quest 1 remake
- Basic inventory puzzles and lots of trial and error
- Too many useless mazes and random items
- Limited inventory slots
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| You transmute into a pegasus! |
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| Mixing potions time! This is completely random and I created all possible potions. |
How:
Read about it after playing Inherit the Earth, got on GOG during a winter sale.
Pros:
- Nice old school blocky graphics with 8-bit colors
- Auto-map
Cons:
- Annoying music
- It is possible to get stuck forever without knowing
- You can not even look at things -- the "look" command only zooms in
- Difficult to understand what can be interacted with
- Very easy to get lost
- Obscure plot and puzzles
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| For some reason, ケチヤ is written on the teleporter. |
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| After the ending, the game promises a sequel that never came. |
How:
Found while browsing GOG.
Pros:
- Some of the best pixel art seen in a classic adventure
- Charming atmosphere all throughout the game
- Great voice acting
Cons:
- Useless mazes everywhere, places are very hard to find even if you know exactly what you need
- Annoying pixel hunting
- Lots of useless locations and characters
- Very abrupt ending
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| This very much reminds of Monkey Island's cannibal village. |
How:
Read about it on old videogame magazines. Got on GOG during sales.
Pros:
- Graphics are a mixture of amazing pixel art and low-poly 3D renderings
- Lots of cut-scenes
- Relaxed, humorous mood throughout the entire game
Cons:
- Horrible (in some cases, completely broken) Italian translation
- Very slow movement without the possibility to skip
- Some truly obscure puzzles, the cosmic date one is possibly the toughest I have ever encountered
- Way too long
- The inventory quickly packs up with useless items
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| The Omnibrain guard looks like a Norm from Normality! |
How:
Got on GOG during a point and click sale.
Pros:
- Soothing, relaxed atmosphere
- Well-balanced puzzles
- Nice voiceovers and characterizations
- Cute graphics and animations reminding of Edna & Harvey
- Just the right length
Cons:
- Some interface glitches
Pros:
- Nice puzzles overall
- Several cut-scenes
- Cool old school 3D graphics
- Overall good, carefree mood even during the darker bits
Cons:
- Repetitive music
- Confusing controls and interface, easy to miss stuff
- Bad field of view
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| A Gigerish corridor in a very brief game section! |
Note:
I played the "extended cut" version, which is an unofficial patch that fixes some bugs and adds back some unused music and dialogue.
Pros:
- Just the old school graphics I like
- Great atmospheric music
- Lots of cutscenes
Cons:
- Lots of bugs and glitches, even with the patch installed
- Annoying action scenes to complete via trial & error
- Unfair, obscure puzzles
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| At one point you dress up like a woman, and the character even makes a falsetto voice. |
How:
Got for free on GOG during a giveaway.
Pros:
- Great graphics and excellent animations
- Good puzzles overall
- Likable main character
- Nice and relaxed pace but still gives a sense of adventure
Cons:
- Very slow movement
- Unclear red herrings
- Some pixel hunting and unfairly obscure puzzles (e.g. you must use the bathroom keys to open a towel dispenser without even knowing the towel dispenser can be opened)
- I didn't care for the templar historical story line
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| A totally unexpected innuendo |
 |
| The only fun part was to see Death in game. |
Pros:
- Great graphics and smooth animations
Cons:
- Important items and characters appear and disappear depending on the time of day (e.g. searching someone's laundry yields a newspaper piece only after talking to the priest)
- Tons of useless and misleading items
- Some annoying pixel hunting
- Illogical puzzles
- Bad storytelling
- Annoying music
- Bad English translation
