[PC] The Feeble Files (1997)

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

The Omnibrain guard looks like a Norm from Normality!

[FM-Towns] Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders (1988)

How:
Heard about it since Amiga times, got on a GOG summer sale.

Pros:
- Nice puzzles, some have multiple solutions
- Nice graphics
- Some ideas will later appear in Monkey Island (e.g. the cannibals in MI1, the mazes in MI2, the two-headed squirrel, the monkey wrench, ...)

Cons:
- Too many dead ends
- Too many mazes, which are also very difficult to map
- The need for money for traveling makes the game unnecessarily difficult

[PC] Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender Bender (1992)

How:
Got on GOG on a Black Friday sale.
Pros:
- Nice sci-fi setting
- Nice minimalistic background music
- Nice graphics and animations
Cons:
- Slow movement, not possible to skip
- Basic inventory-oriented puzzles
- Fonts are large and hard to read

Taking a leak - first time ever in a game?

Cosmic innuendos.

I thought the scribblings would be password or coordinates, but apparently they appear in other Microprose adventures (e.g. Dragonsphere). 

[PC] DoomRL 0.9.9.7 (2013)

How:
Don't remember, probably found after playing NetHack.
Pros:
- Very accessible for roguelike newbies, the complexity can be explored gradually
- Very replayable, provides several challenges and achievements
- Great atmosphere
- Winning is not close to impossible, unlike many other roguelikes
- Allows for quick sessions
Cons:
- Music is too much intense and distracting

One of my winning characters in the Angel of Berserk (melee-only) challenge.

My PC as of April 2018. Won a total of 3 games (2 easy, 1 medium).

[PC] Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness (1986 remake) (1981)

How:
Got it on GOG during a winter sale.
Pros:
- Nice and odd mixture of first-person dungeon crawler, classical fantasy rpg, and space fighting sim
- Easy to get in and strangely addictive
- Big world
- Nice little side quests
Cons:
- Not always clear what must be done in order to proceed with the story
- The world has no memory, you can kill the king and go back and he'll be there again
- No music
- Being a magician is practically useless, and you must purchase a spell for each use
- Monsters (like the skeletons) tend to be goofy
- Experience levels are useless

My final character. I got two red gems simply by repeating a quest twice.
Also, I had 88 INT at some point, but went down to 36 for no reason.

"Wandering eyes" is basically a beholder.

[PC] The Book of Unwritten Tales: The Critter Chronicles (2012)

How:
Got with a Gem Promo sale at GOG.com.
Pros:
- Awesome background graphics
- Excellent music and voice-overs
- Nice puzzles overall
- Simple, yet engaging story
- Amusing dialogues and writing
Cons:
- Some graphical glitches
- At times you are left without knowing why you are solving a particular puzzle
- Very few locations to visit

The critter disguised as purple tentacle from Maniac Mansion.

At one point in the game you get to use the blue and orange portals from Portal!

[PC] Space Quest V: The Next Mutation (1993)

How:
Got with the Activision Quests sale at GOG.com.
Pros:
- Music and sound effects are much better than the previous episodes, and a pleasure to hear
- Very good graphics and animations
- Gameplay is relaxing and offers some variety. Even just sitting in the spaceship giving orders is fun and rewarding.
- You visit several locations
- Interesting, slowly unfolding story
- Cool comic-style cutscenes
- Nice puzzles
- Fewer dead ends and sudden deaths make the game much more enjoyable
- Cool climatic ending
Cons:
- You spend very limited time in each location

Alien references are my favorite!

[PC] Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers (CD-ROM version) (1992)

How:
Got with the Activision Quests sale at GOG.com.
Pros:
- Very nice graphics and animations, the best of the series so far (as much as I love EGA)
- Amusing idea of time-traveling across the previous and future episodes of the game
Cons:
- The high-pitched music can get quite annoying
- Cannot have voice and subtitles at the same time, had to play with no voiceover
- Two out of five possible actions have no use whatsoever
- Several frustrating trial-and-error arcade sequences
- Not many puzzles and not many locations to visit, the story just drives along on its own

You can visit SQIII if you input the correct code - which I did on my first random code trial!

My final score. This time I didn't play the Astro Chicken game in the arcade.

[PC] Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon (1989)

How:
Got with the Activision Quests sale at GOG.com.
Pros:
- Very nice, consistent graphics and smooth animations
- Nice, rewarding puzzles as usual
- Less dead ends than previous installments
- Nice mood and some tense moments (e.g. fighting with the killer robot)
- Amusing close-ups and cut-scenes
Cons:
- Very abrupt ending, passed from a score of 308 to 598 in a matter of minutes
- Many unused inventory items
- I finished the game without playing Astro Chicken and thus without deciphering the help message within the game. This means I solved puzzles blindly without any clue regarding the plot (except for what I gathered from the manual).

My final score. This time I had absolutely no idea what I missed before reading a walkthrough.

The mini-game you get to play at the burger place...

...looks strangely similar to Joe Galaxy (Italian comic).

[PC] Space Quest II: Vohaul's Revenge (1987)

How:
Got with the Activion Quests sale at GOG.com.
Puzzles:
As in all Sierra games I played until now, I never cheated by setting game speed to "low" in any occasion.
Pros:
- Genuinely fun to play, with some funny scenes (hopping on the keyboard when miniaturized!) and funny commentary from the game itself
- Amusing ways to die
- Some quite challenging puzzles and red herrings
Cons:
- The parser does not improve much upon the previous episode
- Some illogical puzzles (give the Cubix Rube to the beast?)
- Not much of a plot
- Less climatic ending than in the previous episode (just push a button, enter a pod and sleep)

An amusing Alien reference - if you get kissed, a baby alien will eventually come out of your stomach!

Final score, and Alien ending!

[PC] Space Quest: The Sarien Encounter (1986)

How:
Never played the game before, got during the Activision Quests sale at GOG.com.
Puzzles:
I only had to look up one puzzle, namely how to get the shard of glass from the crashed pod. I did have the idea of taking glass from there, but couldn't find any. It turns out that it only works if you examine the pod from behind (not from the side).
Pros:
- The command-line based interface is a favorite of mine
- Red herrings and moderately challenging puzzles make the game very satisfying to beat
- Amusing ways to die and optional puzzles (e.g. buying the wrong spaceship)
- The unfolding story remains fascinating, as simple as it is
- Likable main character
- Nice, tense escape moments
Cons:
- Some random, unpredictable deaths
- Parser is not so smart

Getting the maximum possible amount of buckazoids at the slot matchine.

My final score. Will I ever finish a Sierra game with the maximum score?
Basically I didn't talk to and kiss the Sarien guard this time around.

[PC88] Cosmic Soldier (1985)

How:
Found about this game after reading of Psychic War on the レトロゲームの塔 blog.
Pros:
- Nice setting
- The character leveling system is mildly interesting
- You can recruit allies among the enemies
- Generally well balanced, requires some strategy
- Nice variety of monsters
- The accompanying android idea is not bad
Cons:
- No music at all
- The few sound effects are unpleasant
- Requires a considerable amount of grinding
- Junk shops are totally useless
- Limited variety of weapons and armors, and no special attacks whatsoever
- Very limited and repetitive gameplay mechanics
- Only one save slot per party
- Very high encounter rate
- Ugly interface, the game could have looked much better with a bigger first-person view

My winning party. This must have been my fourth or fifth party overall.

The End. All playing characters and enemy sprites are seen dancing with pom-poms as if nothing ever happened.

[PC] Quantumnauts (2010)

How:
Bought both Quantumnauts games from the official website after playing Oz Orwell.
Note:
Played the Italian version.
Pros:
- Nice puzzles
- Nice story and setting
- Cut-scenes have good quality
- I have a weak spot for this graphical style
- Some cool situations (e.g. the talking statues near the end)
- Gameplay never gets boring or monotonous
- Some red herrings
- The game actually manages to get funny once the player realizes it is meant to be a comedy
Cons:
- Many typos and grammatical errors even in the original language (Italian)
- Text is too small and difficult to read
- The main character often stands in front of interactive objects, must move him away all the time
- Animations are not smooth at all
- No sound effects
- Some annoying pixel hunting (e.g. the crack in the cave)
- Very slow navigation
- Missing descriptions with most actions
- Humor is sometimes out of place

[PC] Hamlet (2010)

How:
Read about it on Adventuregamers.com, got with the Bundle in a Box (Capsule Computers indie bundle).
Pros:
- Nice, colorful graphics
- Boss fights
- Some clever puzzles
- Fun setting and story
Cons:
- Extremely short
- Sold as a "classic adventure game"
- A couple of puzzles require quick reflexes

[PC] Abner the Amazing (2011)

How:
Got with the AGS Bake Sale.
Pros:
- Fun dialogues
- Nice story idea
Cons:
- Music style is out of place
- Very poor to no animations at all
- Some very simplistic puzzles
- Very unpolished graphics

[PC] The Visitor 2 (2012)

How:
Visited Screen7 website after finishing The Visitor, found out about this second episode and downloaded it.
Pros:
- Very good puzzles
- Very good pace and rather lengthy
- Fun and rewarding
- You get to play as a laboratory slime!
- Nice animations, a good improvement over the first episode
- Nice setting
Cons:
- An annoying reaction puzzle at the beginning of the game (avoiding to get ran over by a car)

[PC] The Visitor (2011)

How:
Probably read about it on some best-of AGS list and downloaded right away.
Pros:
- Very good puzzles
- A simple and fun story
- Great attention to detail (everything has a description)
- Some well done red herrings
- Nice and coherent graphics overall
Cons:
- Very few, unbalanced sound effects
- Very sparse animations
- Clunky character design

[PC] Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh (1996)

How:
Had as a Christmas gift by my brother from my GoG wishlist.
Pros:
- Cool music fitting the b-movie atmosphere
- The final part (the alien planet) is nice and more adventure-like
- Some cool cut-scenes, especially at the end (meeting the alien, etc.)
- Decent special effects
Cons:
- Dull story even for a b-movie
- Very unlikable characters, the main character in particular
- Boring and very repetitive gameplay, consisting on clicking on everything everywhere
- Very few puzzles
- Only 5 places to visit on the map

[SNES] Chrono Trigger (1995)

How:
Suggested by a couple of Japanese friends and finally by an Italian friend willing to play a Japanese RPG together. We considered the game to be the perfect start for testing our new USB gamepad for the SNES.
Pros:
- Beautiful graphics and music
- Very enthralling story
- Grinding is virtually non existent, encounters are for the most part avoidable and integrate greatly with the environment
- A lot of paths and different endings
- Exciting combat system with dozens of different attacks and combinations of them thereof, each with its own gorgeous animation
- Many epic boss fights
- Items and weapons clearly state their characteristics and who can equip them
- Never gets frustrating
- Not exceedingly linear
Cons:
- Overall too easy, only manages to get almost challenging towards the end and only if foes are fought the wrong way
- Some translation defects
- Some glitches
- Main character is always silent and makes it difficult to create a bond with him 

[Browser] Samorost (2003)

How:
Found out when looking for other games from Amanita Design after playing Machinarium.

Pros:
- Nice extravagant graphics
- Cute and fun
Cons:
- Very short