[PC] Return to Monkey Island (2022)

How:
Got it through GOG for my birthday!

Pros:
- Several genuinely funny moments
- Great music, colorful graphics, several cutscenes
- Great voice-overs in general, with some misplaced accents
- Solid puzzles, although a bit on the easy side

Cons:
- Inventory grows fast pretty soon, although it does not get too confusing
- Some very sad vibes
- Some graphics are a bit below the bar
- Could have been longer

A small cameo of the purple tentacle from Day of the Tentacle (on the table).

[PC] Atlantis II: Beyond Atlantis (1999)

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

Quetzalcoatl was a joy to see.

Lo Pan with long nails and everything!

[PC] The Legend of Kyrandia - Book One (CD-ROM version) (1992)

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

You transmute into a pegasus!

Mixing potions time! This is completely random and I created all possible potions.

[PC] Inherit The Earth (1994)

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

This very much reminds of Monkey Island's cannibal village.

[PC] The Inner World (2013)

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

[Amiga] Curse of Enchantia (1992)

How:
Heard about it since Amiga times.

Pros:
- Nice graphics and smooth animations
- Silly humor

Cons:
- No dialogues
- Very illogical puzzles
- Cumbersome gameplay with unclear actions, mostly trial and error
- Too many red herrings
- No item descriptions, sometimes it's difficult to understand the graphics

Trapped in a coffin. Actually, asking for help doesn't help.

[Mac] Enchanted Scepters (1986)

How:
Found while browsing a book on adventure games.

Note:
Credited to be the first point-and-click adventure game. Actually, it seems like "La Souris Golotte" came first.

Pros:
- Nice challenge with some almost unfairly difficult puzzles

Cons:
- Too much randomness
- Fights require no skill
- Some very crude graphics
- Weird mixture of typing and mouse commands

This might also be the first appearance of a talking head in an adventure game.

I finished the game with experience 3950 and wealth 1356, no idea what that means.

[PC] Eric the Unready (1993)

How:
Got on GOG.
Pros:
- Nice puzzles overall, not too easy

- Robust parser

- Some nice memorable music

- Fun text and dialogue, akin to Terry Pratchett's humor

- Light-hearted and enjoyable text adventure

Cons:
- Quite short, each part is just a few screens and puzzles

- Inconsistent artwork

- Very rushed ending

Amusing example of the game's humor: this character replaces all the R's with W's, hence you must interact with the room by using the same rule... "look at dwawing"

[PC] Goblins Quest 3 (1993)

How:
Heard about it since Amiga times, got on GOG with a Gobliiins pack.
Pros:
- Some quite challenging puzzles
- Fun and silly fantasy setting
- Quirky graphics, sounds and overall atmosphere
- Nice connection with the previous game
Cons:
- Some weird puzzles promote trial & error attitude
- The story is not easy to follow
- Game-breaking bugs at the chessboard level where you get items in the inventory before actually finding them

An amusing moment in which you play from inside a crystal ball.

Transformed into a werewolf!

[PC] Gobliins 2 - The Prince Buffoon (1992)

How:
Heard of it since Amiga times, got on GOG with a Gobliiins pack.
Pros:
- No more energy bar
- Nice challenging puzzles, with some interplay between the two characters
- Nice graphics and silly humor
Cons:
- Some annoying, illogical puzzles
- Some very annoying control issues

[PC] Gobliiins (1991)

How:
Heard about it since Amiga days, got on a sale on GOG.
Note:
Finished the game with max energy, final password TQNGFVC.
Pros:
- Nice graphics and setting
- Weird humor
- Some tough puzzles with several red herrings
- Good for quick game sessions
Cons:
- Solving puzzles is mostly a matter of trial and error
- Little music and sound effects

[PC] Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar (1985)

How:
Got it for free on GOG.
Notes:
I solved the game almost entirely on my own, except for the dungeon maps.
I never found and used the silver horn to bypass the 100 daemons guarding the shrine of humility. I instead fought all of them.
Pros:
- Heavily dialogue-based, makes exploration interesting and rewarding
- Some convenient interface changes, also easier and quicker fights
- You can ask people to join the party
- Very non-linear
- Battles take place in several different environments, allowing for some strategy
- Food depletes slowly, is shared within the party, and is not a hassle anymore
- Finally, enemies have no diagonal movement (still diagonal attack though)
Cons:
- No music in the original PC version
- Combat can be very slow when many characters are involved
- Getting a ship is still a pain in the ass
- Ships can be destroyed even when parked, forcing you to find another one
- Wind when sailing is still a HUGE pain in the ass

My final character stats.

Only 91,682 turns!

An Indiana Jones reference!

Encounters on bridges involve trolls. Nice touch!

Gazers - another type of beholders (strictly speaking these are all called "beholderkin").

[PC] Ultima III: Exodus (2012 VGA upgrade) (1983)

How:
Got with a Ultima I+II+III sale at GOG.
Pros:
- Finally with music!
- The tactical turn-based combat adds a new dimension to the series
- More items and weapons than the predecessors
- Magic is an important and fun part
- Not a grindfest for the most part
- Dungeon crawling is actually fun and useful
Cons:
- Still no diagonal movement / attack (although the enemies can)
- Wind in the world map is super annoying and makes you waste frigate turns for no reason at all
- The 5s timer for turns is very stressful, especially during combat
- Monsters are not visible in the dungeons, they just attack out of nowhere
- Food is a real pain, and can be drained (unfairly) by invisible gremlins in the dungeons
- Boats spawn very infrequently
- Still a lot to grind

I managed to teleport without boat into the water.

The disappointing ending with my final party.

[PC] Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress (2001 EGA upgrade) (1982)

How:
Got it with a Ultima I+II+III sale at GOG.
Pros:
- Exploring the world across time and space can be fun
- Better monster sprites in the dungeons
Cons:
- No diagonal movement (while monsters can)
- Progress is achieved by randomly talking to all characters and slaying innocents (e.g. prison guards) in order to access otherwise unreachable areas. This kills role playing completely.
- The game is basically a long, unrewarding, extremely tedious grinding fest.
- Everything must be obtained with money, which is obtained by grinding, or by random drops by killing thieves. I did not visit other planets because the fuel drop was too rare.
- Overworld monsters are too rare
- Still no music
- Planets are useless
- Too many ingame jokes

My final character.

That L-shaped piece of land is Italy. I am passing Gibraltar strait with my frigate.

I made a bridge with boats.

[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.

[PS3] Diablo III + Reaper of Souls (2012)

How:
Got as a present with the PS3 by my brother.
Note:
I finished the game with the witch doctor (male) with 4 dogs, 1 gargantuan, and lots of spawning fetish minions.
Pros:
- Immediate, fun gameplay
- Very cool playing characters with character-specific lore and equipment. Lots of cool monsters.
- Great graphics and environments with changing whether conditions. A lot of attention to detail.
- Environments are destructible and include traps
- Lots of cool spells and equipment
- Amazing cinematics
- Cool story and lots of lore
- Great voice acting, sound effects, music
- Some cool side quests
- Large world with lots of dungeon types including open spaces
- It has its sense of humor
Cons:
- Way too easy and forgiving. Most demons (including bosses) are affected by buffs such as confusion, slow, panic. Getting a strong character is just a matter of patience.
- Few side quests
- After a while, it is just more of the same. I had little interest to keep playing in adventure mode after finishing the main story.
- Would have been very cool to have small illustrations accompanying the demons lore

[PC] The Whispered World (Special Edition) (2010)

How:
Read about it on Adventuregamers.com, got during a Daedalic sale at GOG.com.
Pros:
- Awesome background drawings and in-game animations
- Puzzles are quite clever in general
- Very nice music, although a bit monotonous
- Nice, relaxing mood for the most part
- Quite lengthy and adventurous
- Nice unconvential puzzles to be solved using Spot's transformed versions
Cons:
- No wide screen, a real pity
- Stuttering animations, usually at the beginning of each scene or location
- Glitchy sound in the dialogues
- A couple of annoying puzzles (e.g. move around rooms in the Asgil's city)
- The main character is unlikable, unhearable, and depressing for the most part of the game
- Some puzzles can be solved by accident, destroying continuity
- The clock puzzle in the oracle's hut was automatically solved for me without me asking for it
- Lots of pixel hunting
- Some game-breaking bugs (e.g. character stuck in the background, door does not open, etc.)
- The cinematic parts among chapters do not live up to the rest of the game

[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!

[C64] Warrior of Ras 1: Dunzhin (1983)

How:
Read about it from CRPGAddict.
Pros:
- Sound effects and victory music
- Some replay value (levels and events are random)
- Reaction-based traps add to the overall enjoyment
- Random dungeons reveal as you explore, which adds to the pleasure of discovery
- Nice tactical combat, in which you can choose whether to aim, force, attack, run, or hide. Attack is specific for different body parts and you have to learn the most sensitive/exposed body parts for each enemy.
Cons:
- No music during the game
- Winning or losing a battle is completely a matter of luck, as a result fights are an exercise in frustration
- The weapon and armor can break with no possible replacement
- Unnecessarily complex control system which requires you to specify how many steps to walk in which direction
- Buggy (or just awkward) player status, in which experience points and statistics fluctuate randomly
- Very high encounter rate

[C64] Halls of Death (1983)

How:
Searched for other C64 rpg's on CRPGAddict master game list after enjoying Sword of Fargoal.
How to play:
"/" : down
":" : left
";" : right
"@" : up
"+" : use stairs
"p": spells
Movement can be made faster with F1.
Spells: Sleep (1), Teleportation (2), Lightning (3), Fireball (4).
Levels:
I was proclaimed: Apprentice Bumpkin, Yokel, Trainee Warrior, Warrior, Swashbuckler, Seasoned Adventurer, Hero, Dragon Slayer, Champion, Necromancer, Sorcerer, Superhero, Guardian.
Pros:
- Cool first-person view animation on the lower right
- Spells can be used to destroy walls in the dungeon
- The game forces you to take careful choices, because:
   1) a successful game sees you going back to the surface (i.e. you need to backtrack or teleport)
   2) stats grow with items found in the dungeons, and decrease with enemy encounters, traps and magic spells
   3) game ends when any of the three stats (Strength, Psionics, Constitution) falls below zero
   4) using spells consumes both Strength and Psionics, is not always successful and becomes mandatory at the deeper levels (vs wraiths)
   5) Strength and Psionics points can be transferred to each other with a 1:3 ratio
- Gameplay can get addictive and very tense especially during the ascent phase
- Successful ascents are very rewarding
Cons:
- Fight success only depends on the strength and magic levels of the PC
- Grinding is possible only to a limited extent, as it depends on what items you find in the dungeons and the outcome of encounters
- There is no use for the collected treasure
- No sound
- The time you can spend in the dungeon is only dictated by luck, since Constitution depletes as you fight and it can only be recovered by finding Stamina, which is rare

This is as far as I got. Getting the Lord of Light rating is a matter of grinding for treasure, perhaps one day I'll do it.