[PC] Atlantis: The Lost Tales (1997)

How:
Read about it on Adventuregamers, got on GOG during a promo.

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

At one point you dress up like a woman, and the character even makes a falsetto voice.

[PC] Amerzone (1999)

How:
Heard of it after playing Syberia, got on GOG during an Anuman Games sale.
Pros:
- Relaxing gameplay
- Nice environments and adventurous atmosphere
Cons:
- Motion sickness caused by the camera movement
- Very easy puzzles and little exploration

Somebody thought this is nice face modelling.

[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] Deus Ex (2000)

How:
Played the demo when it came out after finishing Half-Life. Didn't like the game, expecting it to be a shooter, came back to it out of curiosity with a Steam sale.
Ending:
I played through all three endings.
Pros:
- Very cool graphics, just the kind I like
- Amazing music
- Very fine dystopic sci-fi story with surprising turns of events and cool characters
- Excellent voice-overs and acting for the most part
- Exploration is rewarded
- Game difficulty and length depend on the way it is played (stealth vs shooter)
- Taken in small doses, the game offers a unique, fun and rewarding experience
- Plenty of optional content and highly non-linear
- The game offers several possible ways to reach objectives and do things. For example, I couldn't enter an area due to a game-crashing bug, but I took an alternative (more difficult) path and still made it.
Cons:
- Several graphic (collisions) and sound (music / sound efx balance) glitches
- The game is extremely dark 90% of the time
- Ending cut-scenes are underwhelming
- Some conversations are not logged
- If you attack or otherwise damage a character and do not kill him, everyone instantly knows where you are
- Not many cut-scenes
- The game is excessively long, more like a game and its sequel
- Some showstopping bugs (I couldn't enter Canal Road in HK without losing all inventory and crashing the game - had to take the difficult path)
- Enemies do not give the alarm if they see a door opening, a dead fellow, or other suspicious events
- The game misjudges your behavior with no good reason. Some NPCs (Carter, Navarre) described me as a naturally born assassin even though I didn't kill anyone, but Navarre did as a consequence of me being spotted by the enemy.

One of the three endings. Here I merge with Helios AI.

My final skill set.

My final set of augmentations. I mostly used the subdermal radar transparency, silent running, and the spy drone. Auto-healing also helped in the final chapters.

[PC] Portal 2 (2011)

How:
Got it together with the first episode in a Portal bundle sale on Steam.
Pros:
- Excellent gameplay and very well balanced puzzles
- Cool untold story that slowly unfolds, additional details can be grasped by doing more things (e.g. save a turret from incineration)
- Awesome graphics full of nice touches
- Excellent writing, dialogues and voiceovers
- Amazing environments and overall mood
- Great music
- Much more lengthy than the first episode
- All gimmicks (portals, light bridges, propulsion gel, etc.) come with a cool, "musical" sound effect
- The story continues with an awesome, lengthy co-op

Cons:
- I didn't like the colored gels too much, too many puzzles with them
- Some glitches

A hidden portrait of Cave Johnson and Caroline.

[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.

[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.

[PC98] Venus - ヴィーナス (1994)

How:
Read about the game from the True Love review on Hardcoregaming101.
Ending:
I finished the game with 3 out of 4 girls without walkthrough in one go.
Pros:
- Very nice character pixel graphics, fitting very well with the backgrounds
- Generally fitting music
- Many endings (each ending is an AV recorded by the main character for his almost bankrupt company)
Cons:
- Gameplay is very simplistic, just set a date and go there
- Very few places to visit
- Very few events
- House items have descriptions but no use at all

[Android] ラピスと不思議なラビリンス (2013)

How:
Found by looking for nice Japanese 脱出 games on Google Play.
Note:
Could not finish the game due to a bug (shaking the mobile does not work as expected), nevertheless this happened a couple of puzzles before the ending.
Pros:
- Very nice pixel art
- Some clever puzzles involving the motion sensors of the mobile
Cons:
- The game feels like a random mix-up of fantasy elements and unrelated puzzles
- Item descriptions appear on the bottom-right, which is usually covered by the hand during play
- Some items are only needed for the sake of collection

[Android] The Lost City (2012)

How:
Read some review on Adventuregamers after explicitly looking for more Android games to play.
Pros:
- Beautiful graphics and very fitting animations
- Nice, well-balanced puzzles
- Fitting music
- Immersive atmosphere
- Nice game for some relaxed, light-hearted adventuring
Cons:
- Music is a bit repetitive, could be much better with a different theme per season
- Underwhelming, almost non-existing finale
- The overlaid text is too much in the way
- Essentially a back-tracking game, can get tedious
- Some mechanical puzzles can be solved before the PC has a way to find the solution, but the game does not accept the solution even if correct (e.g. combinatorial puzzles)

[Browser] Worldgate Ep.1-3 (2012-2013)

How:
Covered in the monthly freeware section on adventuregamers.com.
Pros:
- Immersive world
- Simple and neat graphics, music and sound effects
- Nice puzzles, some of them moderately challenging
- Intriguing twist at the end (chapter 2)
- Cool to meet the ancient beings (chapter 3)
- Cool wrap-up explanations of the puzzles and devices met in the previous episodes (chapter 3)
Cons:
- Some interface problems (e.g. to analyze an inventory item, you click on its bottom-right corner, which can also happen accidentally)
- Small continuity problems (the journal is updated in the middle pages if the player does thing in a different order)
- The inventory can grow out of the allowed space if the player has more items than expected

[PC] True Love (1995)

How:
Came to know of it while chatting with my brother and got a downloaded version directly from him.
Note:
The English translation is the official Windows port.
Endings:
I got the Remi ending on my own and then saw all the others at once by following a walkthrough.
Pros:
- Mostly nice pixel graphics for both backgrounds and characters
- Some nice endings
- Some unexpected routes (e.g. saving a girl drowning in the ocean)
- Grinding skills can be rewarding
- There is a cameo of Akane from the game Venus
Cons:
- Music can get very repetitive
- Some typos
- Some continuity bugs
- A few ugly character drawing, few background scenes (most of them are just recolored)
- Very dumb, clichéd setting
- Unlikable main character
- Unrealistic dialogues

This character here is 茜 from Venus (1994).

[PC] Portal (2007)

How:
Knew about it since HL2, got on Steam with a daily sale.
Pros:
- Immersive and addictive gameplay
- Amazing atmosphere
- Surprising turn of events near the end
- Excellent voice work and amusing script
- Cool puzzle mechanics
Cons:
- Graphics are a bit monotonous
- Music is a bit lacking

[PC] Escape the Barn (2012)

How:
Got with the AGS Bake sale.
Pros:
- Nice country mood
Cons:
- Very short and trivial

[Amiga] Dungeon Master (Psygnosis release) (1992)

How:
Had the game on Amiga as a kid but never figured out how to play it. Finally decided to give it a go after reading CRPGAddict's posts on the game.
Pros:
- Favors exploration and discovery
- Immersive and suspenseful
- Nice balance between strategic and real-time elements
- Concocting potions is a cool idea
- Excellent pacing near the end
- Combat can be challenging and rewarding
- Cool magic system, memorizing and using spells makes the difference between a good wizard player and a bad one
- Some cool spells (e.g. see through walls, invisibility)
Cons:
- Throwable weapons (arrows, shurikens) must be picked back up one by one after usage, and the space allotted for them in the inventory is limited to 5
- No music, few sound effects
- Very repetitive graphics
- Slow movements due to overloaded inventories are a real pain
- Items, weapons and armor do not have any description, except for their name and weight
- No NPCs whatsoever. Would have been nice to meet somebody at some point
- The game gets very repetitive after a while, the elements added in each dungeon are not enough to motivate progress
- Probably one or two dungeon levels too many

My winning party:

Bad ending:

Good ending:

[Amiga] Arazok's Tomb (1987)

How:
Found while randomly browsing my Gamebase Amiga collection.
Pros:
- Very good graphics
- Moderately challenging puzzles with lots of red herrings and limited inventory
- Cool fantasy/sci-fi hybrid setting
Cons:
- Rather short
- Many showstopping bugs (crashes, glitches)
- Many typos
- No dialogue
- The few speaking characters can be heard only via the optional synthesized speech, otherwise what they say is not reported on screen
- Confusing descriptions
- Weak parser
- Some annoying time-based puzzles (eating, drinking, fighting)
- Very weak and abrupt ending

[Android] Strange House (2011)

How:
Looked for the "best" escape-the-room game for Android out of curiosity and just picked the most popular free game with a nice icon.
Pros:
- Nice graphics and mood
Cons:
- No music
- Figuring out puzzle solutions earlier doesn't work (e.g. typing the correct telephone number before letting the character reach the same conclusion)
- Some aggravating pixel hunting
- Gameplay is very clunky and the need to precise tapping soon gets annoying

[PC] Mystery Legends: Beauty and the Beast (2011)

How:
Read about it possibly on Adventuregamers.com forums, tried the demo and enjoyed it immediately (purchased from BigFishGames).
Pros:
- Excellent voice acting
- Superb graphics and animations, totally on another level with respect to any other HOG/light adventure I've ever played
- Nice puzzles and hidden object scenes
- Some light arcade sequences (e.g. playing darts)
- Backtracking is not painful at all
- Overall very enjoyable light adventuring with well integrated hidden object elements
Cons:
- Some hidden object scenes are used many times

[PC] Dark Parables: Rise of the Snow Queen (2011)

How:
Played the demo from BigFishGames after reading about it somewhere (possibly just browsing through the website after playing some Mystery Case Files episode).
Pros:
- Very nice in-game animations
- Voice acting
- Abundance of cut-scenes
- Generally better graphic quality with respect to previous episodes
- Story is somewhat interesting and connecting to previous episodes
Cons:
- Quality of cut-scenes is very inconsistent and generally mediocre
- Very similar to previous episodes of the series, with the usual arbitrary collection of medallions, shields and goblets to collect, statues to activate, and doors to open
- Graphics quality feels heterogeneous (e.g. some items are evidently re-painted photos, some characters are cartoony while others are more realistic)
- The children sound way too mature for their age (having a little child scream "Help, detective!" is quite unnatural)
- Very little variety in puzzles
- Voice-overs,  although abundant, are generally mediocre

[Browser] A small talk at the back of beyond (2013)

How:
Appeared in Adventuregamers.com monthly freeware feature.
Pros:
- Nice atmosphere
- Good parser
Cons:
- Too short
- Very few puzzles