[PC] Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars (1996)

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

A totally unexpected innuendo

[PS4] Root Letter (2016)

How:
Found on some youtube game review channel.
Notes:
I got 2 out of 5 endings.
Pros:
- Very nice graphics and compelling story
- The Phoenix Wright-like questioning part is fun
- Relaxing gameplay
Cons:
- Hardly any actual gameplay at all, freedom of movement and action is reduced to zero
- Max-mode is just trial and error
- As is often the case with visual novels, the protagonist is not a very likable person

You get to see 7 actual dishes from the city of Matsue.

[PC] Thimbleweed Park (2017)

How:
Got from a friend's Humble Bundle.
Note:
I got the repair kit from the hotel room by exploiting a bug that would leave the door open, without having the ghost zap the electric lock.
Pros:
- Nice graphics
- Several references to classics in the form of puzzles (e.g. the sheet of paper flying away)
- High degree of (at least perceived) non-linearity
- Nice multi-character puzzle design
- Memorable clown character
- Too many red herrings
- Nice puzzles
Cons:
- Music doesn't loop well and is a bit repetitive
- The in-game radio is terribly annoying
- Unskippable dialogues
- Some unresolved threads

The navigator's head makes an appearance!

[PC] Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers (1993)

How:
Got on GOG during a Halloween sale.
Pros:
- Good puzzles, not too easy
- Very nice graphics and animations
- Cool, captivating story
- Very good voice-overs
Cons:
- Music is not very fitting most of the times
- Some frustrating pixel hunting

My final score. I forgot reading the newspaper once.

[PC] Puzzle Agent 2 (2011)

How:
Got with the Humble Weekly Sale: Telltale Games.
Pros:
- Immersive, creepy atmosphere
- The amusing dialogues, funny characters and excellent writing never let the interest down
- The hand-drawn graphics and fitting music contribute to create a unique game experience
- Several scripted sequences bring about a cinematic feel to the game
- Excellent voice acting
- Compelling mystery
Cons:
- Some puzzles are extremely easy, and in general they are quite repetitive
- Too linear, the game basically tells you where to go and what to do

[Android] Layton Brothers: Mystery Room (2012)

How:
Heard about it on Adventuregamers.com. Found the demo on the Play Store and bought the game after playing the first two episodes.
Pros:
- Great, colorful graphics
- The 3D sections are simple yet very consistent and well integrated with the rest of the game
- Quirky characters
- Fun and addictive gameplay
- Nice background story
- Cool turn of events near the end
Cons:
- Apparently there is no penalty for making mistakes
- One long episode is suddenly interrupted specifically by the end of the second (purchased) episode package
- Pop-up messages are there until the very last episode
- Puzzles are often given away by excessive talk and hints
- Correct answers given at the wrong time are considered wrong
- Title is completely misleading

[Android] Escape the Room - Limited Time (2012)

How:

Explicitly googled for (exclusive) adventure games for Android devices, this was basically the only decent result I got to (with most people suggesting ScummVM and Flash-based games).

Pros:
- Very polished presentation
- Nice puzzles in general
- A nice mystery to solve
- Reasonably lengthy
Cons:
- Some accurate tapping is required
- A hugely frustrating bug (can't find the light switch in the dark)
- Given that there is a time limit to escape the room, some puzzles are unfairly difficult and require time for reasoning
- The number puzzles in Room 10 are stupidly difficult to solve in a limited time; they totally kill the idea of mobile gaming and make you want to give up the game for good
- Dialogues are often buggy (people saying things in place of others)
- Korean names are totally confusing
- Music is not looping properly

[PC] Oz Orwell and the Crawling Chaos (2012)

How:
Read the review on AdventureClassicGaming, got convinced by the graphics. Was already keeping an eye on Midian Design anyway.
Pros:
- Nice graphics and mood
- Plays well in general and it is far from boring
Cons:
- Very short, a lot of wasted potential
- Clunky animations
- No voiceovers
- Most inventory items are never used
- General lack of care for descriptions and dialogues
- Out of place humour
- Incredibly clichéd
- Very few puzzles

[Browser] Guilded Youth (2012)

How:
Covered in the monthly freeware games feature on adventuregamers.com.
Pros:
- A fun and lighthearted augmented IF game
- Nice idea of the BBS game mode
Cons:
- For some reason sound effects do not work

[DS] Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (2005)

How:
Heard about it on adventuresplanet.it, got it for my girlfriend as soon as she got the console. Then, she heartily recommended it.
Pros:
- Awesome gameplay mixing visual novel storytelling and puzzle solving (especially the "extra" chapter, where you get to examine objects and use Luminol and fingerprint powder)
- Compelling, awesomely written story
- Great FM music
- Amazing characters with very strong features and dialogues
- Puzzles themselves are not difficult, but solving them feels highly rewarding
Cons:
- Too much white flashing during trials
- Must show evidence exactly when the game expects it, cannot forward-think too much
- Some unresponsiveness when doing things quickly
- Typos in the Italian translation
- Some awkward moments (Wright is constantly mocked by anybody for no evident reason, trials often lose focus and some arguments are very shaky) 

[PC] Tex Murphy: Martian Memorandum (1991)

How:
Bought in a bundle together with the first one.
Pros:
- Moody sci-fi/noir setting
- Very nice atmosphere and presentation combining 2D graphics and FMV
- Gameplay improvements of the point and click sessions over the previous installment
- Investigation is always fun
- Addition of music is welcome
- Almost all characters have voiceover
Cons:
- Interrogating people involves repeatedly going through dialogue trees until you get the answer that doesn't piss them off
- Music is nice but very low quality
- Many possible dead ends
- The yellow descriptions over location backgrounds are hardly readable
- Some annoying arcade and trial&error parts (kill the snake, pass through the quicksands, ...)

[PC] Hollywood Monsters (1997)

Pros:
- Nice opening music
- Very nice character animations and general look-and-feel
- Good voiceovers in general
- Some good jokes
Cons:
- Background graphics quality is generally really mediocre and clashes with the otherwise good characters and rooms
- Some annoying characters and stupid humour
- Terrible puzzle design, basically every puzzle is inventory based and there are dozens of items at any given time with no hint on their usage whatsoever
- Frustratingly impossible to play without a walkthrough
- Some annoying reflex puzzles

[PC] Mystery Case Files: Ravenhearst (2006)

Cons:
- Pure HOG with a letdown story and few motivations
- Hidden object scenes are always the same, often need to find the same objects over again
- Cannot detect objects quickly, have to wait some seconds after each detection
- The diary puzzle sections are silly
- Overly lengthy and repetitive
- Repetitive sounds and spare music

[DS] Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (2010)

Pros:
- Amazing use of chromostereopsis gives a sense of depth (especially in the ghost world)
- Great fitting music
- Amazing animations and pixel graphics
- Great mystery story
- Always entertaining from start to end
- Manages to keep gameplay always fresh and satisfying
Cons:
- Sometimes the game gives too many hints (makes you feel dumb, spoils the surprise)
- Very linear, doesn't give much freedom, it would be cool to have the possibility to explore the surroundings in search for clues

[PC] Sinking Island (2007)

How:
Enjoyed Syberia and Syberia 2 by B.Sokal, heard in many places about this and actually only heard negative things. Eventually a friend bought it and I borrowed it.

Pros:
- Great graphics for the most part
- Nice (even though not superb) music
- Pleasant PDA mechanics
- Good plot
Cons:
- Difficulty relies on pixel hunting and speaking everytime with everyone about everything
- Frequent graphic glitches
- Awful dubbing (played the Italian version)
- Unskippable dialogues and random events (eating, phone calls) are a pain in the ass
- Few, uninspired puzzles
- Gameplay is a matter of running around the tower searching for clues and characters
- Ugly animations
- Found it very difficult to relate with the main character

[PC] [text] - A Summer Story (2009)

Pros:
- Nice backgrounds
- Very fluent
- Makes you want to explore the alternative endings
Cons:
- No background music
- Finding all the endings is very hard (with no reason)
- The idea of a mystery boy on the other side of the phone is very nice, but thrown away. Why not make a longer, better game with it?
- Very short

[PC] Mystery Case Files: 13th Skull (2010)

Pros:
- Puzzles are well integrated and of average difficulty, making for a pretty casual long game (around 10-11 hours)
- Many human characters to interact with
- Excellent art and production (as always), with human actors well integrated into the environment
- Engaging mystery
Cons:
- The game tells you what needs to be done
- A handful of hints and objects are useless as they refer to the Collector's Edition
- Acting skills are sometimes dubious
- Dialogues are one-shot and there is not much of a choice
- A couple of ill-posed puzzles
- Many silly puzzles, e.g. dispose rubbish, make gumbo and look out for brushes and dusters for the housekeeper
- At times, the diary reveals facts that are still to be discovered

[PC] The Vacuum (2008)

Pros:
- Different endings which depend on both dialogue and action choices
- Reminds of 7 Days a Skeptic
- Very suggestive setting
- Control is quick and immediate
- Immersive
Cons:
- Foul-mouthed with no reason, irony is out of place
- Key animations are missing, even just a hint at an animation would have probably sufficed
- No music whatsoever
- Just a few puzzles, you just move back and forth following events
- Some glitches in the character movements
- Feels hurried. A much longer and deeper adventure could have been possible with just those locations and characters

[PC] Syberia II (2004)

Pro:
- Grafica e ambientazioni magnifiche
- In generale molto suggestivo
- Enigmi variegati e ben bilanciati
Contro:
- Un pò sottotono rispetto al primo episodio, c'è il rischio di stufarsi specialmente all'inizio
- La musica non è curata come ci si poteva aspettare
- Non c'è molta crescita nei personaggi

[PC] The Black Mirror (2003)

Pro:
- Storia avvincente, inoltre si visitano luoghi sempre ampi ed interessanti
- Enigmi ben congeniati e mai banali
- Scene forti (es. testa decapitata che rotola per terra)
- Grafica ottima, paesaggi e ambientazioni molto suggestive
- Doppiaggio ottimo
- Ottima longevità
Contro:
- Il modello del protagonista è paradossalmente quello venuto peggio
- Gli eccessi d'ira del protagonista e la possibilità di rispondere bene o male non portano a nulla e sembrano piuttosto un'idea buttata lì
- La sottotrama del passato del protagonista (e della morte della sua ragazza) è inconcludente