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Old 12-03-2024, 10:25 AM   #581
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Default Galador

Ugh. Quicktime events, pixel-hunt, quicktime-event-pixelhunt to the brim, missing clues, deliberately trollin the player not giving them the necessary clue to continue, or just utter random guessing (those 4-liners are a nightmare).


There's also a puzzle where you should use the key item/action not on the target you think - rmeinds me of Prisoners of Ice, tzhat one.


There's also a part where repeated same action is needed, Because Why Not.


There are also unnecessarily complicated puzzles, including inventory-puzzles.


So this is a hardcore game, not the shareware thing it looks like to be from its first location.
I still think this is far from the worst, but definitely the gatekeeper to hardcore adventure games.
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Old 13-03-2024, 12:20 PM   #582
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Default Broken Sword 1

This game is front-loaded with difficulty. Logic puzzles, and all that. If you are not good solving the rubik's Cube, or that pesky "here is a jumble of symbols, here is the alphabet, go and solve this", you'll be toast.


But that aside, only a couple of puzzles are very challanging. A lot of times it helps you are confined to a certain area, so don't get confused.


I accidently solve the goat-puzzle by clicking the doorway by instinct, than clicking the only other thing on the screen, so dunno what to say about that, but we do get some other unfair puzzles, like the "find the Bible passages" puzzle where the letters do not allign verticaly so you don't look for it, and even when you do the puzzle breakes its own rules, and the double-coloumn all the sudden is not part of the puzzle anymore.
Also, the priest cleans the chalice literaly forever. And despite your character insists you should lok around INSIDE the church, you shouldn't.
But while inside, it took me forever to look through the statue's scroll, and I'm not sure what achueved that in the end.


The good thing is, the interavtive parts (items to pick up, elements to mess with) are all highlighted in an obvious way very much like Day of the Tentacles, and on top of it there's not even word-choice puzzle here, it either works or not.
Tbh, with oh-so-many conversations, this game is a bit boring even.


I'd rate it "easy" after you pass the "tutorial level" Darkside Detective. Easy for an adventure game I mean.
Seems to be rules of adventure games:
- talk with everyone about everything
- try everything on everything
- do it again if you ran out of options. Maybe something changed or an option got activated.
- there will be a puzzle with Unusual Mechanic. In every single adventuregame.
- there'll be also a strange goldberg-machine you have no reason to boggle down with, but is actualy mandatory. I mean what was that with the cat, the ring and the ball? It's so random!
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Old 13-03-2024, 09:58 PM   #583
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Default Broken Sword 2

Oh, man. I had to describe this one with one word, it's tedious.
You rly don't get much more than the prvious, but the logiuc-puzzles are mostly missing, and replaced with tedious manual labour.


The game is shorter, but does not feel that much shorter, actualy it still feels longer than the first one.


And yes, you can get stuck on unreasonable puzzles. It's one thing when you stuck in a situation your character has no actual reason to bother with the place - thinking of the priest-hermit, but when it comes to getting into the museum while the goldberg-machine's parts are obvious (give fish to cat, use ball to crash don marker, steal plans, get in), the actual execution is nonsense. I don't think any human would come to that conclusion.
Even worse is when you walk into the jungle on Skull Island. The film-crew is horrendous, but not the worst part. Thought the "maze" will be that one, but nah, it's a straight line (and I even stack the reed into the hole! I'm proud). The problem is, there's no indicator when you achieve something, so the player constantly questions if should try more, or what.
Seriously, you put down the tesodolite, then for no appearant reason go back, fight the boar and put on the marker. Than use the teodolite when there's no indication that a new unique mechanique just got implemented to move the bugger around, then there's no indication a new pathway just got unlocked. WHAT IS THIS NONSENSE? This part is just pure bad design if you ask me.
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Old 15-03-2024, 04:02 PM   #584
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Default The Secret of Monkey Island

Oh, pal.
Don't start with this one, although most of the conent is solveable with some experience. Even the occasional quicktime events.
I wonder if the troll would eat you though...


Anyway, there are some dialogue-options that'd warant some replayability, but on the other hand there are some points that can yout your adventure short.
Before that though, I will complain for the placement of the sword-trainer. I'd switch his location with Meathook, so the flow of the story does not get an abrupt halt.
Now the first real problem is getting that fish. The solution: repeated action.
Repeated action gets real horrible though with Monkey Island's monkey. 5 bananas for no reason. There's no marker that that's enough. No indication what to do with it now.
I could complain about the cannibals, but with some adventure-game instinct you'll realise you just have to try everything on them to get through with them, so I don't.
But I complain for the monkey.


Herman's cannon's location could also have had a better marker. Definitely in the Remastered version, I just played for the first time. Aside for the voices, it's inferior to the classic interface and graphic.
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Old 16-03-2024, 02:17 PM   #585
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Default Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge

By time progressing, I grew kinda appreciativ to this game, though I'll probably never like it either.
But tbh the ending makes sense, especialy if you binged the two games, and the puzzles' difficulty is kinda perfect.
With a couple of exceptions.


the spit-contest is very hard to figure out with wind, and the drink being necessary component for the otherwise trivial event.
and the elevator at the end for some reason did not close the first time I tried it? I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation for that.
come to think of it, the code to win prize on the fortune wheel is another thing i just brute-forve it via save-scamm every time.


Now the real problems are two:
- the monkey. Why any of that part of the puzzle happens is beyond me. Sure, it makes sense when you have the solution, but otherwise... Nonsense.
- and LeChuck's piece of clothing. Now THAT goes against everything adventure-game. There's just no way a player would not just pick up that coin and move on. That you are pressured with that random quicktime event is horrendous too. That room absolutely needed LeChuck only showing up there if you put the coin into the machine! And react to the bloody coin! I once threw the coin into the coke-maton during the brief pause after he enters the room, and that has no effect! I call BS.


PS: there's also a new adventure-game trope in this one which wasn't in the previous titles listed here: the scummbag protagonist. You deliberately have to do nasty things, to which only the killing the rubber clown in Day of the Tentacles come close if anything. Here you steal a blind man's glasses, and saw off a pegleg of a disabled person. Not even close to the Deponia-series, but still something you have to account for.
Darn, I hate deponia for it's protagonist's attitude to the world!
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Last edited by twillight; 16-03-2024 at 03:16 PM.
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Old 17-03-2024, 09:04 AM   #586
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Default The Curse of Monkey Island (MI3)

You know, this is what I would consider adventure game standard should be.
Sure, the interface is pretty straightforward, very similar to Day of the Tentacles Remastered (but this one doesn't offer you the action you shall use), and the puzzles are far from easy, but that's what adventuregame-players wish for, right? Wonky, makes you think lateraly hard puzzles, but not to the point of moon-logic.
So making the guy chew on jawbreaker to make his gold tooth fall out, put it in a gum, inhale helium and thus make it flow through the window is a pretty good puzzle if you ask me. Not obvious for the normal mind, but you can figure out if you've played some adventure-games already I'd say.


And it has good graphic, a clever storyline, connections to the previous installments and so on.
I do wonder what would have been the original idea for MI3, but pretty much guaranteed it'd've been a financial bomb, unlike this one everybody adores.
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Old Yesterday, 11:54 AM   #587
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Default Escape from Monkey Island (MI 4)

Oooh. I hate this one. I didn't remember how tedious this was. And hard. I remembered it felt empty, and was about lawyers, and paperwork, but all the combinations of this three factor just makes it insufferable.


And it gets worse by progress!
First there is such nonsense you have to win 3 times in a row AGAINST THE RANDOM to hire the navigator. Ok, brute force it with save-scamming.
Then there is the prohestetic shop, and its code-decyphering... Those always manage to be tedious. I'd just buy a puzzle-magazine if I would want that nonsense!
Than quicktime-events which require ultimate precision in a clunky controllled game take over, and finaly Monkey Kombat (yes, it is some Mortal Kombat reference). And it's not funny. Just pure tediousness. The tediousness start with the boulder-puzzle about the bronze hat. Just nah. Too much.


Btw, have to re-play the first game to figure out WTH was that with the Journey of the Sea Monkey. What dd the game say, who was the other guy with "Herman"? I don't remember everything. Which rmeinds me, Escape... is full of puzzles where the clues get only once, in a conversation, where there is no pause, and the clue is just some throwaway line.
It's nonsense. Too much. Watch a playthrough on youtube if you need to know what happens in this one, it just does not worth your energy. This game is an energy-vampire.
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