Written by Andy Panthro
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| The creepy teleport room, where I began today |
It’s been a little while since I played, it’s not always been the most fun experience, so I put it off for a while. Last time, I’d just been warped to a new area, and it just seems to be either another building or another part of the same house. The room I start in seems to be some sort of ritual area, not sure why it’s there other than I guess if the others can use it to warp around like a teleporter. In the corner is a flask, which I drink immediately, as the health points stack.
The Tommy Gun is perhaps too useful a tool in this game
Outside, I am greeted by an acrobatic martial artist, who is incredibly difficult to hit. Shortly afterwards, a zombie with a gun enters the room and starts shooting. They do manage to hit each other a little bit, which helps, but mostly I have to run around until I find a chest with a tommy gun in it, so I can properly fight back. The gun makes short work of them, although I lose a bunch of health. I feel like there’s probably a smart way to deal with the acrobat, but I couldn’t think of anything.
The acrobat dropped a grenade and flask, and the gunman dropped a key. Time to explore the rest of the area! Most of the area is empty. The chest with the tommy gun was seemingly the only thing, and in the adjoining room, all I can see is a jack in the box. I try and use the grenade on the jack, and the game says “I don’t see why I should blow everything up!”. I disagree, Carnby.
A Jack in the Box, the game will not allow me to destroy it
Searching through my items I try a few things with the jack in the box, like the new key I got. But what works is the Dubloon, causing the Jack to bounce around and giving me a Pompon. Bizarre, but not out of character for whatever this game is. I assume that’s all there is to do here, and so I proceed to the only door out of this place.
In the next room, we find the room that Grace was being held in! She is not there though, but the creepy clown from the introduction is. For some reason he leaps and jumps around but doesn’t actually hurt me, but I can’t figure a way to hurt him either. Adjoining this room looks like some sort of black mold infected space at first, but I think it’s just supposed to be a little garden or fountain room, and the graphics are not helping. Upon entering it, a snake bites me and I die instantly.
A malevolent clown, that cannot be shot, but can be bitten by snakes
Ok so I had to get a hint for this bit, it is true adventure gamer moon logic (let me know if you disagree!). So to get past the clown and the snakes, you have to throw the pompom into the room with the snakes, and both the clown and the snakes will be attracted to the pompom and when the clown gets near the snakes they kill the clown. The only way out is through what looks like a fireplace, which I drop down. Immediately I realise what the grenade was for, but I already wasted a bunch of ammo killing everyone in this ground floor room.
The little chef is still roaming the ground floor, but I guess he doesn’t care about me anymore, cos I killed all his friends. I make my way upstairs, initially to go to the bedroom and ritual room again, but remember instead the other path. I had previously revealed a secret door behind a bookcase, and now I assume I have the key. So what’s behind this secret door?
What’s behind door number one?
It’s a trap!
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| “The same fate as Grace” So I get to walk away behind your back? |
Not sure exactly how this works, but I end up in a cell in Jack’s room (why do you have a cell in your room, Jack? What’re you getting up to in there?). Jack gives his villain’s monologue, complete with some nice artwork. He talks about taking over the Flying Dutchman, and giving his soul for eternal life. The pirates got trapped in this cave (in California? Rather than anywhere near the Carribean?), and remained to cause havoc in the west instead, building this mansion with their ill-gotten gains (there are many holes in this story, but let's just run with it).
A close-up of Jack himself, in pursuit of The Flying Dutchman
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| Captain Nichols, the previous captain of the Dutchman? I’m sure this won’t be relevant later |
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| Elizabeth, the one with the dark arts and very pale skin |
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| Jack in the Wild West, I wonder if they’d already picked out the setting for the third game yet? |
Anyway, as he’s being a typical bad guy, Grace manages to wander away, and we return to Carnby as he is alone in his cell. Notably, I still have all of my items, and so I use the hook to unlock the back door of the cell and escape.
There seems to be nothing in Jack’s room, nor anywhere else really, so I head back downstairs. The front doors are still locked, so I move towards the kitchen and then the doors burst open. With a witch’s screech and laugh, Elizabeth (I think that’s her name based on the previous cutscene), uses her magic on Carnby and turns him into a mindless zombie.
Would it be wrong if Grace just left? What’s the worst that would happen
The scene cuts to Grace, watching from just outside, as Carby is led away. Next time, it’s time to play as Grace and see if we can find the Flying Dutchman and deal with Jack once and for all!
my thoughts as always:
ReplyDeleteAgain, it's unclear what's with french adventure games. Get random item, use it on random hotspot, get a random reward (like use the coin with the jack in the box puzzle). They love this trope, we know Sierra had dead ends on purpose for people to waste their money on the hint lines behind infinite menues, but here, not sure what was the idea.
Being in the intro room was cool, unexpected, it's like progress when you find a familiar place after so much trouble. Why the clown does not kill Carnby instantly instead of jumping stupidly ? I don't know. In the intro he kills your friend in one hit, instantly.
The wild west still in the cutscene is actually interesting, because there's a reference in the next game to this character, so it seems appropiate. Even the solution to that specific puzzle is a solution from this game that you have no way of knowing in the sequel if you haven't played this game (or just brute force as usual)
And now you reached the point where the game is a bonus. You are playing the CD rerelease, the original floppy disc version (8 or 9 floppies!) had no Grace scenes, it just skipped all this act straight to the next time you control Carnby. I was super surprised when I replayed the game 30 years ago on CD and found they added this little area with Grace. It's not super fun nor long, but it's a cool extra.
It's curious how both AITD2 and RE2 decided to add a "Play as a child character that's pretty useless because they can't really do anything" section - coincidence? Probably.
DeleteThe items definitely feel very video game-y. Try anything on everything is one way to stretch the game length and introduce variety, and there's certainly no lack of "stuff" in this. But I say, as random as it is, I though the cutscene was neat. Pirates and the Wild West? That was awesome to 12 year old me!