Missed Classic: Urotsukidoji (うろつき童子) - Won (And Summary)

 Written by Morpheus Kitami

Last time, we finished a meeting with Kudo, and we were going to go to class 3-C. Probably.

That's Akemi, but it isn't anyone I recognize. Wasn't she missing? Oh, it is Nagumo, but wait, who was the guy the first time? I guess a member of the student council? Jaku asks about the Choujin, Nagumo says he always asks about that, when in the world is he going to get new material? Now two different people are stealing my lines...I have Jaku talk to Nagumo again, and again, Nagumo mocks him and now Akemi is joining in on the fun. I'm going to click on talk to Nagumo again, Jaku, are we going to talk to him normally? He asks him what's going on, nothing much. How about Akemi? Well, she asks Jaku if he's seen Kumiko, he says yes, but he's cagey about it. Probably because she's dead. Jaku tells Kuroko to watch Nagumo.

Yuuchi is in 3-B. So if Kudo isn't in 3-B or 3-C, where is he? Yuuchi is still pinning over Akemi, and to be honest I sort of don't care about this plotline much. Seemingly, it might just be carryover from yesterday, hopefully that's not a technical issue. I briefly search the rest of the rooms on the third floor, before deciding to speed things along. Which is good, because I didn't examine the Information Room on the third floor enough. Examining it three times reveals that Jaku can hear someone's voice, and because this is the only way we're getting any plot right now, we search the LL room, then I have to go to 3-A, 2-C and 1-B. A green voiced person is saying something about making war in 24 hours...and then eating a bento. On the first floor, Jaku then gets an ominous atmosphere.

To the school infirmary, where a yellow voice says something ominous, and another, this time purple voice, says something mysterious. Jaku enters and...

Missed Classic: Urotsukidoji (うろつき童子) - Sad State of Affairs

 By Morpheus Kitami

I took a break on Urotsukidouji over December. It didn't really feel appropriate. Not really the kind of game you want to slink off to after Christmas dinner, or during the inevitable conversation one's family has about which political party should be strung up via their internal organs. Though I must admit this would make for an interesting conversation.

"Hey, Morpheus, that's in Chinese, isn't it? That must be cool."

"It's about a lot of people talking, and it's in Japanese."

"Really? Why are you playing it then?"

"I'm blogging about it and I'm sure the 10 people still reading the blog are mildly interested in how it goes."

Since last time, no clues have arrived. Ozaki is much the same as before. Kanzawa and Kumiko are uh, of the same bloodline, maybe. Karumera or Saomoto or something hasn't said anything. Our hero is Jaku, while the black demon is Kuroko...or black child. He tells Jaku that they're in a hurry and should search for it. Presumably the Chojin. In a timed dialog, which you know means I just love it.

I wouldn't say we're in a hurry though. As with all games who get criticism about things happening in a neat straight line at your convenience, this is going to be extra true here. My options at the moment are. Look*search, speak*listen, assault and the ever present system. I hear in America they have these adventure games where the speak action also counts as a listen action, the lazy bums. I bet they don't even have games where you're required to beat up a black child to advance.

Missed Classic: Urotsukidoji (うろつき童子) - The Wanderer

 By Morpheus Kitami

The diamond patterns on the wall are certainly weird-looking.

To the gynasium, where the movie began and where a basketball game is happening. I should be able to find Nogumu and Ozaki (the basketball player) here. One of which is dunking basketballs and the other is pulling Leisure Suit Larry stuff, I'll leave the question of which one is which to the player. The music track here's weird, something that sounds like a midi adaptation of an anime theme which is an adaptation of an ancient folk song. After looking around a bit, Jaku can play basketball for a bit to be able to talk to Ozaki.

If I'm reading it right, Jaku is not a great basketball player and Ozaki pulls him aside. Actually, talk is a strong word, because the only option I'm given is to smell him. Jaku thinks that this is the Chojin. It's looking at him that starts the conversation, in which Jaku asks what he knows about the new religion. Ozaki's heard it since he transferred schools, and it's quite tedious. There's not actually a lot for our conversation to be about. I move away...

Missed Classic 125: Urotsukidoji (うろつき童子) (1990) - Introduction

 Written by Morpheus Kitami

For the third annual TAG Halloween movie game, we have the first time the game might just be better than the movie! First we had one of the greatest films of all time, then a pretty good one, and then flawed, but mostly intriguing one. I am not optimistic about this one.

Urotsukidoji is the kind of anime that should need no introduction. It is the film that many parents across American got for their kids, because, hey, all cartoons are for children, then torn from the screens just as surely as the naked bodies on-screen are torn apart by demons. Then return it and loudly complain that the adults only video that clearly says adults only on it is in fact adults only. Turning Japan into the land of the pervert cartoons, because who cares about that one super serious lawyer anime?

Background, Urotsukidoji, better known as Legend of the Overfiend and some assorted thousand other titles, was a 1985 manga from prolific Japanese artist Toshio Maeda, who is basically the original author of any anime that got parents screaming in the '90s. One might as well call him the Ozamu Tezuka of adult manga. It was a modest success, enough to get an original video animation (basically direct to video), 3 episodes of some 30 minutes, which was edited into the film I'll be watching. As with the titles, there are a thousand different versions of this, so I'm just going to talk about the one I actually watched. It is clear that all adaptions miss something from the original manga.

I'm actually going to break from my usual format here and intersperse the game with what's happening at the same rough point in the movie. Sorry, I didn't have the time to watch nearly 2 hours of demons with tentacles who cause women to explode in-between just watching people getting horrifically murdered in one sitting. I'd prefer to get this game over with as soon as possible because the logic now and forever, for these kinds of games is the shorter it is, the better it is.

I'm very, very sad about it

Missed Classic: La Secte Noire - Won! (With Final Rating)

By Ilmari

Happy new year everyone! We are back with La Secte Noire. Last time, I had just managed to infiltrate the base of the sect that had stolen the spell book defending my village. Checking the chest in front of me, I found a knife. It was time to go mapping.

Missed Classic 104: La Secte Noire (1990)

 By Ilmari

It's time for another of our traditions: the annual end of the year game! This time, it will be a tale of horror - but will it be a horror to play? Only time will tell!

Our readers know their adventure games and their relative merits and faults. Indeed, usually their predictions on what a game will score is spot-on. In the rare cases they miss the mark completely, we are usually covering some not-so-well-known game, which only the most hard core adventurist have even heard of, let alone tried. One of these games was Lankhor’s Maupiti Island, which most people thought would land in 30s, but managed to get a middling 41 PISSED rating.

Of all the games I’ve played for this blog, Maupiti Island has definitely been one I’ve been most conflicted about. It had a complex story that it was intriguing to unravel, but it had enough problems, like impossible puzzles, that made actually playing the game a slog. Despite the faults, the game made an impression on me, and I was waiting to get to play the next and last Lankhor game on our official list, Black Sect.

Doing some preliminary research, I noticed that Black Sect was a retelling of Lankhor’s earlier game, La Secte Noire, which I decided to play as this year's final game. La Secte Noire also had a sequel, La Crypte des Maudits, which I'll probably play as a Missed Classic at some point before tackling Black Sect itself. I also noticed that we hadn’t really discussed Lankhor itself, when reviewing its games. This is a perfect opportunity to delve a little bit more to the history of this game developer.

Missed Classic 63: Humbug (1990)

Written by Joe Pranevich

Merry Christmas! Can you believe it’s been another year? This one feels like it passed quite quickly. We have an especially good Christmas treat this year: Humbug by Graham Cluley. While previous years holiday adventures have been little more than vignettes, Humbug is a full-length shareware text adventure game first published in 1990. It features the adventures of Sidney Widdershins as he explores his grandfather’s old mansion on his winter holiday. Along the way, it features a menagerie of animals, two lost Vikings, time travel, and more charm than it has any right to have. It’s also quite difficult. If you haven’t had a chance to play it, the now-free version can be downloaded from Mr. Cluley’s website. Either way, I hope you enjoy this look at a holiday classic.

I will warn you up front: this review (and this game) is quite long. As has become our Christmas tradition, we will cover the whole game in one Santa Claus-sized chunk. If you just want to get a flavor of it, I recommend reading the first couple of sections to get a sense for the layout and how the game plays, then jump down to the “walkthrough” summaries just above the final rating. That will give you a good feel for how the game plays without having to follow along through the whole thing.

Missed Classic: Geisha - Won! (With Final Rating)

By Ilmari

Eye candy for lovers of female anatomy - scantily clad people

Eye candy for lovers of male anatomy - a metallic phallus

Missed Classic: Geisha - The Broad Way of Pleasure

By Ilmari

Where I stopped last time

Story so far was that Eva, the fiancee of the hero, was kidnapped by men that were supposedly members of Yakusa. A new plot twist turns everything around. Mr. O who might help me, is actually the leader of Yakusa. The real villain of the story is Napadami, famous scientist, who has created gynoids, which are in principle female sexbots. Napadami had once kidnapped geisha loved by Mr. O and used her exceptional beauty to power up his machines. The geisha died of repeated orgasms, and the same fate awaits Eva, if I don’t get to Napadami’s gynoid brothel Shato, which is located on a nearby island.

I am starting to feel a bit of a headache...

 “Youthful looks”, said the manual. If he is youthful, I need not worry about my age

Missed Classic 33: Geisha (1990) - Introduction

Written by Ilmari

Watch out, I see a nipple!

I am going to reveal a secret, known only by few persons.

Missed Classic: Antheads: It Came From the Desert II - Three Antheads are better than one

Written by TBD

Brick Nash Journal Entry: I've come to Lizard Breath to try to save everyone from a lethal atomic bomb test, but most of the people are against me. Hell, half of them aren't even people anymore. I've found out that there's a secret area in the hospital that might help me sort out this mess, but how do I get it?

When last we met our hero, Brick Nash, he'd gotten info from Biff and Dusty then went to mine M3 looking for information before getting pummeled by an FBI agent and sent to the hospital.

The action games are the same as It Came From the Desert 1 with one addition we'll get to later.

I can attempt to escape from hospital, but if I fail...

The hospital escape - still a great little action sequence

Before putting me under sedation, the nurse reminds me to behave myself because I don't want Dr Antoine giving me “the treatment!” Sounds appropriately ominous – I'm intrigued.

Missed Classic 27: Antheads: It Came From The Desert II (1990) - Introduction

Written by TBD

It Came From the Desert was recently voted the best Missed Classic we've played to date.

I heartily accept this award on behalf of the town of Lizard Breath

Oh great! This guy's back! He ran out of town at the height of the crisis last time. Surely someone in town has to be a better mayor than him.

With It Came From the Desert getting that accolade, it seems like an appropriate time to look at the sequel.

The Year That Was… 1990

By TAG reviewers

FEATURING TRICKSTER!

1990 was NOT a year dominated by Sierra! In fact, almost no game of the Sierra main series was published this year, and even those published had something new in them. Hero’s Quest changed its name to Quest for Glory in the second game of the series, King’s Quest started the tradition of Sierra remakes and King’s Quest V turned Sierra finally into VGA point and click. We also got the beginning of Sierra’s Conquest-series with Conquest of the Camelot and Dynamix started developing games for Sierra with Rise of the Dragon.

Although we didn’t see so many Sierra games, there were few companies publishing clear Sierra clones: Interstel with Earthrise and especially Accolade with first Les Manley and Altered Destiny, none of which lived up to the original. In fact, 1990 was a year for many new adventure game publishers: notable examples are Delphine Adventure, publishing first French adventure games that were not complete trash, and Legend Entertainment, which rejuvenated the graphic text adventure genre. But the true winner of the year was once again Lucasfilm with Loom and especially Secret of the Monkey Island.

The year was also full of surprises for The Adventure Gamer. Trickster decided to step away from adventure game blogging and TAG became a community effort. Since most of the games in 1990 were still reviewed by Trickster, the TAG awards are also mostly decided by Trickster - although rest of the reviewers of this year (Aperama, Joe Pranevich, Deimar, Ilmari and TBD) have also had the opportunity to choose their favourites.

Let the award ceremonies begin!

Game 52: King's Quest V - Final Rating

Written by TBD

In trying to rate King's Quest V I tried to compare it by what came before, particularly the previous King's Quest games. King's Quest V has the disability of coming out soon after The Secret of Monkey Island, a game that raised the bar significantly for almost every PISSED rating category and therefore raised the bar for what you need to do to get a good PISSED rating. There were some categories where I was really close to going a point higher or lower but hopefully the final score is a fair one.

Puzzles and Solvability

I can sum up this section with 'some okay, mixed with a whole lot of bad'

Some of the puzzles were fairly satisfying to solve. Most of them were simple variations of having the right inventory item. I can't recall any puzzle that was particularly good but many were serviceable. The ones that weren't though - some of those were terrible. I was stuck a few times: I hadn't effectively pixel hunted once; I'd dead ended myself another time; and the third time I just had to do something I never would have done if not prompted.

The 'best' puzzle in the game was probably the desert temple puzzle. Seeing the bandits knock on the temple door, trying it myself, then realising I had to go back to their tents to steal their staff was fun, though simple, to work out. That's really the only puzzle I could think of that didn't consist of, “Oh, I'll just try this inventory item I picked up earlier” or “I don't have any appropriate inventory items so I'd better click randomly on every screen in case I missed something” There was no combining of items in the inventory, though you can use inventory items on yourself.

Returning to the previously empty tents was the only time I deliberately went somewhere with a plan to get an item to solve a puzzle

In fact, now that I think about it, I can't remember more than a handful of times you use an item on an item in the environment. The vast majority of puzzles are solved by giving/throwing an inventory item to/at a character.

Some puzzles are too hard to work out – the honeycomb puzzle was one I'd worked out accidentally by trying to do something else - that's also how I found the labyrinth compass, which should never have been invisible in the first place. The library waiting puzzle is almost impossible to solve on purpose.

Furthermore, there's no direction to the puzzles. You almost never get the option of looking for something specific, so never really have the chance to use your brain to solve the puzzles. At the beginning of the game you know you need to go east to get to Mordack's castle, but the way east is guarded by a snake. The only way to get past the snake is to solve all the other unrelated puzzles until a tambourine suddenly appears on a screen it wasn't on before.

Two exceptions are the baker saying the pies cost a silver coin and the gypsy saying I need a gold coin. But there was no thinking involved about looking for those items. I never thought, 'where will I find a gold coin – Is there a mint in the game, or a bank?' I just waited until I found a gold coin in a random location, then used it.

Good adventure game puzzles have you specifically looking for things. The puzzles in King's Quest V are simply, 'get past this obstacle... somehow' and the way to solve them is to throw inventory objects that you've found in random locations at the puzzle until it clicks.

Even the poster child for bad adventure game puzzles gives you direction. 'I need to hire a bike but someone else has already reserved it – can I somehow convince the clerk that I'm the one who reserved it?'

An example of this lack of thinking was the rope 'puzzle'. When I'd thrown my rope at the branch and died while climbing I was thinking, 'perhaps I need some way to harden the rope or perhaps I'm too heavy - can I lighten my load somehow?' when the solution was 'you didn't pixel hunt on this screen enough – the branch is a red herring'.

Apart from the inventory puzzles we have the three mazes: the ridiculously large desert with three important locations; the not too large ocean but with only 1 important location; and the deliberately hard-to-map labyrinth with 2 important locations (one of which is randomized) that contains the compass that only appears if you 'look' at the empty space below the screen. At best these mazes were not too bad. At worst they were just boring and only there in order to increase play time.

Seeing screens like this for 2 hours is not fun gameplay

I also really don't see the fun in dead ends. I'd counted 19 of them and the existence of them makes you spend too much time second guessing yourself – maybe there was something I needed from the snake before I scared him off. Maybe I missed an item in the desert that I now need in Mordack's castle. Again, something that is only there to increase play time.

I think the problem is that Sierra haven't quite gotten the hang of creating puzzles for a point & click interface yet, and fear of the new interface making the game too easy probably resulted in them making some puzzles annoyingly hard and increasing the amount of dead ends significantly. Although it was still rewarding when you solve a puzzle and get to see a new area, this game really had too many boring puzzles and no really fun ones,

Rating: 3

Interface and Inventory

The interface was good. With pathfinding and asimple right-click to cycle through icons mechanic it did its job well.

Comparing the interface to the Lucasarts one, this wins out in having icons instead of words on the bottom of the screen. It allows more of the screen to show the game graphics but still gives easy access to all necessary verbs. You can get the verbs both by right-clicking to cycle them and by mousing up to the top of the screen where you get the whole icon bar and inventory.

The one thing missing that some earlier non-Sierra games have had was a tooltip when scanning the screen with your mouse. This would have helped me not have to click on every part of the background and hearing the same message over and over, and would clearly have made the game easier.

The inventory was good. There was a simple visual of the item and if 'look'ed at in the inventory I got more detail on the item. The ability to combine items existed but I can't recall it ever being used in the game. (Though I did attempt to use everything with everything else whenever I was stuck)

A nice simple graphical inventory, with the ability to look, use or select items

Overall, pretty good job on the interface - some improvements to what's come before in the point-and-click genre but missing the important tooltips or "What is" option, perhaps deliberately so, to rely on the gamer missing things on the screen. Inventory was up to par with the exception of combining items.

Rating: 7

Story and Setting

The story was standard King's Quest fare. Nothing too out of the box here. Evil wizard kidnapped my family. Rescue my family and destroy wizard. Everything in between, apart from perhaps meeting Princess Cassima, was just random obstacles thrown in the way of my goal. How does wandering a western desert help me travel to an island far to the east? Because I need to pick up a shoe to throw at a cat so a rat will save me when I'm trapped in a cellar – otherwise I won't have a leg of lamb to give to an eagle so he'll carry me to a beach when I'm captured by a roc. That's why!

There are small unrelated stories in between but its all simple fairy-tale stuff – the transformed princess with the stolen heart – the ice queen with the need for a hero to kill a monster – the labyrinth below the castle. None of it feels like a part of a greater whole.

Rating: 4

Sound and Graphics

This is definitely where the game shines.

Graphically the backgrounds are even better than our current leader in this category. Some of the detail is amazing. The character models are much more simplistic, but still decent. Character animations were nice and there were lots of them. I liked that things were often happening in the background - the toymaker's granddaughter playing with her doll and the face that follows you across Mordack's organ room being two examples. I particularly liked Graham picking up the dying Cedric on Harpy Island and carrying him back to the boat.

The closeups are also well done and detailed

Sound wise, the game has bubbling brooks and appropriate sounds but one thing I loved was the use of music. Almost every location had its own music which really helped add to the location's atmosphere – the desert's music was lonely and solemn, the willow tree's music was sad, the forest music was slightly eerie, the town music was upbeat and annoying - and was softer when outside the town but louder inside. The idea of each piece of music was great, but there are no standout tunes. Nothing really made me want to listen to it specifically, but that's not what I really need music for in games – in this game it served its purpose brilliantly.

A small example of the location-specific music

Rating: 9

Environment and Atmosphere

I've just mentioned how the sounds and graphics added to the games atmosphere. As do little things like the toymaker's son coming in from the back door occasionally or the picky man in the tailor's shop who hates all the clothes he tries on.

The other people who walk around town serve no purpose but add to the atmosphere

If the environment had been more unique this category might have also scored high, but almost every place just screamed 'generic fantasy kingdom' at me. There seemed to be no particular thought to how the world should be put together. It was just – town section, desert section, forest section, icy mountain section, beach and ocean section, evil castle section.

On balance, I'd say this game would be average in this category, but the voice acting adds to the atmosphere as a whole making it seem that much more real.

Rating: 6

Dialogue and Acting

Dialogue in the game is mostly average, with some sections a bit too unrealistic and simplistic – there was none of Monkey Island's witty conversations or none of the good dramatic dialogue we'll start seeing soon in other games. It's all just... there.

The dialogue isn't compelling and the acting isn't great, but it's VOICED!

There are no dialogue options. Any conversations happen without any input from the player so I can't give a particularly high score here.

Acting is, as we've all heard, bad. But I find it hard to poopoo the game's acting when it's the first fully voice acted game we've had. Any acting at all helps the atmosphere as opposed to reading paragraphs of text that take up half the game screen. It's definitely not even close to the worst voice acting I've heard and while this voice acting performance would be laughable today, at the time it was innovative. Mean Streets may have had some voice acting before, but King's Quest went all the way and had every line of dialogue acted. That kind of commitment deserves to be rewarded and I'm giving King's Quest V points for being the first game to do what became a staple requirement for future adventure games.

So, taking into account the average non-interactive dialogue and innovative use of voice acting I'll score this section right in the middle.

Rating: 5

Total

34*100/60 which equals 57. I'll take a point off largely because my biggest dilemma was whether to give Sound and Graphics an 8 or 9. That leaves the final score as 56. This gives the game a slightly above average score, which I think is deserved as despite the annoyances I had more fun than not while playing.

If I'd played the non-voiced version I'd probably have dropped a point in both 'Environment and Atmosphere' and 'Dialogue and Acting' leaving a score of 53

So, did anyone guess 56? Yes, Kenny McCormick. Congratulations, Kenny. And now, on to the CAPs!

CAP Distribution

125 CAPs for Laukku

• 2 minutes award - 40 CAPs - for knowing I'd not be patient enough to wait for Mordack
• What drawer? award - 40 CAPs - for knowing I wouldn't trap the elf without help
• RSPCA award - -10 CAPs - for incorrectly guessing I wouldn't throw a boot at a cat
• Mould power award - -10 CAPs - for incorrectly guessing I wouldn't loot a mouse hole in the dungeon
• Quest Studios award - 5 CAPs - for finding out some interesting info about release dates
• Companion award - 10 CAPs - for playing along and completing the game
• Collector award - 5 CAPs - for sharing images of his really old floppy version of the game
• My hour is nigh award - 20 CAPs - for guessing that Carl Denning was the answer to the riddle
• Let's play award - 5 CAPs - for pointing out an interesting Let's Play of the game with a particularly interesting final video
• Storyteller award - 10 CAPs - for teaching us something about storytelling
• Genre Support Award - 5 CAPs - for announcing a new adventure game on GOG
• Extra animation Award - 5 CAPs - for pointing out an unused death animation for the game

110 CAPs for TBD

• Blogger award - 100 points - for blogging through this game for our enjoyment
• Genre Support Award - 5 CAPs - for announcing a new adventure game sale on GOG
• Save the Owls Award - 5 CAPs - for saving an owl in memory of Cedric

70 CAPs for Corey Cole

• Insider trading award - 50 CAPs - for regularly giving us fascinating information about the development process for the game
• Even more insider trading award - 20 CAPs - for also regularly giving us fascinating information about the development process of Quest for Glory II

55 CAPs for Andy_Panthro

• Companion award - 10 CAPs - for playing along and completing the game
• Sponsor award - 20 CAPs - for offering a copy of King's Quest Collection
• Creating a monster award - 5 CAPs - for starting the discussion on linearity and freedom
• Help! I need somebody award - 20 CAPs - for helping me put Mordack to bed when I was stuck

46 CAPs and Cedric's thanks for Joe Pranevich

• Hungry like the wolf award - 10 CAPs - for winning the caption contest by invoking an 80s music icon
• Sanctuary for all award - 30 CAPs - for starting the 'Save the Owls' campaign to make up for his Cedric-punching thoughts
• It was worth a try award - 1 CAP - for attempting to play along but not really getting around to it
• Haven't I been here before award - 5 CAPs - for pointing out how similar Serenia is to now to how it was before

Cedric sent me a postcard, which would never have happened without Joe's initiative

35 CAPs for Fry

• "Graham, watch out!" award - 20 CAPs - for telling me I was dead-ended by throwing the rope on the branch
• Pika-who? award - 5 CAPs - for making me google a pokemon because I didn't know who Doduo was 
• Bean counter award - 5 CAPs - for counting pixels
• Memories award - 5 CAPs - for sharing all his memories of being stuck in dead-ends

20 CAPs for apprentice_fu

• Help! I need somebody award - 20 CAPs - for helping me get out of the forest when I was stuck

20 CAPs for Kenny McCormick

• Sanctuary for none award - 5 CAPs - for attempting to save the owls but discovering the owls don't want his help
• Time for a party award - 5 CAPs - for organising King Graham's family into an RPG party
• Psychic prediction award - 10 CAPs - for correctly guessing the final PISSED rating

10 CAPs for Ilmari Jauhiainen 

• Cartographer award - 5 CAPs - for pointing us to some official King's Quest maps
• Sierra historian award - 5 CAPs - for comparing linearity versus freedom in other Sierra series

6 CAPs for doctorcasino

• Pattern weaver award - 6 CAPs - for discovering and analyzing a linear versus open world pattern in King's Quest games

5 CAPs for JosephCurwen

• Success by thirst award - 5 CAPs - for solving the hardest puzzle in the game by going downstairs to get a glass of water

5 CAPs for Laertes

• His name was Miles award - 5 CAPs - for pointing out that I'd forgotten who runs the transporter on the Enterprise

5 CAPs for Rowan Lipkovits

• Deja Vu award - 5 CAPs - for reminding us that this game took place in the same place as Wizard and the Princess

Game 50: B.A.T. - Final rating

Written by Aperama

Welcome to your inevitable demise

I can really only say so many times how much I dislike this game. That said? I really, really dislike this game. There's just nothing about it that ever drew me in. I would not have completed it were it not for the fine ladies and gentlemen of this blog.. I'd not have even bothered using a walkthrough. The game's just not fun. There was exactly one point at which I felt the game had some small amount of promise – and it essentially ignored it entirely as best as I can tell, with no point ever seeming to take advantage of the 'RPG' elements – nothing ever increased in ability (I finished at level 4) and there was never a random element (I tried 'stealing' from about fifteen separate people – each and every last one of them caught me.) I can only imagine how poorly this is going to do on the PISSED score – so much so that I was trying to think of an extra 'E' to turn it into a 'DESPISE' score – but hey. There are better games waiting for me over this holiday break I'm presently on to soothe my worries (Pillars of Eternity has remained unplayed since release) – I think I just need to put this behind me. Like, y'know, someone who has witnessed a horrific murder. Uh. I mean, Vive le France! Baguettes and expensive wine, oui oui!

The game's start was its strongest, and even then it didn't do that too well

Puzzles and Solvability

I'm of two minds, here. I'd like to be as fair as humanly possible in trying to give some kudos to this game for what it has to offer – but I think that if I called this game an adventure game, I would also have to credit DOOM for its innovative design choices in having 'keys' to open 'doors'. That is just about literally the extent of puzzles in this game. There are several things that cannot be accessed at first. Some of them require sheer luck. No, scratch that. Most of them do. For instance, to find Sloan (required to get into the DRAG airlock) you need to meet (what is apparently him – more on that in sound/graphics) at the arcade. At 1:00. If you don't click on Bizzy between about 1 and 1:10, he's not there. That's not a puzzle – that's just sadism. If anyone were to even mention that this guy existed elsewhere in the game, that'd be one thing – but the only things you can talk to people about are Merigo, Vrangor and the city. Even they give no clues as to what you're going to end up having to do. I don't know how many times I can insist I'm trying not to be unfair! The only saving grace I can say for these 'puzzles' is that a lot of them can apparently be solved in other ways (if you don't stay in the hotel that has the technician's access card, you can apparently sometimes find it on random people being sold). Not a single 'puzzle' left me feeling satisfied that I'd done something worthwhile at the end of it – I think that has to be the real benchmark here. One point for them existing, another for alternate ways to get through them.

Rating: 2

I think that ID software should really pay some penance to the French developers here.
They virtually pioneered the 'find random keys and use them in doors' approach!

Interface and Inventory

This was what I was prepared for – anyone who has ever played, reviewed or even mentioned this game has spoken of its appalling interface. I can admire that the game's problems are largely that it wants to do too much. It wants to have combat, a (driving) simulator, a maze section, conversation.. it offers everything. What it really needed to do was any one of these well. To have a hunger/thirst system that doesn't show onscreen unless you use your inbuilt wrist thing – which you access by finding a point of the screen that hasn't randomly offered something else to do in spite of whether it's visible on-screen or not – unless you use a program in it, which you can only use one of and you need to decide between 'bodily function', 'combat readiness' and 'translation'? It's just silly. Having an icon on screen which says 'DYING OF THIRST YOU IDIOT' would have done everything. Keep the translate/combat readiness functions and it's a legitimate idea that'd work okay. I also drank (at a fountain in the park) so much that I got thirsty again – I went over 100 which made it 1. That's just a silly bug that could easily have been ironed out. Oh, and the inventory is just worthless. Ceaselessly clicking 'next' as each inventory item is listed, no 'previous' function to go back, and getting minimal information on items? I knew more about items out of King's Quest 1. This is probably the most regressive interface we will see in this blog's history – it would have been clearer what was going on were this a pure text adventure.

Rating: 1

It has so many options, but the majority of them are worthless. You never need to attack anyone, stealing is useless even with my 'high stats' in it, only a few people have anything useful to say – and the 'offer' command is never used in the game's solution. Just so many failures!

Story and Setting

They really put quite a bit of effort into this side of things, I can give them that much. I certainly do think that someone back at French Developer HQ (I refuse to give the company name again out of fear that it is like the Candyman, and will break down my door with more shoddy games if I do) had a very clear idea of what was going on in this game. Unfortunately, it doesn't translate particularly well ingame. There is one monologue which explains the game's story (outside of the manual)

“Hello agent AFGNCAAP, I hope you enjoyed your trip. I'm the one who has to explain your mission in detail. You are well aware of the important role that Selenia plays in supplying raw materials to Earth. As a matter of fact, if Selenia was seized by an enemy, Earth would soon be in serious trouble. We have received information, from a reliable source, that this dreadful possibility could soon become a reality!!! An outstanding, but raving mad scientist, has escaped the penal colony of St. Yver of the Angels. This would not be so important, if it were any scientist other than Vrangor!! We lost all trace of him after the escape, but recently discovered the presence of an ECG wave corresponding to that of Merigo, a prisoner who escaped with him. Merigo is our only possible lead to Vrangor. Also, the governor general of Selenia has received an ultimatum which, to cut a long story short, states that we have ten days to evacuate Selenia, after which every human being will be destroyed. The ultimatum was actually signed by Vrangor!!! The loss of Selenia would be a lethal blow to the Galactic Confederation... That's all I can tell you. It's up to you to eliminate all of the risk factors. Here is your equipment...We've added a hologram of Merigo. Everything depends on your success...”

The problem I have with this? This is the only real time at which the game's storyline is explained outside of the manual. For a game that has a twelve page fake novel interspersed with fake encyclopedia entries, I expected an awful lot more in-game. Having Merigo give a death speech was a nice touch – there just wasn't enough of it. And why not have Vrangor give a Bond villain monologue before he begins to open fire? Sure, it might not be realistic, but it would have given a lot more depth to the storyline. Again, I see this on the level of Doom – 'you're in a place, if you take too long you'll die. Kill people and you'll win.' Oh, and I really hated the manual's text, it was just.. gibberish. But hey – you have a clear directive, and the setting is unique. I can claw back some points here, because I'm nice.

Rating: 6

Crisa Kortakis seemed to know what was going on, at least.
Mind you, the game never let me press her for details..

Sound and Graphics

I'm going to be generous and call this an 1989 game for the sake of this portion of the review – according to most sources I can find, it was released in 1989 for the Amiga with a PC conversion being the reason we're playing it in 1990. There are three musical tracks in the game. I am being extremely polite in calling them 'musical'. I disliked the music that blares away at the game's start from moment nought, and it never got any better – I'm guessing that they really were a small team and didn't have any devoted musicians coming up with anything, just resulting in them putting together some slapdash instruments. Graphically, there are some portions which look alright – and others which really don't. The majority of people look like people, aliens look like aliens. There are still a few things that I find myself looking at in my screenshots that I can't quite place. However, there is really no excuse for having a character with an ambiguous name be dressed in such a way that I actually believe he is of the opposite sex.. or at least, the walkthrough I checked after playing suggests that Sloan is a 'he'. That we can have two conflicting ideas of what the picture shows is a bad thing – this isn't a Magic Eye puzzle, it's just a picture of a person. No text identifies them in any way, so we're left entirely with our graphical interpretation – it wouldn't have been hard to, say, not give him lipstick. (I'd not have a problem were he intended as a transgendered person – I just feel that they drew someone of roughly Native American origins and figured that'd be good enough. It's a nitpick, yes, but I feel a valid one.) Without the manual, I'd still not fully understand what a Kradokid is, either, or a Glo(c)kmup – the pictures weren't ever particularly clear, even if they did convey the right atmosphere. Still, the graphics weren't offensive.

Rating: 4

I still see a woman! It's the glossy lips, I think. Do I just need my eyes examined?

Environment and Atmosphere

This game, according to Trickster, was one of those that sucked him in and in spite of terrible interface and difficult playing conditions never let go of him. I don't hide in so much as the slightest that my experience was different. Perhaps it all started badly when I couldn't really read the manual without feeling like I was reading the middle of Dune without knowing what an Atreides or a Harkonnen was, being confused why all of these people were so excited over cardamom and paprika – but the game's interface was enough to keep me at what was well and truly arm's length. Were there just one or two interactible alien characters that gave off some character to the game, it'd be so much different – but instead, I felt repeatedly that the game was suffering heavily from trying to keep to what was in the story in the manual without giving enough to be dragging people into its own nature. What I suppose is the real killer for me is that if the entire game were a 1970s crime series episode – say, you were Starsky (sans Hutch because this is a single player game) – the entire game would have made no difference. Starsky runs through the sewers of Bay City, California after taking down a perp, Mervin, to find key DNA evidence that leads him to drive around to find the evil.. science guy.. Vernon.. who is planning to set off bombs in the city. Done and done. The exact same game. With a rich sci-fi universe these guys were trying to create, they could have done so much more to grip and drag me in – but all this is is a (particularly bad) episode of a cop show set in space without all of the tropes that make the cop scenario fun and vibrant. Having someone from 'home base' to talk to, for instance (one of the many things they could have taken from Tex Murphy that would have actually been good) would have made the game so much more fun.

Rating: 4

At least it's better than Cleopatra 2525

Dialogue and Acting

Nope. None here.

Rating: 0
Okay.. maybe a little unfair. (I've been trying so hard all of this review, dammit!) The game has a very limited amount of dialogue. I've included the large monologue in this post which takes up probably around about 80% of the text listed ingame that isn't the bare minimum to virtually say 'no, we've written this up in the manual'. For instance, my gun by the end, the Nova. It has a rather awesome manual description – 'The most powerful weapon offered, its cannon is in fact a genuine photon accelerator. It is carried on the shoulder and is equipped with multiple shock-absorption systems. In short, it's not to be used in a very busy public place...' In game, all that's given is 'NOVA.' when looking at it along with a piddly little picture. Speaking to people rarely comes up with more than one lot of dialogue (for instance, 'Haven't I seen him on Tri-Dee?' is one of the most common things spoken about finding Merigo – but when around about 20 people say it in a row, I can't really call it dialogue.) Just having a few more individual characters instead of all of the 'random encounter' styled people would make a huge difference here. Unfortunately, as with so many other things in this game, an initial promise falls critically short in all the ways that count. I'm assuming that they made the game out of fear that small text would be too hard to read on the awkwardly formatted conversation screen they created – but really, they'd have been better off taking the gamble and actually including some proper speech, even if it wasn't ever going to be a dialogue between two characters. I'm giving it points for having talking as a necessity (can't get into Xifo without it) and having it be varied.. albeit ever so slightly.

Rating: 2

This is literally some of the best dialogue in the game – it's clear, functional and not dressed up in space-talk about space-things that space-space just to sound interesting. Distressing? I think so

2+1+6+4+4+2=19, which divided by 60 equals .3166 recurring – 32 rounded up. However, I'm going to take two points off. Not out of anger at the game's many lackings – it really did have so many moments with promise, falling short at every single one of them – my problem with the game is far more simple. I encountered a game-breaking bug which literally would have stopped progression. Yes, I wouldn't have found anything new after that point if I'd stopped the game there, but having a game-breaking bug is enough to make me want to lower the score on this. Even without it, though, the game was illogical, unfun and generally made me question my faith in humanity.

Cap Distribution

120 CAPs for Aperama

• Blogger Award - 100 CAPs - For blogging his way through game for our enjoyment
• Daredevil Award - 20 CAPs - For getting through a maze half blind

40 CAPs for Ilmari

• Clue Master Award - 30 CAPs - For giving me lots of clues when I did ask
• B.A.T. Master Award - 10 CAPs - For making my double post into a curio of alien culture

30 CAPs for Renke

• French Bird Lover - 30 CAPs - For helping our avian friends survive in the land of mad adventure games

20 CAPs for TBD

• Backstage Antics Award - 10 CAPs - For providing me with a map when I needed it
• Reference Extraordinaire Award - 10 CAPs - For finding my references to geek culture (when I fell into different games)

20 CAPs for Laukku

• Ant Apocalypse Preparation Award - 20 CAPs - For answering the riddle re: Greg Bradley

15 CAPs for Jan Larres

• B.O.B. of All Trades Award - 10 CAPs - For helping me with my programming woes
• Clue Award - 5 CAPs - For giving me a clue even when I didn't ask

10 CAPs for Kenny McCormick

• Genre Appreciation Award - 5 CAPs - For announcing a Steam Sale
• B.O.B. Apprentice Award - 5 CAPs - For discovering food and toilet apps reminiscent of my onboard wrist computer

10 CAPs for Laertes

• Psychic Prediction Award - 10 CAPs - For predicting the score I would give the game

Game 52: King's Quest V - Won!

Written by TBD

King Graham of Daventry Journal Entry #7: It's finally over! Mordack is dead and my family is safe - I may even have found my son a suitable royal wife into the bargain. All I had to do was wait in Mordack's study for an unreasonably long time and everything else just fell into place.

I know I've been hard on this game at times and I'm going to be so again, but I should mention that I've really had fun playing King's Quest V - I don't think that enjoyment has come out enough in my posts so I thought it worth bringing up now.

I ended the last post with a request for assistance, and Andy_Panthro valiantly came to my rescue.

As I read his clues one by one I became increasingly annoyed with the game. I needed to use all of the clues to solve the puzzle, and even then it was difficult. The final hint was...

• You can hide in the library (in the right place), and wait for Mordack to arrive and sleep. Then his wand can be yours! 

Well, I'd already tried looking for hiding places all throughout the castle after reading earlier hints, including the library, but now knowing this was the correct answer I tried again. I waited in the library for a while. Nothing was happening. Perhaps my dosbox cycles were too high. Perhaps the game doesn't play well with modern processors. Perhaps I hadn't found the elusive 'right place'. I kept waiting. Eventually (2 minutes and 30 seconds later) Mordack appeared in the bedroom and took a power nap.

Before going to bed Mordack likes to pretend he is Batman

Now, two and a half minutes doesn't sound like much. But when sitting in a room in a game waiting for something it seems forever. Even when I was sure it was the right thing to do because Andy_Panthro told me so, I still didn't think I was doing it right. The game gives no indication at all that Mordack ever sleeps while I'm in his castle. There is no indication in the library that anything there is a hiding place. The closest you get to a clue is when you look at the doorway of the library and the narrator says, “Graham can see into Mordack's bedroom through the open doorway.” I can see how in hindsight some might classify this as a clue, but the narrator will generally tell you what's on the other side of any door or opening when you 'look' at it so this isn't unusual.

It seems that just waiting in the library for 2 minutes or so is all that's needed. In trying different things, I noticed that it took different times for Mordack to appear – I suspect that each time I looked at an item in the room it paused the 'Mordack tiredness clock' which only starts when you enter the library and ends as soon as you leave. From my tests it seems to be a 1 minute 50 second wait if you don't take any action.

In an effort to discover more deaths, I tried standing directly in front of the doorway so Mordack can see me when he appears, but he didn't notice me at all. I also tried going further into the room so the 'eye' on top of the door could open and stare at me, but this still didn't change what happened. After he went to bed I also tried grabbing, talking to and walking up to the sleeping Mordack, but I couldn't get the evil wizard to wake up and kill me.

Seeing as the game didn't give me to option to kill him in his sleep, I took the wand he'd left next to his bed and left for the library. Having finally found the item I'd spent hours trying to get, I knew what I needed to do here. I put Mordack's wand on the left platform, Crispin's wand on the right and the mouldy cheese into the cauldron (did I miss a clue somewhere that told me the machine was powered by mould?)

The machine activated and this time Crispin's wand was charged. Mordack appeared, as did Cedric, who flew through an open window. Mordack used telekinesis to retrieve his wand and shot the owl in the suspicion that perhaps he was about to be useful for a change.

Now it's my turn with a too-late-warning, "Cedric, watch out!"

Mordack threw his wand on the ground in disgust ("Warning Mr Mordack. Wand abuse”) and showed his real power by turning into a giant flying insect.

I used my own wand and the images from Mordack's book appeared, letting me choose from them. Because I'd seen the screenshot a few times, I remembered the order they were in in the book so tried the first one, which looked like a tiger.

I turned into a tiger and faced off with the giant insect, which resulted in neither of us doing much of anything.

Honestly, if I had to bet, I'd put my money on the giant winged insect with dangerous looking pincers

Unimpressed with the stalemate, Mordack turned himself into a dragon. I used the wand and chose the second picture, which looked like a bunny on a human face.

I turned into a bunny and quickly hopped away each time Mordack breathed fire at me.

When I'm in this form I like to be called Mister Hopsy

Mordack then turned himself into a pooooiisonous snake. I used the wand and chose the third picture, which looked like a human shadow with a white rat superimposed over it.

I turned into a mongoose (okay, not a rat) and tackled Mordack.

FATALITY!!!

He then turned himself into a ring of fire and surrounded me. I chose the obvious and used my wand to turn into the fourth picture which looked like either a butterfly or a chandelier.

I summoned a rain cloud above my head and the rain put Mordack out, thus ending his evil forever!

Time to put a dampener on your celebrations, Mordack (To be read in your favourite 80s action hero voice)

I had defeated the evil wizard and got a cutscene where the rest of the plot played out.

Beam us to Daventry, Mr LaForge

In the cutscene, Crispin appeared and told me everything I'd already heard from the gypsy back in the first act as if he was telling me news. Then he told me he knew how to fix my family and castle. He embiggened my family – my randy son promptly fell in love with Princess Cassima, who'd shown up to ensure I was going to save her as promised.

Let's continue to ignore the dying owl and have a group hug

Graham for some reason told his family that Princess Cassima was solely responsible for their rescue, forgetting all the other people who had to play their part as well – why no love for King Antony or the Willow Bride or even the roc whose hunger gave me the locket I needed to gain Cassima's trust?

"Cassima, meet Alexander, who started this whole mess." Nice way to introduce your son to the only eligible princess he's likely to meet?

Crispin sent Cassima back to her home, then sent my castle back to where it belonged and was about to send me and my family back home when Graham suddenly remembered the probably-dead body of Cedric the Unhelpful. Crispin easily brought Cedric back from the brink of death, then sent the Royal family back to Daventry.

"Everybody who is not to blame for this whole traumatic incident put your arms around me - Alexander, pack your stuff and get out of my castle."

I'm a little surprised to have maximum points here

Of course, I couldn't leave the game without seeing what happens if I choose the wrong spell when fighting Mordack...

Time to put a dampener on your... wait... what... aaaahhhhh!

Session time: 35 minutes

Total time: 16 hours

Session deaths: 1
Total deaths: 36

Dead ends found or suspected: 19
I found some dead ends, and suspect some more. Let me know in the comments if I've gotten any of these wrong or missed any...

1. Not throwing the boot at the cat as soon as it appears
2. Not getting the bottle or coin in the desert temple's treasure room
3. Buying the sled with the gold coin or needle
4. Buying the pie with a gold coin
5. Not getting the honeycomb before going to the forest with the amulet
6. Eating the pie
7. Eating both halves of the lamb
8. Throwing the rope onto the obvious hanging branch (Grrrrr!)
9. Climbing the rope without having bought a sled
10. Climbing the rope without having given the shoes to the shoemaker
11. Giving the pie to the eagle
12. Not feeding the eagle before getting captured by wolves
13. Not picking up the crystal before being kidnapped by a roc
14. Not picking up the locket from the roc's nest
15. Not picking up the iron rod from the beach before giving the conch to the hermit
16. Leaving Cedric to die on harpy island
17. Not picking up the fish hook from harpy island
18. Giving the cat a fish but not bagging him – particularly as it's possible to meet the cat before the blue monster
19. Throwing the peas at the blue monster the first time you see him – this one's particularly bad – effectively making it impossible to win because you were too good at the game's own logic 

I have a strange love/hate relationship with King's Quest V and have no idea how the PISSED rating will end up. I guess we'll all find out in a few days. But first...

Comparison between CD and Floppy versions
I thought I'd spend a little time examining some of the differences in the PC versions of the game.

Apart from the obvious difference between CD and Floppy versions of the game, being that the floppy version isn't voiced, I noticed some other slight differences

The floppy version has extra icons, notably two walk icons. The leftmost icon has Graham's walking controlled in the same way as previous Sierra games - when you click, he'll travel in a straight line towards your cursor but stops as soon as he hits an obstacle. The other unfamiliar icons are save and stop which are sensibly contained in the options window in the CD version. Also the screen cursors for all the icons are a simple white in the floppy version rather than coloured in the CD version.

The leftmost icon is a "Click here to die while climbing mountain paths" button

Strangely, the character portraits show more detail in the floppy version, and in the case of Queen Beetrice at least, more animation - as she waves her staff slightly and moves her arm and antennae. The CD version has water sound effects and a bear growl as well as voiced dialogue.

We get to see the bottom of Crispin's beard in the floppy version

Nice wings you have there, dear

One other thing I noticed was that time stops when the voiced dialogue kicks in. This makes one particular puzzle much harder in the floppy version - the scene outside the bakery with the cat chasing a rat - in the CD version, the narrator tells you about the cat chasing the rat before they show up, giving you some time to react. In the floppy version it all happens much faster, making it almost impossible to do anything before the cat's killed the rat and you're stuck in a dead-end.

As for which version is better, that would be different for people's own subjective tastes - I personally like the extra immersion I get from voiced dialogue and can cope with the poor voice acting. I'm a little disappointed about the missing animations and character portrait detail but the voices, sound effects and user interface improvements more than make up for it for me.