This was a fun one to finally get around playing!
It's a game that I always knew about, without knowing anything about it, which was a great way to dive into it, actually. The game opened up slow, but found its footing in the second act where it really dazzled. The Art Deco/Aztec fusion (Azteco) is so unique and so wonderfully created. GF chooses to show the player its world through backdoors and hushed rooms instead of the lavish settings which are only presented in glimpses of distant lights and parades, and somehow, instead of feeling like a grandiose world was being hidden away, it felt like the hidden world was where all the excitement was anyway.
There were some sore spots. Moving Manny is like operating a tank. Walls seem to reflect movement in really awkward ways that can make entering small doorways a pain. Manny tended to get stuck in odd corners, forcing me to reload some saves and learn the hard way that I should save more often than I would want. A few of the required actions were indicated quite badly. There were 3 occasions in total where I went to look up a guide instead of repeatedly trying all of my items in all of the places I could. One of them I think I rushed to the guide prematurely, but the other 2 felt unfair. In one of them, the game literally told me "no you can't do that on a ladder" when it was exactly what I needed to do... on a different ladder. Frustrating!
However, for the most part, I liked the "puzzles"/detective work required to get through each section. I was having the most fun when I had plenty of goals to accomplish in Rubacava and had moments of epiphany while thinking and wandering the night. If you look for it, in 90% of the cases, the game really tries to lead you towards the answer without being boring and having Manny go "hey maybe I should use x on y". Sometimes, using the right item in the wrong place/person even provided a useful hint.
side rant... It's typical to see complaints about the obtuseness of puzzles in 90s PC adventure games, but I think a lot of those come from a place of impatience. You are supposed to get stuck at first! If you instantly knew what to do at every point, why make the game a game at all? Let your mind stew sometimes... it can be rewarding. ok, end rant.
The dialogue, voice acting, and the inventive use of dialogue choices really gave the game a charm. Each character had their own personality, goals, desires, shortcomings; every character felt real. The writing was superb. I tried not to miss a single line of dialogue if I could help it, because it infallibly led to a gag, a callback, some extra insight, or whatever else Tim Schaefer had in store. Really, what a delight!
It's a game that I always knew about, without knowing anything about it, which was a great way to dive into it, actually. The game opened up slow, but found its footing in the second act where it really dazzled. The Art Deco/Aztec fusion (
There were some sore spots. Moving Manny is like operating a tank. Walls seem to reflect movement in really awkward ways that can make entering small doorways a pain. Manny tended to get stuck in odd corners, forcing me to reload some saves and learn the hard way that I should save more often than I would want. A few of the required actions were indicated quite badly. There were 3 occasions in total where I went to look up a guide instead of repeatedly trying all of my items in all of the places I could. One of them I think I rushed to the guide prematurely, but the other 2 felt unfair. In one of them, the game literally told me "no you can't do that on a ladder" when it was exactly what I needed to do... on a different ladder. Frustrating!
However, for the most part, I liked the "puzzles"/detective work required to get through each section. I was having the most fun when I had plenty of goals to accomplish in Rubacava and had moments of epiphany while thinking and wandering the night. If you look for it, in 90% of the cases, the game really tries to lead you towards the answer without being boring and having Manny go "hey maybe I should use x on y". Sometimes, using the right item in the wrong place/person even provided a useful hint.
side rant... It's typical to see complaints about the obtuseness of puzzles in 90s PC adventure games, but I think a lot of those come from a place of impatience. You are supposed to get stuck at first! If you instantly knew what to do at every point, why make the game a game at all? Let your mind stew sometimes... it can be rewarding. ok, end rant.
The dialogue, voice acting, and the inventive use of dialogue choices really gave the game a charm. Each character had their own personality, goals, desires, shortcomings; every character felt real. The writing was superb. I tried not to miss a single line of dialogue if I could help it, because it infallibly led to a gag, a callback, some extra insight, or whatever else Tim Schaefer had in store. Really, what a delight!