Before submitting WEEN to the PISSED rating, we need to study the alternative paths that you can take through the game. I counted two (but I might also have missed something), one using the fish amulet to breathe underwater, and the other attainable by choosing the second door when you exit the temple, just before the ant garden.
The first hint about an alternative path comes from our friend URM |
Restarting the game, I scan once more every screen to see what I could have missed but don't find anything before the lake itself (I still don't know if I can do anything with the bolt I found on OHKRAM's balcony by the way). Turns out that on the first venom/pollen puzzle, there is a very tiny leave hidden in the corner of the screen.
Obvious isn't it? |
More strawberries!!! |
Do fishermen dream of electric fish? |
Hey there little buddy, I thought I would only kick your ass much later in the game… |
Gross |
Underwater massacre |
Not for the marine life around here, that's for sure. |
So all in all, this path allows me to avoid the goblin-looking statue with its sword and the Orivor puzzle. I kinda prefer the underwater path as I think the puzzles are more fun. However, I'll probably never go in a lake again in my life now that I've seen what's in it…
Second alternative path : Laser-eye petrifying dinosaurs
After getting the three grains of sand and exiting the temple (and before the two dimwits lost my haversack), I was presented with two doors. The door on the right, that I chose, brought me to the ant garden puzzle where I had to mix a digitalis meal for the ant queen. Selecting the door on the left brings me to another garden, where some kind of huge laser-eyes dinosaur petrifies URM the second we get in!
We hold the winner in the Coktel Vision teeth contest |
A grill? Maybe I'll be able to barbecue the wealth of the tide… |
You know? For kids! |
Pretty sure that's not how lightning works. |
Ungrateful fruit-eating bastard |
FINAL RATING
Finally, the moment we've all been waiting for. I tend to be a bit afraid of the PISSED rating because I know this game is fondly remembered by many, but I'll try my best to give it a fair trial.
Puzzles and Solvability
The puzzles are pretty fun overall. The game is a nice suite of inventory-based puzzles and there are a lot of them. However, the game is a bit on the easy side and a few of the puzzles are repetitive without enough differences between them. The room with the fireflies comes to mind where you're supposed to repeat the same tedious steps five times. The other problem is that you stumble a bit too often on the solution instead of wanting to do something and successfully do it. That's usually the issue with games with a single "action" button (as opposed to a list of verbs or a parser), in my humble opinion, but in this kind of games where things happen because "magic", I think that clicking on random things and see what happens is a big part of the fun, like a less chaotic version of Gobliins 2.
When the game avoids being too easy, however, it tends to fall pretty quickly in the "obscure" territory. The dragon battle, for example comes to mind, or the potion mixing.
Never forget the mighty battle of the cat and the beagle. |
Having two branching paths (even if it's for a short period of time) is great though, and adds replayability, which is still rare enough in adventure games to be underlined.
Final Score : 6. Overall, the puzzle design is solid, pleasant and there are a lot of things to do. A few roadblocks are difficult enough without being unsolvable. The fact that you are too often stumbling in the dark is what prevents it to get a 7, but just quite.
Interface and Inventory
As was noted by Ilmari in his playthrough of Gobliins 2, the interface shares some similarities, which is a novelty for a Coktel Vision game. It's probably because it works. You can combine inventory items, use items on yourself, etc. I think the guys at Coktel were working on something that would be used in all of their games at the time if only because they left the "fast movement" icon in the menu without using it once in the game. It was Coktel's take on something similar to the SCUMM engine, even if not as brilliant.
There is even a notepad to keep track of whatever seems important (like potion recipes) |
There are other issues as well. Using the glue on the firefly works but not the other way around. Granted, it makes more sense in this order but when you're trying to find the solution to an obscure puzzle, you don't necessarily try the two sides of an item interaction. There is also a little "slugginess" to the whole game (like a few milliseconds too long) that makes the whole thing a little too slow for my taste. But it might also be the emulator I used so I won't take it into account.
The integrated joker system is a nice touch. In a time before the internet, it was always a solution to make some progress in the game if you're completely stuck. I tried it here and there after my playthrough, though, and it could beneficiate from a little subtlety by guiding you on the right path instead of telling the solutions outright. But still, it's always better than throwing the game disks against a wall in frustration.
Final Score : 4. Functional, but a few issues tarnish the whole experience here and there.
Story and Setting
Well… this one is tricky. I'm pretty sure the story as a whole made some kind of sense to someone at Coktel Vision (or they were under a lot of drugs), but after having completed the game, I still have little clues about exactly who is OPALE, what the REVUSS is, what the BORGOL is, why the two stupid twins change their height every five seconds, etc… The whole story comes out as quite a mess, and it's not a translation issue as I've tried the french version and it's more or less the same thing.
I still want someone to explain to me why my haversack was an owl the whole time… |
The same can be said about the places you're exploring. Once you exit the cave complex from underneath OHKRAM's house, you spend your time going in and out of caves and gardens with little coherence. It's not a big deal in itself, as most of the puzzles are self-contained to one screen, but it doesn't make you feel like you're making any progress, more like you're being lugged around random places.
Final score : 3. The story is serviceable, nothing else. You solve puzzles and sometimes, someone talks to you spouting nonsense.
Sound and Graphics
In the visual department, the game suffers from a strange dichotomy. The places you explore are mostly pretty and nicely detailed. The catacombs and temples are creepy enough and the whole "sunsets and moonlight" ambiance suits the magical atmosphere overall. However, I found the monster and creature design to be quite hideous, to be honest. The dragon, the orivors, the mosquitos… I guess a monster is supposed to be ugly, and it's also a matter of taste, but I frankly disliked the overall creature design.
The horror… the horror… |
On the sound department, the whole ambiance is great and the music is pretty nice (even if it could have benefited from a little more tracks because it tends to repeat itself pretty quickly). The sound effects have nice swishes and swooshes that add to the magical theme and all of this is of pretty good quality overall.
Final Score : 5. Pretty good overall but a few hits and misses in the design department. Good music though.
Environment and Atmosphere
Despite the odd design choices and a few elements that I could easily have done without (UKI, ORBI and your little dance, I'm looking at you), if there is something that you can't reproach Ween : The Prophecy for, is its atmosphere. The whole game is full of magic, weird things and every new screen is an invitation to explore and find what new kinds of surprises the game holds for you. The mysterious statues that are found everywhere, the magical beings you're encountering… Add to that the whole sunset/moonlight feeling that you have for most of the game and you have the feeling of a magical world ending.
When the sun in the sky looks like this, it's time to go to the nearest shelter |
However (because we always need a however), once again, a few choices go against the whole thing. There is sometimes goofiness that would be more in its place in a Gobliiins game, sometimes alternating immediately with something more mysterious. I think the developers were trying to alternate between mysterious and funny, but it sometimes doesn't work. Managing a "hot and cold" ambiance (like, let's say, the early movies of Tim Burton, for example) is something that's really hard to achieve and I can't help but feel like the developers should have chosen a direction and stick with it instead of trying to alternate between serious and goofy.
Final Score : 6. Great magical atmosphere, marred sometimes by odd goofy moments.
Dialog and Acting
Like I've said earlier, a lot of the exposition text and dialog is pretty nonsensical. Sometimes, the ORACLE or the BORGOL (whatever the latter is) appear and tell you a lot of things, much of it not making a lot of sense… Some other times, OHKRAM appears and tells you you've gained a grain of sand even if you weren't really trying to do so… Most of the interactions with the animals and sentient beings you cross path with are nice without being really noteworthy.
The exception to this rule is URM, your vampire buddy, which is the most competently written character. His lines are sometimes funny, especially when you call him for no reason. He's helping and mocking in equal measures and is a pretty good sidekick.
And he really seems to enjoy doing evil deeds, which is a good thing in my book |
The acting in itself is mainly digitized people in Halloween masks waving and doing over the top gestures to make their point, so it's nothing to write home about. At least, the final animation of KRAAL apparently trying to peel his face off is satisfactory enough.
Final Score : 4. Apart for URM, nothing really stands out, and the twins are consistently cringeworthy.
Final Score
So without further ado, the final score equals (6+4+3+5+6+4/0.6) = 47! I'll add one discretionary point for the fact that, despite all its quirks and errors, the whole experience was overall pretty pleasant and I think it'll stick with me as a good memory. And I realize now that doing so gives it the exact same score of the first Gobliiins and five points above The Legend of Djel, so kudos to Coktel for upping their game since Bargon Attack and Emmanuelle!
Congrats on your score guess, Lugh, you earn CAPs!
CAP Distribution
100 CAPs to Alfred n the Fettuc
- Blogger Award - 100 CAPs - for playing through Ween for everyone's enjoyment
- Vohaul Award - 5 CAPs - for letting us know that Infamous Adventures have just released a new version of Space Quest II
- Festive Blogger Award - 60 CAPs - for blogging through A Christmas Adventure with a bonus interlude for everyone's enjoyment
- Classic Blogger Award - 50 CAPs - for blogging through Crash Dive for everyone's enjoyment
- Djel Historian Award - 5 CAPs - For giving us worrying details about DJEL and AZEULISSE real relationship
- Classic Blogger Award - 50 CAPs - for blogging through Growing Pains of Adrian Mole for everyone's enjoyment
- Classic Blogger Award - 50 CAPs - for blogging through The Price of Magik for everyone's enjoyment
- Classic Blogger Award - 50 CAPs - for blogging through The Institute for everyone's enjoyment
- Intermission Award - 20 CAPs - for a 1981 Summary of Med Systems Software
51 CAPs to Vetinari
- True Companion Award - 20 CAPs - for playing along
- Alternative Award - 6 CAPs - for giving hints about the alternative paths
- The Ball and the Cauldron Award - 5 CAPs - for agreeing with my rambling about the copper ball transformation and alerting me about the potion mixing nightmare.
- Psychic Prediction Award - 10 CAPs - for being the closest guesser to the Price of Magic PISSED rating
- Psychic Prediction Award - 10 CAPs - for correctly guessing The Institute's PISSED rating
- True Companion Award - 20 CAPs - for playing along.
- Back Of His Hand Award - 5 CAPs - for sharing his interesting insight on a game that he knows very well
- Djel and Azeulisse Award - 5 CAPs - for guessing that Djel and Azeulisse were probably deadbeat parents
- Alternative Award - 6 CAPs - for giving hints about the alternative paths
- Size Does Matter Award - 5 CAPs - for engaging in a discussion about the two stupid twins real size
- Lost Bet Award (Unaward?) - -10 CAPs - For betting against me that I wouldn't find the answer to the snake puzzle
- Ho Ho Oh... Award - 1 CAP - for remembering a Christmas game we could play... but not knowing we'd already played it
- What's Your Story Award - 20 CAPs - for submitting his answers to our What's Your Story questions
15 CAPs to Lugh
- Psychic Prediction Award - 10 CAPs - for correctly predicting the PISSED rating
- Gene and Dean Award - 5 CAPs - for telling us about the Ween band that might have (or not) something to do with the title change
- 33 and 1/3 Award - 5 CAPs - for the surprising news that games have actually been distributed on vinyl records
- Do Androids Dream of Kindle Paperwhites Award - 5 CAPs - for knowing how reading in dreams works
- Minotaur Award - 5 CAPs - for actually programming a labyrinth while studying
- Do Androids Dream of Kindle Paperwhites Award - 5 CAPs - for knowing how reading in dreams works
- The Doctor Is In Award - 5 CAPs - for giving us chilling details about the digitalis and its effect on rats
- Cold As Balls Award - 5 CAPs - for letting Ilmari know the likely background to the brass monkey puzzle in Price of Magik
- Alchemist Award - 5 CAPs - for finally explaining to me why people bite gold
- Pixel Filtering Award - 5 CAPs - for alerting me that my emulation software was filtering pixels
- Wario Ware Award - 5 CAPs - for appreciating that sometimes you need to pick the nose of a demon dog
- Rutabaga Award - 5 CAPs - for answering Will's question, and adding more historical context to a character from The Institute
- The Shape of Watercraft Award - 5 CAPs - for pointing out that all submarines are long, thin and full of seamen
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