Adventure Gamers - Forums

I’ve been playing Chicory and finished it over the last week. I was wondering why a 5-star reviewed game hadn’t had so much as a mention on the forums.

I can sort of understand why now. The game itself resembles a sprawling open-world RPG minus the statistics and combat, where you travel all over a map doing puzzles and eventually save the world. Perhaps that doesn’t justify the game and how it plays, because it IS a charming and delightful world with adorable characters, the puzzles are refreshing and the message of the game (which I could see coming early on) is extremely positive and empowering while still subtle enough to not be rubbed into the player’s face.

The central game mechanic IS an inspired one - someone just had to make a game where, rather than fight or move objects around, you progress by filling your surroundings with color. And no doubt more creative gamers will derive enormous pleasure from gradually shaping the gameworld with their own personal style as the game progresses.

The downsides are the skippable “boss fights” which are frankly awful, and some repetitive puzzles. It dragged on a bit too long for my liking but I could see how others could see that as a big plus.

Am I glad I played it? Yes. The burst of positivity and color is what I needed in my life, even without realizing. Is it, as the review claims, a “classic”? If you define yourself as highly artistic and creative and you value what you bring to a game, perhaps. Since that’s not me, I think I’ll just look back on Chicory as an enjoyable and very well made game.

Not long finished Primordia and Strangeland.

Enjoyed both though Strangeland was a bit too surreal for my tastes - I had mistakenly thought it was a follow up to Primordia.

Primordia was right up my street. Wasn’t sure on a premise about robots as not generally my thing but was great.

Moving on to the Kathy Rain DC soon.

Good choices. I would recommend Technobabylon too if you haven’t played it yet.

walas74 - 28 June 2022 07:06 PM

Good choices. I would recommend Technobabylon too if you haven’t played it yet.

Funnily enough, just finished a replay of that prior to those two. Class game, has BASS vibes with a detective spin.

Yesterday I played The Looker, a recently released parody of The Witness, one of my alltime favorite games. My expectations were not very high, but I liked it a lot. You can tell the dev put a lot of effort into it. The Looker looks good, has voiceacting, and to my surprise even some clever and original puzzles which had me thinking outside the box. All in all 2.5 hours of fun.

Recommended for anybody who has played The Witness. Free on Steam.

nice!

VirtuaDrew - 21 July 2022 10:52 PM

Rise of the Dragon

I knew going in that the “arcade” sequences were supposed to be bad - so bad, in fact, they let you skip them after 5 attempts. While I can confirm their reputation precedes them, I enjoyed the rest of the game. It’s unforgiving, sure, and it can be a pixel hunt, but I liked the animation and story. Could have been flushed out more, and the time mechanic is too strict in some sequences and too long in others, but with quick saves the game is still playable. May try Heart of China someday.

A young Baron Blubba once swindled his dad into buying Rise of the Dragon for him at the mall one Saturday night. Mom saw the MA-17 rating on the box and was none too impressed. My siblings and I got far as getting arrested for leaving our apartment without our clothes on, before losing the argument with our parents and swapping the game for something much lamer, like Zool or a terrible Tom & Jerry platform game. (@arcadeattackadriano—if you happen to read this, I apologize for slandering Zool. It’s me, not him.)

In the ~27-28 years since, I’ve given the game intermittent tries. I remember always enjoying it, but I can’t remember why I have never finished it.

From what I hear, Heart of China is less forgiving as far as dead ends, but some folks seem to hold it close to their bosom, very dearly.

I also just finished playing Lost Horizon, also for the first time, and was pleasantly surprised. Yes, the protagonist and the whole story are blatant Indiana Jones rip-offs, and the game actually acknowledges it, not to mention some outrageous puzzle solutions reminiscent of the Tunguska games. And yet it has such a class - I almost forgot how much effort European developers put into those 2.5D adventure games back then. We don’t truly appreciate what we have until it’s gone.

Six chapters with plenty of locations to explore (Hong Kong, Tibet, Morocco, India, Nazi Olympics and a castle in Germany), surrounded by multiple movie and ag cliches/references that make up for a fairly long and exciting adventure. Not to mention art and animation that still hold very well: the devs felt no need to come up with excuses like “this is our vision and you will get used to rubber faces and abstract art”, all backgrounds are beautiful, some are even magnificent, same goes for cutscenes - and there are plenty of those, the hero is a clumsy badass who gets into all sort of trouble.

And while the gameplay is often hit and miss, with puzzles being both on easy and crazy side, it actually gets better with every chapter. The last two were my favourite, the one where we play as two characters stuck in different time periods in particular, similar to Day of the Tentacle. The game also successfully avoids timed/death sequences despite it often feels like there’s one on its way, even the last fighting scene (with some awesome choreography) feels like a parody of quick time events: you just choose your tactics and watch your character (the third protagonist) fight, always with different results. And then you could replay it in a “Bonus” menu.

Speaking of which, it also has another awesome addition that opens after you finish the game: a prototype game they developed 2 years earlier to attract producers. It plays like an additional chapter, or a short prequel, a game within a game! Wish more devs would’ve done that… Anyway, it might not be a top-100 adventure, but one of the more enjoyable games from the 2000s. Looking forward to the sequel and maybe some other 2.5D games I missed or forgot about.

Jdawg445 - 27 July 2022 09:20 PM

I played the game for the first time 2 yrs ago, and also really liked it a lot, found it very charming. Funny enough the last chapter was the weakest to me bc i dont like playing multiple characters at once. Same reason i didnt love resonance.

I’m also not the biggest fan of multiple protagonists in games, but I really enjoyed how it was done in LH. The transition was quick and easy, there were no “special abilities” or change in mood, the characters just worked together in order to reach one clear goal.