Adventure Gamers - Forums

I’ve never played this classic title from 1995 by Al Lowe before. I remember reading the Adventure Gamer’s review many years ago which convinced me it was a game that would only appeal to kids, so I’ve avoided it for quite some time. Luckily, I recently decided to figure out for myself, and I’m glad I did! I bought the GoG version and I finished the game today. Rather than saying that this is a game for kids, I’d say it’s the perfect game to play with your kids as there certainly are elements for both young and old to enjoy. The puzzles are (mostly) logical and on the easy side, but they increase in difficulty as you progress, and there are some that would force a so-called “grown up” to stop and sit back and think.

  Torins Passage is by no means spectacular, but I don’t think it deserves a review that discourages people above a certain age from playing it.  The voice acting is excellent (which is a huge plus these days when most AG voice acting tends to be rather unispiring), there’s no dead ends, if you die, you’re taken back to the point before you made the fatal decision, so there’s no need for the constant saves and restores that was a significant part of earlier Sierra titles. There’s an in-game hint system where you pay one point from your score to get UHS-like hints with progressively more information for each click, so you won’t need a walkthrough even when you’re stumped. Every time you score a point, the hint button will be disabled for a little while which will prevent you from overusing it (though this can be changed in the options). There’s a button to display subtitles, and fortunately, unlike many games around this time, you can display the subtitles without automatically turning off the voice acting.

The story is a fairytale inspired affaire, not unlike the Kings Quest series. Torin needs to find his way through the 5 layers of the earth and in each layer he must find the location of the magical crystal needed to teleport to the next layer. He is joined by his odd cat-like pet/companion, who throughout the game gains the abilities to turn into various shapes and items that function as an extra set of inventory items, much like Spot in The Whispered World. Torin’s quest, to find his parent’s who disappeared in in a magical cyclone caused by the evil sorceress Lycenthia, takes him on a perilous journey from the lands above to the very core of the earth. On his travels, he will run into a number of surreal creatures, talking animals and plants, Kings and Queens, blind magicians and a family of black and white sitcom potatoes(!). He must rescue a princess, avoid being eaten by croctopuses and traverse molten pools of lava. Sadly, despite the great voice acting, few of characters you run into are particularly memorable, possibly because none of them have a major role.

The humour is a bit hit and miss. Contrary to the toilet humour and sexual innuendo that is normally associated with Al Lowe, this time around it’s very family friendly, but there’s a lot of puns and I had several laughs during the game. There are some nods here and there to other games, for example, Indiana Jones comes swinging by for a second, you’ll meet a pair of skunks named Sam & Max and when Torin jumps along some dissolving rocks over a pool of lava, there’s a musical interlude playing a Super Mario-like tune.

The Music is mostly varied and well composed, and fits very well to the different atmospheres of the game.

I agree with the AG reviewer that the maze in chapter 4 was terrible. Not because it was difficult (you can use a slider button to see the entire maze, so there’s no problem figuring out where to go), but because of the silly arthritis inducing way you have to click the character through it. I too completed the maze only to realize I missed the pixelhunt in it, so I had to do it all over again… Fortunately, I had made a save at the entrance.

One thing I found to be rather strange was that from the beginning, it didn’t seem possible to combine one inventory item with another. If you try, there’s no response and the item you’re holding is just dropped back into the inventory. Then suddenly, in the final chapter, combining inventory items becomes necessary for several puzzles.

The area where I felt Torins Passage was lacking the most would be the artwork, which is inconsistent at best. The backgrounds are a mishmash of elements that look like quick sketches done with a mouse, well done drawings that are scanned in (but suffer from being dissolved by the lower resolution) and other bits that looks like prerendered 3D. Comparing this to KQ5’s beautiful backgrounds, a game released by Sierra as much as 5 years earlier, I’d say they’ve gone several steps back in the graphical department with this installment. Then there’s the character art, which is in a completely different and unmatching style from the backgrounds and look almost like they’ve been quickly drawn in MS Paint. On a positive note, the character animations and cutscenes (though the framerate is Lowe by todays standards) are smooth, fluid and beautiful to watch when Torin acrobatically swings through the trees.

All in all, I found Torins Passage to be an enjoyable charming Adventure that have many improved mechanics over earlier Sierra titles. Though averagely on the easy side, atleast for a Sierra game, there were moments of challenge and some intuitive non traditional puzzles. If you, like me, have missed out on this one, and enjoy classic 2D adventures, I recommend giving it a try. It’s only $5.99 at GOG.

Score: 3/5 stars.

I’ve always thought Torin is one of Al Lowes strongest games. It’s not as good as LSL7, but overall it’s very nice experience. It was a bummer it never turned into series like it was meant to. It think Al mentioned that there was 3 games planned.

There were actually 5 games planned in total. A bummer indeed

I enjoyed it, but I really like cartoonish adventures. The only part of the game that I didn’t like was the tv style scene. I vaguely remember but that part seemed pretty annoying.

Captain Blondebeard - 04 December 2013 09:57 PM

I enjoyed it, but I really like cartoonish adventures. The only part of the game that I didn’t like was the tv style scene. I vaguely remember but that part seemed pretty annoying.

Ah yes, the Bitternuts (I think that’s what they were called), the potato family, or whatever they were supposed to be. I agree, I disliked that bit aswell. There was a similar scene in Goodbye Deponia by Daedalic, I found that stupid too, though I must admit I laughed a bit at the bad puns by the mailman who was stuck in the window

Beautiful review Dag .