u/moumooni

This is a review for the first out of three games I choose based on games you guys suggested in this post. The games I choose were Day of the Tentacle: Remastered, Full Throttle: Remastered and Firewatch. Eventually I'll also play Grim Fandango, as it was extremely popular, but I'll give some time for other genres.

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Summary if you don’t want to read the whole review: this game is fun, but I ultimately felt that nostalgia plays a big factor in why many people would claim this is the greatest adventure game of all time. Really fun and creative, but not as special as I was hoping it would be.

This is a very interesting game. I’m surprised at how popular this game is, since I’m not from Germany or from the USA, so knowing it was popular definitely elevated my expectations about how good this game could be. I don’t think that creating expectations is inherently a bad thing, but it definitely made me play it with sharper critical lenses than I would’ve put on a game that was originally released in 1993.

So let’s start with the positives.

+ The game oozes with charm. From the surrealist aesthetics of the scenery to the carefully animated characters based on Chuck Jones**’** - Looney Tunes - style of animation, with really exaggerated stretch and squash that makes things look like they’re some sort of play-dough. The music from this game also rocks, both the original and the remastered - I couldn’t decide which one I wanted to keep playing with, since both sounded so good.

+ The narrative is really creative and it had some really funny jokes, and it impressed me that most of the jokes wouldn’t be problematic today - which is something that is kind of a recurring theme for older adventure games. Not that I care that much about it, but it definitely impressed me how well the creative elements of this game really stood the test of time in many shapes and forms.

+ From the moment I started playing, I couldn’t put the game down. It was intriguing and fun trying to find out what would be the next piece of the puzzle, or try to find out what I was missing. It really was a magnetic experience in that regard. Having three completely different sets of interactable scenes made this game’s puzzles be a blast, and considering what changes to the future each interaction would bring was a really fun way to keep players thinking about puzzles that they weren’t doing at the moment.

+ Lastly, I also LOVE that you can choose how to play the game as it was back then, as the remaster, or mix’n’match the settings. Being able to change it with just a hotkey was also a very nice touch. Still along these lines, being able to play the original Maniac Mansion (the prequel of Day of the Tentacle) from inside the game was also marvelous, but I wish there was an option to do so from the menu. I’m glad I have played Maniac Mansion and it made me appreciate DotT much more than I would’ve otherwise.

Now, for the negatives. First, I’ll talk about things that should’ve been in the remaster, and then about things I didn't like about the original game.

- There’s no hint system in this game. I understand how hints can actually discourage people from thinking, but in a game that has many moments of moon logic, I feel like that should’ve been mandatory to at least have some small directions. I say that as someone who couldn’t get many of the hints based on history, as I’m not too versed in North American colonial history, so something to help out in terms of direct gameplay impact would definitely help.

- Why on earth are there verbs that make no sense for some objects? The showing of the verbs is extremely inconsistent throughout the game, and showing irrational verbs made me completely ignore some of them and get stuck in puzzles that were supposed to be easy otherwise. For example, why is there an option to “open/close” or “pull/push” a coin in the inventory? Don’t get me wrong, I do think that verbs that have no action - BUT MAKE SENSE - should appear in the dial, but putting them in places where they made no sense made it so I just started to ignore some of the verbs altogether**.**

- Now, dislikes about the game itself. Most characters have very interesting personalities, especially the playable ones, but I really wish that the three main characters had some skill or uniqueness in gameplay for each. They’re just differently colored shells with the same filling in each. I didn’t feel like it mattered what each character was for the period they were in. I feel like the same applies to items, because each item had a specific purpose in the game and other solutions for puzzles didn’t apply - even logical ones. There are many more ways to remove a sticky gum from the floor than the singular way that the game mandatorily makes you do.

- Lastly, some minor complaints. It was way too inconsistent to be able to know from a glance which items were able to be sent across time - some big ones couldn’t, but then some other big ones could, and that made it so weird and arbitrary. I also think that the conversation system could’ve used some polish, as I couldn’t understand if I was having a singular conversation with unique answers that wouldn’t come back, or if I was in a multi-choice answer phase.

The bottom line.

This game was really fun and it captivated and entertained me with its fun visuals, narrative, music and clever puzzles, but I feel like the remaster itself could’ve improved a lot more than it did, especially because there was an option to toggle between the remaster and the original versions, so there’s no reason not to try to improve the gameplay a little more. Still, it was really fun, but it didn’t meet my expectations.

Score: 7.5/10 - Memorable