[b] WHEN THE WHOLE IS POORER THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS [/b]
Even though I agree and respect some of the points made by reviewers who recommended this game, unfortunately I can’t bring myself to do the same. This is always unpleasant, since I recognize game developing is almost a calling and a struggle at the same time, especially for smaller studios. In that regard, my passion for gaming makes me biased towards those that provide me with such entertainment, so I’ll just try and describe my experience with [i] AGON – The Mysterious Codex (Trilogy) [/i], so you can decide for yourself, regardless of the ‘Recommended’ vs ‘Not Recommended’ mechanics of Steam.
This game feels like an assembly of amazing pieces put together with passion, with the end result still looking and feeling weird and unpleasant. A game needs to function beyond its particulars, rhythm and continuity are essential, especially to an adventure game.
Technically I’d call this title a first-person point & click adventure on a 3D environment. You move around finding arrow buttons that indicate your possible destinations. You also have free mouse movement while standing still, which is a nice touch. The combination is interesting at times, but in the end, it felt like bad pixel hunting, nonetheless.
From best to worst, I’d say the soundtrack is its best feature, tied with the beautiful art direction of the 3D environments. Even though the graphics are dated (even for the time they were made), they have a charm and a pleasant flavor to it, at least for a gamer of my age; I tend to not mind about older graphics if they’re done with style. The cutscenes have good cinematography applied to them, which makes the whole experience even better.
The voice acting fluctuates between average and good, depending on the character. Dialogues are serviceable at best, falling flat most of the times, since they fail to offer context on why the NPCs react the way they do, among other problems of continuity and plot exposition. The writing in books and letters, however, is very good and abundant, a refreshing trait. They are diverse and go deeper than your usual adventure game, with excellent illustrations faithful to the time period (late 19th – early 20th century). By the way, the books are up there with soundtrack and art direction as the best features of this title.
Having soldiered through all the way to the end (even though the game is very short), I feel comfortable saying the puzzles are hit and miss. Overall, they’re much harder than usually found on games like this, with some of them being very worthwhile and fun while others are irritating in their nonsensical logic and ultra-obscure sequences.
The two board games you must play along the way, on the other hand, are very interesting. You can even play them separately, as stand-alone matches, after beating each one of them. Nothing mind-blowing if you’re into this hobby, but somewhat challenging and rewarding if you never tried board games of this nature before.
If you notice, so far, I described separate elements of the game, and therein lies the problem: they don’t come together to make an enjoyable whole. The story is nice if judged by every scene separately, but the plot evolves poorly (to put it kindly), and the protagonist’s arch feels hollow. Some puzzles are nice, but others have bizarre solutions with not even the slightest indication of how and why you need to solve them.
The character feels lost in its own game, like you must move on for movement’s sake, without feeling involved in the story and even less motivated to delve into the puzzles.
In the end, even though I recognize the developer’s efforts and some amazing work inside this game, I’d say to only buy this one if you identify yourself with being a sort of game historian, where it matters to know the past, even the worst parts of it.
