Simon the Sorcerer - Mucusade: 25th Anniversary Edition

Weil es ein absoluter Retro Point and click Klassiker ist. Ein must have sozusagen. Lief auch einwandfrei, hatte nur einen Absturz. Wer wie ich p§c bisher nicht leiden konnte, wird hier Freude erleben.

Old-school, inventory-bulging fun.

Stara, dobra, oldschoolowa przygodówka point & click. Albo ona się zestarzała, albo ja, bo już nie bawi mnie tak jak 20 lat temu, ale to nadal kawał klasyki, który warto znać :)

This remake, much like Simon the Sorcerer 1's remake, was made by MojoTouch and features the same interface, horrible filtered graphics, this thing where interactive objects are highlighted by a white ring when you hover over it which breaks much of the immersion. Just all around a pretty bad remake. Although I haven't had any technical issues, unlike the first game's where my save got corrupted in like 10 minutes, considering this uses a practically identical remake engine it is likely filled with the same bugs, so I would certainly recommend playing through ScummVM on the legacy edition if you want your saves to not get corrupted. (Again, I didn't realise that the legacy edition was literally just ScummVM so I played this game on my own install of ScummVM, hence the low playtime) So the remake is pretty much the same and has the same issues. But what about the game itself? Well, I can certainly say that Simon 2 is a true hidden gem of the point-and-click genre. While tonally it is fairly separated from the first game, with the gameworld being more explicitly crude and cruddy VS the fantasy satire in the first, the game still looks great and the backgrounds are really nice. Though I personally prefer the first game's backgrounds, they did a really great job in this one too. The music as well is pretty decent, personally I prefer the first game's but in this game it's not too bad either. It kind of ranges from being pretty good, like the map theme, to downright grating and obnoxious at times, like the MucSwampling music. The humour is even better. It takes the general sarcasm and rudeness from the first game and cranks it all the way up, like how the Swampling from the first game who fed you awful-tasting swamp slop now owns his own highly successful fast food corporation selling the same slop, and has a wife and two kids. He doesn't even make the slop anymore, only doing paperwork. It's a pretty funny parody of fast food corporations, while also making you kind of feel happy for the Swampling that he did end up finding success in life. Though this amped-up comedy also comes with the drawback of Simon turning into a bit of a prick, to put it frankly. Obviously he was no angel in the first game but he wasn't a total bellend. Here though, he's rude to pretty much everyone he meets, and it can be quite offputting. He's even a bit of a misogynist to female characters, like... the ♥♥♥♥? Some of his cruelty just felt a bit unnecessary IMO, and it can be a bit uncomfortable playing the game when he's like this a lot. Speaking of uncomfortable, this game does sort of show its age with some of the stuff. There's the previously mentioned misogyny from Simon, some pretty cruel depictions of mentally unwell people, and of course how can we forget Um Bongo. I'm shocked they got away with a character like that even back in 1995. If you're more sensitive to things like this then I'd honestly recommend not playing because it can get pretty offensive, though if you can appreciate that it is a product of its time like me then I'd recommend. The puzzle design I think is where the game shines the most. Like the first game, there's a main quest where everything sort of ties in all together to get to the final thing, in this case getting the Mucusade, and I think the way everything ties in logically is exceptional for the time. There were very few occasions where I thought "this is totally illogical and no one would ever get this", I thought a majority of the solutions were really good and made a lot of sense. Even the royal seal one, though I'm sure that got lost in translation for any international players a la the Monkey Island 2 monkey wrench. (♥♥♥♥ speaking of Monkey Island 2, I'm now noticing similarities! A slightly edgier tonal shift, the main character becoming more of a jerk, the game world being more consumerist and less whimsical? That can't be a coincidence...) Again like the first game, the difficult parts for me were finding out the in-between puzzles, like I knew I needed to get the pea and use the pea on the princess's mattress for the princess to help get the baby to sleep, but I didn't know how to get the pea for a while. Overall the puzzles are really great for the time. Simon 2 marks a significant tonal shift from the first game, and I love it. Would certainly recommend to fans of the first. ...through ScummVM

If you are a person in your mid to late 30s looking for a Nostalgia hit but are dithering because of some negative reviews about the quality of the remaster and don't really understand what people mean when they say get SCUMMVM, just buy it. It's £12 for both games. I enjoyed both and playing them again did nothing to diminish my memories of the originals. Only thing I would say is that both games have crashed occasionally through the playthroughs and there is no autosave feature, so make sure you save frequently.

No puedo decir que sea una mala aventura gráfica en sí. De hecho, la mayoría de puzzles son divertidos e incluso ingeniosos, pero ha envejecido muy mal técnicamente y pide a gritos un remake o un remaster (pero de verdad y no un port como este) para que no resulte eterna cada conversación, porque tiene un ritmo injugable y los bugs no ayudan a mejorar la experiencia. Tiene el mismo bug con la pantalla de guardado que la primera parte, la imagen se congela y hay que salir al administrador de tareas para poder ver esa pantalla. Además en esta secuela existe otro bug que cuelga todo el juego si realizas determinadas acciones a la izquierda del exterior del MucSwamplings. Ha sido un viaje de 8h. en el que he tenido que repetir varias partes de juego por esto, así que recomiendo guardar frecuentemente. Por otro lado, creo que el carácter de Simon le resta muchos enteros al juego. Si en el primer videojuego teníamos un Simon mordaz, sarcástico y graciosillo, el Simon que nos encontramos en esta secuela es ofensivo, desagradable, cruel y abusón. Es como si se creyera gracioso por hacer daño a los demás y resulta bastante patético ver cómo se regodea siempre en el mismo tipo de humor. Mientras que el Simon del primer videjuego podría despertarme algún tipo de simpatía, el del segundo imagino que únicamente la despertará entre las 'joyitas' que disfrutan del bullying y demás actitudes abusivas. No es una cuestión de época, porque todos conocemos a protagonistas de otras aventuras gráficas coetáneas (e incluso anteriores) cuyo humor y trato hacia otros personajes es infinitamente más agradable. No obstante, el principal motivo por el que no recomiendo el juego es porque no es jugable. Si en algún momento se relanzara el videojuego remasterizado, sin bugs, con mecánicas y gráficos renovados (como los de la precuela que saldrá este año, por ejemplo), aún manteniendo los mismos puzzles y diálogos, sería un juego absolutamente recomendable, pese a que no soporte al protagonista.

Gran point & click de toda la vida

Better than the first one, but still not great - neutral but teetered into positive. Again, I found myself stuck too many times with obscure solutions, or missing locations due to exits not being marked. As much as I love Chris Barrie - I enjoyed the VO in this more. The game felt more cohesive as a whole, without needing to memorise routes. There were some nice references to the first game, without making it necessary to have played it.

Best Game ever! Love that they kept it pixelated!

Esta segunda parte me encantó como la primera, otra de las mejores aventuras gráficas de mi vida. Gracias a Steam lo puedo volver a tener después de tantos años. Con doblaje de voces al español como cuando salió a la venta en España por primera vez. Recomiendo la primera parte como esta segunda parte.