izigame.me

5/10


*this review applies mainly to the English version of the game

This game started out great. I loved the artwork, the voice-acting was good, but some of the music didn't seem to fit in certain sections. No problem, I turned the music down to a low level. I was having fun, but immediately ran into issues with the dialogue. Many words that were translated were either incorrect or used incorrectly. There are items in the game, which look like Washers, which the game calls Muffs, for example. There are colored glass windows in the game which they label Mosaic Tables. These are just a couple of examples. There is even the inclusion of words that don't exist in the English language; Bi-Naural.

Here is an example of a sentence used in the game, which is a hint for a puzzle, that makes no sense -- "As long as the mauve muff has to stay attached to the cubical body, there will never be an avial power inverter with a mauve muff." This game is rife with bad grammar, misuse of words, nonsensical sentences. There are many continuity problems in this game as well. The ending of the game, without adding spoilers, doesn't make any sense. The voice acting, mostly, was very good, but, even then, there were issues. When a subtitle read, "Pfft", rather than make the exclamation sound that is intended, the voice-actor tried to pronounce it like a word; "Puh-fff-tuh."

I had issues with some puzzles not triggering an the intended event once I performed a certain action. This caused me to think I was missing something, so I did a lot of backtracking to figure out what I'd missed. After exhausting all my options, I came back and performed the same action a few times, and the event triggered. There were issues with achievements not popping also. I had to go to previous game saves and redo actions to get the achievements involved. There is one achievement called Drogglejug which is buggy, and requires you go to the developers website, download and install a save-game file, in order to complete this achievement. This achievement is not easy to get, and, from what I read, is an inside joke from another game that Daedalic made, which I haven't played. There are also several infuriating psuedo-puzzles in the game, which you'll waste your time solving, only to find that it was nothing but a red herring, designed to extend the game-play. I spent a good amount of time on one of these "puzzles", which had a couple achievements attached to it, only to realize it did nothing to advance the game.

Given the professional reviews of this game(on the store page), I wonder how long these professionals even spent playing the game. There are so many problems with this game, I could never recommend it. It is a shame too, because the game has the atmosphere of a good Point & Click game. I only paid $0.99U.S., and I bought it in a bundle. I'm hoping the sequels to this game aren't as bad. I really wish companies like this would hire a good proofreader/translator, who is fluent in both the orignal language and the language being translated to. Lastly, this game is fairly short; less than 22hours, and that's not all play time; the game would be running while I'm eating, doing other things around the house, etc. I would say I might have gotten 12-15hours of play, and that is being generous. I'm hoping in the future Daedalic will learn from their mistakes, because they do have potential, and the game wasn't all bad; they got many things right, in my opinion.