Caltrops - Gamerasutra





	[quote name="blackwater"]I didn't mind the grimdark stuff (much), although I agree it was thematically inconsistent with the first part. I had the same experience as you of starting out eager to figure out the mystery, and gradually getting less and less interested. The plot going off the rails was an issue, but the biggest problem really was that the designers were good at writing a Zelda-like game, but terrible at writing a puzzle game. The thing is, I do actually get what the authors were going for. That half-remembered feeling of playing Nintendo as a kid. Reading through poorly translated (or untranslated) manuals that didn't really explain things in a way a grade-school kid could understand. A gameplay loop that was difficult but satisfying. And then the later half of the game is about realizing that the world is more complicated than you thought, getting disillusioned, and becoming an adult. The problem is, bad gameplay is still bad gameplay, and the puzzles in this are just bad. The hidden ladder thing you described is just the tip of the iceberg if you really want to get all the fairies (I quit like halfway through.) And a lot of puzzles are just cruel or unclued. This might be related to trying too hard to be "old school." Hey guys, remember that thing in Simon's Quest II where you had to kneel in that one random spot while holding the red crystal in order to progress? Well, yes. Yes, I do. I also remember the barely edible slop the school lunch ladies served me sometimes. We can joke about it now, but I don't plan on actually serving it to my kids. Also, it has to be said that part of the reason people were willing to put up with so much bullshit in 1980s video games was that there weren't that many other choices. Even if your modern game is actually better than Legend of Zelda (or whatever), I am not going to spend 6 months solving it. I'm not going to talk about it with other kids during recess. The world has moved on from that.[/quote]