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Played a bit more. The dialogue's fun (the horny old English aristocrat lady is a stand-out), but there's soooo much of it, and I've mostly just got through the puzzles by clicking on everything until something happens. Not brute forcing my way through, just coasting through without fully understanding what's going on. Maybe it's my fault for playing the very start of the game then stopping for a week, but the story doesn't really feel like it has much impetus either. So it's all still very nice, but it feels a bit aimless, like I'm waiting for the game to properly begin.
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I had to check a walkthrough, turns out I had to talk to the aristocrat about an inventory item (you can discuss any item with any character which is a nice touch), which I had already done but I had to go talk to the concierge about the safe first. This is the structure of a lot of the puzzles so far. Other examples: a building's door won't open, so talk to the (only other thing on the screen and otherwise completely superfluous) flower stall lady over the road and she tells you to push it gently rather than try to force it. You can now open it. That's the puzzle. Later, you find a Knights Templar parchment and Nico talks you through the history of it. There's a really nice animated sequence that accompanies her in the style of the parchment illustrations, like fantasy films often do with backstory to save a bit of money while still being stylish. So you now have to investigate the parchment but you have no leads. So the solution is... talk to Nico about the parchment so she gives you the contact of someone to talk to about it. Why didn't she just do that before?! This is a microcosm of the game's lovely presentation yet slightly random/busywork puzzles. Also, it doesn't save your volume settings!
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I'm very nearly at the end now. This game has its good points - impressive amounts of dialogue, generally very nice looking (although it's often a bit inconsistent, quality and style wise - certain parts of background and UI art are a bit jarring, and stuff sometimes goes a bit wonky and off-model) and it often gets close to that exciting pulp adventure feeling of discovering ancient ruins and conspiracies and stuff - but everything is dragged down by the awful puzzles. The goat one is known for being bad but honestly the whole lot are dreadful. Loads of trekking back and forth, egregious pixel-hunting and puzzles based on constantly checking for new dialogue options or on things that the player couldn't possibly know. Even when I was breezing (or stumbling) through without a walkthrough, I was still staggered at how stupid or unfair a lot of them were. It just renders everything else irritating. Suddenly the writing isn't as charming, George is a bit of a prick (especially when he starts butting horns with the museum nerd for having the temerity to talk to a woman George has spent about an hour of his life with), and it feels less like Indiana Jones and more like if a whole movie were made up of that bit in The Da Vinci Code where Langdon exclaims "I've got to get to a library!" I very nearly gave up but as I was coming up to the end I decided to stick it out and just use a walkthrough if I got even vaguely stuck.
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Wow, George is getting worse. He's now in a sulk with Nico, presumably for talking with another man; he's decided he's in love with Nico; just after rescuing her from being shot, before untying her, he forces a kiss on her and she complains that he took advantage of her. Fucking hell. I really hope that after they solve the whole thing she kicks him in the bollocks and runs off with the treasure.
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Bah, no, she decided they'd spend their life together. Oh well.
Well, this was a game with some nice presentation, but dreadful puzzles, some rather muddy storytelling and a lot of rough edges. Maybe the sequel will show some polish.
Rating: Red.
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