Loom (1990)

Well, first thing that stands out is that I've got the CD version so I have voice acting! It's in 256 colours, which I think the Steam version of Last Crusade was too, but it looks a bit nicer somehow. It feels very Monkey Island-ish as well, thanks to the font and the visual style, as well as the opening where I have to descend from a high hill down to a small village. I got as far as finding the staff before realising that I really needed to read the manual. Having done so, it turns out I should really listen to the 30-minute audio drama that was originally bundled with the game on a cassette tape! I can't quite tell at this point whether this game is going to be refreshingly easy or punishingly abstruse...

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Due to a few issues with the voice-acting, I had a quick search and discovered that the CD version is generally considered to be the poorest. The Amiga version seems to be the one most recommend, as it has nice graphics but no dialogue or close-ups removed. I'd be sacrificing the voice-acting but I think that's reasonable, considering I'll be going back to non-VO games after this anyway. Seems to be tricky to find the files needed to run it on SCUMMVM, though...

I've had a bit of a play, anyway. The audio drama was endearingly ambitious yet creaky, and I've figured out a couple of puzzles. It's pretty satisfying and atmospheric figuring out how to use a magic spell in interesting ways, even though at the moment it seems to be in practice just a long-winded way of clicking on verbs...

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Immediately had to resort to a walkthrough. Currently finding the rules of the spellcasting rather loose and obscure, plus an inventory graphic was actively misleading (I wonder if it didn't exist in the earlier versions and was added in by someone who didn't understand the puzzle). Now I know that I can do stuff like cast the owl spell on some darkness so I get the see-in-dark power of owls, or play spells backwards to get the reverse effect, or do a certain number of successful spellcasts (I assume) to level up, I might do a little better.

Also, the sound glitches are pretty irritating, especially as the game still plays in silence most of the time. Shame I couldn't get the Amiga version going.

EDIT: got a bit further, though I had to use a WT again because something was unclear, due to a mix of low-fi graphics, unhelpful description and this game's predilection for layouts that are not only unclear but also lead you round the most tortuous path possible. On some screens you have to wait for a good 20 seconds or so for your character to enter, or travel from point to point. I can't help but feel like it's more Last Crusade style padding. This suspicion was compounded when I got to a fucking maze. Much like in LC, you can only see a small radius around your character - here, this combines with the shitty layouts to make the maze even more infuriating.  I'm not sure how much longer I'll last with this game, between the audio bugs (and irritating voice-acting) and the abrasive design...

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Okay, finished. I admire the ambition of this game and there's some lovely atmosphere, but it was full of irritating design choices and that ending was really weak. I can see why this is a cult favourite compared to its smash hit franchise starting sister game The Secret Of Monkey Island.

Rating: Red.