When the dice brought this game up as a possible choice, I smiled to myself. I had shown off the game for Extra Life previously as I played the demo on my Xbox, and I already had a good idea of what I was expecting. This game did NOT disappoint, even if it doesn't last long.
Story: Darkestville was once a peaceful place to live years ago, despite it's name. But something changed... you arrived. You are Cid, a demon who crash-landed in town as a baby in a comet. You grew up and proved how evil you were, doing what you could to cause mischief, mayhem, and any kind of trouble you could. As you grew up you moved into the castle in the center of town where you now reside with your pet fish Domingo. Life is truly grand as you plan and do dastardly deeds to the town from your stone keep!
However, you can only keep it up so long before someone is going to rise against you. Fortunately for you, the one who took up the call is a dork named Dan Teapot. Dan has spent his life trying to end your evil ways, but he's also an idiot. And today his plan seems no more useful then any other. He snuck into your castle, broke the trap door at your front gate, and is now holding the door shut so you cant leave. Quite innovative... at least for Dan. But as I said, he is an idiot, and it won't take you long to overcome this plan.
Unfortunately, Dan was particularly clear-headed this night and new he couldn't handle you alone. So he hired help in the form of the Romero Brothers, famous demon hunters and his plan was only to delay you... not that his plan worked, mind you. The hunters came and went, thinking you were Dan capturing Domingo instead! Now it's personal!
With this setup (most of which you will play in the prologue) it's time to spring your pet fish from the clutches of the demon hunters... and all the chaos that comes with it. The story is fairly simple and comes in 3 acts, but it walks that line of just staying long enough to remain welcome (it is also a very short game) while being genuinely interesting during that stay. It is well written and really I could find no real fault, from start to finish with the plot.
8/10
Graphics: There is a word for the art of this game and that word is "hand drawn." Cid's adventure will be displayed like most point and click adventures, showing the location you are in as you wander around the town. But the world itself feels a bit like a saturday-morning cartoon. Yes, there is a "dark and scary" tone to the look, but in a way that says kid-friendly, which fits perfectly for the sense of humor this game oozes. And that is the real charm of this game... darkly funny.
To this end the characters are also absolutely amazing. Everything is hand drawn and mostly hand-animated, continuing to give the game a look akin to the classic games of old and a saturday morning cartoon stuck in a blender. It is colorful and incredibly pleasing when you put it all together.
In fact I can only complain about one spot in the entire game, and it's actually a technical issue. The Mayor's House where the background must have been scanned in in sections... only they didn't line it up right so part of the background lined up wrong. The rest of the game looks so good this is just jarring.
8/10
Sound: You are not gonna get a lot of the music in this game. I believe the term "generic" fits here better then most. And yet at the same time, the tone fits perfectly with the vibe the entire game is going for: dark humor and an absolute love-letter to the point & click games LucasArts made back in the 90s and early 2000s. In fact you could probably swap the sound track with a game like Monkey Island and not notice a thing.
But the star here is not the music, but the voice acting. Almost the entire cast was played by a single person: Stephanos Rex. And we really should be giving an standing ovation, as not one of the characters sounds bad or gives it away. This man is an absolute pro and I can only hope to see more of his work in the future! In addition, I have to give a lot of credit to the writers as well. Cid's going to be the one you hear the most, and it's full of quick wit, dark humor, and just plain makes you smile (and probably laugh at things you shouldn't).
All in all, you are going to enjoy this game's sense of humor most through the sound, and it will be glorious
8/10
Gameplay: This is a point and click game, and as such you will be playing completely with the mouse, clicking where you want Cid to go and to interact with the world. The interface to do this is very intuitive. If your cursor is a hand, click to go there. If you can interact with it, their name will appear where you are pointing, clicking will bring up a small menu of 3 faces representing looking at, talking to, and interacting with the object. It will turn to a blue arrow to leave the area, and there if you need to go beyond what is on the screen there are three icons in the corners of the screen.
The most important of these icons is the treasure chest as that is your inventory which opens with a click and is easy to work with, but in addition you have the standard gear to access the options (and leave the game when you need to), and an exclamation point if you are stuck and need to have what is interactive in the location you are in to help you figure it out. And you may need this from time to time as the game does have some odd puzzle solutions from time to time. In most cases if you are thinking about how to make Cid be the most horrible person you can, you are probably on the right track (and at least you will get a laugh along the way).
In addition, this is one of those games that wont kill you for making mistakes, so feel free to experiment.
7/10
Bugs: Outside of the graphical issue in the Mayor's House I mentioned in the graphic section, this game had no issues at all.
Overall: While brief (I finished this game in about 6 hours), this is a pleasing little title. Funny, sharp witted, and to the point, this is an absolutely great love-letter to the point and click titles of old. If you were a fan of those, you are going to love this one.
Score:
8/10
System Requirements:
- 2.5 Ghz single core or 2.0 Ghz dual core processor
- 2 GB RAM
- Any graphic card that can use Direct X 9.0
- 1.5 GB hard drive space
- Windows 7/8/8.1/10
- Ryzen 7 (2700) 3.2 Ghz
- 16 GB RAM
- Nvidia Geforce 1660 (6GB VRAM)
- Windows 10 (64 Bit)
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