Decent quests are rare these days. Games with quest elements are always welcome, but projects created in the image and likeness of timeless classics like Full Throttle, almost never released. And those that exist do not always meet the expectations of fans of the genre. In short, in order for a truly good classic quest to appear in our time, the stars must align in a special way, not otherwise. Rejoice – the stars have aligned.
The best demon in the village
Meet Sid. A cheerful goofball (despite the fact that he is a lonely orphan), who loves to commit various small and not so dirty tricks, has a good rest and dreams of someday achieving national recognition. True, he doesn’t take any meaningful steps towards achieving his dream and, if you look closely, he prefers to go with the flow, avoiding anyone’s company.
If the Dude from Big Lebowski was a demon and lived in Darkestville, he’d look something like this. What does the demon have to do with it?? Oh yes, I almost forgot: Sid is a real demon – without a soul, but with huge sharp teeth, which you don’t feed with bread, let him commit some monstrous crime. For example, play a prank on the local mayor or borrow money and happily forget about it.
Despite the rather small scale of the hellish plans being implemented, Sid is still a full-fledged demon. He even has his own castle, which, as usual, is sometimes attacked by the Almighty Forces of Light and Good. Fortunately for our main character, his only serious opponent from among the local residents, Dan Tipot, is a much bigger goofball, and generally a loser, which is immediately noticeable by his appearance and behavior. Otherwise, Sid will never have a carefree life together with his beloved pet, the fish Domingo.
However, even the bungler Dan one day has the sense to turn to the services of professionals – a team of demon hunters. After this trio arrives in Darkestville, the life of Sid, and all the other residents, goes topsy-turvy – however, Sid himself becomes the main culprit of epoch-making events for the city. There will be enough adventures for everyone, and no one will leave offended!
Point and click
When the phrase “classic quest” is https://satoshi-slots.co.uk/mobile-app/ mentioned, what usually comes to mind first of all are the masterpieces of the genre from the great LucasArts and no less great Tim Shafer (Timothy Schafer). Darkestville Castle continues glorious traditions The Secret of Monkey Island, Full Throttle and other developments created using the SCUMM engine. A simple interface (or rather, almost its complete absence), original graphic style, point’n’click gameplay, emphasis on characters, dialogues and riddles of varying degrees of complexity and logical solution – if you use a time machine to move “Darkestville Castle” back 15 – 20 years, then players of the past will notice something is wrong only when looking at the quality of the picture.
Everything is simple – we go to locations, collect various items, talk with other quest heroes, in numerous dialogues trying to figure out what needs to be done to go further. Items can be combined with each other and used on objects and characters; the main thing is to guess exactly how. Everyone’s favorite assessment of quests for the logic of riddles in our case will be somewhere between “normal” and “mild madness”. At the very beginning, you are unlikely to stumble on the next problem, especially if you listen and read the dialogues and descriptions carefully, but in the last chapter sometimes you have to act almost at random.
However, you shouldn’t expect any mind-bending riddles – the developers don’t intend to torment players any more. In the end, if you wish, you can highlight all actionable objects on the screen and solve the problem by simply going through all possible options for interacting with them.
There’s a joke in every joke
The graphics, especially the style chosen by the artists, are, of course, worthy of the most flattering words, but the writers deserve much more praise. Excellent humor, without excesses into vulgarity or smut, but not entirely distilled – just right for a mature player. The quest, despite its cartoonish wrapper and simple gameplay, cannot be classified as children’s. There is also topical satire here – one conversation with a representative of oppressed minorities (in this case it is a werewolf, and not what you think) is worth it. But everything is within the bounds of decency – this is not South Park style madness.
Almost from the very beginning you catch yourself thinking that you don’t want to miss a single line in every dialogue – and not because it’s necessary to complete. On the contrary, there are minor characters with whom it is not necessary to talk. But almost all conversations, as well as Sid’s sarcastic remarks, cause at least a smile. There are a couple of very good jokes that can make you laugh out loud, but the rest will also serve as an excellent source of good mood. The game can’t exactly be called dull, which, you see, is also not bad.
The voice acting in the domestic localization, oddly enough, also turned out to be very successful. I never had the desire to switch to the original, although it is traditionally good. But the translation of the text let us down a couple of times, and in one case, a rather stupid mistake could lead to a dead end when searching for a solution to one of the problems.
The only really unpleasant minus is that the adventure ends noticeably earlier than you want it to. A complete passage without skipping dialogues and with a head start on solving all the puzzles will take at most 6-7 hours. However, Sid, as well as the rest of the residents of Darkestville, may meet us more than once – the quest from the Argentine developers turned out just right, which means it would be a sin not to release a sequel.
The game turned out to be moderately complex, with good humor, excellent voice acting and stylish graphics – just what those who miss this genre need. However, you can also take a closer look at the rest Darkestville Castle pay attention – it can be a good choice for beginners too.
Interesting? Do you want to receive Darkestville Castle as a gift? Write about it in the comments, and we will give away five copies of the game among our readers.
Pros: good jokes; bright characters; pleasant music and sound accompaniment; excellent localization.