Keepsake

The Good
+ Not bad visuals for a 2005 game (but could be better)

The Bad
- Lack of interesting characters, which comes with a lack of interesting dialogues (in fact, there were almost none NPCs till the moment I stopped playing) - No ability to use collected items (everything is used automatically, which is strange for a point'n'click game) - Interesting location at first glance (it's some kind of Hogwarts after all) which quickly hits us with huge, empty and plain boring sublocations - Really hard puzzles that are overly complicated and sometimes not even working (no wonder the authors gave us an option to skip them) - Walking from point A to B is often a long chore, which makes backtracking common and annoying - Unintuitive map

The Bottom Line
I must say, Keepsake is probably the worst and most boring point'n'click game that I have ever played up till now (I played a lot of these). It's not about aging, because need I remind you about a masterpiece called The Longest Journey from 1999, which was so captivating in every aspect? Keepsake simply cannot make me intersted enough to keep going with its bland plot, characters and locations. Don't try this game unless you are a really, REALLY patient gamer that won't get bored with anything easily.

The Good
The Game Graphic are very beautiful. The Sound & the voice acting of the game is also superb. The Game contains great backgrounds and stunning scenery. The story of the game itself is also very good. The game takes place in a Magical Academy and the player must search for the disappearance of all the Students & Teachers. The story of the game has some great twists and turns.

The Bad
the game Install process is very slow as it contains over 10,000 files and about 1,000 folders.

The Bottom Line
Great game and a must play for Adventure Fans. It surely give a taste of old "Longest Journey".

The Good
I enjoyed the characters most in this game. Voiceovers and dialogs were so well done that you really come to like or hate characters very easily. Zak will have you laughing and rolling your eyes throughout the game, while you'll cringe when you hear the merchant. And having an animal following you around makes things quite interesting... especially once you brew a potion to change his shape. The characters have true depth to them and that really helps in an adventure game since there is little to no action is such games to make up for lack of story or characters.

I also really enjoyed the story. You start out on your way to a school of magic. What you find there shocks you... no one is there. Now what? The game takes you through trying to find out what happened to everyone, while giving breathtaking views and incredible graphics and animations. The story takes some twists and turns as you go along and it keeps you interested.

Another thing I liked was at one point in the game where Lydia goes through a portal and says "Whoa!" when you reach the other side. Guess what I said at the same time... Heh. Walking sideways around the outside of a tower is worth saying "Whoa!" over.

Finally, the game allows even the worst adventure game player to complete the game. Every puzzle has hints... from a simple explanation of how it works to doing the puzzle for you. If you just can't get past something, use the hints and you can continue. Or, if you don't know where to go next, use the hints to give you a visual display of where you should go and what to do there. No need for walkthroughs in this game.

The Bad
I suppose it's normal in adventure games, but I really don't like walking around a huge map and getting to new places and puzzles, only to find out that I can't complete the puzzles until I do something else first. I also don't really like having to walk back and forth across the same area over and over to complete different tasks. That is normal in these games, but perhaps that is why I don't usually play them.

The Bottom Line
If you like adventure games, you'll love this one. If not, you still might. Magic, adventure, puzzles, interesting characters, great story, great graphics and animations... what more could you ask for in a game? Go try it out. I think you will find in quite enjoyable.