The Blackwell Legacy

The Good
The game has a very nostalgic vibe about it with a VGA look (320x200 resolution and 256 colours) and colourful backdrops. The setting and story is quite good although a bit primitive in places. The interface is kept very simple and easy to use.

The Bad
Almost every area of the game is flawed:

The backdrops look a bit primitive in places which I generally don't mind but combined with the game being very short and having only 4 locations (and 12 screens in total) they could have done better.

The story is rushed through, really. Adventure games have to have a good strong story so background info to flesh it out is important to me. The letters from Rosa's grandmother were a good start but it went downhill from there, with even the ghost Joey not really giving any info or refusing to. It makes it feel like the game is too shallow and flat.

The game is also terribly linear, with a single step being able to stop you completely. Most puzzles are very logical, but it's less fun when you constantly have to travel around the same areas to unlock the next clue. Since this game relies on your notebook, every clue ends up getting passed around everyone you can talk to (only a few people luckily).

Voice acting is a mixed bag - I thought Rosa's voice was pretty annoying at times. She may fit the character very well in a realistic sense, but it didn't make it very appealing to listen to her talk all the time.

The main annoyance, is the game's length though. You can complete it in three hours - that's how long I took and I didn't rush at all. Half the time is spent running back and forward trying to find the next scrap of info but generally, it's far too short. When the game ended, I thought another story would follow but it doesn't, that was it. In size, this is about the first part of Monkey Island 2 where are on Scabb Island.

The Bottom Line
It's an adventure game that borrows from many others (Gabriel Knight for one) and keeps it simple. Rosa, the girl you play, has a ghost called Joey who hangs out with you and together, you solve mysteries. It's also more an investigative adventure game (think Discworld Noir) and less a game centered around object hunting and combining.

The Good
I am a big fan of point and click games like this having played all the LucasArts, Gabriel Knight and that sort of stuff way back on my old '486. This game falls squarely into that category and I liked it a lot.

I liked the backstory even though it is not completely told in this opening episode and there are many unanswered questions about both Joey and Rosa's mother & aunt. I expect more will be revealed in the later episodes.

I was surprised to find the whole story fully voiced. For me the voice acting seemed very good. There's also music which was OK and at least did not annoy, and sound effects.

The artwork is what I'd expect playing a retro style game and it worked for me, plus there were no pixel hunting scenes - everything I needed to find I found easily it was what to do with it that I had problems with (see below).

The Bad
There's not a lot in this game that I did not like. My main problem was that I got stuck a couple of times and had to resort to a walk-through. You know that moment in a point and click game where you've done everything at least a couple of times - well I had a couple of those. What I learned was that, of course, I had not done everything and once I knew what I'd missed I was back on track again.
I don't like using a walk-through but in this case I learned how the game works and I hope to carry this knowledge through to the next episode and play through unaided.

The version I bought included bonus commentaries from the developer, on Steam there's an achievement if you play through the whole game with both commentaries enabled. I had one of these enabled by mistake and there came a point in the game where it kicked in to tell me that when the original voice track was recorded a marching band walked past outside and could be heard faintly in the background. This is undeniably interesting but I did not need this information and I especially did not need it at that point in the game. I disabled the commentary and won't be collecting that Steam achievement. It's a good thing if that's what you like but it's not for me.

The Bottom Line
I bought this game as part of a discounted bundle on Steam. It's probably best thought of as episode one in a series than as a game in itself. It's about three hours long, longer if you replay trying to get all the Steam achievements, and I consider the £0.89 it cost me extremely good value for money.