7.5 KiB
| date | title | tags | score | howlongtobeat_id | howlongtobeat_hrs | game_name | game_genre | game_release_year | game_developer | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-05-14 | Gobliiins 5: Early Nineties Vibes Almost Included |
|
3 | -1 | 12 | Gobliiins 5 | adventure | 2023 | Pierre Gilhodes |
In case that isn't clear yet from the theme of this website, I love the quirky Gobliins puzzle adventure games. Gobliins 2: The Prince Buffoon had a massive impact on me when I was just a wee lad; it was my Monkey Island revelation. My dad bought the boxed copy back in the day that came with a novel color code lookup copy protection. I didn't understand most of the English and even though we jotted down every word revealed to us after desparately taking a joker, I don't think we ever finished the games in the nineties.
Years after Coktel Vision died, the Goblins co-creator Pierre Gilhodes took stab at creating a successor with a 3D engine. That was a big mistake resulting in confusing puzzles, difficult navigation, and ultimately poor reviews for Gobliiins 4. Luckily, in 2022, the Kickstarter reveal of Gobliiins 5 showed a return to quirky 2D cartoon humor: Pierre was determined to bring back the original Goblins vibe, exciting many old-time fans such as myself. The game was eventually also released on itch.io for $11. But is it as great as its pixelated ancestors?
In a nutshell, it comes close: very close, but not quite close enough. But let's first take a look at the visuals.
The screenshots clearly showcase lovely hand-drawn art that perfectly demonstrates the typical Gobliins vibe. Some of the objects, such as a skull, a key mechanism to wind up a clock, and the keys very closely resemble their nineties counterparts, and I loved that attention to detail. In-between levels, the Gobliins newspaper reveals some of the actions of the Gobliins with a twist of humor, as they did with the original games. If you talk to a fish or a spider, a zoomed-in portion appears on screen, and all animations are entertaining and great to look at. It's a bit of a shame that the resolution is locked but given the sole developer effort with the Adventure Game Studio toolkit, I don't mind.
What is less impressive, though, is the lack of any background animation. In Gob3, clouds moved and things zoomed by, while in Gob5, due to the lack of any movement except the things you click on, every scenery feels very stiff. In a way, it's more of a comic you steer your goblins around in than a level in a video game. Scrolling to the left and right in the levels is somehow a choppy experience, even tough this never happens with Kathy Rain, another game that started life with the Game Studio tool.
Mechanically speaking, the game is very rough around the edges, to the point that it actively works against the player. I'll give a few examples while comparing the mechanics to the earlier games:
- If you click on one of the characters in Gob2/3, they change posture to visually indicate which one's active. Here, not so much.
- Since the game resolves around solving puzzles using multiple goblins at the same time, quickly assigning commands is vital. These puzzles are the most characteristic "Gobliin-y" and are a bit of a pain to pull off in Gob5.
- Quickly switching between goblins is only possible by moving your mouse pointer to the top right and clicking on their avatar---another chore.
- The UI screen overlay on the top frequently sits in the way of selecting objects in the scene. In previous games, this was done by right-clicking and the menu screen would appear where one clicked.
- You can't save. Yes, you read that right! Pierre thought it was better played in a chunked way level by level and if you were half-way, you simply restart since you know what to do. I think that's a rather poor excuse for technical problems that persisted into the release.
- In previous games, you could travel between different scenes to scour for objects while in Gob5, your actions are confined to a single scene. This could be intentional or another technical limitation?
- Not really a mechanical issue but a striking one nonetheless: I absolutely loved the music in Gob2/3. Some of the tunes of Gob5 are reminiscent of its predecessors but overall I was underwhelmed: none of the tracks stuck with me after finishing the game.
I recognize this is an indie game and Pierre isn't a developer, but last year's Dexter Stardust---another one-man adventure game adventure---was highly polished and left a big impression on my wife and I. That is to say, it can be done.
I wish Gobliiins 5 was kept in the oven for another month or so, because the core Gobliins gameplay is present and I really want to see this succeed. The game is filled to the brim with funny moments, stupid lines (full of English translation errors...), and even stupider objects for you to pick up and hopefully use in a puzzle. In Gob5, you again control three Goblins: Oops, the talkative one with the inventory, Asgard, the burly viking that bashes things, and Ignatius, the horny old wizard. Interacting with objects and people (or potatoes?) yields different results depending on the goblin, and the huge amount of useless but funny puns and animations put in are simply a joy to behold.
The puzzles themselves aren't too easy or too difficult, which can be a difficult balance to maintain for a typical "moon logic" adventure game such as the Gobliins series. Don't try to think too logically here. Sometimes, the candlestick just doesn't do what you'd think, and that's okay: every time your attempt to solve a puzzle by applying an item fizzles, there's a chance of invoking a bit of funny dialog or animation. I found the "sanity balance" to be much more digestible than the sometimes maddening puzzle sequences of Gob2/3. Then again, those games had hints built-in, and luckily, I found a YouTube channel that breezes through every level, as part 4 contains a nasty one I just couldn't wrap my head around.
The game is divided into four sections with four big levels each, easily providing 10 hours of head scratching and smiling quality time---if you can look past its very rough edges. Speaking of head scratching: the game comes with four different .zip and .exe files you have to unpack in different directories because the author couldn't figure how to merge them into a single game... I would have turned to a few experienced Adventure Game Studio devs to help iron out these issues.
Hopefully, the game manages to generate some success, and Pierre manages to find much needed help to patch up its rougher edges. Gobliiins 5 is clearly a diamond in the rough, especially compared to the 3D failure of Gobliins 4. I highly enjoyed its quirky puzzles and discovering the various animated reactions of the weird potatofied (and perhaps remarkable brownish) world.
If you're a fan of goofy adventure games and don't mind the occasional technical shortcoming or step back compared to the grandness of Gob2 and 3, Gobliiins 5 won't let you down.
