In our time, there are rare worthy quests. Here are games with the elements of the quest - always please, and projects created in the image and likeness of timeless classics like the Full Throttle , almost do not produce. And those that are, do not always justify the expectations of fans of the genre. In short, in order for a really good classic quest to appear in our time, the stars should meet in a special way, not otherwise. Rejoice - the stars still converged.
Meet this is Sid. Merry razdolbay (for nothing that a lonely orphan), an amateur to perform various small and not very dirty tricks, to have a good rest and dreaming of ever getting a nationwide recognition. True, he does not take any meaningful steps to achieve his dream and, if he looks closely, prefers to go with the flow, eschewing somebody's society.
If the Dude from the Big Lebowski were a demon and lived in Darkestville, he would look about the same. 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, do not feed them with bread, let's commit some monstrous crime. For example, play a local mayor or take money out of debt and safely forget about it.
Despite the rather small scale of the infernal plans being implemented, Sid is still a full-fledged demon. He even has his own castle, which, as usual, sometimes is attacked by the Almighty Forces of Light and Good. Luckily for our protagonist, his only serious enemy from among the locals, Dan Tipot, is a much bigger dolt, and in general that's still a loser, which is immediately noticeable in his appearance and behavior. Otherwise, do not see Sidu carefree life on a couple with your favorite pet - the fish of Domingo.
However, even the stragglers of Dan one day have enough mind to turn to the services of professionals - a team of demon hunters. After this trio arrives in Darkestville, the life of Sid, and of all the other inhabitants, flies by somersault - however, the main culprit for the epoch-making events for the city is Sid himself. Adventure is enough for everyone, and no one will leave offended!
When mentioning the phrase "classic quest", as a rule, one remembers first of all masterpieces of the genre from the great LucasArts and no less than the great Tim Shafer (Timothy Schafer). Darkestville Castlecontinues the glorious traditions of The Secret of Monkey Island , Full Throttle and other developments created with the SCUMM engine. Simple interface (more precisely, its almost complete absence), original graphic style, point'n'click-gameplay, emphasis on characters, dialogs and puzzles of varying degrees of complexity and consistency of solution - if you use the time machine to transfer the Darkstein Castle for 15 years - 20 back, then the players of the past will notice anything amiss except when looking at the quality of the picture.
It's simple - we go around the locations, collect various items, talk with other characters in the quest, in numerous dialogs trying to figure out what needs to be done to go on. Objects can be combined with each other and used on objects and characters; the main thing is to guess how. Favorite assessment of all the quests for the logicality of riddles in our case will be somewhere between "normal" and "easy madness". At the very beginning, it's unlikely to work on another task, especially if you listen carefully and read dialogs and descriptions, but in the last chapter you sometimes have to act almost at random.
However, it's not too hard to expect riddles - the developers do not intend to torment the players once again. In the end, if you want, you can highlight all available objects for the action on the screen and solve the problem by simply sorting out all possible options for interacting with them.
Graphics, in particular the style chosen by the artists, of course, is worthy of the most flattering words, but the writers deserve much more praise. Excellent humor, without kinks in vulgarity or chernukha, but also not quite distilled, - the very thing for a mature player. Quest, despite the cartoon wrapper and simple gameplay, can not be attributed to children. There is a topical satire here - one conversation with a representative of oppressed minorities (in this case it's a werewolf, not what you thought) what's worth. But everything in terms of decency - this is not a frenzy in the style of South Park.
Almost from the very beginning you catch yourself thinking that you do not want to miss a single line in every dialogue - and not because it is necessary for passage. On the contrary, there are secondary characters with whom it is not necessary to talk. But almost all the conversations, as well as Sid's malicious remarks, cause at least a smile. There are a couple of very good jokes that can make you laugh in the voice, but the rest will be an excellent source of good mood. A dull game can not be exactly named, which, too, is not bad.
The voice in the localization, oddly enough, also turned out to be very successful. The desire to switch to the original did not arise even though it is traditionally good. But the translation of the text a couple of times pumped up, and in one case, a pretty stupid mistake can confound the solution of one of the problems.
The only really unpleasant minus is that the adventure ends much earlier than you want. Complete passage without skipping dialogs and with a forex to solve all puzzles will take from 6-7 hours. However, Sid, as well as the rest of the inhabitants of Darkestville, can meet us more than once - the Argentine developer's quest has turned out all right, which means it's a sin not to issue a sequel.
The game turned out to be moderately complex, with a good sense of humor, excellent sound and stylish graphics - just what you need for those who miss this genre. However, the rest can look at the Darkestville Castle more attentively - it can be a good choice for beginners.
My personal rate is 6/10
