If you’re an adventure game fan of a certain age, you’ll have a place in your heart for Simon the Sorcerer. Part of the first major wave of point-and-click adventures back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, Simon offered a goofy British counterpart to Monkey Island’s swashbuckling comedy.
The series now returns with a faithfully written prequel that will delight long-time fans. Telling the tale of the titular conjurer’s beginnings as a magical chosen one, we follow Simon as he gets lost in a fantastical world, learns to wield magic, and meets his long-term antagonist, Sordid.
Simon the Sorcerer Origins has all the charm of its predecessors and even brings back Red Dwarf actor Chris Barrie, who voiced Simon in the first two games. The dialogue is funny, cynical, and very British. Rick Astley even pops up on the soundtrack for nostalgia-tinged opening credits sequence.
Our sarcastic hero is constantly breaking the fourth wall. At one point, a waypoint appears on your map, only to come crashing down into the actual environment. Elsewhere, Simon frequently looks straight at the player to comment on the ridiculously contrived situations the developers have put him in.
Those situations follow the tried-and-true point-and-click formula of hunting down items and finding ways to use or combine them to fulfil an ever-increasing set of goals. Your bottomless wizard hat stores things of all shapes and sizes. How you use these items in puzzle-solving is seldom straightforward, staying true to the genre’s tradition of clever frustration.
While obtuse solutions are expected of ’90s-inspired adventure titles, the logic-stretching still frustrates on occasion. Areas are large enough that it can become a chore to wander through environments, trying all your inventory on everything around you.
Fortunately, a user-friendly interface and control scheme make cycling between interactable objects a breeze. Gone is the tedious pixel hunting of yesteryear; now you can flick between points of interest with the shoulder buttons, or reveal everything in the area with a push of the shoulder button.
There’s an alternate control system for those who want a bit more of the original’s cursor manipulation. Additionally, undocked mode makes full use of the touchscreen. A hint system would have been a good quality-of-life feature, but Simon will occasionally comment on potential solutions.
The hand-drawn artwork is charming, if occasionally clunky. The aesthetic recalls Return to Monkey Island in its stylised interpretation of the ScummVM-powered heyday. Animation can feel stiff at times, and when the camera zooms in too close, the art does not always hold up under scrutiny.
That being said, Simon the Sorcerer: Origins is a solid return for a beloved series, and the developers at Smallthing Studios seem more than capable of carrying on these magical adventures.
If you’re an adventure game fan of a certain age, you’ll have a place in your heart for Simon the Sorcerer. Part of the first major wave of point-and-click adventures back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, Simon offered a goofy British counterpart to Monkey Island’s swashbuckling comedy.
The series now returns with a faithfully written prequel that will delight long-time fans. Telling the tale of the titular conjurer’s beginnings as a magical chosen one, we follow Simon as he gets lost in a fantastical world, learns to wield magic, and meets his long-term antagonist, Sordid.
Simon the Sorcerer Origins has all the charm of its predecessors and even brings back Red Dwarf actor Chris Barrie, who voiced Simon in the first two games. The dialogue is funny, cynical, and very British. Rick Astley even pops up on the soundtrack for nostalgia-tinged opening credits sequence.
Our sarcastic hero is constantly breaking the fourth wall. At one point, a waypoint appears on your map, only to come crashing down into the actual environment. Elsewhere, Simon frequently looks straight at the player to comment on the ridiculously contrived situations the developers have put him in.
Those situations follow the tried-and-true point-and-click formula of hunting down items and finding ways to use or combine them to fulfil an ever-increasing set of goals. Your bottomless wizard hat stores things of all shapes and sizes. How you use these items in puzzle-solving is seldom straightforward, staying true to the genre’s tradition of clever frustration.
While obtuse solutions are expected of ’90s-inspired adventure titles, the logic-stretching still frustrates on occasion. Areas are large enough that it can become a chore to wander through environments, trying all your inventory on everything around you.
Fortunately, a user-friendly interface and control scheme make cycling between interactable objects a breeze. Gone is the tedious pixel hunting of yesteryear; now you can flick between points of interest with the shoulder buttons, or reveal everything in the area with a push of the shoulder button.
There’s an alternate control system for those who want a bit more of the original’s cursor manipulation. Additionally, undocked mode makes full use of the touchscreen. A hint system would have been a good quality-of-life feature, but Simon will occasionally comment on potential solutions.
The hand-drawn artwork is charming, if occasionally clunky. The aesthetic recalls Return to Monkey Island in its stylised interpretation of the ScummVM-powered heyday. Animation can feel stiff at times, and when the camera zooms in too close, the art does not always hold up under scrutiny.
That being said, Simon the Sorcerer: Origins is a solid return for a beloved series, and the developers at Smallthing Studios seem more than capable of carrying on these magical adventures.
