Developer: Microïds Studio Paris
Publisher: Microïds
Platform: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S
Tested on: PC
Amerzone: The Explorer’s Legacy – Review
Back in 1999, Belgian comic book artist and video game director Benoît Sokal unleashed his debut point-and-click game Amerzone: The Explorer’s Legacy on an unsuspecting public. The game was a critical and commercial success, selling over one million copies and directly leading to Sokal’s Syberia series of games. A quarter of a century later, Microïds, who also handled publishing duties for the original, are returning to Amerzone with a full-fledged remake. Unfortunately, Sokal is no longer with us, so we’ll never know what he’d think of this reimagining himself. However, we can try to answer whether the remake of Amerzone: The Explorer’s Legacy honours the legacy of the original game.
Story
The story of Amerzone is based on an album of Sokal’s Inspector Canardo series of comic books, though you won’t run into any anthropomorphic ducks here. Instead, the adventure is quite literally experienced through the eyes of an unnamed reporter. He’s been sent to Brittany to interview the elderly professor Valembois about his expedition to the South American country of Amerzone in the 1930s. Our protagonist’s timing couldn’t be worse, as he arrives moments before Valembois kicks the bucket. His dying wish is for the journalist to return a giant egg to Amerzone. This egg is the key to the mystery surrounding Amerzone’s mythical white birds. The journalist sets out to fulfill the professor’s last wish using the Hydrofloat, a unique vehicle that also acts as the game’s hub area. That’s easier said than done, as in the sixty years since Valembois went to Amerzone, a lot has changed, with the professor’s former companion, Alvarez, now ruling the country as a dictator…
Graphics
We’ve come a long way since the pre-rendered cutscenes and static backgrounds of the original Amerzone. The game has been rebuilt from the ground up, with fully realized environments and character models. This does create an interesting juxtaposition, as your surroundings look like you can freely walk around in them, but the game still follows the same logic of things happening on self-contained screens like they did in the original. The transitions between these screens are handled in a rather unusual manner. The best way to describe the effect is that it is similar to moving between two adjacent points on Google Streetview. Aesthetically, Amerzone is similar to Microïds’ Poirot games. Unfortunately, the game’s performance isn’t always up to snuff, and we did notice a good amount of stuttering and lag throughout our time with it. It’s a bit of a shame, as Amerzone is a good-looking game as a whole, but these visual hiccups break the immersion.
Sound
Ambient sound effects do most of the heavy lifting for Amerzone’s soundscape. While a new soundtrack for the game was recorded by Inon Zur of Dragon Age: Origins and Fallout 3 fame, the music feels underutilized. If you take a look at the separately available soundtrack, you’ll see that it only comprises twenty minutes of music, spread across twelve tracks. It is used mostly during transitions or when a puzzle is solved. Instead of background tunes, Amerzone mainly relies on the sounds of nature to bring its South American jungle setting to life. There is plenty of voice acting too, but the performances are a bit hit or miss.
Gameplay
When the original Amerzone debuted, it was considered a groundbreaking take on the point-and-click adventure genre. The remake stays true to the spirit of that original game, faithfully recreating the sense of intrigue and mystery that drew so many people in the first time around. By sticking close to the design philosophies of the original, Amerzone definitely provides a change of pace compared to its modern-day counterparts. The game takes things deliberately slow, and excels at both building a compelling atmosphere and laying out a fantastic story. Comparatively, the puzzles are on the easier side, and there isn’t a whole lot of fast-paced action going on. Instead, the narrative is the driving force behind Amerzone. Expect a lot of reading too: the majority of relevant information for your expedition is obtained from poring over ancient journals, letters, and other documents.
There is an undeniable charm to the old school design philosophy behind Amerzone, but it has its downsides as well. The game’s reliance on narrative and the chapter-based structure make for a game that feels very linear, removing any sense of player freedom. The individual puzzles may not be all that complicated, but it isn’t always clear which objects you can interact with. While this made it likely that you could get stuck in the original game, the remake remedies this with a simple QoL feature. You can highlight all interactive points of interest at the push of a button. Amerzone’s puzzles typically rely on deductive reasoning rather than obtuse out-of-the-box thinking, and it’s unlikely that you’ll have to resort to a guide to complete this one.
Point-and-click games typically suffer from a lack of replay value. Amerzone tries to remedy this somewhat by introducing a secondary difficulty that shakes up the solutions to the puzzles. Granted, even at this higher difficulty, the game never really becomes overly difficult, but this does help mitigate the fairly short run time by giving you a reason to play a second time. Another new feature, Investigations, also pads out the game. Each chapter of the game holds hidden clues, and there are “overarching” clues as well. Collecting these results in the journalist writing an article about the country of Amerzone’s history. You won’t have to replay the game if you missed any, as you can return to previous chapters to look for clues. They do help with padding out Amerzone’s 6-8 hour runtime, and they encourage appreciating all the details that are hidden throughout the game.
Conclusion
We simply don’t get enough games like Amerzone anymore. The game’s attention to detail and deliberate slow pacing contribute to a masterclass in storytelling. The remake may suffer from visual hiccups here and there, but it stays true to the spirit of both the original game and a bygone era of late ‘90s point-and-click adventure games. This is the kind of game where the journey is more important than the end goal, and where the sense of adventure is constant, even if it is a very linear one.
No Comments