It's been a while since I've posted impressions! Blame work, clicker games and Dragon Quest VII on the 3DS (which I've now finished. Not sure if I want to do any post-game stuff or move on to DQ VIII, which I also have.) ANYWAY. Thanks to bobnowhere's birthday gift, here are some impressions for The Esoterica: Hollow Earth:
The story: The year is 1920. You play Stephanie Stone (a pornstar name if ever there was,) granddaughter to Professor Stone (I think they gave him a first name, and I'm pretty sure it was Alistair? Not a very memorable character,) who discovered that there was a secret advanced civilization underground, but is running into trouble from - who else? - Germans. The default villain race for any story. At any rate, you're sent a message from your grandfather and have to go rescue him from the Germans, and find the civilization named Agartha, or...something.
I'll level with you here. The story was half-baked even for a hidden object game. It felt like not even they knew what they were going to do with it, and it was kinda hard to follow, partly because...
The dialogue and voice acting: For some reason, the voice acting utterly stops about halfway through the game. Did they run out of money? Did they decide the voice acting just plain sucked, because the actor playing the Russian guy pronounced "passage" to rhyme with "massage?" Or because the protagonist screams like she saw a mouse, rather than screaming like she's falling through a fissure in the earth that opens at her feet?
The dialogue is riddled with spelling errors. My favourite is near the beginning, where Stephanie says "I must go do England immediately." I guess when you have a porn name like Stephanie Stone, you'll make Freudian slips like wanting to "do" England. Also, the writers definitely didn't do the research. Upon reaching England, she points out that "hardly anything has changed since 20 years ago." Seriously? Nothing changed between 1900 and 1920? The effects of a world war? The fact that the number of cars on the road has increased roughly a thousandfold? Yeesh. She also says that once the international community learns of the new civilization, "they will have no choice but to defend Agartha." Really. The same country that looted ancient Egyptian artifacts and were putting mummy wrappings in their tea at about that time would have no choice but to defend a civilization. Pretty naively optimistic there, Steph.
Overall, the dialogue is weak and the voice acting is only half there.
The gameplay and puzzles: I ran into a hidden object scene where I could click and click on the correct object and it wouldn't work. I had to restart the game for it to register. The hitboxes were way too fiddly in this game. They required near-pixel perfection. The connect-the-dots puzzle was one of the most tedious puzzles I've ever played in an HOG, if not THE most tedious. (Rotate a ruler to go between two dots, then click both dots with high levels of precision. Why is the ruler needed at all? Why not just allow me to click one dot then drag to the other one?) A lot of the puzzles required manipulation of small bits, so it could get frustrating. My favourite puzzle in this game came near the beginning, where you had to do one of those "repeat the musical pattern" things playing jazz pan flute. It went at a decently fast clip so it actually sounded like music. But that was only one diamond in a field of crap. The most bizarre one? Having to complete some embroidery. Bitch, your grandfather's in trouble. Save your pioneer-era hobbies for some other time!
It should be noted that one achievement - for viewing all the cutscenes without skipping - appears to be bugged. The developers have been aware of it for at least a month but it's not fixed yet. I had to download someone else's save to get this one.
The graphics: Not bad. The cutscenes were done in a still-frame, almost "motion comic" style, similar to what Marvel Heroes does. Being a game set in 1920, it had art deco all up ins, always nice to see. And Stephanie was pretty cute, even though they didn't resort to giving her flapper-girl outfits.
The length: According to my profile, 3.8 hours. So about average for this type of game. It did pad out a bit because the minigames took a long time to complete: like you get the idea but you still have to go through all the motions to finish it.
The verdict: This game looks and feels rushed. Buggy scenes, broken voice acting, and ending that's barely there and doesn't really make any sense, no QA to say "hey, this minigame sucks," all point to "we gotta shovelware this out the door." As such, I can't recommend it. It had potential, but they blew it big time.