Chronicles of Mystery: The Scorpio Ritual

Played for a few minutes while the voice dialog kept clipping out. Then it crashed at the cave scene. I followed all of the suggestions to run the game clean, but none of them worked. I reinstalled the dependent files, but it still crashes. This game program shell is trash. Why put out a game that the majority of people with good fast computers, who I assume is most of this group, when you know it doesn't even work?! It's theft if you ask me.

This game has some fun scenes and puzzles, but the plot ending is one of the weirdest and most lazily-written I've ever encountered in a game (it really doesn't make much sense). Can't recommend.

Good old school point and click. Didn't figure out you could run by double clicking until about 1/3 of the way through the game. Nice graphics for the time. Good interacting with surroundings. Couple of sound bugs, but there's text so it doesn't hurt the game. Only had to look up a walkthrough once. There are parts where it's not super obvious what you are supposed to click on. Good voice acting. Interesting plot. 4/5

Can't in good conscience give this a yes. Its just one in a million cookie cutter PnC games being cranked out assembly line fashion in its time. Kind of like they are now. Remember The Adventure Company? The horror! Story is insipid and dialogue is banal. Puzzles are largely there to make the game last more than fifteen minutes. Which, in my opinion, is why most of these so called "adventure games" had puzzles in the first place. There was no story and characters obviously ripped from current hit movie franchises or other games. Franchises built on franchises built on franchises equals entertainment for an audience with the mean mentality of a fifth grader. Somewhat like cranking out a half dozen multi-million dollar Marvel Comic movies every year for a decade and people STILL line up for them. "Its fun to go to the movies!" Like all of the older games that Steam hawks it doesn't work without tweaking with help from the modding community. Kudos to them. Never did get the sound to work properly which was no big loss because the voice actors sounded like they were reading their lines off bubble gum wrappers... in the dark... with a match... while running late to catch a flight. If your feeling nostalgic for such games of the time and can get it for a couple bucks go ahead. There is always the amusement factor of something this vapid. But then again, there's all that pixel hunting. The horror! The horror!

This is a cheap production, cheap story, "friends in a basement made developers" style adventure game. The plot is derivative as can be (Umberto Eco was right in Foucault's Pendulum that every insane story must contain the knights Templar) - a Lara Croft knock-off travels around the world the solve ye olde inventory puzzles (paper clip + platic tube + old shoe + talking parrot = rocket launcher, wait what?) After the yawn-grade anti-climax of an ending (oh no, not my uncle... wait what?), we are rushed out of the tavern with hasty credits. And that's it - I hope you bought it in sale, it's like a cheap tequila - it gets the work done, but the headaches...

The story doesn't really explain much of the mystery and the ending is quite abrupt. Mechanics and graphics are fine given the age of the game so I don't have any issue with that, I just wish the story was a little more fleshed out and explained.

I've been searching for games similar to the Nancy Drew format - I'd recommend this game, especially for the price. I wish the ending would have provided more dialogue or closure or maybe just a longer scene, felt like it was short and missing something.

A good adventure game!
Logical clues and solutions.

Tip: Click on everything in your inventory in case something can be disassembled or combined with another item.

Finished! A nice classic point-and-click adventure. The ending was really abrupt and the translation/dialogue was questionable, though otherwise I really enjoyed this game!

Pro: Overall was a nice little game to widdle a few hours away. Simple controls and I like that it doesn't let you leave an area until you're done with it. Beautiful scenery too.
Con: Story was a little weak..what was that ending?!!

Fun point and click adventure. A few of the solutions are very dumb and sometimes it's annoying if the puzzle must be solved chronologically, but for the most part it's a great fun. Ending is terrible, though.


7/10

Great game! The puzzles weren't the best, but the atmosphere and beautiful backgrounds made up for them. I did have issues with the dialogue skip as others have discussed, but it didn't bother me much.

A fairly short point and click adventure roughly 4-5 hours in length. Kind of bummed Steam failed to record my time for it but I pretty much finished it in one sitting. I really enjoy adventures like this, set in modern times exploring ancient folklore. It falls with Broken Sword and Gabriel Knight.

GRAPHICS: The locations are absolutely beautiful. I found them very pretty to look at despite being outdated. It's probably the game's biggest selling point. Sadly, each location only has limited actions to what you can do. Most of them are hardly utilized, you have to wonder why they made it an option to go there in the first place. Overall, the world is very, very small with not a lot of npcs. Most of the gameplay is backtracking to Sylvie's home and the site, and every other place is only touched upon once.

GAMEPLAY: A pretty standard point and click. I really appreciate Sylvie putting back items you'd only need once but I'm sure people see this a backtracking gripe. There were some instances where items and hotspots were placed out of view (and they're very small), luckily, the interface offers a hotspot viewer on the bottom right corner. That being said, you also have to right click things in your inventory to activate some actions that Sylvie does not do automatically so you have to be thorough when you pick items up and checking to make sure you can't do anything with them that way.

There's a lack of direction in what to do or what to need. Some event scenes are not triggered automatically, which makes you wonder "why am I doing this puzzle" or "why do I need this" or "why am I still here". Sylvie doesn't help in telling you what her next course of action is. If she does, it usually doesn't help you figure out how to get to that point.

Unfortunately there's no fast travel, double clicking directions does make Sylvie run but otherwise you have to wait for her to walk from scene to scene. There's also a problem of being unable to click out of dialogue you've already seen.

My biggest interface gripe is that there are areas that are no longer necessary but they remain present, it makes you suspicious that you missed something or you need to go back there again but no, you don't have to. They're just leftover ghosts.

PLOT: To be honest, the story was engaging at first but then the ending fell extremely flat. Maybe the devs had to cut it short, the climax being really rushed. Most of the exposition is done in writing, a lot of writing.

This was a fun, inexpensive little game. It's not super memorable or something that I see myself playing again, but I enjoyed it. I really liked the "Indiana Jones adventure" type feel it had. If you're just looking for a quick casual game that doesn't cost much, I recommend giving this one a try.

Interesting game, beautiful artwork and graphics. A bit easy and a lot of running around from point A to point B, but then again, it is a point-and-click adventure. The voices were very suited to each character and the background music was really good. I would definitely recommend this.

pros

+ good looking and detailed graphics
+ good voice acting
+ easy puzzles (if you don't want to challenge)
+ hotspots are marked to make it easy. No need to hunt for pixels.
+ raiders of the lost ark type story is intriguing
+ background music is good


cons

- sometimes voiceover suddenly cuts and there are lip sync problems
- game is too dark and there is no gamma option in menu.
- game could have been longer.

Overall this is an decent and typical old school point and click adventure game.

The puzzles are either easy or annoying. Not hard, just annoying. The plot is not too heavily invested in, and feels more like the game is "plot-flavored" rather than having an actual plot. The end provides no explanations or any sense of closure. Nothing becomes much clear than comparing to the first 30 minutes of game play. In addition, there are severe speech-bugs, and most conversations stop in mid-sentence. I'm afraid this is a definate "No".

Too short, too easy, too led. Simpy a point and click video - no real challenges or puzzles. You can only leave a location if you have completed every task there. Some activities/actions have not bearing on the story or the game, but you have to complete them to continue.

Disappointing.

The highlight of this game is the well-present graphics, stand-out soundtrack and likeable main character which give a very pleasant first feel to the game. The dialogue, while the main character is done well, comes across as uneven, odd and nonsensical. The story is yet another riff on the Knight Templar and remains serviceable until the ridiculous ending.

The biggest problem is that this game is the excessively linear, even for the genre. You simply cannot do any actions until some prior action has been done, and the game informs you of this bluntly. If you haven’t got all the objects from a map, you can’t leave. The game is plagued with do random event X in random location Y and then gets a phone call to make the story progress.

Then there is the problem of the voice acting getting clipped, the fact that the voice acting is often vastly different from the sub-titles, random objects you need lying around in random locations, and all you have is a mess. It’s too bad, because there are some parts of this game that are done well, and other parts that are done poorly. It has potential, but just never lives up to it.

A little glitchy in parts re: Speech in regards to what is on the screen. A problem solving game rather than a hidden object game which is quite refreshing. Puzzles vary in simplicity to complexity. A rather absorbing game, set some time aside, this is one of those that will pull you in and steal hours :D