Fenimore Fillmore: The Westerner

Childhood game

Finally after all these years... I finished the game and saw the ending :') Its the game of my childhood and it was way ahead of its time, even tho dialogues now are a bit too silly, but I still laughed a lot of times. The attention to details is amazing and soundtrack is so climatic. I fully recommend!

Nostalgia

Kein perfektes Point & click Spiel, allerdings kenne ich es noch von damals aufgrund von Computer Bild Spiele.
Und ich hab einfach eine Schwäche für Nostalgie-Games aus meiner Kindheit.

This game is a Monkey Island ripoff that fails to present enjoyable gameplay. There are too many problems, which makes the gameplay unbearable; I don't even know where to start. disorienting fixed 3D camera mechanics and angles, frustrating controls, awkward pathfinding, and some gameplay elements that do not belong to the adventure genre, such as resource management, farming and harvesting vegetables, unskippable and frustrating shoot-em-up arcade and fishing minigames. The game says to press END to skip dialog and cut-scenes, but I just couldn't. There is no manual save, only auto save; the absence of a hotspot display button causes pixel hunting; searching and grabbing objects especially difficult indoors because of the poor navigation setup, inventory management is cumbersome; "insult fights" and drinking games with multiple characters are overused. There is no map with shortcuts, so the main character slowly walks everywhere, and there is too much back and forth that unnecessarily padded out gameplay time. The lack of a hint button could also lead to frustration because, without a text walkthrough, most of the time you have no idea what to do to progress in the story.

The main character is also a jobless cleptomaniac; you have to steal one dollar from every drawer and closet in rooms or send a telegram to various people to ask for money because you have to buy some inventory items from a store. The protagonist was introduced to you as a hero in the game's beginning, and you're on a mission to save some people's land from corrupt bad guys, but he also did morally questionable things during the game, such as stealing money from other people's houses, lying to people, forging the sheriff's signature, attempt to rob a bank, hitting a pig's head and making him unconscious for no good reason, and destroying a bridge with dynamite.

cartoony 3D background graphics look colorful, characters are quirky and funny, a typical western story about a heroic good cowboy guy and his friends versus some ugly bad cowboy guy and his minions is cliche but enjoyable, cartoony and cinematic cut scenes are well made, character's full-voiced and they sound decent, there are some funny jokes and situations, but unfortunately, all of them can't make up for the tedium of the gameplay. The game also crashed multiple times, and I encountered a bug that caused the main character's head to disappear. Overall, playing this game felt like a chore for me, and unfortunately, I give it a thumbs down.

Pros
-Basic but pleasant graphics. I thought some of the faces could have done with more texture but I think this was the style they were going for. It reminded me of some earlier telltale point and clicks such as bone out of boneville and tales of monkey island (game-play was similar enough to those titles as well.)
- Puzzle design was mostly fine and as expected for this genre, I recognized a few nods to other games such as Sid Meyers pirates and broken sword. A few gotchas such as a character may have asked for something earlier in the game but the game and dialog options for the character never remind you.
- Funny dialog and some hilarious animated sequences.
- Decent voice acting.
- Solid performance (with one caveat, see cons about settings bug)
- Story was kind of bonkers but that's almost part in parcel for this genre.
-Press END to skip dialog, cut-scene.

Cons
- The inventory interface works fine but is not really optimized for the amount of items you will pick up. Scrolling is super slow.
- Some settings quirks; when I started up the game it seemed to be locked to 24fps. The next time I started the game I was getting 120fps (and the game actually looked better) However after opening and closing the settings screen the game dropped down to 60fps and then opening and the closing the settings screen once more the game dropped back down to 24fps. Restarting again and It was back to 120fps. Not sure what was happening but I'd suggest not opening the settings if you can avoid it.
- Some pathing issues, where the character wouldn't go where intended or tell you they couldn't get there, like they just weren't able to walk around the open door or cupboard.
- Character seemed to disappear a couple of times but was still in the scene. They eventually came back again after continuing playing.
-First person camera used for checking something in finer detail could behave strangely; sometimes the character would randomly turn in a different direction before showing the first person view.
- The game is artificially slowed down with resource requirements i.e. there are carrots needed for traveling to different areas and money needed to buy items or complete puzzles to progress the game. You can grow or buy carrots and you find money inside various drawers and closets in the game. You can also get some money from completing some puzzles/tasks. The carrots seem novel and even fun at first but quickly become tedious. The money is not an issue in late game as you will eventually get a lot of it but it can be a real struggle early game because you might spend it on the wrong things and find it difficult to progress. HINT sending telegraphs seem to be good way to make some early money but the game arguably doesn't make that very clear and regardless you may have spent all of your money before you locate the telegraph office and you require some initial money in order to send telegraphs.
- Some of the actions taken by the main character will have you question whether they are actually the hero of the story; lots of lying and stealing going on and the whole "plan" you conceive is morally dubious.
- No option to show all hotspots as far as I know.
- While you can press end to skip dalog, there is no option to skip travel and teleport to the end location as far as I know. So you are stuck with slowly walking across some of scenes

This game babysitted my childhood and now I can finally buy it , understand the story and finish the game. Love it , a pure MASTERCLASS

Old and gold point & click adventure. Nice setting with good characters (voices and animation) and mostly clear progression, all logical. Only towards the end I was missing hints where to go next to move on the story. Also the carrots that your horse constantly requires are a hassle and only good for the achievement. But these are only minor flaws to a good game. If you like point & click this one is for you.

This game was well thought of while developing, and will be liked by a certain group of players but i highly recommend it.

The tedium is powerful in this one.

Short of a pure text game, the genre with the easiest interface to code is probably the Point n' Click.
If you really want to botch it, use 3D.
That's exactly what happened with Fenimore Fillmore. A failed experiment from the turn of the century (it's a remaster, not a 2017 title.)
The game is in 3D, therefore moving around is guaranteed to be a pain; here, worse than expected. Camera guaranteed to be all over the place, visibility poor, exits hard to reach or use, and pixel hunting particularly difficult.

You could do worse yet, by coding neither a hot spot key nor a fast walk.
Revistronic (the original devs) also did just that, to annoy their customers as much as possible (and Casual Brothers didn't improve anything.)

They also added chores to the gameplay itself, instead of puzzles. For example, to backtracking, a staple that other games try to mitigate, to render as fast and smooth as possible.
Here, backtracking requires your horse, and your horse requires carrots as fuel, and you have to manually farm the carrots before you can backtrack. A whole series of minute actions, each as boring as the next one, to be repeated over and over just to be able to move around.
How any dev could think it a good idea for entertainment is beyond comprehension.

I still played for a while, because the objectives are engaging, the characters are well-written, dialogue is smooth, and the slapstick humour is actually funny enough.

However, after a number of annoying mini-games, including a nasty one having you fish a trout with your bare hands while you character can't even stay put, I gave up at the shooting range. Such arcade crap has no place in a Pn'C. Besides, it was already boring 40 years ago, so it's not going to excite today. Furthermore, you need to finish 4 or 5 long stages of it in a row, when each stage is already too long and tiresome on its own. What's next, a dating sim mini-game ? Eleven rounds of Pong ?

Design fails have piled up high enough already. I have no desire to see what cherry will top it.

I might be a little biased because this was my favorite point-and-click when I was a kid, but it is a great game! It is a little silly at times, however that's the part of its charm. Some cutscenes and dialogues genuinely made me laugh at loud. The story is simple but still fun and engaging. I had so much fun playing and revisiting old memories.

Best westerner game ever made. One of the best quality among czech dubbing . Very impresive game even after 18 years.

When I was a boy I dreamed of being a cowboy like my father. Unfortunately, my father died in a horrific cattle accident when I was 5. I saw it all from atop a rock that I used to sit on when ever there was a big cattle muster. 20 years of hardship has passed since that day, as my mother and I took charge of the ranch in his absence. Then when she took ill, all the burdens fell on to me. I guess I never really felt like the cowboy my father was, as the ranch slowly deteriorated and the milk went sour. In my brief moments of respite and relaxation I try to unwind with computer games. It is the only thing that makes me feel a spark of joy anymore. It kinda goes without saying that I gravitate to western and cowboy themed games. So many have made me feel safe and warm, harkening me back to when times were good. This, however, has sickened my soul and actually made me realise how abusive my father was to me and that he really wasnt a cowboy at all. I am sitting here now after playing this with his old Smith and Western in my hand, thinking that everything I have told myself all my life is a lie. A lie like this game. To think of all the fun I had playing the 3 skulls of toltec and then to get given this. The sun is setting on me now and casting a shadow over my heart... it is time to go.

Unless this is an old favorite or yours or you would just enjoy riding around and being a cowboy in-game... then this probably isn't for you. Oh, things start off engaging enough, but it doesn't take long for how dated the game is to show. Modern games have sorted out things that this game simply has not.

There are needless lulls in the gameplay - you have to grab your hat before going outside instead of him grabbing it automatically when you try to get out the door. Going and grabbing your saddle from the stable and then walking out to your horse and then saddling it instead of just clicking on the horse and it automatically saddles it so you skip all the tedium, etc.

You will have a bit of difficulty searching for and grabbing objects, particularly indoors because of the poor navigation setup. If you have an objective you need to complete in order to proceed with the main story, most games nowadays will give your mission a bit of direction "I need to get a painting for the girl so she'll lend me her dog. Hmm. I bet I could find one at THIS LOCATION'.

Games should make you go: 'Hmm. How do I solve this?" instead of "Uhh... Okay... Where the heck do I go?"

Unless you like old, slow-paced, unpolished gameplay, and wandering confusedly through an open old west world... I'd just say "nope" to this title.

A very solid graphic adventure, the strongest part is represented by the puzzles that are really good (and this, has always been the factor N1 in any adventure).
The artworks are of average quality but are lovely painted with extreme cure, the same for the cinematics that are really funny and enjoyable to watch.
One of the things i mostly missed was the option to accelerate the slow walking and the fast exit from a scene, that would have speeded a lot the things making a little less stressing the gameplay, i also experienced few crashes in some points that forced me to reload a previous checkpoint.
Overall i feel to recommend this game to both the newbies like to the very expert adventurers who will find a decent challenge completing the story.

My Final Score is

79% /100

a cute point & click, old school style. thoroughly enjoyed it. no probs running on my pc except for one or two freezes, but luckily regular auto saves negated any disasters. without giving any spoilers, there was also a very nifty bit after the main ending, at the beginning of credits. fun!!

So many childhood memories. Unfortunately it still has the same bugs.

I really love this game.
This game had a big presence in my childwood but I never finished it because I was too young to have the necessary inteligence to do it until I saw this on steam and was finally able to buy it because my cd version is broken.
Despite being a good game I think that for people that don't have the same nostalgia as me 10€ is too much because it didn't aged that well however I bought it in a steam sale for a little less than 2€ which in my opinion is a really good price specialy because the game is simple but has a gameplay of at least 6/7 hours to finish it.

Funny click'n'point with pretty good storyline and memorable characters. That "remaster" on the other hand is really bad, models and environment were untouched, they only added dynamic shadows, depth of field in cutscenes and ambient occlusion which doesnt even fit the cartoony models.

I bought this game as it was re-released as re mastered and it looked like allot of fun. The intro was fun to watch and made you want to get into the game. There is a nice story behind the game and lots of nice comic touches and dialogue. It was fun to play while it lasted but unfortunately for me it kept crashing on screen change.
In the end I had to ask for a refund because for me it was a game breaker.
I recomend trying the game for yourself as it is fun to play.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLbO88QlwQQ&t=248s

The Westerner is an adventure point&click in a western/cowboy setting initially released in 2004. This remastered version adds new lighting and post-processing effects. I personally played the original release when I was a kid and thoroughly enjoyed it.

The positive

The negative

Conclusion