Upon loading up Agon: The Lost Sword of
Toledo I was immediately reminded of the opening scenes to puzzle
adventure movies like National Treasure, which I suspect was exactly
the point. The Lost Sword is the fourth offering in this series, the
other three presented together in what is labeled Chapter 1 making
Agon: The Lost Sword of Toledo Chapter 2. Confused yet? No? Good.
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And so we begin. A watercolor introduction to the countryside.
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Node to node travel on the map.
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In Agon you continue to follow the adventures of
Samuel Hunt, a Professor from England who has been charged by the
British Museum to find a number of items, including documents and
puzzle games. This search takes him on many travels, in this case
arriving in the beautiful town of Toledo, Spain. Here he attempts to
contact his wife’s old drawing teacher only to find that the man has
died, leaving behind a daughter who is betrothed against her will and
in love with the son of the very family you’ve come to speak to about
the game you’re seeking. Convenient, but it wouldn’t be an adventure
game without a little bit of convenient coincidence. Now he must find
the game he seeks, the lost – and supposedly stolen – Sword of Toledo,
and reunite the lovers saving Carmen from a terrible fate, all before
Carmen’s birthday.
Agon is controlled through a simple node to
node point and click interface using the mouse to look around and guide
you through the room you’re currently in and the map to jump from place
to place. Once you’ve spoken to an NPC who gives you a location that
place appears in color on the map and can be easily moved to. You’re
in first person most of the time, a viewpoint that many recent
adventure games have moved away from. Personally I like this mode just
as well as third person.’
However, the thing that did annoy me
highly was the inability to click through dialogues quickly. Once an
interaction is begun you have to wait until the speaking part naturally
finishes before you can move on. As far as I’m concerned the reason
games are subtitled is because I can read faster than listen to the
voice acting and can move through the conversations quickly. There
were several points during long conversations where I left the computer
to get a snack and then read back in the journal to get the pertinent
information.
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Ahh…the piteous Carmen.
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I love the backgrounds!
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Speaking of journals, the log book in Agon is a very useful tool.
It keeps track of the conversation arcs that are of importance to the
game so that you can review them whenever necessary, which is fairly
often. Agon is a very detailed game and requires that you pay
attention to the items you can interact with, especially anything you
can put into your inventory. I love what they’ve done by using many
types of scripts in the books and letters, but then giving you an
option to mouseover the text and get a typed version that’s simple to
read. The puzzles were challenging, more so if you’d missed a detail
early on and had to return to gather an item or a clue. Most of the
game is focused on NPC interaction and puzzles, so it’s a rather sedate
kind of adventure.
Technically the game is very good. The voice
acting works for the most part, though I wanted to know why everyone in
Spain speaks mostly unaccented English, and the score and background
music is understated but fits with the setting. There’s the occasional
odd guitar twang that I suspect is supposed to cause heightened
anxiety, but mostly made me turn down the music.
Graphically
this game really shines. It’s a very pretty game in terms of
animation, background and character modeling. There are moments that
really feel like you’ve walked into a painting and are being allowed to
look around, and I loved that. I liked going to new areas of the city
just to see what other scenery had been presented. If I had any
complaint it would be that there was sometimes a black line that would
show on character’s faces or the lip motions would end up slightly out
of time with the words.
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Searching for answers.
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At the hands of the artist…
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Overall I enjoyed playing Agon, but there
isn’t a lot of replayability to the game. Once you’ve solved the
mystery and the puzzles they’re solved and the answers don’t change on
a second go around. It’s a solid offering that kept some good hooks in
the story for future episodes, which I’m hoping we don’t have to wait
long for.
Top Gaming Moment: I
liked the story of star crossed romance that was woven in with the
puzzles. It was a nice change from a lot of the more typical adventure
game stories and added depth to Professor Hunt.
