A Hit And Miss...
*spoilers ahead*
I'm not very much for point and click games but sometimes I find the plot engaging enough to play my way through one of these in order to progress the story.
Big problem here, the story is a mixed bag of botched punchlines and not so zany sidequests that feel like they were shuffled in just because. Sometimes it felt like I wasn't actually helping the plot along as much as being dragged through it.
The plot felt like it took all of 10 minutes to write. Some of the characters felt unnatural to the story and seemed like they would have been best excluded TOM for instance and (don't shoot me) the hanged man and his little skeleton slave.
They really had no ties to what the plot was supposed to be, in fact I still don't really know what TOM's part is in the entire story and the Hanged Man is just some guy that got killed by the cult and instead of exacting his undead vengence he lives in under the very building in which he was killed in his undead quest to build a tiny skeleton that sweeps? This is supposed to add some sort of comedic element to the story but after a few minutes of looking for the parts for the tiny servant I found myself without a punchline.
The puzzle, although not entirely difficult had me absolutly confused without a point of reference. I had no idea what I was supposed to do, so I tapped buttons randomly until I solved it. It was only when I solved it that I realized what I was supposed to do. I found it a little odd that I had posters up everywhere detailing how to combine items but none to tell me exactly what the hell the arrows were for.
The game mechanics were really basic (it's a web based point and click game), it still felt rather linear. The characters expression was rather unimpressive, the voice acting was great but you think someone tied up to a pole and about to drown would show a little more emotion. Any change in expression was simply not written in.
That's the thing, the voice overs were alright perhaps even above par for a game on Newgrounds but still lacked a animated quality. It was stiff and emotionless, the music at the end made me shut off my speakers.
The battle with the insults felt like a shot back to the original Monkey Island, except much less impressive and much less funny. But it was alot more enjoyable then the last battle which was much less enjoyable, felt unnatural to the rest of the story and if it wasn't for the song which I had to cut short, would have never pieced together myself.
On the short end of the long list, this game doesn't have the story to drive a web based point and click game.
On the long end of the short list, it was long and had a couple of interesting characters both of which felt like they didn't belong in the game in the first place but none the less.