I also played Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded I think last year or the year before and have similar thoughts. I know it’s a famous title/franchise and I wanted to check it out, and it was pretty much what I expected. I really hated the forced gambling-via-savescumming but it was otherwise an alright point and click puzzler with hit-or-miss humour.
I have half an idea of playing Love For Sail too at some point as that’s supposedly the series high point, but it’s not exactly a high priority.
I don’t mind the writing that much since not everything has to be up my alley and, more importantly, it’s a remake of a game from 1987 - different time, different industry. I do however think they could update it a bit more in terms of gameplay at least. Maybe not completely reworking the moon logic behind some puzzles but getting rid of the option to hard lock your progress would be enough to improve the experience quite a bit, at least for me.
The hard lock is particularly egregious I agree. I also dislike moon logic but I chalk that up to “those were the times” as well. Back in those days strategy guides and phone-based help lines for adventure/puzzle games were common and making games inscrutable and puzzles impossibly idiotic were seen as a value-add to extend playtime on your purchase.
As far as the humour, one thing that stood out to me (besides the multitude of variously juvenile sex jokes) was that there was a little bit of a mean-spirited streak in the writing. At the end of the day Larry is not a bad or evil guy, he is a naive loser. And a large part of the game is kind of making fun of him for that, and something about that doesn’t sit right with me.
I also played Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded I think last year or the year before and have similar thoughts. I know it’s a famous title/franchise and I wanted to check it out, and it was pretty much what I expected. I really hated the forced gambling-via-savescumming but it was otherwise an alright point and click puzzler with hit-or-miss humour.
I have half an idea of playing Love For Sail too at some point as that’s supposedly the series high point, but it’s not exactly a high priority.
I don’t mind the writing that much since not everything has to be up my alley and, more importantly, it’s a remake of a game from 1987 - different time, different industry. I do however think they could update it a bit more in terms of gameplay at least. Maybe not completely reworking the moon logic behind some puzzles but getting rid of the option to hard lock your progress would be enough to improve the experience quite a bit, at least for me.
The hard lock is particularly egregious I agree. I also dislike moon logic but I chalk that up to “those were the times” as well. Back in those days strategy guides and phone-based help lines for adventure/puzzle games were common and making games inscrutable and puzzles impossibly idiotic were seen as a value-add to extend playtime on your purchase.
As far as the humour, one thing that stood out to me (besides the multitude of variously juvenile sex jokes) was that there was a little bit of a mean-spirited streak in the writing. At the end of the day Larry is not a bad or evil guy, he is a naive loser. And a large part of the game is kind of making fun of him for that, and something about that doesn’t sit right with me.