I just finished the main part of the third Awakening game, The Goblin Kingdom. Much to my surprise, it had an actual plot! The previous two games really were more of ‘explore a setting with a bit of a backstory to it’. This plot did not try for fully voice-acted NPCs, thank God, and the ‘cut scenes’ were narrated rather than acted.
The plot was simple but definitely there. It had a mild surprise at the end, even, and it laid down lots of foreshadowing for the next games (I assume). Gameplay-wise, it had more complex hidden object scenes, with more work required than just clicking the object. Once I had to put objects back! And I really liked a scene where I had to find locations through a telescope– that was a presentation I took special note of because it has so much potential.
In Moonfell Wood, the menu-accessible minigame was a solitaire-style card matching game like Mahjong. I like Mahjong. In The Goblin Kingdom, it was a tangrams game, which I find a lot less fun. I only skipped a sliding tile puzzle, which I really hate, but I kept being tempted on the tangrams.
Now to finish the epilogue and, eventually, move onto Skyward Castle.
