Return to Mysterious Island

Review by Jen
February 2005

I don't know what came over me, but all of a sudden, after several straight months of RPGing, I was in the mood to play something point-and-clicky. Return to Mysterious Island had been loaned to me and recommended by one of our e-friends here at FFC, so that's what I chose to start. And here I am, some six hours later, putting finger to keyboard to tap out this review.

Return to Mysterious Island was developed by Kheops, the same post-Cryo outfit that made the abominable Crystal Key 2. This, in addition to my inherent distaste for Dreamcatcher the company tainting my outlook on most of their products, led me into the RMI experience with a jaundiced eye. Imagine my delight, then, when the game turned out to be an absolute little jewel!

You play in the first person as Mina, modern-day solo round-the-world sailor who becomes shipwrecked on an uncharted island. First you have to survive in the short term, and then you must figure out how to get off the island. That's about it. As you explore the island, you uncover a few clues related to the ultimate fate of Captain Nemo and the Nautilus, they of Jules Verne fame. The game purports to continue the events of Verne's Nemo novels; however, these elements seem as if they were included merely to account for the presence of the various artifacts on the island. In other words, the story takes the proverbial back seat to the other game elements.

In the course of your orchestrating your eventual rescue, you will pick up a million or so inventory items. Within the easy-to-access (right-click) and -manipulate inventory subscreen, you must work out various combinations to make new items and disassemble and recombine these as situations warrant. You will make bowls and batteries and bombs, you will rescue monkeys and repel robots, each puzzle leading up to the next, all culminating in a crescendo of completion. ... Okay, maybe I got a little carried away there, but I did spend at least half of my game time working within the inventory.

As you successfully figure things out, you get points, like in the old-school Sierra games. There is a ton of stuff you don't ever have to do to complete the game; you could conceivably play through again taking a different path to the ultimate solution, using different combinations of inventory items to accomplish the same goals, perhaps trying for a higher final score. I left a couple of unfinished puzzles I would have liked to go back and solve; I, however, am not a replayer, and the thought of having to repeat all of the parts that stay the same was somewhat less than scintillating.

The developers incorporated several possible solutions to many of the hurdles faced by Mina. And if, say, you had already used up your piece of driftwood that would've been handy another time, there will be a different item you can use in place of the driftwood. I have not seen this level of multiple approaches to problem-solving incorporated into an adventure game before ... and I liked it!

There are not very many different locations on Mysterious Island, which makes bearable the inherent tromping around in these types of games. And since all of the locations are exquisitely rendered, a visual treat for any eye-candy junkie, it is not at all painful to look at them over and over again. The game world, though small, is well-imagined and tightly executed and consistent and true to itself. This last factor is hard (for me) to describe adequately, but it really can make all the difference between a good game and a not-so-good.

Movement is node-to-node, and while standing on a node, there is the dreaded (for some) fixed-point cursor. Fair warning to those of you with delicate innards! Speech is subtitled throughout, and for once there are no typos; as well, the spoken text matches the written. There are some timed puzzles; all time limits, however, are generous, and if you fail you automatically return to the point right before you started the timed puzzle.

As mentioned, Return to Mysterious Island is not a long game and as such does not warrant a long review. Or that's my story, anyway; I'm done here. Return to Mysterious Island may be a fluke, the excretion of some strange wormhole that momentarily rent the Vast Universe of Dreamcatcher Suckitude, but it is a sweet little game that would likely please any adventure gamer, especially those who play their games more than once. 

The Verdict

The Lowdown

Developer: Kheops
Publisher: Dreamcatcher
Release Date: November 2004

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System Requirements

Windows 98/ME/2000/XP
600 MHz PIII (800 MHz recommended)
16x CD-ROM drive (24x recommended)
64 MB DirectX compatible 3D video card
DirectX 7 compatible sound card
64 MB RAM

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