Four Fat Chicks -- Versailles 1685 Review

Versailles 1685

Review by Orb
September 2002

The job in edutainment, it would appear, is how exactly to spoon-feed the player what's good for him while keeping him jolly. When this works, the gamer feels educated and entertained but without any sanctimonious preaching about what he needs to know. Versailles 1685, published by Cryo in the halcyon days of 1996 when the world of adventure gaming was ahead of rather than behind it, is such a good example of how to lay the education within the entertainment that anyone attempting to put together one of these suckers should sit up and play it.

The finest thing about Versailles is the attention to historical detail. Truthfully, if the player wanted to roll through the game and ignore anything that smelled of learning, she could fairly easily accomplish this. But the game is written in such a way so as to draw the player into the intrigue of the seventeenth century court, and in doing so it causes one to want to learn more about the cast of characters and the environment in which they find themselves.

Now I have to say many are the times I have played some "epic" game where I'd just put the headphones down so I'd be relieved of the experience of listening to some badly written and overplayed dialogue, spewing forth some fetid, half-baked story.

In other words, I'll go out of my way to skip the in-game encyclopedia or the monster tomb that seems chained like an anchor around the necks of many an adventure game or edutainment title.

But not so with Versailles. Designed in a charming style, with a love-it or skip-it system for learning more about French court, history, and the people who dwelled there in real life, this system is like a breath of fresh air. Breathe in.

The game reconstructs the palace as it was found in 1685, and it skillfully allows the player to explore and learn from this exploration just how the architecture looked, how the rooms were decorated, and what they were used for. The quality of this is comparable to other "recreation" games, such as Titanic: Adventure out of Time, The Legend of Lotus Spring, Golden Gate and Hell. Okay, I'm kidding about that last one.

The game story could very well be taken from historical fact, as it involves the sorts of things that did go on in the king's court of that day and the sorts of situations the people living there were most likely on constant guard against. The story takes place during the reign of Louis XIV. The First Valet to Louis, Monsieur Bontemps (a man we learn in real life had a considerable amount of power and position) has discovered that a mysterious and unidentified pamphleteer is at work in the court to undermine the king and destroy Versailles. Playing as Lalande, Valet of the Bedchamber, you are given the job of tracking clues and uncovering the plot in full to foil it. And you have just one day to do it.

Played in the first person, the story unfolds in seven acts and in a well-organized manner. As each act unfolds, cutscenes show the formality and duty of the King's day as it progresses. Here again is an aspect where the story and gaming melds nicely with historical information.

Graphics are at times a bit dated and pixelated, but with any game that is put together properly, this is not a distraction. The attention to detail as far as the textiles and paintings throughout is nothing short of remarkable. The prerendering is delicate and accurate. I wish I had a swatch or two for my interior designer. That is, if I had an interior designer. When first published, the game was touted as having an "Omni 3D engine," which enables the player to get a look at the surroundings in a 360-degree spin, but only in a smattering of fixed locations.

Clues to the mystery are in places cleverly dished as Lalande overhears court gossip, which again ties the gameplay into how the court at that time was run. Puzzles involve correct gameplay sequences and the use of inventory. The inventory system is a bit cumbersome—all items retain fixed positions in the tray, and often holes in between items are left so that the player must scroll through a larger amount of space than necessary to retrieve a needed item.

The soundtrack is exceptional. Throughout the game Baroque symphonic pieces in period style lay the foundation for immersion.

Very entertaining in an almost melancholy way, Versailles is a game made exactly how an edutainment title should be, reflecting the moment of now-defunct Cryo's publishing ascendancy.