Torin's Passage

Does this game even need an introduction? It has spectacular graphics, a wonderful musical score and it was designed by the "father" of Leisure Suit Larry: Al Lowe. Need I say more?

Story

On an ominous night, as silence surrounds the royal castle, the King and Queen slumber peacefully in bed unsuspecting of the imminent danger that lingers in the night. Their baby boy suddenly cries up, sensing that something is wrong, but unfortunately he fails to wake his parents as a nurse carries him quickly out of the room to calm him.

And that's when terror strikes. An evil sorcerer materializes swiftly in the bedroom casting a terrible spell upon the royal family. Giant glowing snakes appear out of nowhere and rush through the air, showing no mercy to their prey. A mere couple of seconds later the King and Queen lay slain in their bed, never having had a chance. Only the baby prince, Torin, escapes the slaughter by being carried away from danger in his nanny's arms.

Dreading the sorcerer's curse, the nurse hides Torin at an ordinary couple's house who are without child. They are to raise the boy as their own and keep him safely out of harm's way.

The plan works and Torin grows up to be a kind-hearted young men, knowing nothing of his true heritage. That is, until one day a spell is cast on his parents by a mysterious sorceress and after getting frozen into a mansized crystal, they disappear without a trace into the ground below. Torin wastes no time and immediately starts on what turns out to be a long and perilous journey to find his parents.

Opinion

As you can see from the story, this game is quite a bit more serious than the Larry series but there is some room for comic relief in the form of Torin's pet: Boogle. If Torin's inventory should ever happen to run out of objects to use, Boogle can always turn into something either useful or utterly hilarious.

The great story accompanied by the enchanting graphic artwork and gorgeous animations make for a truly magical game. Add to that the beautiful musical score and you've got a definite winner. I deducted one point in the ratings from both the music and the graphics scores, on one hand because of the staticy sound and low quality sampling of the music tracks and on the other because of the repeating patterns in background graphics and the lack of detail in some of the scenes.

The only aspect of the game that remains to be discussed is the gameplay. Controlling Torin couldn't be easier and the inventory system is extremely user-friendly as well. Make sure you examine every object you pick up carefully.

As for the puzzles, they are very diverse, usually varying from chapter to chapter. In some parts of the game they are mostly story related while in others they come in forms of logic puzzles or - everybody's favorite - mazes. However, if you keep your eye open and don't miss any objects lying around, you won't have any problems with them. The story is linear which makes the story related puzzles child's play (unless, of course, you missed an object somewhere) and the logic puzzles are fairly easy. In addition to that, the game comes with a built-in hint system which provides very useful hints if you do manage to get stuck.

To be perfectly honest, I really couldn't put my finger on what makes this game so special, but one thing's for sure. It has a charm and cuteness about it that will simply get hold of you and will not let go for a very long time.