Having played the Secret of Monkey Island many people encounters the pirate Cobb at the SCUMM bar talking about this high fantasy game called Loom and in the third game they reference someone named Bobbin Threadbare (Bobbin was also referenced in the original game at the circus). So with that much advertising I just had to play it, and boy was it fantastic. For clarification I went with the CD-version without going that some saw as a bit flawed due to changes in dialog and almost no music. I can see way and I might replay another version just to get a full experience. Still it was a rather fantastic journey while it lasted.
The story is that your character Bobbin Threadbare is a Loom-child, a child spun from the Loom by his mother Cygna Threadbare without consent of the elders, for this she was turned into a swan and banished beyond the thread. Around his 17 or 18 birthday he is summoned by the elders and there he overhear his caretaker arguing with the elders and she is put under the same spell as Cygna, but it backfires and turns the elders into swans at the same time. They all fly away leaving Bobbin alone and with one of the elders distaff with which he can perform drafts that works like spells. Trying to find his people he set of to the mainland uncovering a plot by the clerics to use the different skills of the guilds to conquer the universe. Really, this is novel worthy and apparently it was plans for two sequels making a trilogy and it shows since in the endgame the clerics try raising an army of the dead, but instead brings back Chaos and it's up to you to stop her. The climatic ending is near the Loom as Chaos wants control of it to spin the world as she see fit, but you decide to destroy with a draft that she gave you by killing your caretaker. MY GOD!!! WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? Well, you enter the rift in the thread, turn yourself into a swan and fly away and Chaos shouts that we shall meet again. And of course there was no sequels. The man behind the idea left for other projects and no other people at Lucasarts felt they could do it so it disappeared. Damn it.
It's the ending of Dark Dawn all over again! Boy, it was a long time since I referred to Golden Sun (when I wrote this 3 months or so ago, before I went on the Golden Sun memory lane).
It is a beautiful looking game, especially since the CD version boosted the graphics quite a bit, but as mentioned the music mostly disappeared and seems to only play during talking sequences. Sad since most I've heard is rather good renditions of the music from Swan Lake. Also, it appears to be censored, but the scenes that are left can be quite gruesome with two persons unmade by Chaos (the first ones head and chest flew at the screen as well) and another one eaten by a dragon. Apparently if you want perfection and could do without the voices the FM Towns version is the way to go. I must try that one out definitely. The voices are taken from a radio drama that came with the original and explains the origins of Bobbin and history of the world. They do a good job although at some points Bobbins voice actor feels a bit to much of a drama actor than a fluent voice actor.
Gameplay wise it's an adventure game where you walk around and solve puzzles to further the plot. Now, the puzzles are all solved by using magic. Magic works by reciting drafts you have stumbled upon while interacting with items all around you, hearing music notes that you then use the distaff with. Each spell consists of four notes and if you do it in reverse you can in some instances cast a reversing spell or similar. For example reversing Open makes thing close and so on. A tip is to write down every spell you see and it's only 16, but if you forget them it can put you in a dead end, but with the internet today you can trail and error you forward with the right spell (the spells are randomised at the beginning so don't bother saving the combinations after you finished). Spells are also effected by the difficulty you choose at the beginning. First time I choose practise and you get the different notes and they light up and in the bottom is a box showing the whole spell. Good way to start to get how the game works. In standard mode they just light up and I've heard that in expert mode you need to identify the notes by hearing. Might try that with the FM Towns version, but I guess not many are able to play that.
Not everyone can be a Leopold
Overall it's a short game and rather easy I found. The only times I had some trouble was at the very beginning before I understood how I played the game (it introduced me to The Adventure Gamer so no harm done) and the second time was near the end when I had mapped most of the spells and realised I don't know their true names, meaning I don't know how to use them. I checked it out on the web and since that is manual knowledge I don't see it as cheating, although it made me solve the current puzzle. It's well worth a play, but as mentioned it ends on a cliffhanger which to this day is unresolved. One could hope that Disney pick this one up and turns into their own animated fantasy trilogy now that they own all of Lucasarts. I would go see it, but then again, the only movie they've made that is equally dark is probably Taran and the Black Cauldron and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
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