Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers 20th Anniversary Edition (PC) (GOG.com)

 

What do you know about voodoo?

Got this together with Legacy of Time and I had to take the bullet some time so why not now right when I was all in on Sierra Adventure games anyway? So I began playing. First of, the game felt a bit off. The character models in 3D is a bit wonky and Gabriel had this black shadow over his arm and Mosley looks a bit odd and so on. Nothing much really. I maybe prefer the pixel art over 3D so that can be part of it. And then the voices. Better be careful here. They are clearer this time around with better technology and such, but I prefer the original voice cast. You can't really beat Mark Hamill, Tim Curry, Michael Dorn and so on. The new cast isn't bad, but I just prefer the original. Some side characters like madam Lorelai and Markus sounds better in this version though.  Music is also in the same category. It sounds better for the most part, but I noticed in the dream sequence for every day doesn't reaches the same frantic chaos than the original. Don't know why, but it also diminishes my experience.

Now, to the game itself and the differences. Basically the same game for the most part. Investigate the voodoo murders for inspiration to your book and suddenly you uncover a shadowy voodoo cult that is after you and your family heritage as a shadow hunter. They made the game linear so that certain areas is locked out until certain days. Meaning I can't clear most of the points on day one, but have to wait. This also causes some troubles when they keep to the script. For example, Magentia Moonbeam you are recommended by Dr John in the original game and she mentions that the doctor called on your behalf, but in this game I picked her adress up by a flyer, but she still heard from Dr. John I was coming over. Now, maybe Dr. John figured out I was on my way, but still. 

They also added puzzles like a machine at Moonbeam that you have to solve in order to get the code and they changed the police station encounter so instead of getting the officers go out for a snack you sneak in by the windows, triggering a scene that was described in the novelization. A great scene, it was creepier in the book since here it seemed the zombified police found out about you while in the book they where just stationary until someone entered the station. Still, a great addition. Mostly the new puzzles stumped me the most, especially when they added them to already established puzzle, like needing to find another 20 dollars to get the animal mask or finding the key to the crypt drawer (mind you, after finding the puzzle it was rather easy). Not bad really, more to do, but it breaks the game logic when Mosley somehow figured out the skull puzzle and hid himself in the drawer. 

Now, I couldn't actually finish the game due to graphical glitches. First of, the Rada Drums was weird, but since I already knew what it says from earlier play I could brute force it, but there is a new puzzle in Rittersburg when you have to fix a shield and the graphics are so distorted that the panels changes every time I move them, and there doesn't seem to be anyway to get past it. I tried different graphical settings and compability versions, but no, same result what ever I do. Of course it's the damn library that screwed me over on the original game as well before ScummVM. So I can't continue. I even went so far that I charted out one version I could see on the web and tried my hand on that, didn't work since it seems that the shield is randomized... damn you game! I assume it might be the graphics card I have since it was mentioned that you should due some trickery with the ones you have... but it looks like I don't have one of the usual graphics cards so I'm stuck at the moment. So I replayed the original game instead, I also missed meeting the fortune teller the second day when she was possessed by the spirit so I was already on my way to a non-100% run. This is why I prefer consoles, do you have the hardware and software it's supposed to work. Hate computers. And of course I still wasn't able to 100% when I ended 3 points away from a full score and I have no idea what I missed (maybe showing Hartridge the voodoo murder photo is some of the points).

Doesn't look like this for me! And it's not really a hard puzzle if you can see! I even looked for a step-by-step guide to see if I could bypass it that way but the guide just mocked me for not being able to finish the puzzle! Could have told me it's randomized instead for wasting my time.