Tales

Review

Alfred Walsh has been looking for a job for a while and after thoroughly scanning the local newspaper, he came across a very interesting advertisement. An establishment is looking for a new librarian. “What a perfect opportunity - a fairytale of a job,” thought our dear friend, Alfred. However, his first day on the job turned out to be totally unexpected! After discovering that his predecessor was in fact the guardian of this library of tales prior to his death, he accidently released (cough . . . cough) a terrible Demon from a black book that was safely locked in a chest somewhere in the room. The demon, Oblivion, wants to destroy all human tales from this library; it is a slight predicament for our new librarian, wouldn’t you say? Cheer up Alfred, the tales of the world are in your hands!

Tales is a point and click adventure game where you play of Alfred Walsh, who takes a job in a most extraordinary library. 

In the preface of this story, you will discover what happened to the previous guardian of the library and see for the first time the demon named Oblivion. After that, our accidental hero, Walsh. . . Alfred Walsh, will be introduced to the story as the new librarian. In a heartbeat, Alfred will realize that as soon as he begins reading a book, he will be teleported into it, visiting places and meeting incredible characters, such as the Goddess Ninsun, mother of the legendary Hero, Gilgamesh. By the way, Gilgamesh defeated Oblivion in the past and you need to ask his help to defeat Oblivion again in order to save all the tales before it is too late!

Alfred will be armed with a couple of exquisite items: a magic bell and a magic bag! Every time Alfred needs to come back to the library all he has to do is to ring the bell and he will be teleported straight back. The magic bag is handy in the sense that you can take an item from one book to another, but only one at a time. 

The puzzles in this game are challenging, especially when you have to figure out which article to use from another book to resolve a specific puzzle. A few riddles are also included in this game, so make sure to read the text carefully, you might find some very good hints there, too.

If you get really stuck on a puzzle, then your only solution is to talk to Merlin, who will advise you about what you might need to do.

The pixel artwork could have been a little bit more polished, but it is ok. The story is fun and really well laid-out, with challenging puzzles. The voice-over is actually pretty good but the Mayans sound very British to me.