First impressions

[TigerQuoll]

#10838

So I’ve put in about half an hour (after about the same amount of time getting high-res graphics to work), and I’m not sure what I think yet.
The graphics and presentation are definitely impressive. It’s actually kind of surreal to see something so slick and movie-like (including the likes of Christopher Lloyd) in high-definition in DOS.

Buuut… I dunno. It isn’t grabbing me yet.
It feels so far like one of those products where every creative decision started with the question “what are consumers going to like?” rather than “is this good?” or even better “would *I* enjoy this?”

But that’s just my initial impression. I’ll give it a bit longer before I settle on my opinion.

Am I imagining it? Does the game hook you in later? Or is the first 30 minutes a good indication of the rest of the game?

[fastwinstondoom]

#10841

It has been many years since I played it last and I must admit the start is way slower than I remember. So many conversations to get through in the Cutopia.

My recollection is that it gets more fun when you get out of town, collect alot of items and can tackle puzzles in whichever order you feel like. Guess we’ll see if I change my mind 😛

[Tijn]

#10842

I started playing this on stream today and someone in the chat described the game as “exhausting” which I think is pretty apt hahah

I’m not disliking it though!

[Pix]

#10843

I just got finished with it. The game was quite a bit shorter than I remembered but I had a great time revisiting it myself. You have to appreciate dumb humour for sure and it doesn’t all hit but there is plenty to enjoy here. The game and puzzle design is well above average with no dead ends and it looks fantastic for a game this old. I honestly would rate this up there with some of the best 90’s adventure games. I just wish we got the sequel.

Speaking of which, it was supposed to all be one game originally, the rest was about 3/4 complete when the decision was made to just release what they had instead of waiting the extra couple of months and stick the rest out as a sequel. The marketing for the game we did get was near non-existent and the box for Europe didn’t exactly do much to sell the game either so sales were terrible and the sequel never happened. I’ve always hoped someone would get their hands on the assets and finish the story off one of these years.

[TigerQuoll]

#10847

Yeah, exhausting sums it up! Sometimes I just want to have a normal conversation with a character, get some clues, make a little progress. But so far every single character is just dialled up to 11 for every single line they deliver!

Getting a bit meta here, I’m wondering if my previous criticism is part of the point – Cutopia is supposed to be the cynical executive’s idea of what audiences will like. It should be no surprise that every character feels forced and trying a little too hard.

I think I’ll definitely wait until I’m out of Cutopia before I form my opinion.

[red.hexapus]

#10851

I’ve finished it recently and I’ve much preferred the first part of the game (hunting for the items for the Cutifier), than the second one. The was a bit too much Moon Logic puzzles and pixel hunting for my taste.

On the other hand, Christopher Lloyd’s acting and facial expressions were great (e.g. his reaction to the pitbull ballerina bowling scene.)

[Tijn]

#10858

I must say I was pretty overwhelmed at first, but I’ve now done a second stream and I’m really into the game now!

Knowing what I was getting into really helped I feel. I can see how it might not be for everyone, but idk I think it’s well made for the most part. The voice cast is incredible, the game looks good, the puzzles are pretty good too. There’s a lot to like here imho!

[firefyte]

#10861

Not just first, but last impressions.

I remember this game being harder as a kid, but now I realize it’s just because I didn’t have enough command of the English language at that time (especially the main collectathon that is most of the game).
Now I sort of breezed through it after about 5 hours of gameplay.

Here’s some points:
The whole game is an homage to 90s cartoon humor, maybe in the more teen-adult category (e.g. Ren and Stimpy).
It’s a constant stream of gags, puns and just (sometimes) bad humor.
The Animations and interplay between live action were pretty good, you can get into some pretty funny situations if you fail on purpose.
As said before, some parts just require a bit more knowledge of English and especially English idioms to progress, which can be tedious.
Some minigames were just meh, and felt more like wastes of time rather than actual puzzles.
Logic was required, sometimes a bit more than expected. I agree with the pixel hunt, I missed a hotspot and it was annoying.

Overall not bad, but it does require a bit more nostalgic-glasses to enjoy it.

[TigerQuoll]

#10862

Now I’ve played a bit more I’m starting to see the artistic direction and the passion of the creators, and I’m actually getting into it. Some of the humour and characters still feel a bit forced, but there’s a lot to like. I’m not sure I’d put it on par with Day of the Tentacle, but it’s pretty good.

I still can’t believe the cast. Christopher Lloyd, Dan Castellaneta AND Tim Curry? Not to mention half a dozen seasoned voice actors you’ve heard a million times but don’t know the name of. That could have been the cast for the biggest kids film of the year! But it’s a videogame? For DOS??? That is legit bonkers.

But I would like to expand on firefyte’s point about requiring a native grasp of English by saying it’s not accessible to colourblind people either.
I have red/green colour blindness (one of those poorly named conditions, because it affects other colours as well), and the telephone “puzzle” was practically impossible. I had to look up a guide AND ask my partner for help for puzzles which I feel would have been trivial for other people.

[firefyte]

#10863

Yeah, being red/green colorblind I can see the colors, but yes I had points wondering did I have to dial orange or red for the ‘phone number’.

[jan0sch]

#10866

Having trouble with colours myself I totally agree.

Apart from that I had big issues with the sitting in the stew part (wolf cave) because I no longer have a mouse and clicking that thing to turn over with a trackball was quite a challenge.

Otherwise I mostly enjoyed the game very much but was grabbing a hint book for some of the riddles. The second part is way harder in my opinion.

[Tijn]

#10869

> I still can’t believe the cast. Christopher Lloyd, Dan Castellaneta AND Tim Curry? Not to mention half a dozen seasoned voice actors you’ve heard a million times but don’t know the name of. That could have been the cast for the biggest kids film of the year! But it’s a videogame? For DOS??? That is legit bonkers.

This is really the surprise and highlight of this game for me. The cast is out of this world. This is a production like no other.

Dom Deluise is in there too! And Ben Stein of course, prominently featured in the intro, famous from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and The Mask, among other things.

Rob Paulsen is also an absolute giant in the cartoon voice acting world by the way. He did, among other things, Raphael from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Yakko from Animaniacs.

And speaking of Animaniacs, Tress MacNeille (who does Fluffy Bun Bun) is also known for doing the voice of Dot in that show.

What a cast! This is nuts!

[Zacktorial]

#10871

I thought I heard Tress MacNeille in there!

My first impression? Wow, what an obnoxious Virgin Interactive logo. But after that my impression is quite positive. I’ve played maybe an hour and a half, collected a bag full of nonsense cartoon items. I’ve figured out what to do with a few of them, and it’s getting late enough at night that my puzzle solving ability has deteriorated beyond my ability to keep making progress. I have been both delighted with a successful application of cartoon logic and unsuccessful applications of cartoon logic so far.

The presentation of course is insane, and other than the resolution being garbage for a modern display, it holds up quite well! I think it holds up stylistically as well, but having been a child in the early 90s, this style of animation is both familiar and nostalgic to me. I wonder if younger people would get as much out of it. I feel by 1996 this style of animation and the whole Roger Rabbit “man in a cartoon” thing was already making its way out of the zeitgeist. The nail in the coffin was probably Space Jam.

[Martli]

#10887

Well, I don’t have too much to add to this. Agree with all points made – great production, dialogue’s a bit slow, puzzles are interesting sucks a bit if you’re colourblind (like me)

…but my wife’s first impression was along the lines of “what the hell are you playing?!?”. My 90s childhood encapsulated in a game I guess…

[Martli]

#10888

Also, did I hear a homage to Day of the Tentacle and Loom with the music in the meadow and the king’s bedroom respectively, or is that just a coincidence?

[Tijn]

#10891

I feel there are a lot of references in this, to other games and other things in general. Like that plank puzzle in the castle at the beginning, surely that’s a reference to Monkey Island?

[firefyte]

#10892

There’s a lot of classical music used in the game (which is coincidentally probably free), I should look into the game files and see what they have.

[Tijn]

#10897

Played it again on stream just now. I’ve now been told made it to the halfway point (after building the cutifier).

Honestly when people said the game’s not very long, I expected it to be much shorter than it’s turning out to be!

[TigerQuoll]

#10900

You’re at the same point as me now, Tijn.
I’m guessing you’re playing on DOSBox, but this is a 2 disc game. You have just entered the 2nd disc!
But if this is anything like other multi-disc games of the era, the 1st one is usually longer by far, but the others will have more cutscenes (in my experience anyway).

[Tijn]

#10906

I’m playing in ScummVM, so I’m even less aware of the disc situation lol

[Zacktorial]

#10915

As for the music in the game, it’s a lot of classical music, but more crucially, it’s all pieces that were used in some cartoon or another.

I’m sure The Barber of Seville overture is a wonderful piece on its own, but I will always associate it with Bugs Bunny.

[Evil Taco]

#10920

My first impressions:

I launched it by accident, it took over the full screen before I managed to turn it off and

MAN I WAS BACK IN THE NINETIES! 😀 😀 😀 😀

I mean just the Virgin intro. You have to imagine, I was a little bit jumpscared by it – I wasn’t prepared!

I think I’ll try to set this up in DOSBox Staging instead of the GOG install, just for that sweet sweet VGA display filter. See if it makes it feel even more 90s.

edit: ahh, it looks like GOG runs it on top of ScummVM and not DOSBox, so I can’t just run the files in DOSBox Staging like I hoped.

[Evil Taco]

#10921

Ok, I played the first twenty minutes. I actually feel right at home! No need to play more before “getting it” at all. What a nice feeling.

[whimsy_afoot]

#10926

That was a trip. It took me a while to calibrate to the zaniness and humor (especially once I reached the point where it definitively wasn’t kid-oriented), and as much as I appreciated the quality of the acting, I ended up zipping through the dialog (reading the subtitles instead) to try to tone the intensity down. But once I adjusted to the ridiculosity, things started to click in terms of the story and puzzles.

The bit about the plans for the sequel is interesting — I don’t know if I’d feel compelled to pick it up to continue the adventure, but the direction they went could’ve led to some interesting new mechanics. (Although I already leaned a fair amount on hints, lol.)