Gobliins 2: The Prince Buffoon
for Amiga (OCS/ECS)

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Mr Creosote:Popular Vote:
4.3/6
Company: Coktel Vision
Year: 1993
Genre: Puzzle, Adventure
Theme: Cartoon & Comic / Misc. Fantasy / Humour
Language: English, Francais, Deutsch, Italiano
Licence: Commercial
Views: 27284
Review by Mr Creosote (2003-11-07)
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The king may have been saved, but now, his son has been kidnapped. The evil Demon King wants to make the prince into his court jester. What an offense! Instead of the terrific trio of the first part, a gruesome twosome (see number of 'i's in the title) is sent: Fingus, the diplomat, and Winkle, the practical joker.

These two characters aren't all different, like their predecessors were. They can both carry things (even more than one item at a time), they can both use things, they can both manipulate things, they can both climb, they can both apply violence and also talk. None of them can use magic.

The only little difference is already perfectly described by the tiny characterizations taken from the box. Fingus is smarter. That makes him more likely to convince people to help, more likely to understand mechanisms of machines and so on and so on. Winkle, on the other hand, is always up to taking impossible risks, annoying people etc.

Balancing out this loss of complexity is the fact that one 'level' is now usually larger than one single screen. In general, the game is still split into linear levels, though. Puzzles involve more items, the inventory grows quickly - way more Adventure-like than the player expects from this series. Many puzzles, however, are purely based on timing. Exact and quick clicking replaces brainwork. A bit of a pity.

There's more (good) slapstick and graphics are a little better than in the first part, too. The 'flattened' gameplay (which is still good, just.... inferior in comparison) is unfortunately too noticeable, especially since the player even gets not-so-subtle hints like “we have to get those men laughing” all the time. Not a game to last forever, but still a distraction to waste a few hours with.

Comments (11) [Post comment]

Mr Creosote:
Done with another game, my daughter asked to continue on Gobliins 2. I actually thought she may have forgotten this one. After some more timing puzzles, we found ourselves in a surreal dreamscape. She was very proud when she figured out the bowling bit by herself. Some physically sort of sound stuff followed. Not too bad so far, the nice tune is also back, not not nearly done with this level, I think.
Mr Creosote:

Freshly miniaturized, progressing on the desktop was not very hard. I didn't like performing one action three times in a row, but it was apparent it had to be done, so no big deal. Overall, puzzles suddenly seemed quite trivial ("make fire channeling sunlight through a glass shard" etc.). Still not sure what it is we're trying to achieve globally here.

[batch posting ends here, anything further will hopefully be reported as we go, if we go on]

Mr Creosote:

Very short Gobliins 2 session. Surprisingly, everything on the next screen made perfect sense and things were easily performed as well. A far cry from the previous scene! Small exception: using pepper on the cockroach. Gah, this meant we had to get another one from the previous screen again!

Weird: we have now actually freed the prince, but the game goes on. Not sure what there still is to achieve.

Mr Creosote:
Our "failure" yesterday was to stick our gloved hand into the wrong orifice. Ahem. Anyway, even with this knowledge, this was just way too mechanically fiddly. Adding insult to injury, the whole sequence of getting a cockroach had to be repeated another time! After, we struggled to even find the exit, because to be labelled both protagonists have to be close. I maintain this scene was purely awful. My daughter gave it thumbs up anyways.
Mr Creosote:
Tonight, my daughter asked to play Gobliins 2 again. I thought she had forgotten about the game or didn't want to continue. The current section is not a nice experience. The pictured challenge of manipulating the food needs three subsequent quick actions in a row. Impossible for her, I barely managed. After, throne room, we are even stuck with a walkthrough. It's so frustrating we stopped for now. I'll consult a video playthrough before we continue.
Mr Creosote:
The underwater section of Gobliins 2 was quite pleasant. Clear objectives, screens not overloaded, discernable cause and effect chains. Music, unfortunately, went back to forgettable. Best part of the game since the beginning so far.
Mr Creosote:
We've progressed through the complete third "world". The picture of the guards was a bit visually busy. The picture illustrates one of the many timed elements, of distracting one guy to steal his sword. Overall reasonable challenges. Also, this section was notable for its really good music.
Mr Creosote:
The drug induced musician scene, unfortunately, was the low point of the game so far. Cause and effect are rather absurd and even the hotspots aren't really visible in the first place. Quite an unnecessary detour.
Mr Creosote:
Continuing with the second Gobliins game. We have now finished the second area. It's now quite quite apparent that the game is not really about classic puzzling, but about observing physical effects of actions and using them in a timed manner between the two protagonists. This timed coordination of quickly switching between the guys is a bit hard for my daughter. Nevertheless, still entertaining.
Mr Creosote:

[I'm reposting some items from Mastodon here]

Been playing a bit of Gobliins 2 with my daughter. I thought it could be suitable for her. Hardly any text, lots of cartoon slapstick, even when you're not making any progress. Can't die, unlike the first game. So far, it's fun for both of us. However, I have vague memories of the first few screens being the highlight of the game. Will see how it develops.

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