Emerald City Confidential™ Reviews

I want this type of title from Wadjet again

Being a sucker for a cheap game isn’t always a good thing. You’re gambling with your money if you’re picking games that aren’t being played by everyone else. It’s a roll of a dice whether the game is good, average, or just plain bad. Used to be that one didn’t have to chance it when there were demos still around. Nowadays, one has to because developers refuse to put out demos since they’re worried that players won’t buy the full game. Utter bullshit if you ask me since demos are a great way to see if the game is actually playable. Emerald City Confidential is playable if you ignore the weird cursor glitch, the game turning itself off when you click to advance through the dialogue quickly, and other issues that other players dealt with. It’s still an average game with amazing graphics and voice cast even with those issues. Having pretty graphics and an amazing voice cast doesn’t excuse an average game’s issues. They just make the mediocrity stick out like a sore thumb. And sticking out is the last thing that any average product should do when trying to persuade potential customers to buy future products. The one good thing that this game has is that there’s no mindreading the dev’s head for the answer to a puzzle. Fans of the point and click genre would argue that means that this game isn’t really a point and click if it doesn’t have those puzzles. And that it’s the main selling point of the genre. I would agree with them and call this game a visual novel with the occasional point and click gameplay. Is it a good visual novel then? Compared to say the likes of Doki Doki Literature club, the answer is clearly no. Does it do anything with its setting to standout from the other average visual novels? The answer remains the same old negative no. Would it appeal to a fanbase that has a limited selection of games to play? Maybe, the desperate fans would buy this then end up being disappointed with it. Then they too would warn other fans about this game’s painfully average gameplay. A never ending cycle of mediocre games being pumped out to sell to rabid fans who warn other fans of them. That’s a sad state for licensed properties of franchises. Not surprising when foolish fans buy anything to support an idea, even terrible ones. A mere average game that coasts on its unique setting to get consumers interested in it. Fanatics of the Oz series or point and click genre would be served better elsewhere. As someone who loathes the point and click genre and plays the occasional visual novel, I cannot suggest any other game that would satisfy the itch for either fanbase. Googling or posting in any forums should get you the answers that you seek. If you still haven’t received the answers that you seek then do not buy this game. Wasting your time to while away the hours isn’t always a good thing to do. Time isn’t a thing that you can get back nor store in a bank.

I first played this game something like 15 years ago when I first become aware of Wadjet Eye and had played and really liked the first couple Blackwell games and The Shivah. I played it so long ago that other than remembering I liked it and wanted to get it on Steam and play it again, I didn't remember much about it. So I was happily surprised when it suddenly went on sale for a reasonable price at the last Steam sale for the first time in forever after having gotten stuck in a mess of transferred IP ownership and ending up apparently all but forgotten at EA for a decade. And it was excellent! More than confirmed my positive but completely vague memories. Really well written, interesting story, mostly pretty easy puzzles (with a few trickier ones in the later parts) but diverting enough to always keep the player engaged. High quality voice acting, and it actually looks a lot better than the early very pixelated AGS Wadjet Eye games. I had only minor initial issues with some graphical glitches that I was able to fix by setting Windows compatibility to Windows 98 and setting it to run as administrator, and after that it ran perfectly. Highly recommended for any fan of P&C adventure games and especially any fan of Wadjet Eye's other games.

I remembered this game after a long time after watching Wicked. The story is so good! It's a pretty good game for it's time and I highly recommend this to anyone who loves point and click games AND wizard of oz!

Alright everyone, I need help. This is by far my favorite childhood point and click game. However, I can't get it to work even if I run in compatibility mode. It keeps getting hung up when I pick up my first item (crowbar). Any suggestions would be amazing..... I really just want to play this game again for the nostalgia :((((((((

[h1]Sights & Sounds[/h1] [h3]A bumpy brick road[/h3] [list] [*] While I wouldn't condemn the artwork as merely bad, I do find it a little dull. With the noir motif, you typically expect everything to dark and dingy, but the entire game takes place at night and within mostly dimly-lit environments. I'm all for moodiness in my mystery games, but the visuals began to look a bit stale by the time the credits rolled [*] There were also some weird inconsistencies with perspective and character design that kind of bothered me. Environments feature both head-on and isometric perspectives, but the characters are always flat to your view, giving the impression of characters leaning forward in some scenes [*] Additionally, I almost get the feeling that multiple artists created the character designs. Some human characters feature heads proportional to their body, while the protagonist, Petra, has a head as wide as her shoulders. I understand wanting to better convey certain characters' feelings visually, but it just makes her look like she's suffering from macrocephaly [*] I don't know much about art, but I understand concepts like 3-point perspective and how it's used. That said, the Emerald Palace on the map screen is so severely out of line with the rest of the city that it looks like it looks really awkward. I know the intent was to make it look huge and imposing, but it mostly looks like it's about to fall backwards [*] Character animations are woefully clunky. I've seen smoother slide transitions [*] I don't want to be unilaterally negative, so I'd like to at least compliment the creativity of the environments. Re-envisioning Oz as a seedy, conspiracy-filled city does result in some really imaginative and unique locations [*] Voice acting is also unfortunately uneven both in terms of talent production quality. Petra was competently voiced even if her microphone sounded muffled, while the Scarecrow sounded like the mad scientist from that Bugs Bunny cartoon with the big red monster but came through clearly. It almost sounds like two different sets of mics were used. Audio balancing is also poor at a few points, making it hard to hear what characters are saying [*] The soundtrack is decent, mostly sounding mysterious while still appropriate for the fantasy setting. The main/title theme is a bit different, but I still liked its Batman cartoon vibes [/list] [h1]Story & Vibes[/h1] [h3]Three cheers for world-building[/h3] [list] [*] All things considered, this is one of the most interesting takes on the world of Oz that I've encountered. Unlike the fanciful, sunny allegory criticizing the gold standard that we're all familiar with, [i]Emerald City Confidential[/i] instead takes place in a crime-ridden postwar version of the titular metropolis and its surrounding lands [*] You take the reigns behind Petra, a green-clothed gumshoe in the midst of figuring out what nefarious business the formerly cowardly lion (now a corrupt, high-powered lawyer) is up to. Shortly after that tutorial portion, Petra winds up back at her office only to be disturbed by a knock at the door [*] A woman is looking for her fiance, a man named Anzel, who appears to have gotten himself wrapped up in some dangerous business. He was supposed to be back in town by now, but he hasn't turned up anywhere. As you start pulling at threads to figure out his fate, you wind up unraveling a much greater conspiracy that reaches the very heights of Emerald City society [*] It turns out Anzel has found himself in possession of a very dangerous magical artifact that Oz's former adversary in the pre-game war very much wants. Your goal is to track him down, secure the artifact, and skirt the proper authorities while doing so [*] All the while, Petra is working on a mystery of her own. During the war, her little brother went missing, seemingly dropping entirely out of existence. There's no official records of him and no one seems to have ever met him. She knows she's not crazy, so why is the entire city attempting to gaslight her? [*] The narrative winds up taking you to several imaginative locations throughout Oz where you'll meet both original characters as well as ones you'll remember from the Oz books (The Cowardly Lion, Tin Man, Scarecrow, Dorothy, Toto, etc.). No flying monkeys though, which is a shame [*] All told, the game features some pretty impressive world-building. It's true that some characters and locations are borrowed from the books they're based on, but Wadjet Eye managed to put an interesting and unique spin on them [*] The games noir-y vibes often feel desperate and hopeless, but Dave Gilbert always makes sure that there's a little corny humor here and there to lighten the mood and inject a little personality [/list] [h1]Playability & Replayability[/h1] [h3]Thank you, but I already know[/h3] [list] [*] [i]Emerald City Confidential[/i] is a point-and-click adventure game. Have you played one before? If not, that's a little surprising, but this may be a good place to start, because I've never felt more infantilized by tutorialization. If so, the first hour of the game holding your hand will likely annoy you [*] Once you get past it, it's fairly smooth sailing, but the game still spends too much effort in attempting to hammer very basic mechanics into your memory [*] Not much else to say, really. It's a very basic PnC fare with absolutely no bells or whistles. There's not even item combination within your inventory [*] I earned all the in-game achievements (though note that there aren't any platform achievements to pop) and found the experience fairly mediocre, so I don't think I'll be replaying. I'm also fairly ambivalent about Oz and its lore [/list] [h1]Overall Impressions & Performance[/h1] [h3]Emerald City Retrospective[/h3] [list] [*] After making my way through the [i]Blackwell[/i] series, I was really interested in going through all the Wadjet Eye games in roughly chronological order. Having now finished the game, I think I would have been content to let the first two [i]Blackwell[/i] games serve as my introduction to their early works [*] It bears some of the same blemishes that their other pre-2010 games feature (particularly the muffled audio), but [i]Emerald City Confidential[/i] lacks the accompanying attractive pixel art and additional mechanics seen in those titles [*] Although I really like the world that Dave Gilbert and team were able to adapt and flesh out here, the audiovisual shortcomings and heavy-handed tutorialization ultimately left me with a negative impression of the experience [*] As I normally add in PnC reviews, the Steam Deck's trackpads work very well. Steam hasn't yet assigned a Steam Deck compatibility rating to the game's page, but it performed well on the platform [/list] [h1]Final Verdict[/h1] [b]4.0[/b]/10. If you've never played a point-and-click and want to learn the ropes or are otherwise interested in the central idea of "Oz noir", this might be worth a look. Otherwise, if you're a genre veteran, I'm afraid [i]Emerald City Confidential[/i] won't do much to interest or excite beyond the world-building