Summary
Let me tell you my side of the story...
The Good
The third and the last game of "Kyrandia" series is absolutely brilliant. It is definitely much better than the first and more original, extravagant and funny than the second.
You play Malcolm, the "bad guy"... a very unusual protagonist, to be sure. Actually, I think this game is supposed to be a parody on the first one: everything is "upside-down" now: Malcolm is the game's hero, a little demon with a cigar and sun-glasses is your best friend, and the castle of the noble King Brandon is described as "sissy"...
Well, I'm not sure what this game was meant to be, but the result is an extraordinary adventure game. Non-linearity is not a typical thing in adventures, and usually you don't get to choose your character's behavior: you do what the game tells you, without the possibility of making your own choice. "Malcolm's Revenge", on the other hand, has both non-linearity and behavior choices. Depending on the "lying" level you chose, you will have different ways of interacting with characters. You can adjust your "lying" level like you adjust gamma-correction or sound volume. I have the impression it was also supposed to be a parody on RPGs or something like this. In any case, this "lying level" feature is more a gimmick than an integral part of gameplay; there is usually only one way of interaction that will bring you further in the game. Non-linearity, on the other side, is really present: there are many ways of solving the same problem. Already the first objective of the game can be attained in six different ways.
The gameplay mechanics are very simple: you click on whatever you want to interact with. A nice realistic touch is the ability to stock many items of the same kind or throw out items. You can for example solve a little puzzle and catch an eel; but you can get the right ingredients for the solution again and catch another eel, and so on, until you maybe end up with 15 eels in the inventory. You really don't need so many eels, but it's nice to do stuff in a adventure game that is unrelated to the main story.
Speaking of the story, it is certainly nothing dramatic (although there is a nice plot twist near the end that explains a lot of things also for those who played the two first games), but there are plenty of hilarious characters to meet and wacky scenes to see, especially on the Cat Isle and while visiting the fish queen.
The game also has terrific graphics (for the most parts), and even video sequences! The music sounds pretty modern and "cool", and forms a sharp contrast to the game's traditional medieval setting.
The Bad
Same complaint like in the case of "Hand Of Fate": the interface is just too simplistic. Also, there is a price to pay for non-linearity and for flexible inventory management: you'll end up with an inflated inventory full of junk without knowing exactly why you have picked it and what you should do with it now. Since there are so many ways to solve a problem, it is hard to follow
one concrete way, and easy to get confused while accumulating an obscene amount of useless inventory items.
Other than that, there are some annoying sequences in the game. The jungle on Cat Isle comes to mind. You have to navigate your way through a small maze without knowing the directions. That would have been half of the trouble if the navigation weren't so confusing: every time you leave a screen, you appear on the bottom of the next one, regardless of the direction which you came from. Perhaps an overview map or some in-game hints for directions would have helped.
The Bottom Line
This is a traditional adventure game with a lot of "extra pepper" that makes it less traditional. Definitely among the better examples of post-classical comedy-style adventures, "Malcolm's Revenge" is original and funny enough to be a worthy alternative to LucasArts' classics.
