Trilby's Notes

The Good
Wow. Props to Yahtzee. I never imagined that what seemed to be another cheap excuse of sequel for 5 Days A Stranger turned to be more, much more than an amateurish attempt. Actually, it borderlines brilliance. Yahtzee takes what started like a trashy and tacky story, a excuse to have fun with the AGS engine, and not only expands it: he creates a whole mythology. This game not only ties '5 Days a Stranger' and '7 Days a Skeptic', it actually makes those games seem more rich and interesting; it gives answers and does it without washing the intrigue.

You play Trilby, the hero from the first game, some years after the incident in the DeFoe manor. The story follows his perils in an isolated Welsh hotel, seeking the idol that started all the hell in the first game; but you learn that there is a lot more about that idol than an evil ghost with Jason Voorhees wanabisms. I found the twists surprising and clever.

Yahtzee is not afraid of the red sauce; he doesn't care too much for happy endings and sugary characters. Despite the graphics and engine limitations, these games are violent, scary, disturbing and cynical, and I liked that.

The Bad
While the game style and the difficulty remain similar to Yahtzee previous works, the interface is now based on a text parser, which is a little annoying and can be a slow down in the game rhythm. Yahtzee doesn't make it too obvious, there is a part in the game where you need to know a specific word (a word that is uncommon even for native English speakers), so you may have problems with the vocabulary if you are not familiar with the language.

Another thing is, like Yahtzee previous efforts, this game feels linear and compact, with little possibilities of exploration and adventure.

The Bottom Line
If you play 5 Days a Stranger, you must play the rest of the series. This is probably the second or the third best of the series.