Hi-Res Adventure #6: The Dark Crystal

The Good
As a fan that enjoys movies with a fantasy theme, I watched The Dark Crystal, which was a movie that gained worldwide reception. Having said that, it comes to no surprise that Sierra cashed in on its success. The movie revolves around The Dark Crystal, which was shattered a thousand years ago in an event known as "The Great Conjunction". Now Jen - the last of his race - to fulfill an ancient prophecy which states a Gelfing must return a missing crystal shard to the Crystal and destroy the Skeksis' evil empire.

The last Hi-Res adventure for the Apple, The Dark Crystal combines both text and graphics, an element that it shares with its cousins. The game gives you a description of the scene you entered, followed by a prompt, in which you have to type a one- or two-word command. I say one because directions can be abbreviated.

You will see most of the characters from the movie, including Aughra, Kira, the Garthims, Chamberlain, and the Landstriders. As a person who has watched the movie before playing the game, it is nice to see how the scenes in the game compare to those from the movie.

While reading the description of each scene, I always pictured how that scene was represented in the movie, not what appeared on the monitor. I always liked that the game sometimes tricks you into thinking that when it loads up a scene, there is only description to read and that's the entire scene. Sometimes the game loads a scene, you read the description, press a key, and then it loads one or two more, then you get a prompt.

Before you get into the game, you are greeted with a nice title screen, consisting of the title with the same lettering used for the movie. All the scenes in the game are drawn nicely regardless of how "white" everything looks.

There is still that text-only mode that can be accessed by pressing the [Return] key without typing anything in. It is nice, because at least it provides some nostalgia for people who have gotten used to playing adventures from Infocom. Sound is missing from the game, although an early adventure like The Dark Crystal doesn't need it.

The Bad
The game is a bit short. Some more scenes could have been added to make the game longer. Also, while playing in text-only mode the game reverts back to graphic mode when it loads up a new scene.

The Bottom Line
As I said, this is the last Hi-Res adventure designed for the Apple ][ machine, and it is a lot easier to understand if you already watched the movie. If you haven't seen it, the game is still definitely worth playing. There is another version of the game called Gelfing Adventure, in the same vein as Dragon's Keep, that might appeal to children who do not have the vocabulary necessary to enter two-word commands.