Nicolas Eymerich Book II: The Village
TiconBlu
& Imagimotion
Nicholas Eymerich (aka Nicolau
Aymerich, Nicolai Eymerici and Nicolas Eymerich) was a Roman Catholic
theologian and Inquisitor General of the Inquisition of the Crown of
Aragon in the latter half of the 14th century. He is best known for
authoring the Directorium Inquisitorum.
So says Wiki.
The Directorium Inquisitorum is
approximately 800 pages, composed as early as 1376. It defines
witchcraft and describes the means for discovering witches, and became
the definitive handbook of procedure for the Spanish Inquisition until
into the seventeenth century.
So also says Wiki.
Valerio Evangelisti is an
Italian writer of science fiction, fantasy, historical novels and
horror. He is known mainly for his series of novels featuring the
inquisitor Nicolas Eymerich. There were 10 at last count.
Ditto re Wiki.
Nicolas Eymerich Book II: The
Village is based on the novel, based on the historical character, and
the main character does have a notebook which may or may not have
anything to do with the Directorium.
I haven’t read any of the
novels, and I didn’t play Book 1 and I clearly wasn’t around during the
Spanish Inquisition. I have however seen the Monty Python sketches and
they were, like much of Monty, recurringly funny and very silly.
Why am I mentioning this? Well,
the latter describes much about the game, although the former describes
very little. Replace it with frustrating though and we are spot on.
Perhaps there is a sillier more
frustrating game but thankfully I haven’t played it.
Silly abounds. Silly conundrums,
silly voices, silly puns. Not many of those, but be sure to sniff the
fire before you leave the burning village to get the highpoint.
The highpoint of silly
conundrums? (spoiler alert - highlight the blank space) -
getting into a locked house by repairing a
catapult on a distant mountain, and then convincing the plague riddled
and only surviving garrison member that the English were afoot and he
should expend his last living moments lobbing a boulder on them.
Moving on to frustrating, we
have all manner of puzzle and puzzle constructs that fit the bill. For
example, there are significant items that aren’t active at any point
until they are, but only if you have looked at all manner of
inconsequential things first. More than once I thought I knew what I was
supposed to do, but had failed to look at something first, sometimes a
long way away. I accept that means it wasn’t inconsequential in terms of
progressing, but it was completely inconsequential in every other sense
of the word.
Or what about doing something
with seemingly no result, and then doing it again with the same outcome,
but then doing it again anyway just cos, and then doing it again and
getting a response suggesting it might be worth doing again, so doing it
again to get a positive result.
Some puzzles in themselves are
out and out frustrating. Finding 15 rocks on the spiral mountain is one,
but the winner in my view is the spiral bracelet. Thank goodness for
divine intervention (a crucifix bottom right of screen that will help
you when stuck).
Frustrating too is that Nicholas
won’t run, the inquisition being an apparently leisurely pursuit, and he
can take FOREVER to traverse a screen. Good thing there is a map, except
it is a tad contrary (aka frustrating) but that might have been me.
With respect to plot, Eymerich
is asked to investigate the heresy reigning in Calcarès, a remote
village inhabited by the worst demons the world has ever known. Eymerich
will have to learn about its inhabitants’ fiendish secrets and, with the
help of a handful of survivors, attempt to cleanse this village soiled
by the Devil.
So says Steam.
What else? Its third person,
icon based, the notebook has objectives and observations, and you can
choose different languages and subtitles. Save at will, and choosing
“continue” from the menu will pick up where you left off. Some sequences
involve you playing as a different character, and there are conundrums
that require you to switch between the two to move on. Depending on your
predilections, one puzzle could be seen as cruel (at least the person is
dead) and one as overly sexual. I thought they were both a little tacky.
Enough said really.
Grade: C
I played on:
OS: Windows 7
Processor: Intel i7-3820 4GHz
RAM: 12GB Ripjaw DDR3 2133 Mhz
Video card: AMD
Radeon HD 7800 2048MB
GameBoomers Review Guidelines
March 2015
design copyright©
2015
GameBoomers
Group
