The Sacred Mirror of Kofun
Windows 95/98
Point and click adventure/edutainment
Can still buy it here : http://www.cdaccess.com
The Story
You play Chris Young, a hot shot racecar driver who also has a keen
interest in marine technology. For some unknown reason this convinces
Jean-Michael Cousteau that you are the right person to head up an ocean
expedition to find the perfect location in the ocean to launch a research
lab called the Poseidon.
You arrive in Honolulu to take control of the Antares – a high tech ship
that is owned by the aforementioned Mr. Cousteau. But before you even get
your feet wet so to speak, a message from Steve Grant, head of the WWHF,
(Worldwide Heritage Foundation) comes over the vid-phone asking you for
help. Seems the foundation is financing the search for the Sacred Mirror
of Kofun and the top archaeologist (and good friend of Steve Grant’s) John
Braddy has gone missing. You are asked in addition to searching for the
ideal spot on the ocean floor, to do a little side searching and see if
you can find Mr. Braddy – the only clue consisting of a video tape of his
last known location.
What is the Sacred Mirror of Kofun? Well, ancient Japanese legend tells of
a polished mirror that the wife of a mighty warlord gave to him. The
reflection from the mirror was said to have helped defeat his enemies.
This mirror was said to have been buried in the warlord’s’ tomb when he
died. Of course, no one could find it so it was written off as a myth,
until one day an ancient document was found that spoke of the mirror and
also pointed to some archeological proof of it’s existence. You are
therefore asked to wait for one more crew member to arrive – Ann Fong, who
is an expert in ancient Japanese legends and the Mirror in particular. The
other two members of the team are Paul Sinus, who’s main duty is to keep
the high tech equipment aboard the ship working – ( he is also the one who
developed EDWARD, the onboard computer) – and Lucciana Capucci, who is an
expert in underwater fauna. You interact with the other crew members
through the ship’s intercom system.
Game Play
You control the ship by use of an Automap – course information is stored
automatically in EDWARD. He will enter additional course information as
you find more and more clues about where you need to go.
Everything you find of importance needs to be run through EDWARD’s
database. Most of the information you gather will be photos collected on
various dives or from the islands you visit. Also certain conversations
with the other crew members will trigger information to be added to
EDWARD’s database.
The game consists of 3 disks and there is some annoying disk swapping if
you do the dives out of order – which of course you will unless you follow
the walkthrough to a tee. The underwater videos are actual footage made by
divers – you are to take X number of pictures in each dive or island
location. This information after run through EDWARD will tell you whether
or not that particular place is suitable for the lab to be launched or
will give you more information about what happened to Braddy. You dive by
using Angel Sharks – which are underwater sleds basically – so, not only
do you have to make certain you find the correct thing to take a picture
of (it’s pretty easy – the cursor changes to a bold shape when you pass
over the correct place) but you have to watch your air supply. If you’re
running low you need to head back to the surface and then re-dive (the
pictures you previously took will be saved).
There is actually very little inventory – I remember carrying maybe four
things max and that was when I was on the island of Eten – and as soon as
I left the island and went back to the ship almost all the inventory was
gone. This game is a clue gathering based game not an inventory based
game.
The biggest drawback to this game is it happens to be very buggy – at
least my game was. And as far as I know there were and are no patches for
it. Saving was not a problem. I saved a great deal and never ran out of
slots, which was necessary due to above mentioned bugs.
All in all this was a different sort of game. It has a marvelous
encyclopedia full of wonderful information – I spent a great deal of time
looking stuff up. Some was required to answer questions to the puzzles,
but mostly I just wanted to know more about what I was looking at – from
the fish in the ocean to the underwater wrecks you swam through, to the
history of the islands you visited.
As far as recommending it to anyone – I would do so only for those who do
not frustrate easily. This game will drive you up the wall if you don’t
have patience. I am just plain stubborn about certain things and haven’t
let a game beat me yet – Kofun came close a few times but I won in the
end.
copyright © 2002
GameBoomers
