Chrono Quest II - Psygnosis RRP œ29.99

      A second opinion sent in by Martin Gardiner

Chrono Quest ended with the apprehension of your father's murderer
and with your preparation to return home to your own time.
However, on your return journey there is a mishap and you are
catapulted into the unknown with Explora, your time machine, low
on its precious metal fuel. But now in CQII the program
conveniently forgets that you are supposed to have this criminal
in your company and makes no mention of him! Your main task is
going to be finding enough of the metals so necessary to fuel
Explora to enable you to find a way back to your own chateau in
1922. Virtually all metal objects have some "fuel" content, the
trick is to find out which ones are the correct ones to use and
the proper sequence in which to use them.

There are thirteen time zones in all. The first eight time zones
are based on the wanderings of the greek hero Odysseus in his long
return journey to his home in Ithaca after the sack of Troy. Time
zone 9 is a one-location nativity scene and is quite obvious. The
next two time zones are also one location only, 10 is a desert and
11 a jungle. They appear to be completely anonymous. Time zone 12
concerns a battle fought in 778 AD in the age of Charlemagne. The
plot in time zone 13 is immediately recognisable as being based on
a scene from Alexandre Dumas' "The Three Musketeers".

The ST version of this graphic adventure comes on three
double-sided disks. The third disk contains digitized speech and
can be run from an external drive. However, single-sided drive
users can obtain six single-sided disks by returning the original
disks to Psygnosis. Therefore the amount of disk swapping is
dependent on the number of disks and the number of drives that you
are using.

The icon control system is very similar to that of the original
Chrono Quest. The only major changes are the inclusion of LISTEN
and SPEAK icons. When you are required to enter into dialogue with
another character you are presented with a choice of two phrases
to use. You must then click on your choice and hope that you are
right. When a character speaks to you, you get the text on the
screen and a digitized voice as well. Movement is very simple and
only in two directions, "Advance" and "Retreat" - that is,
generally you move forward to the next screen by exiting to the
right and reverse back to your time machine by walking to the
left.

The high-resolution graphics are some of the best that I have seen
on the ST, and most objects are clearly portrayed and easy to pick
up. However, there are a couple of occasions when finding objects
is made hard. A prime example of this is right at the start of the
game when a collection of coins is perfectly camouflaged on a
stony beach!

The main enjoyment I got from CQII was not from the game itself
but from researching and reading about the events on which the
time zones are based. In conclusion, although CQII is far better
than its predecessor, it is still nothing more than an expensive
graphic slideshow. Also the program has been poorly translated
from the original French into English, grammar and spelling
mistakes are common. What I found particularly annoying is that
one entire double-sided disk is wasted in holding what I consider
to be useless digitized speech. Far greater emphasis should have
been placed on the gameplay and puzzle content. Once again, we
have an example to prove the old adage that good graphics do not
necessarily make a good adventure. As it stands, CQII is not worth
the RRP of œ30, so I would suggest that it is bought either
second-hand or cheaply from a mail-order company.

@~See this month's special feature for Martin's in-depth explanation
@~of the thirteen time zones.