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Please be advised - this is a thread for critiquing The Silver Lining in a mature manner. If you have a problem with a particular PERSON or a group's actions - this is not the thread for it. Please take personal matters to private messages - or better yet, go outside and go for a jog. If you have a problem with how the messages have been moved, please reply to me, Collector, or AndreaDraco directly and we will address your issue as quickly as we can.

Thank you.

Awesome.

I finally finished the game and had the chance to write a little review. Now, I realize it’s a fan-made game and no one was paid to do this so of course I’m not expecting it to be top-notch. But for what it is, I did enjoy playing it and am looking forward to the next installment. That said, hypothetically, if they had total rights and sold this, a few things that needed polishing are…

• The 3D characters do not match the character drawings. I’m not sure what to say about the drawing style. Their faces look unnatural as if they’re all fairies or something. I can’t see anyone in real life looking like that. It’s mostly their eyes. They’re excellent drawings but the style doesn’t seem to fit.

• The lip synching is quite horrible and Graham seems to have the hardest time with this. He shows his teeth a bit too much when speaking. There’s a lot of wrinkles in the lip synching that need to be ironed out.

• The voices I thought needed a bit of work are the Arch Druid’s, Azure’s and Oberon’s. I must be the only person who did not at all like the narrator’s voice and her voice acting. She seemed annoying and a bit condescending. It’s weird because the narration of other Sierra games were sometimes condescending but I thought they were hilarious. Maybe it’s the voice tone and the way she says it. She simply didn’t fit the theme for me.

• I liked the idea of random messages when the same thing is clicked instead of the loooooong narrations. That especially brought the whole experience to an amateur level for me. I think it’s one of the worst features of the game. I appreciate the extra knowledge but this was the worst possible way to inform the audience about a rock or a vase or a plant, etc.

• Sometimes it’s not possible to click through talk sequences so you are forced to listen to Oberon’s farewell every time.

• Creativity. Some parts just lacked it. Especially when they’ve used Ben Affleck’s and Julie Andrew’s portraits to build Azure’s and Ariel’s 3D faces. It’s so obvious!

• No control of the game. I felt like I was sat down in a chair, told what to do and didn’t let me be a part of the story. I felt like I was a squirrel or a bird in the background watching everything happen. I didn’t feel like I was Graham at all. The shortness of the game and the majority of movies added to this, along with the super long narration. It felt like the author is telling us the story instead of allowing the audience to play it and experience it ourselves. I just felt really out of touch with the gameplay and distant from the game itself.

• Extremely clunky walking from point A to point B and not being able to do it in one simple click. This was very aggravating because most of the time, Graham didn’t know where to go when I clicked on a door or on the other side of the screen because he usually went the wrong way or he wanted to take the tangent when he didn’t realize there was a tree in the way.

I’m not crazy how dark the theme seems to be. Maybe it’s because it’s in 3D and there’s more physical detail to the game as opposed to large pixels but I definitely felt a darker feeling (which I didn’t like) playing this game as opposed to the scariest and darkest scenes in KQ1-7.

The Good:
• I loved the lalalalala score at the Isle of the Mist. I think the music was one of the best aspects of the game.

• I liked Graham’s voice acting. I think he was the best.

• I mentioned this before but the camera angles and cinematography was excellent too.

• The best part of the game is when I reached the Isle of the Sacred Mountain and ascended the stairs. It was at this point where I felt that I was actually playing a KQ game.

They've already implemented an option to disable long narrations. Though, not multiple narrations. Just shortened versions every time you click. Anything else was considered too much trouble to go back and redo. And rightfully so, I suppose. I still think there were other options they could have considered without redoing any voice work. But what's done is done.

They also promise a lighter mood in later chapters, though Cesar did say there were some things that happen in the game eventually that he's not sure how people will react to. They also said there would be much more interactivity, puzzles and less cutscenes in the later chapters. They said the gameplay length for Episode Two is around 4 hours, according to beta testers who hadn't played the game previously. That's about the average Telltale episode length.

They also seem to defend all their voice acting with impunity. I personally thought that Graham was the only well-casted talent in the game so far.

That is very good news. I’m glad to hear it. The narrations really did bring down the joy of adventuring a few notches. And I’m also glad to hear they won’t keep the mood so dark since I’m used to a light and airy feel of the previous KQ’s.

It will be darker than usual, but it'll also have light moments, so it's been said. I get the impression that while some (most?) of the journey would be light, the story and theme itself is quite dark.

I really want to give the modelers some additional credit. Most of these 3D models were made about 6-7 years ago, and given how so many reviewers are saying things like "it's not quite PS3 graphics, but still good," it's amazing how well they've held up since the PS2 days.

I mentioned this before but the camera angles and cinematography was excellent too.

Ooh! Ooh! That was me!

"Sometimes it’s not possible to click through talk sequences so you are forced to listen to Oberon’s farewell every time."

We are trying to clean this up as much as possible too - making as many lines as possible skippable. Sometimes they're still not skippable as there is a particular animation or something happening at the same time, like someone handing an object to someone else, etc. but we're working on making things as skippable as possible for those who want to move on more quickly.

That's good to know, wilco. Thanks for checking up. We really do appreciate the acknowledgement and I'm certainly looking forward to the next installment.