Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers (1993)

I played the original DOS version on ScummVM. I'm told the remake fixes some things. Maybe it's better, I don't know.

That said, Gabriel Knight is a great reminder of both the best and worst things about old style adventure games.

The writing is often very good. The mystery is compelling and well-thought out. Characters that didn't need to be much more than props get these charming little moments of humanity. Gabriel himself is extremely well realized and his sidekick Grace is a delight, I would die for Grace (I sort of did, several times). And the game struggles manfully to be as respectful as possible about the history of voudoun and the legacy of slavery in New Orleans.

But of course, just as often, the writing is pretty bad. The tone flips from extremely selfserious to zany on a dime. For a game this long there aren't as many characters as you'd expect, New Orleans feels pretty empty even with a dozen or so locations. Gabriel is an insufferable asshole and his "flirty banter" with Grace is literally just a boss sexually harassing an employee. And for as respectful as the writers clearly want to be, this is fundamentally still a 30s style pulp adventure where a white dude fights an evil voodoo murder cult, the black characters have the least character development, and Africa is kind of treated like it's one big country. It's way less racist than it could have been, but like, it's still racist.

The puzzles are a similar case to the writing. Many of them are extremely clever, there were so many moments where I was genuinely excited and proud of myself for having figured something out. But there's a whole lot of puzzzles, and many of them are also complete bullshit. The clunky UI doesn't tell you what's interactable (which the Monkey Island games did, so you can't just blame the time period) and it's not always clear from the overly dense pixel art what exactly you're looking at. Even otherwise good puzzles and solutions are sometimes ruined by just literally not being able to tell what your options are. And some puzzles are straight up poorly clued (the clock and the mime in particular, worse for being so early in the game).

I resorted to a guide for big chunks of the game, and there were times I honestly regretted it. The tomb code puzzle in particular was one where I realized I would have enjoyed figuring out the answer if I'd been a little more patient and looked back through my conversation logs. But when so many puzzles are frustrating for no good reason, it becomes hard to trust that any given part you're stuck on will be worth the effort.

So yeah. If you're interested in the history of adventure games as a genre and you want to see where modern games take their influences from, Gabriel Knight is a must play. If you just want a fun point n click with a cool supernatural mystery, well, Gabriel Knight is not at the top of my recommendations list. Maybe try Kathy Rain and the Chzo Mythos games first.

I really enjoyed this game back in the day. Yup, it's a point and click and suffers from the usual problems inherent in that genre, but back then you just went with it

The game has an impressive group of voice actors, some of whom would later in their careers become fairly well known

The game is broken up into chapters which equate to one game day. If you want to progress to the next day you must complete a required set of tasks and the game keeps track for you of what you still need to get done

I enjoyed the story quite a lot, but then again I'm a sucker for supernatural games. Voodoo, satanism, life sacrifice. Pretty mature stuff for a game of this era, but I would be lying if I didn't say that some of it is a bit silly and preposterous, but I didn't mind back then

I'm fairly certain that there was a hint system in the game which is always helpful in point and click adventures.

A gaming critic once suggested it was like playing an interactive movie and I whole heartedly agree

It's fairly dialogue heavy and usually I don't mind that, but it sometimes took away from the tension

You can die in the game and one of the deaths is pretty shocking to be seen in a game from the 90's.

I have no doubt that there is some nostalgia reflective in my review, but I won't apologize for that. This was terrific fun to play

I loved this game's story, an exciting, dark mystery seen through the eyes of a sleazy anti-hero novelist looking for inspiration for his next book. It does a fantastic job at slowly feeding you information through conversations and clues found around the world. As Gabriel endangers himself and his friends by getting closer to a serial murder investigation, we uncover some neat info about his background as well. The characters and fictionalized New Orleans setting really shine through the technical limitations.

The game plays out over 10 days, where you progress to the next day as you meet certain unknown conditions. Since it's so open-ended, different players may have a pretty different amount of things completed by Day 3, for example. It's pretty cool how different threads come together at different times and all mean something to the mystery. While you could get stuck on one day for a while, the pace at which the game reveals new things under this structure is still generally great.

I like when the game leans into its more straightforward detective side. Going around asking people questions and getting to know them is inherently enjoyable. Clue collecting can be really neat, but also can be unintuitive and obscure at times. There are "pixel hunt" parts and lots of trial and error, which are bad enough that the remake (which I did not play) streamlined the game a lot and added hints. I think that's a good thing, since the game can tend toward too time-consuming and frustrating without consulting a walkthrough.

Voodoo is the central supernatural force driving the story. This gives the game an interesting feel and connects history and the modern world in a cool way. It also gives the game some eyebrow-raising racial dynamics, though. Protagonists were mostly white and police-affiliated, while black characters were mostly criminals or otherwise involved in occult stuff. I don't think the white writers did this out of malicious intent, since there is definitely some nuance and history given to it. For a story about the majority-black city of New Orleans, though, I do think more balanced representation would have been a worthwhile improvement.

Negatives aside, this game has a strong personality and "page-turner" quality to it. Makes for a really engrossing and memorable experience. The story may rush certain plot points like its romance plot and what happens on the final few days for example, but the writing in general is excellent. Definitely one of the very best of the classic point-and-click adventures that I have played so far.

Mature and well-paced but uneven in its execution. It was perhaps a bit too far ahead of its time. The pixel art shines at times, but New Orleans feels a bit too empty for my taste. The park, most notably.

I've heard it said that Jane Jensen writes more interesting female side characters but chooses to focus on her asshole male leads. I don't think it's quite fair here. Gabriel's main story arc is about coming to terms with his family's legacy and their mistakes. It would not have the desired impact if he weren't so flawed. My issue is that he's just a bit too static. His transition from author to monster hunter is a bit too sudden, and his perspective is obscured at key moments in the story. The sequence in which it happens is very memorable, but it feels more like something he just stumbles into than a logical consequence of his previous decisions and experiences. He's a bit too static for the story, and by the end it starts to feel more like wish fulfillment than anything else.

The writing is, on balance, good. Funny and tense at the right moments, and some of the flavor text is fun. It isn't a bad time, and I can see why it has its admirers, but I do encourage you to use a guide if you play it, primarily because you can permanently lock yourself out of the ending, five minutes away from it, if you don't pick up certain items.

I learned that one the hard way.

The most striking part of the 20th Anniversary Edition is the transformation into polished HD graphics. The moody, detailed environments – one of the game's greatest strengths – truly shine in the re-release, enabling Jane Jensen's vision of the New Orleans locales to be fully realised. Robert Holmes' remastered soundtrack is more stirring than ever. Additionally, the rerecorded voices are strong and don't jar with my recollections of the characters – a concern when I discovered the excellent original voice cast (including Tim Curry, Leah Remini and Mark Hamill) wouldn't be returning.

Otherwise, there have been slight refinements (such as a helpful new hint system) and additions (new puzzles and scenes), although nothing drastic. The game is, for the most part, faithful to the original, which can be seen as both a strength and a weakness.

To see the rest of my review, please take a mosey at my blog. Thanks!