This is a great idea, but could have done with a little more polishing (the uninspired name gives it away): some of the levels are uneven (I hate having to rely on luck to be able to solve a puzzle); you're at the end of curated levels before you realise (and the last one is a stinker). My feeling after finishing was less 'oh, wow', than 'meh'. Worth having, but this will never be a favourite of mine.

I am writing this review with a torn heart. On the one hand, I really appreciate what this game is trying to do - the graphics, while not the bestests evar are good enough and smooth enough to allow full immersion; and I wanted to love this game.
I found it unplayable because the gameplay is *too* immersive - you have to mimic your character's moves closely with that imprecise instrument, the mouse - move to left and click, move up and right-click, each stroke has a precise counterstroke. The game also gives you a perfect horseriding simulation - you'll find yourself going round in circles and being ignored by your horse - but my hand-eye coordination, combined with occasional computer lag does not allow me to actually PLAY. The only way I could hit targets when mounted was to halt the horse and stab feebly. Which is a shame, but however nice this game looks, it is not worth the time to learn how to master even basic controls.

(I own this game elsewhere)

Any game unintuitive enough that I can only play by going online to work out the mechanics will never be my favourite. The harshness and gore I was somewhat prepared for (though they are not favourite features in any game), but what turned me off completely was the female NPC being fridged in the very first scene. You don't want me to enjoy this? Fine. I'm not enjoying it. Goodbye.

This is a game I never finished because it simply went on too long and I lost interest - there are a lot of interesting troops and quests, but I was also running into a fair few bugs (I struggle with the miniature text, I can play around the invisible troops, though they make fights... interesting, but not getting rewards for completed quests sucks.)

I also hated being railroaded by the story: You have to fulfil quests that I really did not want to do in order to proceed, and then you get told 'you should not have done this'. Well, duh.

Overall, you're better off replaying the first two instalments in this series.

This is the kind of game you play when you have no brain and need something that's quick and amusing: the graphics are a bit twee, but in a good way, and the gameplay is straightforward. This game makes a real effort to create an ongoing narrative, which I appreciated.

It's a collection of grid puzzles, nothing more, but nothing less. Unlike the 'Asian Griddlers' from the same developer, this is a bunch of challenging puzzles that will help you pass the time. There's no particularly strong story to this, but it doesn't need one. And for me, it works perfectly under 10.11, so no complaints about that, either.

This is a good, solid Match-3 game that's nicely responsive. But it's also unfinished in so many ways: the app does not respond to 'quit' and if you switch to another application you have to retrieve its window by clicking on the dock because there's no other way to un-minimise it. The garden is phoned in - this is a desktop app, and instead of one small area, that will be crammed with items when you're done (but has all of the layout from the start, a little more effort could have put into wandering around in the grounds and developing a more visually-pleasing result.
The gameplay itself is a mixture of puzzle and luck - which means that if you want to 'solve' a level by getting maximum points, you will have to replay it a number of times until luck is on your side, but you click several times to replay it where a single button would have done the trick.

All in all, fun to play, but with limited replay value.

It took me three hours to play through this game (I opted for the 'consult a game guide' rather than 'bang head against wall' option), and I'd almost say this is one of the game's strengths: rather than an endless slog though ever-repeating puzzles the game explores the whole space of point-and-click _and then stops_. This gives you an amusing story with marvellous graphics and varied challenges that holds no tedium. All in all, it's an interesting taster of the story of Marco Polo, and a good way to spend an afternoon if you like this type of game.

Short version: I played all the way through, and I'm glad I did, but I'm not sure I want to play it again.

Long version: Very much a 'see for yourself' game. The graphics are unique, the gameplay is interesting, the enemies are innovative. I love the difficulty system (die or don't die, and unlock the ability to add selective challenges [enemies get stronger/faster/vindictive etc] depending on how you feel. The story is - by design - very linear, and gameplay with mouse and keyboard becomes very demanding in places. (hear sound, dodge, fire - only often the sound for one particular enemy plays only AFTER it attacks you, and healing leaves you no time to dodge. Those levels were... not fun.) And I really resented that you unlock new weapons/skills by finding them in the game... which means you need to play the rest of the level with the new weapon instead of your super-upgraded favourite one.

This is very much not a game for newcomers to the genre.

I've had this for about ten days and clocked 37h gameplay so far. To play, you'll need a good dose of puzzle skills (or an internet-enabled phone) and a fair amount of tactics. Even though this is strictly turn-based (you will never answer the phone and find your characters dead) neither the map exploration nor the combat feel sluggish or boring - both are full of surprises and were constructed with a love of detail. The enemies, particularly, are definitely not from the standard monster manual.