Tombs & Treasure

I played the NES version. Another Falcom game, though this one is an adventure game set in Chichen Itza. (The map of the game actually, uh, looks like Chichen Itza!! I was so impressed.)

Stuff I liked: – The text and puzzles are fairly straightforward (except that one time I got stuck in a room because you were supposed to find and open a way out before entering, which was actually clued by something earlier, but I didn't understand it). I actually read the cursive in the manual and it was helpful. – The game looks pretty good. The rooms have enough detail that you can figure out what objects to examine and there are cool little animated scenes sometimes. – The sun position or whatever indicated in the circle at the top and accompanying puzzles were a good touch. – I actually followed and remembered the story.

Stuff I liked less: – the “combat” is “take turns whacking at each other” and only happens at scripted moments. The leveling up/HP is meaningless; it is just a way to gate you from entering certain areas early. Why not find a different method (like “you didn't find the right colored jewel yet”) to prevent said entrance? – I wish there was more space for the environment. There's a lot of space around the sun indicator... – walking around was kinda jank.